Search results for: application of psychology to language teaching

Authors: Yusuf Ali Abdulle, Azhar Uddin Keerio

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Background: Protein elicitors play a key role in signaling or displaying plant defense mechanisms and emerging as vital tools for bio-control of insects. This study was aimed at the characterization of the novel protein elicitor isolated from entomopathogenic fungi Lecanicillium lecanii (V3) strain and its activity against Whitefly, Bemisia tabaci in cotton. The sequence of purified elicitor protein showed 100% similarity with hypothetical protein LEL_00878 [Cordyceps confragosa RCEF 1005], GenBank no (OAA81333.1). This novel protein elicitor has 253 amino acid residues and 762bp with a molecular mass of 29 kDa. The protein recombinant was expressed in Escherichia coli using pET‐28a (+) plasmid. Effects of purified novel protein elicitor on Bemisia tabaci were determined at three concentrations of protein (i.e., 58.32, 41.22, 35.41 μg mL⁻¹) on cotton plants and were exposed to newly molted adult B.tabaci. Bioassay results showed a significant effect of the exogenous application of novel protein elicitor on B. tabaci in cotton. In addition, the gene expression analysis found a significant up-regulation of the major genes associated with salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) linked plant defense pathways in elicitor protein-treated plants. Our results suggested the potential application of a novel protein elicitor derived from Lecanicillium lecanii as a future bio-intensive controlling approach against the whitefly, Bemisia tabaci.

Keywords: resistance, Lecanicillium lecanii, secondary metabolites, whitefly

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Authors: M. Amrita, R. R. Srikant, A. V. Sita Rama Raju

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Water miscible cutting fluids are conventionally used to lubricate and cool the machining zone. But issues related to health hazards, maintenance and disposal costs have limited their usage, leading to application of Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL). To increase the effectiveness of MQL, nanocutting fluids are proposed. In the present work, water miscible nanographite cutting fluids of varying concentration are applied at cutting zone by two systems A and B. System A utilizes high pressure air and supplies cutting fluid at a flow rate of 1ml/min. System B uses low pressure air and supplies cutting fluid at a flow rate of 5ml/min. Their performance in machining is evaluated by measuring cutting temperatures, tool wear, cutting forces and surface roughness and compared with dry machining and flood machining. Application of nano cutting fluid using both systems showed better performance than dry machining. Cutting temperatures and cutting forces obtained by both techniques are more than flood machining. But tool wear and surface roughness showed improvement compared to flood machining. Economic analysis has been carried out in all the cases to decide the applicability of the techniques.

Keywords: economic analysis, machining, minimum quantity lubrication, nanofluid

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Authors: Mechlouch Ridha Fethi

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This paper presents a recent mathematical model in political sciences concerning democracy. The model is represented by a logarithmic equation linking the Relative Index of Democracy (RID) to Participation Ratio (PR). Firstly the meanings of the different parameters of the model were presented; and the variation curve of the RID according to PR with different critical areas was discussed. Secondly, the model was applied to a virtual group where we show that the model can be applied depending on the gender. Thirdly, it was observed that the model can be extended to different language models of democracy and that little use to assess the state of democracy for some International organizations like UNO.

Keywords: democracy, mathematic, modelization, quantification

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Authors: Florian Engel

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Only with a radical change to an intrinsically motivated project team, through giving the employees the freedom for autonomy, mastery and purpose, it is then possible to develop excellent products. With these changes, combined with using a rapid application development approach, the group of users serves as an important indicator to test the market needs, rather than only as the stakeholders for requirements.

Keywords: intrinsic motivation, requirements elicitation, self-directed work, stakeholder participation

Procedia PDF Downloads 325

Authors: M. A. Moghaddas, M. Short, N. Wiley, A. Y. Yi, K. F. Graff

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The application of ultrasonic vibrations to machining processes has a long history, ranging from slurry-based systems able to drill brittle materials, to more recent developments involving low power ultrasonics for high precision machining, with many of these at the research and laboratory stages. The focus of this development is the application of high levels of ultrasonic power (1,000’s of watts) to standard, heavy duty machine tools – drilling being the immediate focus, with developments in milling in progress – with the objective of dramatically increasing system productivity through faster feed rates, this benefit arising from the thrust force reductions obtained by power ultrasonic vibrations. The presentation will describe development of an advanced drilling system based on a special, acoustically designed, rugged drill module capable of functioning under heavy duty production conditions, and making use of standard tool holder means, and able to obtain thrust force reductions while maintaining or improving surface finish and drilling accuracy. The characterization of the system performance will be described, and results obtained in drilling several materials (Aluminum, Stainless steel, Titanium) presented.

Keywords: dimensional accuracy, machine tool, productivity, surface roughness, thrust force, ultrasonic vibrations, ultrasonic-assisted drilling

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Authors: Tuong Thi Van Thuy, Dao Van Toan, Nguyen Duc Phuc

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Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were discovered in the 1970s with their unique properties of differentiation, immunomodulation, multiple secreting, and homing factors to injured organs. MSC-based therapies have emerged as a promising strategy for various diseases such as cancer, tissue regeneration, or immunologic/inflammatory-related diseases. This study evaluated the clinical application of MSCs for cancer therapy in trials registered on Clinical Trial as of July 2022. The results showed 40 clinical trials used MSCs in various cancer conditions. 62% of trials used MSCs for therapeutic purposes to minimize the side effects of cancer treatment. Besides, 38% of trials were focused on using MSCs as a therapeutic agent to treat cancer directly. Most trials (38/40) are ongoing phase I/II, and 2 are entering phase III. 84% of trials used allogeneic MSCs compared with 13% using autologous sources and 3% using both. 25/40 trials showed participants received a single dose of MSCs, while the most times were 12 times in a pancreatic cancer treatment trial. Conclusion: MSC-based therapy for cancer in clinical trials should be applied to (1) minimize the side effects of oncological treatments and (2) directly affect the tumor via selectively delivering anti-cancer payloads to tumor cells. Allogeneic MSCs are a priority selected in clinical cancer therapy.

Keywords: mesenchymal stem cells, MSC-based therapy, cancer condition, cancer treatment, clinical trials

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Authors: Eva de Mingo-Fernández, Lourdes Rubio Rico, Carmen Ortega-Segura, Montserrat Querol-García, Raúl González-Jauregui

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Today, one of the great challenges that the university faces is to get closer to society and transfer knowledge. The competency-based training approach favours a continuous interaction between practice and theory, which is why it is essential to establish real experiences with reflection and debate and to contrast them with personal and professional knowledge. Service-learning (SL) consists of an integration of academic learning with service in the community, which enables teachers to transfer knowledge with social value and students to be trained on the basis of experience of real needs and problems with the aim of solving them. SLE combines research, teaching, and social value knowledge transfer with the real social needs and problems of a community. Goal: The objective of this study was to design, implement, and evaluate a service-learning program in the subject of adult nursing for second-year nursing students. Methodology: After establishing collaboration with eight associations of people with different pathologies, the students were divided into eight groups, and each group was assigned an association. The groups were made up of 10-12 students. The associations willing to participate were for the following conditions: diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, fibromyalgia, heart, lung, and kidney diseases. The methodological design consisting of 5 activities was then applied. Three activities address personal and individual reflections, where the student initially describes what they think it is like to live with a certain disease. They then express their reflections resulting from an interview conducted by peers, in person or online, with a person living with this particular condition, and after sharing the results of their reflections with the rest of the group, they make an oral presentation in which they present their findings to the other students. This is followed by a service task in which the students collaborate in different activities of the association, and finally, a third individual reflection is carried out in which the students express their experience of collaboration. The evaluation of this activity is carried out by means of a rubric for both the reflections and the presentation. It should be noted that the oral presentation is evaluated both by the rest of the classmates and by the teachers. Results: The evaluation of the activity, given by the students, is 7.80/10, commenting that the experience is positive and brings them closer to the reality of the people and the area.

Keywords: academic learning integration, knowledge transfer, service-learning, teaching methodology

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Authors: Ali Mirtaghavi, Andy Baldwin, Rajendarn Muthuraj, Jack Luo

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Recent advances in biomaterials have led to utilizing biopolymers to develop 3D scaffolds in tissue regeneration. One of the major challenges of designing biomaterials for 3D scaffolds is to mimic the building blocks similar to the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the native tissues. Biopolymer based aerogels obtained by freeze-drying have shown to provide structural similarities to the ECM owing to their 3D format and a highly porous structure with interconnected pores, similar to the ECM. Gelatin (GEL) is known to be a promising biomaterial with inherent regenerative characteristics owing to its chemical similarities to the ECM in native tissue, biocompatibility abundance, cost-effectiveness and accessible functional groups, which makes it facile for chemical modifications with other biomaterials to form biocomposites. Despite such advantages, gelatin offers poor mechanical properties, sensitive enzymatic degradation and high viscosity at room temperature which limits its application and encourages its use to develop biocomposites. Hydrophilic biomass-based cellulose nanofibrous (CNF) has been explored to use as suspension for biocomposite aerogels for the development of 3D porous structures with excellent mechanical properties, biocompatibility and slow enzymatic degradation. In this work, CNF biocomposite aerogels with various ratios of CNF:GEL) (90:10, 70:30 and 50:50) were prepared by freeze-drying technique, and their properties were investigated in terms of physicochemical, mechanical and biological characteristics. Epichlorohydrin (EPH) was used to investigate the effect of chemical crosslinking on the molecular interaction of CNF: GEL, and its effects on physicochemical, mechanical and biological properties of the biocomposite aerogels. Ultimately, chemical crosslinking helped to improve the mechanical resilience of the resulting aerogels. Amongst all the CNF-GEL composites, the crosslinked CNF: GEL (70:30) biocomposite was found to be favourable for cell attachment and viability. It possessed highly porous structure (porosity of ~93%) with pore sizes ranging from 16-110 µm, adequate mechanical properties (compression modulus of ~47 kPa) and optimal biocompatibility both in-vitro and in-vivo, as well as controlled enzymatic biodegradation, high water penetration, which could be considered a suitable option for wound healing application. In-vivo experiments showed improvement on inflammation and foreign giant body cell reaction for the crosslinked CNF: GEL (70:30) compared to the other samples. This could be due to the superior interaction of CNF with gelatin through chemical crosslinking, resulting in more optimal in-vivo improvement. In-vitro cell culture investigation on human dermal fibroblasts showed satisfactory 3D cell attachment over time. Overall, it has been observed that the developed CNF: GEL aerogel can be considered as a potential scaffold for soft tissue regeneration application.

Keywords: 3D scaffolds, aerogels, Biocomposites , tissue engineering

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Authors: Mohammad Koushafar, Amir Hossein Khoshgoftarmanesh

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Due to water shortage, application of saline water for irrigation is an urgent requirement in agriculture. Thus, this study, the effect of calcium and potassium application as additive in saline root media for reduce salinity adverse effects was investigated on tomato growth in a hydroponic system with unequal distribution of salts in the root media, which was divided into two equal parts containing full Johnson nutrient solution and 40 mM NaCl solution, alone or in combination with KCl (6 mM), CaCl2 (4 mM), K+Ca (3+2 mM) or half-strength Johnson nutrient solution. The root splits were exchanged every 7 days. Results showed that addition of calcium, calcium-potassium and nutrition elements equivalent to half the concentration of Johnson formula to the saline-half of culture media minimized the reduction in plant growth caused by NaCl, although the addition of potassium to culture media was not effective. The greatest concentration of sodium was observed at the shoot of treatments which had the smallest growth. According to the results of this study, in the case of dynamic and non-uniform distribution of salts in the root media, by the addition of additive to the saline solution, it would be possible to use of saline water with no significant growth reduction.

Keywords: calcium, hydroponic, local salinity, potassium, salin water, tomato

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Authors: Qiang Zhang, Xiaojian Hu

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In multi-vehicle tracking, based on feature selection, the tracking system efficiently tracks vehicles in a video with minimal error in combination with color attribution, which focuses on presenting a simple and fast, yet accurate and robust solution to the problem such as inaccurately and untimely responses of statistics-based adaptive traffic control system in the intersection scenario. In this study, a real-time tracking system is proposed for multi-vehicle tracking in the intersection scene. Considering the complexity and application feasibility of the algorithm, in the object detection step, the detection result provided by virtual loops were post-processed and then used as the input for the tracker. For the tracker, lightweight methods were designed to extract and select features and incorporate them into the adaptive color tracking (ACT) framework. And the approbatory online feature selection algorithms are integrated on the mature ACT system with good compatibility. The proposed feature selection methods and multi-vehicle tracking method are evaluated on KITTI datasets and show efficient vehicle tracking performance when compared to the other state-of-the-art approaches in the same category. And the system performs excellently on the video sequences recorded at the intersection. Furthermore, the presented vehicle tracking system is suitable for surveillance applications.

Keywords: real-time, multi-vehicle tracking, feature selection, color attribution

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Authors: Zahra Fotovatnia, Jeffery A. Jones, Alexandra Gottardo

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Speech communication often occurs in environments where noise conceals part of a message. Listeners should compensate for the lack of auditory information by picking up distinct acoustic cues and using semantic and sentential context to recreate the speaker’s intended message. This situation seems to be more challenging in a nonnative than native language. On the other hand, early bilinguals are expected to show an advantage over the late bilingual and monolingual speakers of a language due to their better executive functioning components. In this study, English monolingual speakers were compared with early and late nonnative speakers of English to understand speech in noise processing (SIN) and the underlying neurobiological features of this phenomenon. Auditory mismatch negativities (MMNs) were recorded using a double-oddball paradigm in response to a minimal pair that differed in their middle vowel (beat/bit) at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. The results did not show any significant structural and electroneural differences across groups. However, vocabulary knowledge correlated positively with performance on tests that measured SIN processing in participants who learned English after age 6. Moreover, their performance on the test negatively correlated with the integral area amplitudes in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG). In addition, the STG was engaged before the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in noise-free and low-noise test conditions in all groups. We infer that the pre-attentive processing of words engages temporal lobes earlier than the fronto-central areas and that vocabulary knowledge helps the nonnative perception of degraded speech.

Keywords: degraded speech perception, event-related brain potentials, mismatch negativities, brain regions

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Authors: Woo-tai Jung, Jong-sup Park, Jae-yoon Kang, Moon-seoung Keum

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CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) is mainly used as reinforcing material for degraded structures owing to its advantages including its non-corrodibility, high strength, and lightweight properties. Recently, dedicated studies focused not only on its simple bonding but also on its tensioning. The tension necessary for prestressing requires the anchoring of multi-CFRP tendons with high capacity and the surface treatment of the CFRP tendons may also constitute an important issue according to the type of anchor. The wedge type, swage type or bonded type anchor can be used to anchor the CFRP tendon. The bonded type anchor presents the disadvantage to lengthen the length of the anchor due to the low bond strength of the CFRP tendon without surface treatment. This study intends to overcome this drawback through the application of a method enlarging the bond area at the end of the CFRP tendon. This method enlarges the bond area by splitting the end of the CFRP tendon along its length and can be applied when CFRP is produced by pultrusion. The application of this method shows that the mono-CFRP tendon and 3-multi CFRP tendon secured the anchor performance corresponding to the tensile performance of the CFRP tendon and that the 7-multi tendon secured anchor performance corresponding to 90% of the tensile strength due to the occurrence of buckling in the steel tube anchorage.

Keywords: carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP), tendon, anchor, tensile property, bond strength

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Authors: Amal Sellami, Ahlem Ammar

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Writing is acknowledged to be a cognitively demanding and complex task. Indeed, the writing process is composed of three iterative sub-processes, namely planning, translating (writing), and reviewing. Not only do second or foreign language learners need to write according to this process, but they also need to respect the norms and rules of language and writing in the text to-be-produced. Accordingly, researchers have suggested to approach writing as a collaborative task in order to al leviate its complexity. Consequently, collaboration has been implemented during the whole writing process or only during planning orreviewing. Researchers report that implementing collaboration during the whole process might be demanding in terms of time in comparison to individual writing tasks. Consequently, because of time constraints, teachers may avoid it. For this reason, it might be pedagogically more realistic to limit collaboration to one of the writing sub-processes(i.e., planning or reviewing). However, previous research implementing collaboration in planning or reviewing is limited and fails to explore the effects of the seconditionson the written text. Consequently, the present study examines the effects of collaboration in planning and collaboration in reviewing on the written text. To reach this objective, quantitative as well as qualitative methods are deployed to examine the written texts holistically and in terms of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. Participants of the study include 4 pairs in each group (n=8). They participated in two experimental conditions, which are: (1) collaborative planning followed by individual writing and individual reviewing and (2) individual planning followed by individual writing and collaborative reviewing. The comparative research findings indicate that while collaborative planning resulted in better overall text quality (precisely better content and organization ratings), better fluency, better complexity, and fewer lexical errors, collaborative reviewing produces better accuracy and less syntactical and mechanical errors. The discussion of the findings suggests the need to conduct more comparative research in order to further explore the effects of collaboration in planning or in reviewing. Pedagogical implications of the current study include advising teachers to choose between implementing collaboration in planning or in reviewing depending on their students’ need and what they need to improve.

Keywords: collaboration, writing, collaborative planning, collaborative reviewing

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Authors: Claudia Koby, Merav Boaz, Meirav Zaiger Kober

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Krembo Wings is an all-inclusive youth movement which brings children and youth with any disability together with their able-bodied peers (counselors) for weekly fun and educational social activities. Krembo Wings utilizes a socio-educational framework to create and lead social change through members with and without disabilities. All the work that Krembo Wings engages in stems from its central goal of promoting inclusion and integration using social and psychological theories to develop its unique model and approach. The key to Krembo Wings' approach in promoting inclusion is active participation – each member, with and without disabilities, is enabled to participate to their fullest capacity in the youth movement and its activities. In order for this to be achieved, all activities are adjustable and are modified to fit the abilities of each member. Additionally, youth counselors – most of whom are members without disabilities – go through extensive training in order to act as 'intermediaries' for their partner with disabilities, enabling and facilitating their partner's participation in a way that allows them to be as independent and active as possible. The relationship is one of friendship and not of caretaking. There is always a nurse on-hand to tend to any caretaking needs. Two essential elements of Krembo Wings' model is the broadening of concepts – shifting and changing the understanding of certain concepts such as what it means to be 'independent' or 'able' – and the development of a unique language – creating a language which both reflects and shapes reality. These elements of Krembo Wings' model foster the development of the values of acceptance and appreciation of those who are 'different'. It instills in members and counselors a new way of perceiving the world, one in which inclusion and integration are achievable and natural. Krembo Wings is certain that implementation of this model will promote the participation and inclusion of individuals with disabilities in society while promoting diversity. This model can serve as a platform which can be replicated and adjusted to suit any environment.

Keywords: innovative model for inclusion, socio-educational movement, youth leadership, youth with and without disabilities

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Authors: Cristina Costa-Lobo, Ana Martins, Maria Das Dores Formosinho, Ana Campina, Filomena Ponte

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This paper is a report on the findings of a study conducted at an international leading food group. Documentary analysis and discourse analysis techniques were used to examine how corporate social responsibility and career education are valued by this international group. The Survey on Corporate Social Responsibility and Career Education was used, with 18 open-ended questions, the first six related to Corporate Social Responsibility and the last 12 related to Education for the Career. The Survey on the Social Emergency Fund was made up of 16 open-ended questions. The Social Welfare Survey was used to investigate the contribution of social workers in this area, as well as to understand their status. The sample of this investigation is composed by the Director of the development area, by the Coordinator and two Social Assistants of the Social Emergency Fund. Their collaboration was the provision of information in the form of an interview where the two main axes of this study were explored: Corporate Social Responsibility and Career Education. With regard to the analysis of data obtained from interviews, it was accomplished through the content analysis according to the Bardin's method (2004), through the pre-analytical, exploratory and qualitative treatment and interpretation of responses. Critical review of documents was also used. The success and effectiveness of this international group are marked by ambition, ability to resist difficulties, sharing of values, spirit of unity and team sense that is shared in its different companies, its leadership position is also due to the concern to see reinforced and developed values of work, discipline, rigor and competence, its management is geared towards responding to immediate challenges from a Corporate Social Responsibility perspective that is characteristic of it, incorporating concerns about impacts both in the medium and long term. In addition to internal training, it directs investments for external training by promoting actions such as participation in seminars and congresses worldwide and the creation of partnerships in various areas of management with prestigious teaching entities. Findings indicate the creation of a training school, with initiatives for internal and external training, in partnerships with prestigious teaching entities. Of particular note is the Management Trainees Program, developed for more than 25 years, characterized by building a career by obtaining knowledge and skills acquired in the combination of on-the-job experience and a training program.

Keywords: career education, corporate social responsibility, training school, management trainees program

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Authors: Erika K. Méndez, Carlos E. Orrego, Diana L. Manrique, Juan D. Gonzalez, Doménica Vallejo

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High moisture content in fruits generates post-harvest problems such as mechanical, biochemical, microbial and physical losses. Dehydration, which is based on the reduction of water activity of the fruit, is a common option for overcoming such losses. However, regular hot air drying could affect negatively the quality properties of the fruit due to the long residence time at high temperature. Power ultrasound (US) application during the convective drying has been used as a novel method able to enhance drying rate and, consequently, to decrease drying time. In the present study, a new approach was tested to evaluate the effect of US on the drying time, the final antioxidant activity (AA) and the total polyphenol content (TPC) of banana slices (BS), mango slices (MS) and guava slices (GS). There were also studied the drying kinetics with nine different models from which water effective diffusivities (Deff) (with or without shrinkage corrections) were calculated. Compared with the corresponding control tests, US assisted drying for fruit slices showed reductions in drying time between 16.23 and 30.19%, 11.34 and 32.73%, and 19.25 and 47.51% for the MS, BS and GS respectively. Considering shrinkage effects, Deff calculated values ranged from 1.67*10-10 to 3.18*10-10 m2/s, 3.96*10-10 and 5.57*10-10 m2/s and 4.61*10-10 to 8.16*10-10 m2/s for the BS, MS and GS samples respectively. Reductions of TPC and AA (as DPPH) were observed compared with the original content in fresh fruit data in all kinds of drying assays.

Keywords: banana, drying, effective diffusivity, guava, mango, ultrasound

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Authors: Eri Sulyanti, Trimurti Habazar, Eti Farda Husen, Abdi Dharma, Nasril Nasir

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In this study, combination of some biocontrol agents with different mechanisms was an alternative to improve the effectiveness of the biological control agents. Single and combined applications of indigenous Pseudomonas fluorescens and Arbuscular Mychorrhizae Fungi (AM Fungi) isolates were tested to induce the resistance on susceptible Cavendish banana against F.oxysporum f. sp. cubense race 4 under greenhouse conditions. These isolates originally isolated from healthy banana rhizosphere at endemic Fusarium wilt areas in the centre of production banana in West Sumatra. These researches were conducted with Randomized Block Design with 16 treatments and 10 replications. The treatments were three indigenous isolates of Pseudomonas fluorescens (Par1-Cv, Par4-Rj1, Par2-Jt1) and 3 isolates of AM Fungi (Gl1BuA4, Gl2BuA6, and Gl1KeP3. The biocontrol agents were applied as single agents and combination two of them. This study demonstrated that the application of combination biocontrol organisms Pseudomonas fluorescens and AM Fungi provided were more effective than single application. The combination of Par1-Cv and Gl1BuA4 isolates was the most effective to control Fusarium wilt and followed by the combination of Par1-Cv and Gl2BuA6 and Par2-Jt1 and Gl1P3.

Keywords: pseudomonad fluorescens (Pf), arbuscular mychorrhizae fungi (AM Fungi) indigenous isolates, fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, soil rhizosphere

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Authors: Alinka Molnár-Tóth, Tímea Tánczos, Regina Barna, Katalin Jakab, Péter Klivényi

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Supported by neuroscientific findings, the so-called Hub-and-Spoke model of the human semantic system is based on two subcomponents of semantic cognition, namely the semantic control process and semantic representation. Our semantic knowledge is multimodal in nature, as the knowledge system stored in relation to a conception is extensive and broad, while different aspects of the conception may be relevant depending on the purpose. The motivation of our research is to develop a new diagnostic measurement procedure based on the preservation of semantic representation, which is appropriate to the specificities of the Hungarian language and which can be used to compare the non-verbal semantic knowledge of healthy and aphasic persons. The development of the test will broaden the Hungarian clinical diagnostic toolkit, which will allow for more specific therapy planning. The sample of healthy persons (n=480) was determined by the last census data for the representativeness of the sample. Based on the concept of the Pyramids and Palm Tree Test, and according to the characteristics of the Hungarian language, we have elaborated a test based on different types of semantic information, in which the subjects are presented with three pictures: they have to choose the one that best fits the target word above from the two lower options, based on the semantic relation defined. We have measured 5 types of semantic knowledge representations: associative relations, taxonomy, motional representations, concrete as well as abstract verbs. As the first step in our data analysis, we examined the normal distribution of our results, and since it was not normally distributed (p < 0.05), we used nonparametric statistics further into the analysis. Using descriptive statistics, we could determine the frequency of the correct and incorrect responses, and with this knowledge, we could later adjust and remove the items of questionable reliability. The reliability was tested using Cronbach’s α, and it can be safely said that all the results were in an acceptable range of reliability (α = 0.6-0.8). We then tested for the potential gender differences using the Mann Whitney-U test, however, we found no difference between the two (p < 0.05). Likewise, we didn’t see that the age had any effect on the results using one-way ANOVA (p < 0.05), however, the level of education did influence the results (p > 0.05). The relationships between the subtests were observed by the nonparametric Spearman’s rho correlation matrix, showing statistically significant correlation between the subtests (p > 0.05), signifying a linear relationship between the measured semantic functions. A margin of error of 5% was used in all cases. The research will contribute to the expansion of the clinical diagnostic toolkit and will be relevant for the individualised therapeutic design of treatment procedures. The use of a non-verbal test procedure will allow an early assessment of the most severe language conditions, which is a priority in the differential diagnosis. The measurement of reaction time is expected to advance prodrome research, as the tests can be easily conducted in the subclinical phase.

Keywords: communication disorders, diagnostic toolkit, neurorehabilitation, semantic knowlegde

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Authors: Hamadi Djamal, Labiodh Bachir, Ounis Abdelhafid, Chaalane Mourad

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The objective of this work is setting numerically operational finite element CAXI_L for the axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric shells. This element is based on the Reissner-Mindlin theory and mixed model formulation. The MATLAB language is used for the programming. In order to test the elaborated program, some applications are carried out.

Keywords: axisymmetric shells, nonaxisymmetric behaviour, finite element, MATLAB programming

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Authors: Cibele F. Oliveira, Debora P. Jaeschke, Rodrigo R. Laurino, Amanda R. Andrade, Ligia D. F. Marczak

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Raspberry is well-known as a good source of phenolic compounds, mainly anthocyanin. Some studies pointed out the importance of these bioactive compounds consumption, which is related to the decrease of the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The most consumed raspberry products are juices, yogurts, ice creams and jellies and, to ensure the safety of these products, raspberry is commonly pasteurized, for enzyme and microorganisms inactivation. Despite being efficient, the pasteurization process can lead to degradation reactions of the bioactive compounds, decreasing the products healthy benefits. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to evaluate moderate electric field (MEF) and ultrasound (US) technologies application on the pasteurization process of raspberry juice and compare the results with conventional pasteurization process. For this, phenolic compounds, anthocyanin content and physical-chemical parameters (pH, color changes, titratable acidity) of the juice were evaluated before and after the treatments. Moreover, microbiological analyses of aerobic mesophiles microorganisms, molds and yeast were performed in the samples before and after the treatments, to verify the potential of these technologies to inactivate microorganisms. All the pasteurization processes were performed in triplicate for 10 min, using a cylindrical Pyrex® vessel with a water jacket. The conventional pasteurization was performed at 90 °C using a hot water bath connected to the extraction cell. The US assisted pasteurization was performed using 423 and 508 W cm-2 (75 and 90 % of ultrasound intensity). It is important to mention that during US application the temperature was kept below 35 °C; for this, the water jacket of the extraction cell was connected to a water bath with cold water. MEF assisted pasteurization experiments were performed similarly to US experiments, using 25 and 50 V. Control experiments were performed at the maximum temperature of US and MEF experiments (35 °C) to evaluate only the effect of the aforementioned technologies on the pasteurization. The results showed that phenolic compounds concentration in the juice was not affected by US and MEF application. However, it was observed that the US assisted pasteurization, performed at the highest intensity, decreased anthocyanin content in 33 % (compared to in natura juice). This result was possibly due to the cavitation phenomena, which can lead to free radicals formation and accumulation on the medium; these radicals can react with anthocyanin decreasing the content of these antioxidant compounds in the juice. Physical-chemical parameters did not present statistical differences for samples before and after the treatments. Microbiological analyses results showed that all the pasteurization treatments decreased the microorganism content in two logarithmic cycles. However, as values were lower than 1000 CFU mL-1 it was not possible to verify the efficacy of each treatment. Thus, MEF and US were considered as potential alternative technologies for pasteurization process, once in the right conditions the application of the technologies decreased microorganism content in the juice and did not affected phenolic and anthocyanin content, as well as physical-chemical parameters. However, more studies are needed regarding the influence of MEF and US processes on microorganisms’ inactivation.

Keywords: MEF, microorganism inactivation, anthocyanin, phenolic compounds

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Authors: Ronal Muresano, Andrea Pagano

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Nowadays, the mathematical/statistical applications are developed with more complexity and accuracy. However, these precisions and complexities have brought as result that applications need more computational power in order to be executed faster. In this sense, the multicore environments are playing an important role to improve and to optimize the execution time of these applications. These environments allow us the inclusion of more parallelism inside the node. However, to take advantage of this parallelism is not an easy task, because we have to deal with some problems such as: cores communications, data locality, memory sizes (cache and RAM), synchronizations, data dependencies on the model, etc. These issues are becoming more important when we wish to improve the application’s performance and scalability. Hence, this paper describes an optimization method developed for Systemic Model of Banking Originated Losses (SYMBOL) tool developed by the European Commission, which is based on analyzing the application's weakness in order to exploit the advantages of the multicore. All these improvements are done in an automatic and transparent manner with the aim of improving the performance metrics of our tool. Finally, experimental evaluations show the effectiveness of our new optimized version, in which we have achieved a considerable improvement on the execution time. The time has been reduced around 96% for the best case tested, between the original serial version and the automatic parallel version.

Keywords: algorithm optimization, bank failures, OpenMP, parallel techniques, statistical tool

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Authors: A. B. Alarape, O. D. Aba

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The use of legume tree pruning as mulch in agroforestry system is a common practice to maintain soil organic matter and improve soil fertility in the tropics. The study was conducted to determine the influence of agroforestry trees leafy biomass and nitrogen fertilizer on crop growth rate and relative growth rate of maize. The experiments were laid out as 3 x 4 x 2 factorial in a split-split plot design with three replicates. Control, biomass species (Parkia biglobosa and Albizia lebbeck) as main plots were considered, rates of nitrogen considered include (0, 40, 80, 120 kg N ha⁻¹) as sub-plots, and maize varieties (DMR-ESR-7 and 2009 EVAT) were used as sub-sub plots. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (ANOVA) at α = 0.05. Incorporation of leafy biomass was significant in 2015 on Relative Growth Rate (RGR), while nitrogen application was significant on Crop Growth Rate (CGR). 2009 EVAT had higher CGR in 2015 at 4-6 and 6-8 WAP. Incorporation of Albizia leaves enhanced the growth of maize than Parkia leaves. Farmers are, therefore, encouraged to use Albizia leaves as mulch to enrich their soil for maize production and most especially, in case of availability of inorganic fertilizers. Though, production of maize with biomass and application of 120 kg N ha⁻¹ will bring better growth of maize.

Keywords: agroforestry trees, fertilizer, growth, incorporation, leafy biomass

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Authors: Athar Mahmood, Asad Ali

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Management considerations including harvesting time and nitrogen application considerably influence the biomass yield, quality and biogas production. Therefore, a field study was conducted to determine the effect of various harvesting times and nitrogen rates on the biomass yield, quality and biogas yield of maize crop. This experiment was consisted of various harvesting times i.e., harvesting after 45, 55 and 65 days of sowing (DAS) and nitrogen rates i.e., 0, 100, 150 and 200 kg ha-1 respectively. The data indicated that maximum plant height, leaf area, dry matter (DM) yield, protein, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, crude fiber contents and biogas yield were recorded 65 days after sowing while lowest was recorded 45 days after sowing. In contrary to that significantly higher chlorophyll contents were observed at 45 DAS. In case of nitrogen rates maximum plant height, leaf area, and DM yield, protein contents, ash contents, acid detergent fiber, neutral detergent fiber, crude fiber contents and chlorophyll contents were determined with nitrogen at the rate of 200 kg ha-1, while minimum was observed when no N was applied. Therefore, harvesting 65 DAS and N application @ 200 kg ha-1 can be suitable for getting the higher biomass and biogas production.

Keywords: chemical composition, fiber contents, biogas, nitrogen, harvesting time

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Authors: Dayane de Almeida

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This work aims at presenting a study that demonstrates the usability of categories of analysis from Discourse Semiotics – also known as Greimassian Semiotics in authorship cases in forensic contexts. It is necessary to know if the categories examined in semiotic analysis (the ‘grammar’ of the content plane) can distinguish authors. Thus, a study with 4 sets of texts from a corpus of ‘not on demand’ written samples (those texts differ in formality degree, purpose, addressees, themes, etc.) was performed. Each author contributed with 20 texts, separated into 2 groups of 10 (Author1A, Author1B, and so on). The hypothesis was that texts from a single author were semiotically more similar to each other than texts from different authors. The assumptions and issues that led to this idea are as follows: -The features analyzed in authorship studies mostly relate to the expression plane: they are manifested on the ‘surface’ of texts. If language is both expression and content, content would also have to be considered for more accurate results. Style is present in both planes. -Semiotics postulates the content plane is structured in a ‘grammar’ that underlies expression, and that presents different levels of abstraction. This ‘grammar’ would be a style marker. -Sociolinguistics demonstrates intra-speaker variation: an individual employs different linguistic uses in different situations. Then, how to determine if someone is the author of several texts, distinct in nature (as it is the case in most forensic sets), when it is known intra-speaker variation is dependent on so many factors?-The idea is that the more abstract the level in the content plane, the lower the intra-speaker variation, because there will be a greater chance for the author to choose the same thing. If two authors recurrently chose the same options, differently from one another, it means each one’s option has discriminatory power. -Size is another issue for various attribution methods. Since most texts in real forensic settings are short, methods relying only on the expression plane tend to fail. The analysis of the content plane as proposed by greimassian semiotics would be less size-dependable. -The semiotic analysis was performed using the software Corpus Tool, generating tags to allow the counting of data. Then, similarities and differences were quantitatively measured, through the application of the Jaccard coefficient (a statistical measure that compares the similarities and differences between samples). The results showed the hypothesis was confirmed and, hence, the grammatical categories of the content plane may successfully be used in questioned authorship scenarios.

Keywords: authorship attribution, content plane, forensic linguistics, greimassian semiotics, intraspeaker variation, style

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Authors: Payling Harn

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LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a kind of facilitated workshop of thinking and problem-solving approach. Participants built symbolic and metaphorical brick models in response to tasks given by the facilitator and presented these models to other participants. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® applied the positive psychological mechanism of Flow and positive emotions to help participants perceiving self-experience and unknown fact and increasing the happiness of life by building bricks and narrating story. At present, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is often utilized for facilitating professional identity and strategy development to assist workers in career development. The researcher desires to apply LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to the career courses of college students in order to promote their career ability. This study aimed to use the facilitative method of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to develop the career courses of college students, then explore the effects of Taiwanese college students' positive and negative emotions, career adaptabilities, and career sense of hope by LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® career courses. The researcher regarded strength as the core concept and use the facilitative mode of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to develop the 8 weeks’ career courses, which including ‘emotion of college life’ ‘career highlights’, ‘career strengths’, ‘professional identity’, ‘business model’, ‘career coping’, ‘strength guiding principles’, ‘career visions’,’ career hope’, etc. The researcher will adopt problem-oriented teaching method to give tasks which according to the weekly theme, use the facilitative mode of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to guide participants to respond tasks by building bricks. Then participants will conduct group discussions, reports, and writing reflection journals weekly. Participants will be 24 second-grade college students. They will attend LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® career courses for 2 hours a week. The researcher used’ ‘Career Adaptability Scale’ and ‘Career Hope Scale’ to conduct pre-test and post-test. The time points of implementation testing will be one week before courses starting, one day after courses ending respectively. Then the researcher will adopt repeated measures one-way ANOVA for analyzing data. The results revealed that the participants significantly presented immediate positive effect in career adaptability and career hope. The researcher hopes to construct the mode of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® career courses by this study and to make a substantial contribution to the future career teaching and researches of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

Keywords: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, career courses, strength, positive and negative affect, career hope

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Authors: Abdul Manan, Choudhary Muhammad Ayyub, Rashid Ahmad, Muhammad Adnan Bukhari

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A project was designed to investigate the effect of foliar application of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) on physiological, biochemical and ionic attributes of salinity stressed and normal tomato plants at different stages. Salinity stress at every stage markedly reduced the net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, water relations parameters, protein contents, total free aminoacids and potassium (K+) contents. While, antioxidant enzymes (peroxidase (POX) and catalase (CAT)), sodium (Na+) contents and proline contents were increased substantially. Foliar application of MeJA ameliorated the drastic effects of salinity regime by recovery of physiological and biochemical attributes by enhanced production of antioxidant enzymes and osmoprotectants. The efficacy of MeJA at very initial stage (15 days after sowing (15 DAS)).proved effective for attenuating the deleterious effects of salinity stress than other stages (15 days after transplanting (15 DAT) and 30 days after transplanting (30 DAT)). To the best of our knowledge, different times of foliar feeding of MeJA was observed first time for amelioration of salinity stress in tomato plants that would be of pivotal significance for scientist to better understand the dynamics of physiological and biochemical processes in tomato.

Keywords: methyl jasmonate, osmoregulation, salinity stress, stress tolerance, tomato

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Authors: K. Umbleja, M. Ichino

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Symbolic data mining has been developed to analyze data in very large datasets. It is also useful in cases when entry specific details should remain hidden. Symbolic data mining is quickly gaining popularity as datasets in need of analyzing are becoming ever larger. One type of such symbolic data is a histogram, which enables to save huge amounts of information into a single variable with high-level of granularity. Other types of symbolic data can also be described in histograms, therefore making histogram a very important and general symbolic data type - a method developed for histograms - can also be applied to other types of symbolic data. Due to its complex structure, analyzing histograms is complicated. This paper proposes a method, which allows to compare two histogram-valued variables and therefore find a dissimilarity between two histograms. Proposed method uses the Ichino-Yaguchi dissimilarity measure for mixed feature-type data analysis as a base and develops a dissimilarity measure specifically for histogram data, which allows to compare histograms with different number of bins and bin widths (so called general histogram). Proposed dissimilarity measure is then used as a measure for clustering. Furthermore, linkage method based on weighted averages is proposed with the concept of cluster compactness to measure the quality of clustering. The method is then validated with application on real datasets. As a result, the proposed dissimilarity measure is found producing adequate and comparable results with general histograms without the loss of detail or need to transform the data.

Keywords: dissimilarity measure, hierarchical clustering, histograms, symbolic data analysis

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Authors: Anna Drabczyk, Sonia Kudlacik-Kramarczyk, Dagmara Malina, Bozena Tyliszczak, Agnieszka Sobczak-Kupiec

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Nowadays, nano-size materials are very popular group of materials among scientists. What is more, these materials find an application in a wide range of various areas. Therefore constantly increasing demand for nanomaterials including metallic nanoparticles such as silver of gold ones is observed. Therefore, new routes of their preparation are sought. Considering potential application of nanoparticles, it is important to select an adequate methodology of their preparation because it determines their size and shape. Among the most commonly applied methods of preparation of nanoparticles chemical and electrochemical techniques are leading. However, currently growing attention is directed into the biological or biochemical aspects of syntheses of metallic nanoparticles. This is associated with a trend of developing of new routes of preparation of given compounds according to the principles of green chemistry. These principles involve e.g. the reduction of the use of toxic compounds in the synthesis as well as the reduction of the energy demand or minimization of the generated waste. As a result, a growing popularity of the use of such components as natural plant extracts, infusions or essential oils is observed. Such natural substances may be used both as a reducing agent of metal ions and as a stabilizing agent of formed nanoparticles therefore they can replace synthetic compounds previously used for the reduction of metal ions or for the stabilization of obtained nanoparticles suspension. Methods that proceed in the presence of previously mentioned natural compounds are environmentally friendly and proceed without the application of any toxic reagents. Methodology: Presented research involves preparation of silver nanoparticles using selected plant extracts, e.g. artichoke extract. Extracts of natural origin were used as reducing and stabilizing agents at the same time. Furthermore, syntheses were carried out in the presence of additional polymeric stabilizing agent. Next, such features of obtained suspensions of nanoparticles as total antioxidant activity as well as content of phenolic compounds have been characterized. First of the mentioned studies involved the reaction with DPPH (2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical. The content of phenolic compounds was determined using Folin-Ciocalteu technique. Furthermore, an essential issue was also the determining of the stability of formed suspensions of nanoparticles. Conclusions: In the research it was demonstrated that metallic nanoparticles may be obtained using plant extracts or infusions as stabilizing or reducing agent. The methodology applied, i.e. a type of plant extract used during the synthesis, had an impact on the content of phenolic compounds as well as on the size and polydispersity of obtained nanoparticles. What is more, it is possible to prepare nano-size particles that will be characterized by properties desirable from the viewpoint of their potential application and such an effect may be achieved with the use of non-toxic reagents of natural origin. Furthermore, proposed methodology stays in line with the principles of green chemistry.

Keywords: green chemistry principles, metallic nanoparticles, plant extracts, stabilization of nanoparticles

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Authors: Gabor Varga, Krisztina Karadi, Zoltan Konya, Akos Kukovecz, Pal Sipos, Istvan Palinko

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Nickel can efficiently replace palladium in the Heck, Suzuki and Negishi reactions. This study focuses on the synthesis and catalytic application of Ni(II)-containing layered double hydroxides (LDHs) and layered triple hydroxides (LTHs). Our goals were to incorporate Ni(II) ions among the layers of LDHs or LTHs, or binding it to their surface or building it into their layers in such a way that their catalytic activities are maintained or even increased. The LDHs and LTHs were prepared by the co-precipitation method using ethylene glycol as co-solvent. In several cases, post-synthetic modifications (e.g., thermal treatment) were performed. After optimizing the synthesis conditions, the composites displayed good crystallinity and were free of byproducts. The success of the syntheses and the post-synthetic modifications was confirmed by relevant characterization methods (XRD, SEM, SEM-EDX and combined IR techniques). Catalytic activities of the produced and well-characterized solids were investigated through the Heck reaction. The composites behaved as efficient, recyclable catalysts in the Heck reaction between 4-bromoanisole and styrene. Through varying the reaction parameters, we were able to obtain acceptable conversions under mild conditions. Our study highlights the possibility of the application of Ni(II)-containing composites as efficient catalysts in coupling reactions.

Keywords: layered double hydroxide, layered triple hydroxide, heterogeneous catalysis, heck reaction

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Authors: Meng-Fei Cheng, Wei-Lun Chen, Han-Chang Ma, Chi-Che Tsai

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Recent K–12 Taiwan Science Education Curriculum Guideline emphasize the essential role of modeling curriculum in science learning; however, few modeling curricula have been designed and adopted in current science teaching. Therefore, this study aims to develop modeling curriculum on electric circuits to investigate any learning difficulties students have with modeling curriculum and further enhance modeling teaching. This study was conducted with 44 10th-grade students in Central Taiwan. Data collection included a students’ understanding of models in science (SUMS) survey that explored the students' epistemology of scientific models and modeling and a complex circuit problem to investigate the students’ modeling abilities. Data analysis included the following: (1) Paired sample t-tests were used to examine the improvement of students’ modeling abilities and conceptual understanding before and after the curriculum was taught. (2) Paired sample t-tests were also utilized to determine the students’ modeling abilities before and after the modeling activities, and a Pearson correlation was used to understand the relationship between students’ modeling abilities during the activities and on the posttest. (3) ANOVA analysis was used during different stages of the modeling curriculum to investigate the differences between the students’ who developed microscopic models and macroscopic models after the modeling curriculum was taught. (4) Independent sample t-tests were employed to determine whether the students who changed their models had significantly different understandings of scientific models than the students who did not change their models. The results revealed the following: (1) After the modeling curriculum was taught, the students had made significant progress in both their understanding of the science concept and their modeling abilities. In terms of science concepts, this modeling curriculum helped the students overcome the misconception that electric currents reduce after flowing through light bulbs. In terms of modeling abilities, this modeling curriculum helped students employ macroscopic or microscopic models to explain their observed phenomena. (2) Encouraging the students to explain scientific phenomena in different context prompts during the modeling process allowed them to convert their models to microscopic models, but it did not help them continuously employ microscopic models throughout the whole curriculum. The students finally consistently employed microscopic models when they had help visualizing the microscopic models. (3) During the modeling process, the students who revised their own models better understood that models can be changed than the students who did not revise their own models. Also, the students who revised their models to explain different scientific phenomena tended to regard models as explanatory tools. In short, this study explored different strategies to facilitate students’ modeling processes as well as their difficulties with the modeling process. The findings can be used to design and teach modeling curricula and help students enhance their modeling abilities.

Keywords: electric circuits, modeling curriculum, science learning, scientific model

Procedia PDF Downloads 440