Search results for: call center agents

Authors: Menna Ewida, Dalal Abou El-Ella, Dina Lasheen, Huessin El-Subbagh

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Introduction: Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor receptor (VEGF) is a signal protein produced by cells that stimulates vasculogenesis to create new blood vessels. VEGF family binds to three trans-membrane tyrosine kinase receptors,Dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) is an enzyme of crucial importance in medicinal chemistry. DHFR catalyzes the reduction 7,8 dihydro-folate to tetrahydrofolate and intimately couples with thymidylate synthase which is a pivotal enzyme that catalysis the reductive methylation of deoxyuridine monophosphate (dUMP) to deoxythymidine monophosphate (dTMP) utilizing N5,N10-methylene tetrahydrofolate as a cofactor which functions as the source of the methyl group. Purpose: Novel substituted Thiazole agents were designed as DHFR and VEGF-TK inhibitors with increased synergistic activity and decreased side effects. Methods: Five series of compounds were designed with a rational that mimic the pharmacophoric features present in the reported active compounds that target DHFR & VEGFR. These molecules were docked against Methotrexate & Sorafenib as controls. An in silico ADMET study was also performed to validate the bioavailability of the newly designed compounds. The in silico molecular docking & ADMET study were also applied to the non-classical antifolates for comparison. The interaction energy comparable to that of MTX for DHFRI and Sorafenib for VEGF-TKI activity were recorded. Results: Compound 5 exhibited the highest interaction energy when docked against Sorafenib, While Compound 9 showed the highest interaction energy when docked against MTX with the perfect binding mode. Comparable results were also obtained for the ADMET study. Most of the compounds showed absorption within (95-99) zone which varies according to the type of substituents. Conclusions: The Substituted Thiazole Analogues could be a suitable template for antitumor drugs that possess enhanced bioavailability and act as DHFR and VEGF-TK inhibitors.

Keywords: anti-tumor agents, DHFR, drug design, molecular modeling, VEGFR-TKIs

Procedia PDF Downloads 203

Authors: Dong Yinan, Zhou Zijie

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Urban fringe belt is an important part of urban morphology research. Different from the relatively fixed central district of city, the position of fringe belt is changing. In the process of urban expansion, the original fringe belt is likely to be merged by the new-built city, even become new city public center. During the change, we are facing the dialectic between restoring the organicity of old urban form and creating new urban image. There are lots of relevant research in urban scale, but when we focus on building scale, rare design method can be proposed, thus some new individual building cannot match the overall urban planning intent. The expansion project of the second middle school in Xuancheng is facing this situation. The existing campus is located in the south fringe belt of Xuancheng, Anhui province, China, adjacent to farmland and ponds. While based on the Xucheng urban planning, the farmland and ponds will be transformed into a big lake, around which new public center will be built; the expansion of the school becomes an important part of the boundary of the new public center. Therefore, the expansion project faces challenges from both urban and building scale. In urban scale, we analyze and summarize the fringe belt characters through the reading of existing and future urban organism, in order to determine the form of the expansion project. Meanwhile, in building scale, we study on different types of school buildings and select appropriate type which can satisfy to both urban form and school function. This research attempts to investigate design methods based on an under construction project in Xuancheng, a historic city in southeast China. It also aims to bridge the gap from urban design to individual building design through the typo-morphological research.

Keywords: design methods, urban fringe belt, typo-morphological research, middle school

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Authors: Tamás Hartványi, Ferenc Tóth

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European telecommunication distribution center performance is measured by service lead time and quality. Operation model is CTO (customized to order) namely, a high mix customization of telecommunication network equipment and parts. CTO operation contains material receiving, warehousing, network and server assembly to order and configure based on customer specifications. Variety of the product and orders does not support mass production structure. One of the success factors to satisfy customer is to have a proper aggregated planning method for the operation in order to have optimized human resources and highly efficient asset utilization. Research will investigate several methods and find proper way to have an order book simulation where practical optimization problem may contain thousands of variables and the simulation running times of developed algorithms were taken into account with high importance. There are two operation research models that were developed, customer demand is given in orders, no change over time, customer demands are given for product types, and changeover time is constant.

Keywords: CTO, aggregated planning, demand simulation, changeover time

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: George Charkoftakis, Panagiotis Liosatos, Nicolas-Alexander Tatlas, Dimitrios Goustouridis, Stelios M. Potirakis

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E-maintenance is a relatively new concept, generally referring to maintenance management by monitoring assets over the Internet. One of the key links in the chain of an e-maintenance system is data acquisition and transmission. Specifically for the case of a fleet of heavy-duty vehicles, where the main challenge is the diversity of the vehicles and vehicle-embedded self-diagnostic/reporting technologies, the design of the data acquisition and transmission unit is a demanding task. This clear if one takes into account that a heavy-vehicles fleet assortment may range from vehicles with only a limited number of analog sensors monitored by dashboard light indicators and gauges to vehicles with plethora of sensors monitored by a vehicle computer producing digital reporting. The present work proposes an adaptable internet of things (IoT) sensor node that is capable of addressing this challenge. The proposed sensor node architecture is based on the increasingly popular single-board computer – expansion boards approach. In the proposed solution, the expansion boards undertake the tasks of position identification by means of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS), cellular connectivity by means of 3G/long-term evolution (LTE) modem, connectivity to on-board diagnostics (OBD), and connectivity to analog and digital sensors by means of a novel design of expansion board. Specifically, the later provides eight analog plus three digital sensor channels, as well as one on-board temperature / relative humidity sensor. The specific device offers a number of adaptability features based on appropriate zero-ohm resistor placement and appropriate value selection for limited number of passive components. For example, although in the standard configuration four voltage analog channels with constant voltage sources for the power supply of the corresponding sensors are available, up to two of these voltage channels can be converted to provide power to the connected sensors by means of corresponding constant current source circuits, whereas all parameters of analog sensor power supply and matching circuits are fully configurable offering the advantage of covering a wide variety of industrial sensors. Note that a key feature of the proposed sensor node, ensuring the reliable operation of the connected sensors, is the appropriate supply of external power to the connected sensors and their proper matching to the IoT sensor node. In standard mode, the IoT sensor node communicates to the data center through 3G/LTE, transmitting all digital/digitized sensor data, IoT device identity, and position. Moreover, the proposed IoT sensor node offers WiFi connectivity to mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) equipped with an appropriate application for the manual registration of vehicle- and driver-specific information, and these data are also forwarded to the data center. All control and communication tasks of the IoT sensor node are performed by dedicated firmware. It is programmed with a high-level language (Python) on top of a modern operating system (Linux). Acknowledgment: This research has been co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH—CREATE—INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK- 01359, IntelligentLogger).

Keywords: IoT sensor nodes, e-maintenance, single-board computers, sensor expansion boards, on-board diagnostics

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Authors: Giovanna X. De Moura, Fernando A. Starepravo

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In recent years, the discussion of women in sports has been part of the political agenda in several countries. However, in the Brazilian scope, it is possible to say that women's sport has not become a social problem recognized by political actors and, therefore, it has not entered the country's governmental agenda. Thus, this work aimed to analyze why sport for women is not on the Brazilian government's agenda. For this, it was interviewed six women considered to be stakeholders in sports, that is, women who influence or are influenced by sports. The interviews were based on a semi-structured script and carried out in the year 2022. Due to the difficulties of commuting and of the schedule of the interviewees, some interviews were carried out in person, others by video call or telephone and others by WhatsApp. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Bardin's Content Analysis. As a result, from the stakeholders' perception, it was ascertained that women's sport is not considered a political problem because both sport and politics are considered masculinized fields, making it difficult for women to be present in both spaces. Besides, not only the sport of women but sport in general, is seen as just a marketing tool and a way of getting financial return for companies, being neglected in government plans. Due to this fact, private institutions, corporative means, federations and confederations have been mobilized in the creation of policies that seek changes in the current scenario. Despite this, two PLs (PL 6263/2019 and PL 5297/2020) have been in the process since 2019 but have not been approved yet due to the failure to submit amendments within the established deadline. In order to change this reality, the ones surveyed suggested that there should be not only different types of women represented on the most varied fronts of sports but also more visibility of the issue of women in this field. Furthermore, they mentioned the importance of the creation of specific plans and policies that guarantee a safe place for women and that are consolidated as State policies. In addition, the need for more women in political decision-making positions was also mentioned. It was concluded that women's sport appears on the agenda at a secondary level since it is included on the legislative, and political agenda but not in the executive branch. In addition, there is not enough movement and mobilization in favor of women's sports for it to become a discussion in the field of politics. Regarding the Multiple Streams Model, women's sport is present only in the ideas stream, as there are solutions and ideas for improvements in this field. Finally, it was pointed that there is still a strong dependence on the State for the creation of policies that seek improvements in the participation of girls and women in sport, hence, being necessary the creation of multicentric policies, including non-governmental agents in the process of elaborating policies.

Keywords: agenda, politics, stakeholders, women’s sport

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Authors: Sertac Arslan, Guven Guney, Ayse Ipek Akyuz Unsal, Emre Demir, Buket Demirci

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Purpose: There is little histologic data concerning effects of nasal decongestants on the respiratory tract. We aimed to put forth the effects of nasal decongestants on the trachea and lower airways of rats. Materials and Methods: Four to six months old 60 male rats were randomly categorized into 6 groups. Experimental drugs were applied to the same nostril of rats twice daily for 8 weeks (Xylometazolin, Benzalkolyum, EDTA, Sorbitol and combined drug solutions). We applied normal saline solution (NaCl %0.9) for the control group. In the end, trachea and both lungs were dissected and kept in formaldehyde for histopathologic evaluation. Results: Inflammation and bronchial edema were most common findings. While all rats in sorbitol group had increased numbers of type 2 pneumocytes; 80% of BAC group had increased numbers of type 2 pneumocytes. Spillover of tracheal epithelium was seen mostly in sorbitol, EDTA and combined drug groups (60%, 87.5%, 50% respectively). Bronchial smooth muscle hypertrophy was seen mostly in BAC and EDTA group (70%, 62.5% respectively). The number of goblet cells showed the significant difference between control-combined drug (p=0.025) and control-BAC (p=0.001) groups. Conclusions: Nasal decongestants can cause permanent changes at lower respiratory tract in addition to changes in upper respiratory tract.

Keywords: decongestive agents, xylometazoline, lung, trachea

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Authors: Tan Bee Piang

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The family is always seen as the most important agent of socialization, therefore, abusive parents and broken family have often been highlighted as two main factors contributing to juvenile delinquency. However, several studies have indicated that the peer group is one of the most powerful socialization agents in adolescent development, the influences of family are insignificant after peer influences are taken. This study aimed to investigate the relative influence of parents and peers on juvenile delinquency in Malaysia. Malaysia is a multicultural society, so different types of traditional values and religions permeate all aspects of Malaysian society, and the influences of family and parents are always seen as the most important agents of socialization. 80 juveniles from a reform school in Malaysia have been selected to participate in this study. Based on the experiences of juveniles in this study, it found that peer groups play an important role when the adolescents try to create their own identities. Adolescents merely make friends with those who have similar life experiences, so adolescents are easily influenced by their friends and the juvenile delinquency is mostly group behavior. This research found that there is no significant relationship between family factors and delinquency. The data shows that a significant percentage of juveniles come from middle-class family and most of them are not from broken family. However, most of them have strained family relationship. This research suggests that we should take a look into other causes, like peer influence, of juvenile delinquency in Malaysia.

Keywords: juvenile delinquency, peer influence, group behaviour, family relationship

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Authors: Greta Rizzi, Ashley Gallitto, Federica Vacca

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Looking at design artifacts as bearers and disseminators of material knowledge and intangible socio-cultural meanings, the significance of archival jewelry was investigated following digital cultural heritage research streams. The application of the reverse engineering concept guided the research path: starting with the study of Gianfranco Ferré's archival jewelry and analyzing its technical heritage and symbolic value, the digitalization, dematerialization, and rematerialization of the artifact were carried out. According to that, the proposed paper results from research conducted within the residency program between the Gianfranco Ferré Research Center (GFRC) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), involving both the Design and Mechanical Engineering Departments of Politecnico di Milano. The paper will discuss the analysis of traditional design manufacturing techniques, re-imagined through 3D scanning, 3D modeling, and 3D printing technical knowledge while emphasizing the significance of the designer's role as an explorer of socio-cultural meanings and technological mediators in the analog-digital-analog transition.

Keywords: Archival jewelry, cultural heritage, rematerialization, reverse engineering.

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Authors: Hossein Alimohammadi, Kristina Vassiljeva, Hassan HosseinNia, Eduard Petlenkov

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This research article discusses the mechanisms for bandgap tuning of beam-type resonators to achieve ‎broadband vibration suppression through adjustable stiffness. The method involves changing the center of ‎mass of the cantilever-type resonator to achieve piezo-free tuning of stiffness. The study investigates the ‎effect of the center of masses variation (δ) of attached masses on the bandgap and vibration suppression ‎performance of a non-uniform beam-type resonator within a phononic structure. The results suggest that the ‎cantilever-type resonator beam can be used to achieve tunability and real-time control and indicate that ‎varying δ significantly impacts the bandgap and transmittance response. Additionally, the research explores ‎the use of the first and second modes of resonators for tunability and real-time control. These findings examine ‎the feasibility of this approach, demonstrate the potential for improving resonator performance, and provide ‎insights into the design and optimization of metamaterial beams for vibration suppression applications.

Keywords: bandgap, adjustable stiffness, spatial variation, tunability

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Authors: Nina Tsvetkova, Rumen Harizanov, Aleksandra Ivanova, Iskra Rainova, Nina Yancheva-Petrova, Dimitar Strashimirov, Raina Enikova, Mihaela Videnova, Eleonora Kaneva, Iskren Kaftandjiev, Viktoria Levterova, Ivan Simeonovski, Nikolay Yanev, Georgi Hinkov

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The Pneumocystis jirovecii (P. jirovecii) and protozoan of the genera Acanthamoeba, Cryptosporidium, and Toxoplasma gondii are opportunistic pathogens that can cause life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients. Aim of the study was to evaluate the coinfection rate with opportunistic protozoal agents among Bulgarian patients diagnosed with P. jirovecii pneumonia. Thirty-eight pulmonary samples were collected from 38 patients (28 HIV-infected) with P. jirovecii infection. P. jirovecii DNA was detected by real-time PCR targeting the large mitochondrial subunit ribosomal RNA gene. Acanthamoeba was determined by genus-specific conventional PCR assay. Real-time PCR for the detection of a Toxoplasma gondii and Cryptosporidium DNA fragment was used. Pneumocystis DNA was detected in all 38 specimens; 28 (73.7%) were from HIV-infected patients. Three (10,7%) of them were co-infected with T. gondii and 1 (3.6%) with Cryptosporidium. In the group of non-HIV-infected (n=10), Cryptosporidium DNA was detected in an infant (10%). Acanthamoeba DNA was not found in the tested samples. The current study showed a relatively low rate of coinfections of Cryptosporidium spp./T. gondii and P. jirovecii in the Bulgarian patients studied.

Keywords: coinfection, opportunistic protozoal agents, Pneumocystis jirovecii, pulmonary infections

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Authors: Diobein Flores, Venus Buagas, Virgie Darunday

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The study inventoried the species composition of terrestrial ferns and lycopods in Center for Ecological Development and Recreation (CEDAR) Impalutao, Impasug-ong, Bukidnon. Specifically, it aimed to determine and describe the species composition, and diagnostic characters of the ferns and lycopods in the study site. Transect walk method was employed in the inventory of the species. Each species were classified, identified and described according to its diagnostic characters. Results of the study revealed a total of 20 species of ferns and lycopods. Of these, 18 species were ferns and 2 species were lycopods. Eleven (11) families and fifteen (15) genera for ferns and one (1) family and one (1) genera for lycopods. Psomiocarpa apifolia is Philippine endemic and said to be vulnerable or threatened. Taxonomic characters based on habit, rhizome, leaf arrangement and orientation, stem structure and circinate vernation were used to identify the terrestrial pteridophtyes into families, genera and species. The species collected and assessment in CEDAR should be further investigated and monitor their conservation status.

Keywords: alpha taxonomy, conservation, habit, taxonomic characters

Procedia PDF Downloads 198

Authors: Wim Zeiler

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The indoor quality of occupied space is very important for the well-being of its occupants, especially in the case of babies. The lungs of a young child are still growing and adverse conditions could affect this development. Presently little children spend a lot of their time in day care centers while parents are at work. Little is known about the effects of different indoor environmental factors present in these day care centers and the quality of air of baby cots in which the babies are accommodated in these day care centers. Therefore this research investigated the quality of the accommodation of Dutch day care centers. Besides an extensive literature research actual measurements were performed in baby cots within three-day care center. Some experiments were performed to find out the importance of the configuration and types of baby cots. This research investigated the quality of the accommodation of a Dutch day care center which led to a tool describing the quality needs (e.g., quality standard) for the accommodation of day care centers. The results of our detailed studies were compared with the results of earlier Dutch more global studies in day care centers, in which more than 60 day care centers were investigated. Also the results are compared with the outcomes of research on school ventilation. The results proved that the situation in day care centers is even worse than that of schools within the Netherlands. More attention is needed to improve the current situation.

Keywords: ventilation, baby cots, day care centers, case study

Procedia PDF Downloads 448

Authors: Lauren C. Porter, Andrew Curtis, Eric Jefferis, Susanne Mitchell

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A wealth of research has been generated examining the variation in crime across neighborhoods. However, there is also a striking degree of crime concentration within neighborhoods. A number of studies show that a small percentage of street segments, intersections, or addresses account for a large portion of crime. Not surprisingly, a focus on these crime hot spots can be an effective strategy for reducing community level crime and related ills, such as health problems. However, research is also limited in an important respect. Studies tend to use official data to identify hot spots, such as 911 calls or calls for service. While the use of call data may be more representative of the actual level and distribution of crime than some other official measures (e.g. arrest data), call data still suffer from the 'dark figure of crime.' That is, there is most certainly a degree of error between crimes that occur versus crimes that are reported to the police. In this study, we present an alternative method of identifying crime hot spots, that does not rely on official data. In doing so, we highlight the potential utility of neighborhood-insiders to identify and understand crime dynamics within geographic spaces. Specifically, we use spatial video and geo-narratives to record the crime insights of 36 police, ex-offenders, and residents of a high crime neighborhood in northeast Ohio. Spatial mentions of crime are mapped to identify participant-identified hot spots, and these are juxtaposed with calls for service (CFS) data. While there are bound to be differences between these two sources of data, we find that one location, in particular, a corner store, emerges as a hot spot for all three groups of participants. Yet it does not emerge when we examine CFS data. A closer examination of the space around this corner store and a qualitative analysis of narrative data reveal important clues as to why this store may indeed be a hot spot, but not generate disproportionate calls to the police. In short, our results suggest that researchers who rely solely on official data to study crime hot spots may risk missing some of the most dangerous places.

Keywords: crime, narrative, video, neighborhood

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Authors: Tuji Mohammed Sani

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Back ground: An open tibial fracture is an injury where the fractured bone directly communicates with the outside environment. Due to the specific anatomical features of the tibia (limited soft tissue coverage), more than quarter of its fractures are classified as open, representing the most common open long-bone injuries. Open tibial fractures frequently cause significant bone comminution, periosteal stripping, soft tissue loss, contamination and are prone to bacterial entry with biofilm formation, which increases the risk of deep bone infection. Objective: The main objective of the study was to determine Prevalence of infection and its associated factors in surgically treated open tibial fracture in Addis Ababa Burn Emergency and Trauma (AaBET) center. Method: A facility based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among patient treated for open tibial fracture at AaBET center from September 2018 to September 2021. The data was collected from patient’s chart using structured data collection form, and Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 26. Bivariable and multiple binary logistic regression were fitted. Multicollinearity was checked among candidate variables using variance inflation factor and tolerance, which were less than 5 and greater than 0.2, respectively. Model adequacy were tested using Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fitness test (P=0.711). AOR at 95% CI was reported, and P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: This study found that 33.9% of the study participants had an infection. Initial IV antibiotic time (AOR=2.924, 95% CI:1.160- 7.370) and time of wound closure from injury (AOR=3.524, 95% CI: 1.798-6.908), injury to admission time (AOR=2.895, 95% CI: 1.402 – 5.977). and definitive fixation method (AOR=0.244, 95% CI: 0.113 – 0.4508) were the factors found to have a statistically significant association with the occurrence of infection. Conclusion: The rate of infection in open tibial fractures indicates that there is a need to improve the management of open tibial fracture treated at AaBET center. Time from injury to admission, time from injury to first debridement, wound closure time, and initial Intra Venous antibiotic time from the injury are an important factor that can be readily amended to improve the infection rate. Whether wound closed before seven days or not were more important factor associated with occurrences of infection.

Keywords: infection, open tibia, fracture, magnitude

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Authors: Sarah Isabelle Torres

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Using Lefebvre’s (1991) Spatial Triad, this study explores the relationship of geography and cinema and asks the question: how does geography shape the film culture of a regional city center located at the periphery of a country’s capital? This research aims to locate the contemporary film scene of the city in question, Davao City, Mindanao through contextualizing the politics and culture of its tri-people. This study shows that primarily because of local filmmakers' affection and sense of place, progressive films focusing on the tri-people and their struggles mainly due to issues on land have been born. To further understand the city’s film culture, this study maps the following areas: 1) filmmakers and cineastes, 2) films, 3) film festivals, 4) financial stakeholders, 5) institutions, and 6) screening places. From these, the researcher learned that although the local film community has established itself for decades, problems on audience, funding, and institutional support continue to persist. Aside from mapping, this study also explores Davao’s political, economic, and cultural position within the regional and the national arenas.

Keywords: cinema studies, Davao City, film culture, geography, Philippines, place, regional cinema, space

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Authors: Eric Kumar, Erica Cochran, Zhiang Zhang, Wei Liang, Ronak Mody

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The objective of this article was to create a modelling framework that exposes the marginal costs of shifting workloads across geographically distributed data-centers. Geographical distribution of internet services helps to optimize their performance for localized end users with lowered communications times and increased availability. However, due to the geographical and temporal effects, the physical embodiments of a service's data center infrastructure can vary greatly. In this work, we first identify that the sources of variances in the physical infrastructure primarily stem from local weather conditions, specific user traffic profiles, energy sources, and the types of IT hardware available at the time of deployment. Second, we create a traffic simulator that indicates the IT load at each data-center in the set as an approximator for user traffic profiles. Third, we implement a framework that quantifies the global level energy demands using building energy models and the traffic profiles. The results of the model provide a time series of energy demands that can be used for further life cycle analysis of internet services.

Keywords: data-centers, energy, life cycle, network simulation

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Authors: Wanyi Zhu, Xia Ming, Huafeng Wang, Junda Chen, Lu Liu, Jiangwei Jiang, Guohua Liu

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Anomaly detection is a first and imperative step needed to respond to unexpected problems and to assure high performance and security in large data center management. This paper presents an online anomaly detection system through an innovative approach of ensemble machine learning and adaptive differentiation algorithms, and applies them to performance data collected from a continuous monitoring system for multi-tier web applications running in Alibaba data centers. We evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of this algorithm with production traffic data and compare with the traditional anomaly detection approaches such as a static threshold and other deviation-based detection techniques. The experiment results show that our algorithm correctly identifies the unexpected performance variances of any running application, with an acceptable false positive rate. This proposed approach has already been deployed in real-time production environments to enhance the efficiency and stability in daily data center operations.

Keywords: Alibaba data centers, anomaly detection, big data computation, dynamic ensemble learning

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Authors: Adda Ali-Pacha, Naima Hadj-Said

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Nowadays, the security of information is primarily founded on the calculation of algorithms that confidentiality depend on the number of bits necessary to define a cryptographic key. In this work, we introduce a new chaotic cryptosystem that we call evolutional substitution cipher on a chaotic attractor. In this research paper, we take the Henon attractor. The evolutional substitution cipher on Henon attractor is based on the principle of monoalphabetic cipher and it associates the plaintext at a succession of real numbers calculated from the attractor equations.

Keywords: cryptography, substitution cipher, chaos theory, Henon attractor, evolutional substitution cipher

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Authors: S. Pooja Pragati, B. Sudarsan, S. Rajkumar

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Silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are known for their excellent antimicrobial agents, and thus can be used as alternative disinfectant agents. However, released silver nanoparticles is a threat to naturally occurring microorganisms. This paper exhibits information on the environmental fate, toxicological effects, and application of AgNP and the current estimate on the physicochemical and antimicrobial properties of AgNP in different aqueous solutions, as well as their application as alternative disinfectants in water-treatment systems. It also gives a better approximation and experimental data of AgNP’s antimicrobial properties at different water chemistry conditions. A saturation-type fitting curve was established, showing the survival of bacteria under different water chemistry conditions as a function of the size of the nanoparticles. The results obtained show that silver nanoparticles in surface water, ground water, and brackish water are stable. The paper demonstrates the comparative study of AgNP-impregnated point-of-use ceramic water filters and ceramic filters impregnated with silver nitrate. It is observed that AgNP-impregnated ceramic water filters are more appropriate for this application due to the lesser amount of silver desorbed. Experimental data of the comparison of a polymer-based quaternary amine functionalized silsesquioxanes compound and AgNP are also tabulated and conclusions are analysed with the goal of optimizing. The simplicity of synthesis and application of Silver nanoparticles enables us to consider its effective modified version for the purification of water.

Keywords: disinfectant agent, purification of water, nano particles, water treatment

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Authors: Rachel Gough

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In 2014, Skellig Michael, an island off Ireland’s western seaboard and UNESCO world heritage site became a major setting in Disney’s Star Wars franchise. The subsequent influx of tourists to the site has proven to be a point of contention nationally. The increased visitor numbers have uplifted certain areas of the local economy, the mainland, but have caused irreparable damage to historic monuments and to endangered bird populations who breed on the island. Recent research carried out by a state body suggests far-reaching and longterm negative impacts on the island’s culture and environment, should the association with the Star Wars franchise persist. In spite of this, the film has been widely endorsed by the Irish government as providing a vital economic boost to historically marginalised rural areas through film tourism. This paper argues quite plainly that what is taking place on Skellig is neocolonialism. Skellig Michael’s unique resources, its aesthetic qualities, its ecosystem, and its cultural currency have been sold by the state to a multinational corporation, who profit from their use. Meanwhile, locals are left to do their best to turn a market trend into sustainable business at the expense of culture ecology and community. This paper intends to be the first dedicated study into the psychogeographic and cultural impact of Skellig Michael’s deterioration as a result of film tourism. It will discuss the projected impact of this incident on Irish culture more broadly and finally will attempt to lay out a roadmap for more collaborative filmmaking and touristic approach, which allows local cultures and ecosystem’s to thrive without drastically inhibiting cultural production. This paper will ultimately find that the consequences of this representation call for a requirement to read tourism as a split concept — namely into what we might loosely call “eco-tourism” and more capital-based “profit-bottom-line tourism.”

Keywords: ecology, film tourism, neocolonialism, sustainability

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Authors: M. Rahimnejad, B. Vahidi, B. Ebrahimi Hoseinzadeh, F. Yazdian, P. Motamed Fath, R. Jamjah

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In this study, we developed and simulated nano-drug delivery systems efficacy in compare to free drug prescription. Computational models can be utilized to accelerate experimental steps and control the experiments high cost. Molecular dynamics simulation (MDS), in particular NAMD was utilized to better understand the anti-cancer drug interaction with cell membrane model. Paclitaxel (PTX) and dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) were selected for the drug molecule and as a natural phospholipid nanocarrier, respectively. This work focused on two important interaction parameters between molecules in terms of center of mass (COM) and van der Waals interaction energy. Furthermore, we compared the simulation results of the PTX interaction with the cell membrane and the interaction of DPPC as a nanocarrier loaded by the drug with the cell membrane. The molecular dynamic analysis resulted in low energy between the nanocarrier and the cell membrane as well as significant decrease of COM amount in the nanocarrier and the cell membrane system during the interaction. Thus, the drug vehicle showed notably better interaction with the cell membrane in compared to free drug interaction with the cell membrane.

Keywords: anti-cancer drug, center of mass, interaction energy, molecular dynamics simulation, nanocarrier

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Authors: Kathrin Endres, Daniela Greven

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Although chatbots are a widely known and established communication instrument in B2C customer services, B2B industries still hesitate to implement chatbots due to the incertitude of customer acceptance. While many studies examine the chatbot acceptance of B2C consumers, few studies are focusing on the B2B sector, where the customer is represented by a buying center consisting of several stakeholders. This study investigates the challenges of chatbot acceptance in B2B industries compared to challenges of chatbot acceptance from current B2C literature by interviewing experts from German chatbot vendors. The results show many similarities between the customer requirements of B2B customers and B2C consumers. Still, due to several stakeholders involved in the buying center, the features of the chatbot users are more diverse but obfuscated at the same time. Using a factorial survey, this study further examines the customer acceptance of varying situations of B2B chatbot designs based on the chatbot variables transparency, fault tolerance, complexity of products, value of products, as well as transfer to live chat service employees. The findings show that all variables influence the propensity to use the chatbot. The results contribute to a better understanding of how firms in B2B industries can design chatbots to advance their customer service and enhance customer satisfaction.

Keywords: chatbots, technology acceptance, B2B customer service, customer satisfaction

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Authors: Isabel Mousinho de Figueiredo

Abstract:

Traditionally it was held that the king can do no wrong. History has proved otherwise, and both the rule of law and the open society call for a diversification of checks and balances, including civil liability in tort. Most jurisdictions are right to fear the excessive cost of such liability for the innocent taxpayer. There are notwithstanding extreme instances where refusing compensation is perceived to be outrageous. Many public bodies end up handing out on a voluntary basis, which leaves room to question its legality and merit. Instead, some criteria can shed light on the fairness of an underlying rationale of such compensation and cordon it off within reasonable limits.

Keywords: comparative law, liability of legislators, public bodies, tort law

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Authors: Sammar Zain Allam

Abstract:

Smart Growth, intelligent cities, and healthy cities cited by WHO world health organization; they all call for clean air and minimizing air pollutants considering human health. Air quality is a thriving matter to achieve ecological cities; towards sustainable environmental development of urban fabric design. Selection criteria depends on the strategic location of our area as it is located at the entry of the city of Alexandria from its agricultural road. Besides, it represents the city center for retail, business, and educational amenities. Our study is analyzing readings of definite factors affecting air quality in a centric area in Alexandria. Our readings will be compared to standard measures of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, suspended particles, and air velocity or air flow. Carbon emissions are pondered in our study, in addition to suspended particles and the air velocity or air flow. Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide crystalize the main elements to necessitate environmental and sustainable studies with the appearance of global warming and the glass house effect. Nevertheless, particulate matters are increasing causing breath issues especially to children and elder people; still threatening future generations to meet their own needs; sustainable development definition. Analysis of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, suspended particles together with air velocity or air flow has taken place in our area of study to manifest the relationship between these elements and the urban fabric design and land use distribution. For conclusion, dense urban fabric affecting air flow, and thus result in the concentration of air pollutants in certain zones. The appearance of open space with green areas allow the fading of air pollutants and help in their absorption. Along with dense urban fabric, high rise buildings trap air carriers which contribute to high readings of our elements. Also, street design may facilitate the circulation of air which helps carrying these pollutant away and distribute it to a wider space which decreases its harms and effects.

Keywords: carbon emissions, air quality measurements, arteries air quality, airflow or air velocity, particulate matter, clean air, urban density

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Authors: P. Praveen Kumar, P. Vimal Prabhu, Renu John

Abstract:

In biology most microscopy specimens, in particular living cells are transparent. In cell imaging, it is hard to create an image of a cell which is transparent with a very small refractive index change with respect to the surrounding media. Various techniques like addition of staining and contrast agents, markers have been applied in the past for creating contrast. Many of the staining agents or markers are not applicable to live cell imaging as they are toxic. In this paper, we report theoretical and experimental results from quantitative phase imaging of yeast cells with a commercial bright field microscope. We reconstruct the phase of cells non-interferometrically based on the transport of intensity equations (TIE). This technique estimates the axial derivative from positive through-focus intensity measurements. This technique allows phase imaging using a regular microscope with white light illumination. We demonstrate nano-metric depth sensitivity in imaging live yeast cells using this technique. Experimental results will be shown in the paper demonstrating the capability of the technique in 3-D volume estimation of living cells. This real-time imaging technique would be highly promising in real-time digital pathology applications, screening of pathogens and staging of diseases like malaria as it does not need any pre-processing of samples.

Keywords: axial derivative, non-interferometric imaging, quantitative phase imaging, transport of intensity equation

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Authors: Nalanda Roy

Abstract:

The project will offer a fresh and critical perspective into the Tokyo Trial judgment led by the Indian Jurist Dr. Radha Binod Pal. The project will focus on the Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) methodology to examine the relevance of international law from the post-colonial perspectives. The project will analyze Pal’s dissenting arguments from a new and comparative perspective, apply for work from other disciplines, and create an understanding of the significance of the historic judgment considering its contemporary relevance, and fill in the gaps that exist in the call for global justice.

Keywords: Tokyo trial, third world, judgment, international law

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Authors: Dchieche Amina, Aboulaich Rajae

Abstract:

In this work, we will modelize Waad Bil Mourabaha contract. This islamic contract provides the right to buy goods at a future date with a Mourabaha. Waad is a promise of sale or purchase of goods, declared in a unilateral way. In spite of the divergence between some schools of Islamic law about the Waad, this contract will allow us to study sophisticated and interesting contract: Waad Bil Mourabaha that can be used for hedging. In order to price Waad Bil Mourabaha contract, we will use an adapted Black and Scholes model using the Shariah compliant assumptions.

Keywords: Islamic finance, Black-Scholes model, call option, risks, hedging

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Authors: Nhleko Monique Chiloane

Abstract:

The gold mining industry has predominantly used ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) explosives for decades, although these are known to be “gassier” and their detonation results in toxic fumes, for example, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia. Re-entry into underground workings too soon after blasting can lead to fatal exposure to toxic fumes. It is, therefore, required that the polluted air be removed from the affected areas within a reasonable period before employees' re-entry into the working area. Post-blast re-entry times have therefore been described as a productivity bottleneck. The known causes of post-blast fumes are water ingress, incorrect fuel to oxygen ratio, confinement, explosive additives etc. To prevent or minimize post-blast fumes, some researchers have used neutralization, re-burning technique and non-explosive products or different oxidizing agents. The use of commercial explosives without nitrate oxidizing agents can also minimize the production of blasting fumes and thereby reduce the time needed for the clearance of these fumes to allow workers to re-enter the underground workings safely. The reduction in non-production time directly contributes to an increase in the available time per shift for productive work, thus leading to continuous mining. However, owing to its low cost and ease of use, ANFO is still widely used in South African underground blasting operations.

Keywords: post-blast fumes, continuous mining, ammonium nitrate explosive, non-explosive blasting, re-entry period

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Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Ying-Chuan Chen, Yu-Ching Lin

Abstract:

There has been renewal of interest in the relation between Green IT and cloud computing in recent years. Cloud computing has to be a highly elastic environment which provides stable services to users. The growing use of cloud computing facilities has caused marked energy consumption, putting negative pressure on electricity cost of computing center or data center. Each year more and more network devices, storages and computers are purchased and put to use, but it is not just the number of computers that is driving energy consumption upward. We could foresee that the power consumption of cloud computing facilities will double, triple, or even more in the next decade. This paper aims at resource allocation and scheduling technologies that are short of or have not well developed yet to reduce energy utilization in cloud computing platform. In particular, our approach relies on recalling services dynamically onto appropriate amount of the machines according to user’s requirement and temporarily shutting down the machines after finish in order to conserve energy. We present initial work on integration of resource and power management system that focuses on reducing power consumption such that they suffice for meeting the minimizing quality of service required by the cloud computing platform.

Keywords: cloud computing, energy utilization, power consumption, resource allocation

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Authors: Luis A. Lizama-Perez, Manuel J. Linares, Mauricio Lopez

Abstract:

We introduce a method to perform remote user authentication on what we call non-invertible cryptography. It exploits the fact that the multiplication of an invertible integer and a non-invertible integer in a ring Zn produces a non-invertible integer making infeasible to compute factorization. The protocol requires the smallest key size when is compared with the main public key algorithms as Diffie-Hellman, Rivest-Shamir-Adleman or Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Since we found that the unique opportunity for the eavesdropper is to mount an exhaustive search on the keys, the protocol seems to be post-quantum.

Keywords: invertible, non-invertible, ring, key transfer

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