Search results for: free market foundation perspective

Authors: Redouane Lombarkia

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To apply a new material model developed and validated for plain weave fabric CFRP composites usually used in stanchions in sub-cargo section in aircrafts. This work deals with the development of a numerical model of the fuselage section of commercial aircraft based on the pure explicit finite element method FEM within Abaqus/Explicit commercial code. The aim of this work is the evaluation of the energy absorption capabilities of a full-scale composite fuselage section, including sub-cargo stanchions, Drop tests were carried out from a free fall height of about 5 m and impact velocity of about 6 m∕s. To asses, the prediction efficiency of the proposed numerical modeling procedure, a comparison with literature existed experimental results was performed. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed methodology to well capture crash damage mechanisms compared to experimental results

Keywords: crashworthiness, fuselage section, finite elements method (FEM), stanchions, specific energy absorption SEA

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Authors: Anwar Adem

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Purpose: This study aimed to examine the socioeconomic, religious, and institutional factors affecting customers towards Islamic Banking in Ethiopia. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a partial Least Square -structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse survey data collected from Customer of Islamic Banking in Ethiopia in the capital city Addis Ababa, using a structured questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. Convenience and snowball sampling were used to obtain a broad sample of respondents. The sample size was 310. Findings: The findings indicate that Zakat literacy, high religiosity level, Islamic Bank Service Quality, and Awareness about Islamic Banking operations significantly influence customers' preference towards Islamic banking in Ethiopia. However, competitive pricing was found to have an insignificant effect on customers' preference for Islamic banking in this context. Practical implications: These findings underscore the need for the Islamic banking industry should initiate comprehensive awareness campaigns to promote Islamic banking products and their alignment with human welfare and adherence to Shariah principles. These campaigns should be conducted collaboratively by Islamic banks in partnership with renowned religious scholars from the respective region or territory to ensure maximum effectiveness. Additionally, policymakers, regulatory bodies, and particularly higher education institutions should foster a robust understanding of Islamic finance principles and products among consumers. Originality/value: This study provides unique insights into the determinants that shape customers' preference towards Islamic Banking in Ethiopia. The findings provide a foundation for developing superior quality of service delivery by Islamic banks that aligns with Ethiopia’s sociocultural dynamics.

Keywords: Zakat literacy, religiosity, customer preference, awareness

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Authors: B. Ghebouli, M. A. Ghebouli, H. Choutri, M. Fatmi, L. Louail

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The structural, elastic, electronic and magnetic properties of the diluted magnetic semiconductors MnxCa1-xS in the rock-salt phase have been investigated using first-principles calculations. Features such as lattice constant, bulk modulus, elastic constants, spin-polarized band structure, total and local densities of states have been computed. We predict the values of the exchange constants and the band edge spin splitting of the valence and conduction bands. The hybridization between S-3p and Mn-3d produces small local magnetic moment on the nonmagnetic Ca and S sites. The ferromagnetism is induced due to the exchange splitting of S-3p and Mn-3d hybridized bands. The total magnetic moment per Mn of MnxCa1-xS is 4.4µB and is independent of the Mn concentration. The unfilled Mn -3d levels reduce the local magnetic moment of Mn from its free space charge value of 5µB to 4.4µB due to 3p–3d hybridization.

Keywords: semiconductors, Ab initio calculations, band-structure, magnetic properties

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Authors: Eliziane Navarro

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It is intended, in this study, from some poems from the work of the poet and Bishop of São Félix do Araguaia-MT Brazil Dom Pedro Casaldáliga, to analyze his poetics from the perspective of the environmental law. In his work, Casaldáliga made a considerable manifest against the oppression experienced especially by Xavante people inside the constryside of the state of Mato Grosso when some government programs benefited a large number of landowners in instead of that minority as a power and control self-affirmation process. The attention which Casaldáliga dismissed to the cause of indigenous eviction of their land called Maraiwatsede resulted in numerous death threats against the poet who was not silenced in face of the landowners’ grievances. His voice contributed significantly to the process of land returning to the indigenous people. Because of the international pressure, the Italian company AGIP, owner of the land, tried to return it to the hands of the indigenous, unfortunately, in the middle of the process, the land was occupied by politicians and big landowners of the region. Another objective of this research is to check the connection of his testimonial literature with the actual legal context of the state in the 50s and also to analyze his poetry as a complaint that led the cause of the state's indigenous to the Eco 92 discussion in Rio de Janeiro.

Keywords: law and literature, Brazil, indigenous, Pedro Casaldáliga

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Authors: Reginawanti Hindersah, Widiya Septiani Perdanawati, Dewi Azizah Sulaksana, Hidiyah Ayu Ma’rufah

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Maize in some region in East Nusa Tenggara Indonesia bordering Republic Democratic of Timor Leste is important local food crop and commonly cultivated using conventional method without appropriate plant nutrition system so that productivity is still low. A way to enhance local corn yield is adding biofertilizer containing nitrogen (N2) fixing bacteria such as Azotobacter. The purpose of this research was to determine N2 fixation, cytokinin as well as exopolysachharide production capacity of six indigenous Azotobacter strains in pure culture. The N2 fixation capacities of native 3 day old Azotobacter strains added to Ashby Media varied from 0.01 to 0.39 µM/g/hour. Cytokinin production of these strain in liquid culture of N-free Media was 0.11 to 40.04 ppm while exopolysachharide content in liquid culture of Vermani Media varied from 0.4 to 27.3 g/L. This results demonstrate that some local Azotobacter strains might be used as biofertilizer.

Keywords: azotobacter, local isolate, N fixation, phythohormone, exopolysaccaride

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Authors: Sol Girouard, Zona Kostic

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A home is often the largest and most expensive purchase a person makes. Whether the decision leads to a successful outcome will be determined by a combination of critical factors. In this paper, we propose a method that efficiently handles all the factors in residential real estate and performs predictions given a feature space with high dimensionality while controlling for overfitting. The proposed method was built on gradient descent and boosting algorithms and uses a mixed optimizing technique to improve the prediction power. Usually, a single model cannot handle all the cases thus our approach builds multiple models based on different subsets of the predictors. The algorithm was tested on 3 million homes across the U.S., and the experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of this approach by outperforming techniques currently used in forecasting prices. With everyday changes on the real estate market, our proposed algorithm capitalizes from new events allowing more efficient predictions.

Keywords: real estate prediction, gradient descent, boosting, ensemble methods, active learning, training

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Authors: Resul Fikir

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Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) become indispensable parts of modern air power as force multiplier. One of the main advantages of UAS is long endurance. UAS have to take extra payloads to accomplish different missions but these payloads decrease endurance of aircraft because of increasing drag. There are continuing researches to increase the capability of UAS. There are some vertical thermal air currents, which can cause climb and increase endurance, in nature. Birds and gliders use thermals to gain altitude with no effort. UAS have wide wing which can use of thermals like birds and gliders. Thermal regions, which is area of 2000-3000 meter (1 NM), exist all around the world. It is free and clean source. This study analyses if thermal regions can be adopted and implemented as an assistant tool for UAS route planning. First and second part of study will contain information about the thermal regions and current applications about UAS in aviation and climbing performance with a real example. Continuing parts will analyze the contribution of thermal regions to UAS endurance. Contribution is important because planning declaration of UAS navigation rules will be in 2015.

Keywords: airways, thermals, UAS, UAS roadmap

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Authors: Aida Alemany, Laura Ballester, Ana González-Urteaga

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From 2007 subprime crisis to the recent Eurozone debt crisis the European banking industry has experienced a terrible financial instability situation with increasing levels of CDS spreads (used as a proxy of credit risk). This paper investigates whether volatility transmission channels in European banking markets have changed after three significant crises’ events during the period January 2006 to March 2013. The global financial crisis is characterized by a unidirectional volatility shocks spillovers effect in credit risk from inside to outside the Eurozone. By contrast, the Eurozone debt crisis is revealed to be local in nature with the euro as the key element suggesting a market fragmentation between distressed peripheral and non-distressed core Eurozone countries, whereas retaining the local currency have acted as a firewall. With these findings we are able to shed light on the impact of the different crises on the European banking credit risk dynamics.

Keywords: CDS spreads, credit risk, volatility spillovers, financial crisis

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Authors: D. S. Gurjar, R. Kaur, K. P. Singh, R. Singh

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A greater volume of wastewater generate from urban areas in India. Due to the adequate availability, less energy requirement and nutrient richness, farmers of urban and peri-urban areas are deliberately using wastewater to grow high value vegetable crops. Wastewater contains pathogens and toxic pollutants, which can enter in the food chain system while using wastewater for irrigating vegetable crops. Hence, wastewater can use for growing commercial flower crops that may avoid food chain contamination. Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa L.) is one of the most important commercially grown, cultivated over 30, 000 ha area, flower crop in India. Its popularity is mainly due to the sweet fragrance as well as the long keeping quality of the flower spikes. The flower spikes of tuberose has high market price and usually blooms during summer and rainy seasons when there is meager supply of other flowers in the market. It has high irrigation water requirement and fresh water supply is inadequate in tuberose growing areas of India. Therefore, wastewater may fulfill the water and nutrients requirements and may enhance the productivity of tuberose. Keeping in view, the present study was carried out at WTC farm of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi in 2014-15. Prajwal was the variety of test crop. The seven treatments were taken as T-1. Wastewater irrigation at 0.6 ID/CPE, T-2: Wastewater irrigation at 0.8 ID/CPE, T-3: Wastewater irrigation at 1.0 ID/CPE, T-4: Wastewater irrigation at 1.2 ID/CPE, T-5: Wastewater irrigation at 1.4 ID/CPE, T-6: Conjunctive use of Groundwater and Wastewater irrigation at 1.0 ID/CPE in cyclic mode, T-7: Control (Groundwater irrigation at 1.0 ID/CPE) in randomized block design with three replication. Wastewater and groundwater samples were collected on monthly basis (April 2014 to March 2015) and analyzed for different parameters of irrigation quality (pH, EC, SAR, RSC), pollution hazard (BOD, toxic heavy metals and Faecal coliforms) and nutrients potential (N, P, K, Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn) as per standard methods. After harvest of tuberose crop, soil samples were also collected and analyzed for different parameters of soil quality as per standard methods. The vegetative growth and flower parameters were recorded at flowering stage of tuberose plants. Results indicated that wastewater samples had higher nutrient potential, pollution hazard as compared to groundwater used in experimental crop. Soil quality parameters such as pH EC, available phosphorous & potassium and heavy metals (Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cd. Pb, Ni, Cr, Co, As) were not significantly changed whereas organic carbon and available nitrogen were significant higher in the treatments where wastewater irrigations were given at 1.2 and 1.4 ID/CPE as compared to groundwater irrigations. Significantly higher plant height (68.47 cm), leaves per plant (78.35), spike length (99.93 cm), rachis length (37.40 cm), numbers of florets per spike (56.53), cut spike yield (0.93 lakh/ha) and loose flower yield (8.5 t/ha) were observed in the treatment of Wastewater irrigation at 1.2 ID/CPE. Study concluded that given quality of wastewater improves the productivity of tuberose without an adverse impact on soil quality/health. However, its long term impacts need to be further evaluated.

Keywords: conjunctive use, irrigation, tuberose, wastewater

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Authors: Lin-Lin Liu, Song-Qi Hu, Yin Wang

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Paraffin-based fuels are regarded to be a promising fuel of hybrid rocked motor because of the high regression rate, low price, and environmental friendliness. Graphene Oxide (GO) is an attractive energetic material which is expected to be widely used in propellants, explosives, and some high energy fuels. Paraffin-based fuels with paraffin and GO as raw materials were prepared, and the oxidation process of the samples was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis differential scanning calorimetry (TG/DSC) under oxygen (O₂) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) atmospheres. The oxidation reaction kinetics of the fuels was estimated through the non-isothermal measurements and model-free isoconversional methods based on the experimental results of TGA. The results show that paraffin-based fuels are easier oxidized under O₂ rather than N₂O with atmospheres due to the lower activation energy; GO plays a catalytic role for the oxidation of paraffin-based fuels under the both atmospheres, and the activation energy of the oxidation process decreases with the increase of GO; catalytic effect of GO on the oxidation of paraffin-based fuels are more obvious under O₂ atmospheres than under N₂O atmospheres.

Keywords: graphene oxide, paraffin-based fuels, oxidation, activation energy, TGA

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Authors: Thelma Mort

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This empirical, qualitative research uses interviews of four intermediate phase English language student teachers at one university in South Africa and is an exploration of student teacher learning on their teaching practicum in their penultimate year of the initial teacher education course. The country’s post-apartheid language in education policy provides a context to this study in that children move from mother tongue language of instruction in foundation phase to English as a language of instruction in Intermediate phase. There is another layer of context informing this study which is the school context; the student teachers’ reflections are from their teaching practicum in resource constrained schools, which make up more than 75% of schools in South Africa. The findings were that in these schools, deep biases existed to local languages, that language was being used as a proxy for social class, and that conditions necessary for language acquisition were absent. The student teachers’ attitudes were in contrast to those found in the schools, namely that they had various pragmatic approaches to overcoming obstacles and that they saw language as enabling interdisciplinary work. This study describes language issues, tensions created by policy in South African schools and also supplies a regional account of learning to teach in resource constrained schools in Cape Town, where such language tensions are more inflated. The central findings in this research illuminate attitudes to language and language education in these teaching practicum schools and the complexity of learning to be a language teacher in these contexts. This study is one of the few local empirical studies regarding language teaching in the classroom and language teacher education; as such it offers some background to the country’s poor performance in both international and national literacy assessments.

Keywords: language teaching, narrative, post apartheid, South Africa, student teacher

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Authors: Chris Durden, Peter Lane

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Cost accounting information potentially plays an important role in price setting. According to prior research fixed and variable cost information often is a key influence on pricing decisions. The literature highlights the benefits of applying systematic costing systems for enhanced price setting processes. This paper explores how costing systems are used for pricing decisions in the tourism and hospitality industry relative to other sources of price setting information. Pricing based on full cost information was found to have relatively greater importance and short-term survival and customer oriented objectives were found to be the more important pricing objectives. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a recent analysis of accounting’s role in price setting within the tourism and hospitality industry.

Keywords: cost accounting systems, pricing decisions, cost-plus pricing, market pricing, tourism industry

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Authors: Renee P. Baang, Romeo M. del Rosario, Nenita D. Palmes

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The crude methanol extracts of five indigenous vegetables namely, Amarathus tricolor, Basella rubra L, Chochurus olitorius L., Ipomea batatas, and Momordica chuchinensis L., were examined for their phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical. The values for DPPH radical scavenging activity ranged from 7.6-89.53% with B. rubra and I. batatas having the lowest and highest values, respectively. The total flavonoid content of all five indigenous vegetables ranged from 74.65-277.3 mg quercetin equivalent per gram of dried vegetable material while the total phenolic content ranged from 1.93-6.15 mg gallic acid equivalent per gram dried material. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of steroids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, carbohydrates and reducing sugars, which may also be associated with the antioxidant activity shown by these indigenous vegetables.

Keywords: antioxidant, DPPH radical scavenging activity, Philippine İndigenous vegetables, phytochemical screening

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Authors: Ashok Chaskar

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The present paper aims at fostering multiculturalism on the university campuses as each university campus now a day is crowded with variety of students representing different countries and cultures. The students of different countries and communities have to respect cultural diversity and promote the idea of inclusion. Multiculturalism has defining promotional values and functions, which establish cultural contacts, exchanges cultural ideologies and promotes the value of harmonious coexistence of many cultures. Living together on university campuses is a life-long experience to the students coming from various backgrounds, therefore multiculturalism can teach them the value of appreciation of interdependence, understanding cultural differences, spirit of respect, mutual understanding, peaceful coexistence, spirit of solidarity and help them in managing conflicts. By fostering multiculturalism on the university campuses, the students can learn new things; they can share their new experiences and contribute innovative ideas with each other. However, religious and ethnic diversity enrich the educational experiences of the students of various backgrounds.

Keywords: culture, cultural pluralism, cultural diversity, ethnic diversity, ethnic groups, egalitarianism, autonomy, socio-cultural harmony, tolerance, harmonious coexistence

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Authors: Jeewan Rai, Kinzang, Yeshi Jigme Choden

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Accumulation of dust on solar panels impacts the overall efficiency and the amount of energy they produce. While various techniques exist for detecting dust to schedule cleaning, many of these methods use MATLAB image processing tools and other licensed software, which can be financially burdensome. This study will investigate the efficiency of a free open-source computer vision library using the YOLO algorithm. The proposed approach has been tested on images of solar panels with varying dust levels through an experiment setup. The experimental findings illustrated the effectiveness of using the YOLO-based image classification method and the overall dust detection approach with an accuracy of 90% in distinguishing between clean and dusty panels. This open-source solution provides a cost effective and accessible alternative to commercial image processing tools, offering solutions for optimizing solar panel maintenance and enhancing energy production.

Keywords: YOLO, openCV, dust detection, solar panels, computer vision, image processing

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Authors: Mohsin Reza, Thirunaukarasu Subramaniam, M. Rezaul Islam

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In Asia, economic and social well-being issues are rarely addressed. The major characteristics of the migrant workers in Asian countries are seriously exploited, marginalized, and infrequently looked from human rights perspective. This paper explored the opportunities and shortages of economic and social well-being for the migrant workers in Asia. A Qualitative Interpretative Meta-Synthesis (QIMS) was conducted to analyze the contextual socio-economic factors that characterized migrant workers’ economic and social well-being. It is perceived that in most of the recruiting countries, there are lacks of government commitments to the international protocols, conventions and laws that they ratified towards safeguarding migrant workers’ economic and social well-being. Results showed that the migrant workers had lack of job security, poor salary, long working hours, low access to the public services, poor health, poor living and working conditions, lack of legal rights, physical and mental threats. The finding would be important guideline to the governments, policy makers, legal rights practitioners, and human rights organizations.

Keywords: Asia, economic well-being, social well-being, migrant workers, human rights

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Authors: Francesco Nespoli

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After having posed a theoretical framework combining framing theory and new rhetoric, the paper analyze the shift in communication both adopted by UAW and FCA during the negotiations in fall 2015. The paper argues that mistakes and adjustments played a determinant role respectively in the rejection of the first tentative agreement and in the ratification of the contract. The purpose of the paper is to set a new theoretical framework for the analysis of communication in industrial relations, by describing a narrative construction of reality from the perspective of the new rhetoric. The paper thus analyze all public text, speeches, tweets and Facebook posts by the union reading them as part of the narrative set by the organization condensed by the slogan 'it’s our time'. That narrative tried to gain consensus from the members matching the expectations due to the industry recovery after more than five years of workers' sacrifices. In doing so, the analysis points out a shift in the communication strategy of the union after the first rejection of a tentative agreement in 15 years. The findings suggest that, from the communication point of view, consultation in industrial relations can be conceived as a particular kind of political communication where identification with the audience through deliberate narrative may not be effective if it is not preceded by a listening campaign.

Keywords: communication, consultation, automotive, FCA

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Authors: Saru Arora, Anurag Sharma, Harsukhpreet Singh

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To meet the growing need of high data rate and bandwidth, various efforts has been made nowadays for the efficient communication systems. Optical Code Division Multiple Access over Free space optics communication system seems an effective role for providing transmission at high data rate with low bit error rate and low amount of multiple access interference. This paper demonstrates the OCDMA over FSO communication system up to the range of 7000 m at a data rate of 5 Gbps. Initially, the 8 user OCDMA-FSO system is simulated and pseudo orthogonal codes are used for encoding. Also, the simulative analysis of various performance parameters like power and core effective area that are having an effect on the Bit error rate (BER) of the system is carried out. The simulative analysis reveals that the length of the transmission is limited by the multi-access interference (MAI) effect which arises when the number of users increases in the system.

Keywords: FSO, PSO, bit error rate (BER), opti system simulation, multiple access interference (MAI), q-factor

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Authors: Bruna Goncalves, Jennifer Henck, Romulo Uliana, Eliana Kamimura, Carlos Oliveira, Carlos Corassin

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Studies have shown evidence of human exposure to aflatoxin M1 due to the consumption of contaminated milk and dairy products (mainly cheeses). This poses a great risk to public health, since milk and milk products are frequently consumed by a portion of the population considered immunosuppressed, children and the elderly. Knowledge of the negative impacts of aflatoxins on health and economics has led to investigations of strategies to prevent their formation in food, as well as to eliminate, inactivate or reduce the bioavailability of these toxins in contaminated products This study evaluated the effect of microbiological methods using lactic acid bacteria on aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) reduction in Minas Frescal cheese (typical Brazilian product, being among the most consumed cheeses in Brazil) spiked with 1 µg/L AFM1. Inactivated lactic acid bacteria (0,5%, v/v de L. rhamnosus e L. lactis) were added during the cheese production process. Nine cheeses were produced, divided into three treatments: negative controls (without AFM1 or lactic acid bacteria), positive controls (AFM1 only), and lactic acid bacteria + AFM1. Samples of cheese were collected on days 2, 10, 20 and 30 after the date of production and submitted to composition analyses and determination of AFM1 by high-performance liquid chromatography. The reductions of AFM1 in cheese by lactic acid bacteria at the end of the trial indicate a potential application of inactivated lactic acid bacteria in reducing the bioavailability of AFM1 in Minas frescal cheese without physical-chemical and microbiological modifications during the 30-day experimental period. The authors would like to thank São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP (grants #2017/20081-6 and #2017/19683-1).

Keywords: aflatoxin, milk, minas frescal cheese, decontamination

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Authors: Valentine Seymour

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Environmental volunteering organisations use questionnaires to explore the relationship between environmental volunteers and their health. To the author’s best knowledge, no one has explored volunteers’ health perception, which could be considered when designing a health impact measurement tool used to increase effective communication. This paper examines environmental volunteers' perceptions of health, knowledge which can be used to design a health impact measurement tool. This study uses focus group interviews, content analysis, and a general inductive approach to explore the health perceptions of volunteers who engage in environmental volunteering activities from the perspective of UK charity The Conservation Volunteers. Findings showed that volunteer groups presented were relatively similar in how they defined the term health, with their overall conceptual model closely resembling that of the World Health Organization 1948 definition. This suggests that future health impact measurement tools in the environmental volunteering sector could base their design around the World Health Organization’s definition.

Keywords: health perception, impact measurement, mental models, tool development

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Authors: Mauro Iannazzone, Carmine D'Agostino

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Off-shore wind turbines are currently considered as a reliable source of renewable energy Worldwide and especially in the UK. Most of the operational off-shore wind turbines located in shallow waters (i.e. < 30 m) are supported on monopiles. Monopiles are open-ended steel tubes with diameter ranging between 4 to 6 m. It is expected that future off-shore wind farms will be located in water depths as high as 70 m. Therefore, alternative foundation arrangements are needed. Foundations for off-shore structures normally consist of open-ended piles driven into the soil by means of impact hammers. During pile installation, the soil inside the pile may be mobilized by the increasing shear strength such as to prevent more soil from entering the pile. This phenomenon is known as soil plugging, and represents an important issue as it may change significantly the driving resistance of open-ended piles. In fact, if the plugging formation is unexpected, the installation may require more powerful and more expensive hammers. Engineers need to estimate whether the driven pile will be installed in a plugged or unplugged mode. As a consequence, a prediction of the degree of soil plugging is required in order to correctly predict the drivability of the pile. This work presents a brief review of the state-of-the-art of pile driving and approaches used to predict formation of soil plugs. In addition, a novel analytical approach is proposed, which is based on the vertical equilibrium of a plugged pile. Differently from previous studies, this research takes into account the enhancement of the stress within the soil plug. Finally, the work presents and discusses a series of experimental tests, which are carried out on small-scale models piles to validate the analytical solution.

Keywords: off-shore wind turbines, pile installation, soil plugging, wind energy

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Authors: Iraklis Argyriou

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The transition to net-zero emission urban bus (ZEB) systems is receiving increased attention in research and policymaking throughout the globe. Most studies in this area tend to address techno-economic aspects and the perspectives of a narrow group of stakeholders, while they largely overlook analysis of current bus system dynamics. This offers limited insight into the types of ZEB governance challenges and opportunities that are encountered in real-world contexts, as well as into some of the immediate actions that need to be taken to set off the transition over the longer term. This research offers a multi-stakeholder perspective into both the technical and non-technical factors that influence ZEB transitions within a particular context, the UK. It does so by drawing from a recent transition visioning stakeholder workshop (June 2023) with key public, private and civic actors of the urban bus transportation system. Using NVivo software to qualitatively analyze the workshop discussions, the research examines the key technological and funding aspects, as well as the short-term actions (over the next five years), that need to be addressed for supporting the ZEB transition in UK cities. It finds that ZEB technology has reached a mature stage (i.e., high efficiency of batteries, motors and inverters), but important improvements can be pursued through greater control and integration of ZEB technological components and systems. In this regard, telemetry, predictive maintenance and adaptive control strategies pertinent to the performance and operation of ZEB vehicles have a key role to play in the techno-economic advancement of the transition. Yet, more pressing gaps were identified in the current ZEB funding regime. Whereas the UK central government supports greater ZEB adoption through a series of grants and subsidies, the scale of the funding and its fragmented nature do not match the needs for a UK-wide transition. Funding devolution arrangements (i.e., stable funding settlement deals between the central government and the devolved administrations/local authorities), as well as locally-driven schemes (i.e., congestion charging/workplace parking levy), could then enhance the financial prospects of the transition. As for short-term action, three areas were identified as critical: (1) the creation of whole value chains around the supply, use and recycling of ZEB components; (2) the ZEB retrofitting of existing fleets; and (3) integrated transportation that prioritizes buses as a first-choice, convenient and reliable mode while it simultaneously reduces car dependency in urban areas. Taken together, the findings point to the need for place-based transition approaches that create a viable techno-economic ecosystem for ZEB development but at the same time adopt a broader governance perspective beyond a ‘net-zero’ and ‘bus sectoral’ focus. As such, multi-actor collaborations and the coordination of wider resources and agency, both vertically across institutional scales and horizontally across transport, energy and urban planning, become fundamental features of comprehensive ZEB responses. The lessons from the UK case can inform a broader body of empirical contextual knowledge of ZEB transition governance within domestic political economies of public transportation.

Keywords: net-zero emission transition, stakeholders, transition governance, UK, urban bus transportation

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Authors: Mamatha Hosapatna, Anne D. Souza, Antony Sylvan Dsouza, Vrinda Hari Ankolekar

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Our study intends to know the effect of the overall teaching program of Anatomy on a students learning. The advancement of various teaching methodologies in the present era has led to progressive changes in education. A student should be able to correlate well between the theory and practical knowledge attained even in the early years of their education in medicine and should be able to implement the same in patient care. The present study therefore aims to assess the impact the current anatomy teaching program has on a students learning and to what extent is it successful in making the learning program effective. Specific objectives of our study to assess the impact of overall teaching program of Anatomy in a students’ learning. Description of process proposed: A questionnaire will be constructed and the students will be asked to put forth their views regarding the Anatomy teaching program and its method of assessment. Suggestions, if any will also be encouraged to be put forth. Type of study is cross sectional observations. Target population is the first year MBBS students and sample size is 250. Assessment plan is to obtaining students responses using questionnaire. Calculating percentages of the responses obtained. Tabulation of the results will be done.

Keywords: anatomy, observational study questionnaire, observational study, M.B.B.S students

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Authors: Ngoc Thao Linh Dang

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Urban waterfront redevelopment is a global phenomenon, and thousands of schemes are being carried out in large metropoles, medium-sized cities, and even small towns all over the world. This opportunity brings the city back to the river and rediscovers waterfront revitalization as a unique opportunity for cities to reconnect with their unique historical and cultural image. The redevelopment can encourage economic investments, serve as a social platform for public interactions, and allow dwellers to express their rights to the city. Many coastal cities have effectively transformed the perception of their waterfront area through years of redevelopment initiatives, having been neglected for over a century. However, this process has never been easy due to the particular complexity of the space: local culture, history, and market-led development. Moreover, municipal governments work out the balance of diverse stakeholder interests, especially when repurposing high-profile and redundant spaces that form the core of urban economic investment while also accommodating the present and future generations in sustainable environments. Urban critics consistently grapple with the effectiveness of the planning process on the new waterfront, where public spaces are criticized for presenting a lack of opportunities for actual public participation due to privatization and authoritarian governance while no longer doing what they are ‘meant to’: all arise in reaction to the perceived failure of these places to meet expectations. The planning culture and the decision-making context determine the level of public involvement in the planning process; however, in the context of competing market forces and commercial interests dominating cities’ planning agendas, planning for public space in urban waterfronts tends to be for economic gain rather than supporting residents' social needs. These newly pleasing settings satisfied the cluster of middle-class individuals, new communities living along the waterfront, and tourists. A trend of public participatory exclusion is primarily determined by the nature of the planning being undertaken and the decision-making context in which it is embedded. Starting from this context, the research investigates the influence of planning on waterfront regeneration and the role of participation in this process. The research aims to look specifically at the characteristics of the planning process of the waterfront in Da Nang and its impact on the regeneration of the place to regain the city’s historical value and enhance local cultural identity and images. Vietnam runs a top-down planning system where municipal governments have control or power over what happens in their city following the approved planning from the national government. The community has never been excluded from development; however, their participation is still marginalized. In order to ensure social equality, a proposed approach called "bottom-up" should be considered and implemented alongside the traditional "top-down" process and provide a balance of perspectives, as it allows for the voices of the most underprivileged social group involved in a planning project to be heard, rather than ignored. The research provides new insights into the influence of the planning process on the waterfront regeneration in the context of Da Nang.

Keywords: planning process, public participation, top-down planning, waterfront regeneration

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Authors: Barenten Suciu, Yoshiki Tsuji

Abstract:

In this paper, a theoretical investigation on the dynamic characteristics of one degree of freedom vibration system equipped with inerter of variable inertance, is presented. Differential equation of movement was solved under proper initial conditions in the case of free undamped/damped vibration, considered in the absence/presence of the inerter in the mechanical system. Influence of inertance on the amplitude of vibration, phase angle, natural frequency, damping ratio, and logarithmic decrement was clarified. It was mainly found that the inerter decreases the natural frequency of the undamped system and also of the damped system if the damping ratio is below 0.707. On the other hand, the inerter increases the natural frequency of the damped system if the damping ratio exceeds 0.707. Results obtained in this work are useful for the adequate design of inerters.

Keywords: damping, frequency control, inerter, one degree of freedom vibration system, parallel connection, variable inertance

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Authors: Adel Almasarwah

Abstract:

This study investigates the nature of association between profit warnings and stock price informativeness in the context of Jordan as an emerging country. The analysis is based on the response of stock price synchronicity to profit warnings percentages that have been published in Jordanian firms throughout the period spanning 2005–2016 in the Amman Stock Exchange. The standard of profit warnings indicators have related negatively to stock price synchronicity in Jordanian firms, meaning that firms with a high portion of profit warnings integrate with more firm-specific information into stock price. Robust regression was used rather than OLS as a parametric test to overcome the variances inflation factor (VIF) and heteroscedasticity issues recognised as having occurred during running the OLS regression; this enabled us to obtained stronger results that fall in line with our prediction that higher profit warning encourages firm investors to collect and process more firm-specific information than common market information.

Keywords: Profit Warnings, Jordanian Firms, Stock Price Informativeness, Synchronicity

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Authors: Analise Borg, Paul Micallef

Abstract:

Over the past few years, the online multimedia collection has grown at a fast pace. Several companies showed interest to study the different ways to organize the amount of audio information without the need of human intervention to generate metadata. In the past few years, many applications have emerged on the market which are capable of identifying a piece of music in a short time. Different audio effects and degradation make it much harder to identify the unknown piece. In this paper, an audio fingerprinting system which makes use of a non-parametric based algorithm is presented. Parametric analysis is also performed using Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs). The feature extraction methods employed are the Mel Spectrum Coefficients and the MPEG-7 basic descriptors. Bin numbers replaced the extracted feature coefficients during the non-parametric modelling. The results show that non-parametric analysis offer potential results as the ones mentioned in the literature.

Keywords: audio fingerprinting, mapping algorithm, Gaussian Mixture Models, MFCC, MPEG-7

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Authors: Pankaj Negi

Abstract:

Nowadays the demand for receiving the high quality electrical energy is being increasing as consumer wants not only reliable but also quality power. Custom power instruments are of the most well-known compensators of power quality in distributed network. This paper present a comprehensive review of compensating custom power devices mainly DSTATCOM (distribution static compensator),DVR (dynamic voltage restorer), and UPQC (unified power quality compensator) and also deals with sliding mode control and its applications to custom power devices. The sliding mode control strategy provides robustness to custom power device and enhances the dynamic response for compensating voltage sag, swell, voltage flicker, and voltage harmonics. The aim of this paper is to provide a broad perspective on the status of compensating devices in electric power distribution system and sliding mode control strategies to researchers and application engineers who are dealing with power quality and stability issues.

Keywords: active power filters(APF), custom power device(CPD), DSTATCOM, DVR, UPQC, sliding mode control (SMC), power quality

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Authors: Clovis Ultramari, Lidia Floriani, Debora Cicioli

Abstract:

This paper is a preliminary discussion on the constituency of contemporary global urban scenarios. It is based on secondary sources, mostly from the topics mostly currently discussed by global studies institutes, academic material on the possible components of this phenomenon, and a list of possible scenarios preliminarily proposed by these authors. It also discusses one of these possible scenarios (urban insurgencies) through the lens of a global perspective. Main objective of the research presented in this paper is to produce insights for international aid and development agencies as well as to respond to an increasing interest in the urban studies field in discussing global topics. This paper also results from discussions held in seminars offered by the authors in the graduate program of Urban Management along 2021 and 2022. It is part of a research project that puts together an international team of researches, mostly from the Global South. Results so far obtained refer to conceptual aspects for the determination of global urban scenarios and the presentation of urban insurgencies as worldwide trending urban phenomenon. Presentation in the seminar is part of an ongoing discussion.

Keywords: urban global scenarios, contemporary cities, global south, urban insurgencies

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Authors: Fenni Sim

Abstract:

Background: The application of systemic family therapy approaches to community health cases have not gathered traction. In National Kidney Foundation, Singapore, the belief is that community support has great potential in helping End Stage Renal Failure (ESRF) patients manage the demands of their treatment regime, whether Hemodialysis (HD) or Peritoneal Dialysis(PD) and sustain them on the treatment. However, the current community support does not include family interventions and is largely nursing based. Although nursing support is well provided to patients, and their family members in issues related to treatment and compliance, complex family issues and dynamics arising from caregiver strain or pre-dialysis relationship strain might deter efforts in managing the challenges of the treatment. Objective: The objective of the study is to understand the potential scope of work provided by a social worker who is trained in systemic family therapy and the effects of these interventions. Methodology: 3 families on HD and 3 families on PD who have been receiving family intervention for the past 6 months would be chosen for the study. A qualitative interview would be conducted to review the effectiveness for the family. Scales such as SCORE-15, PHQ-9, and Zarit Burden were used to measure family functioning, depression, and caregiver’s burden for the families. Results: The research is still in preliminary phase. Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of family intervention for families with multiple stressors on different treatment modalities who might have different needs and challenges. Nursing support needs to be complemented with family-based support to manage complex family issues in order to achieve better health outcomes and improved family coping.

Keywords: complementing nursing support, end stage renal failure, healthcare, systemic approaches

Procedia PDF Downloads 207