Search results for: development health information systems

Authors: Amirreza Karami, Hawraa Nafea Hameed Alzouwain, Freddie A. Bowles

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This study investigates the effects of watching text-relevant video segments with/without subtitles on vocabulary development of Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) learners. The participants of the study were assigned to two groups: one control group and one experimental group. The control group received no video-based instruction while the experimental group watched a text-relevant video segment in three stages: pre, while, and post-instruction. The preliminary results of the pre-test and post-test show that watching text-relevant video segments through following a pre-while-post procedure can help the vocabulary development of AFL learners more than non-video-based instruction.

Keywords: text-relevant video segments, vocabulary development, Arabic as a Foreign Language, AFL, pre-while-post instruction

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Authors: Mohamed Faslan

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This paper describes how caste-based differentiation functions among the Southern Muslims of Sri Lanka despite Islamic egalitarian principles. Such differences are not promoted by religious teachings, mosques, or the various Islamic religious denominations. Instead, it underpins a hereditary, hierarchical stratification in social structure. Since Islam is against social stratification and promotes egalitarianism, what are the persuasive social structures that organize the existing caste system among Southern Muslims? To answer this puzzle, this paper discusses and analyses the caste system under these five subsections: ancestry; marriage; geography; mosque ownership or trustees; and occupation. The study of caste in Sri Lanka is generally compartmentalized into separate Sinhala and Tamil systems. Most caste studies have focused on the characteristics, upward mobility, or discrimination of specific castes in relation to other castes within ethnic systems. As an operational definition, in this paper, by “southern” or the south of Sri Lanka, I refer to the Kalutara, Galle and Matara Districts. This research was conducted in these three districts, and the respondents were selected purposively. Community history interviews were used as a tool for collecting information, and grounded theory used for analysis. Caste stratification among the Southern Muslims of Sri Lanka is directly connected to whether they are descended from Arab or South Indian ancestors. Arab ancestors are considered upper caste and South Indian ancestors are considered lower caste. Endogamy is the most serious driving factor keeping caste system functioning among Muslims while the other factors—geography, mosques, and occupations—work as supporting factors.

Keywords: caste, social stratification, Sri Lanka Muslims, endogamy

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Authors: Geetha Baskaran, Andrzej Barjiela, Rong Qu

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Motivation: Nurse scheduling is a complex combinatorial optimization problem. It is also known as NP-hard. It needs an efficient re-scheduling to minimize some trade-off of the measures of violation by reducing selected constraints to soft constraints with measurements of their violations. Problem Statement: In this paper, we extend our novel approach to solve the nurse scheduling problem by transforming it through Information Granulation. Approach: This approach satisfies the rules of a typical hospital environment based on a standard benchmark problem. Generating good work schedules has a great influence on nurses' working conditions which are strongly related to the level of a quality health care. Domain transformation that combines the strengths of operation research and artificial intelligence was proposed for the solution of the problem. Compared to conventional methods, our approach involves judicious grouping (information granulation) of shifts types’ that transforms the original problem into a smaller solution domain. Later these schedules from the smaller problem domain are converted back into the original problem domain by taking into account the constraints that could not be represented in the smaller domain. An Integer Programming (IP) package is used to solve the transformed scheduling problem by expending the branch and bound algorithm. We have used the GNU Octave for Windows to solve this problem. Results: The scheduling problem has been solved in the proposed formalism resulting in a high quality schedule. Conclusion: Domain transformation represents departure from a conventional one-shift-at-a-time scheduling approach. It offers an advantage of efficient and easily understandable solutions as well as offering deterministic reproducibility of the results. We note, however, that it does not guarantee the global optimum.

Keywords: domain transformation, nurse scheduling, information granulation, artificial intelligence, simulation

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Authors: Katherine O'Grady-Bray

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For some deaf children, reading books can be a challenge. Frank Barnes School (FBS) provides guided reading time with Teachers of the Deaf, in which they read books with deaf children using a bilingual approach. The vocabulary and context of the story is explained to deaf children in BSL so they develop skills bridging English and BSL languages. However, the success of this practice is only achieved if the person is fluent in both languages. FBS piloted a scheme to convert an Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) book into an e-book that can be read using tablets. Deaf readers at FBS have access to both languages (BSL and English) during lessons and outside the classroom. The pupils receive guided reading sessions with a Teacher of the Deaf every morning, these one to one sessions give pupils the opportunity to learn how to bridge both languages e.g. how to translate English to BSL and vice versa. Generally, due to our pupils’ lack of access to incidental learning, gaining new information about the world around them is limited. This highlights the importance of quality time to scaffold their language development. In some cases, there is a shortfall of parental support at home due to poor communication skills or an unawareness of how to interact with deaf children. Some families have a limited knowledge of sign language or simply don’t have the required learning environment and strategies needed for language development with deaf children. As the majority of our pupils’ preferred language is BSL we use that to teach reading and writing English. If this is not mirrored at home, there is limited opportunity for joint reading sessions. Development of the e-Book required planning and technical development. The overall production took time as video footage needed to be shot and then edited individually for each page. There were various technical considerations such as having an appropriate background colour so not to draw attention away from the signer. Appointing a signer with the required high level of BSL was essential. The language and pace of the sign language was an important consideration as it was required to match the age and reading level of the book. When translating English text to BSL, careful consideration was given to the nonlinear nature of BSL and the differences in language structure and syntax. The e-book was produced using Apple’s ‘iBook Author’ software which allowed video footage of the signer to be embedded on pages opposite the text and illustration. This enabled BSL translation of the content of the text and inferences of the story. An interpreter was used to directly ‘voice over’ the signer rather than the actual text. The aim behind the structure and layout of the e-book is to allow parents to ‘read’ with their deaf child which helps to develop both languages. From observations, the use of e-books has given pupils confidence and motivation with their reading, developing skills bridging both BSL and English languages and more effective reading time with parents.

Keywords: bilingual book, e-book, BSL and English, bilingual e-book

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Authors: B. Atli-Veltin, A. Vosteen, D. Megan, A. Jedynska, L. K. Cheng

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Composite materials combine the advantages of being lightweight and possessing high strength. This is in particular of interest for the development of large constructions, e.g., aircraft, space applications, wind turbines, etc. One of the shortcomings of using composite materials is the complex nature of the failure mechanisms which makes it difficult to predict the remaining lifetime. Therefore, condition and health monitoring are essential for using composite material for critical parts of a construction. Different types of sensors are used/developed to monitor composite structures. These include ultrasonic, thermography, shearography and fiber optic. The first 3 technologies are complex and mostly used for measurement in laboratory or during maintenance of the construction. Optical fiber sensor can be surface mounted or embedded in the composite construction to provide the unique advantage of in-operation measurement of mechanical strain and other parameters of interest. This is identified to be a promising technology for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) or Prognostic Health Monitoring (PHM) of composite constructions. Among the different fiber optic sensing technologies, Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensor is the most mature and widely used. FBG sensors can be realized in an array configuration with many FBGs in a single optical fiber. In the current project, different aspects of using embedded FBG for composite wind turbine monitoring are investigated. The activities are divided into two parts. Firstly, FBG embedded carbon composite laminate is subjected to tensile and bending loading to investigate the response of FBG which are placed in different orientations with respect to the fiber. Secondly, the demonstration of using FBG sensor array for temperature and strain sensing and monitoring of a 5 m long scale model of a glass fiber mono-pile is investigated. Two different FBG types are used; special in-house fibers and off-the-shelf ones. The results from the first part of the study are showing that the FBG sensors survive the conditions during the production of the laminate. The test results from the tensile and the bending experiments are indicating that the sensors successfully response to the change of strain. The measurements from the sensors will be correlated with the strain gauges that are placed on the surface of the laminates.

Keywords: Fiber Bragg Gratings, embedded sensors, health monitoring, wind turbine towers

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Authors: Alcardo Alex Barakabitze, Tan Xiaoheng

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Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a special case of Multi-Carrier Modulation (MCM) technique which transmits a stream of data over a number of lower data rate subcarriers. OFDM splits the total transmission bandwidth into a number of orthogonal and non-overlapping subcarriers and transmit the collection of bits called symbols in parallel using these subcarriers. This paper explores the Peak to Average Power Reduction (PAPR) using the Partial Transmit Sequence technique. We provide the distribution analysis and the basics of OFDM signals and then show how the PAPR increases as the number of subcarriers increases. We provide the performance analysis of CCDF and PAPR expressed in decibels through MATLAB simulations. The simulation results show that, in PTS technique, the performance of PAPR reduction in OFDM systems improves significantly as the number of sub-blocks increases. However, by keeping the same number of sub-blocks variation, oversampling factor and the number of OFDM blocks’ iteration for generating the CCDF, the OFDM systems with 128 subcarriers have an improved performance in PAPR reduction compared to OFDM systems with 256, 512 or >512 subcarriers.

Keywords: OFDM, peak to average power reduction (PAPR), bit error rate (BER), subcarriers, wireless communications

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Authors: Reza Sedaghati

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The use of Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) devices in a power system can potentially overcome limitations of the present mechanically controlled transmission system. Also, the advance of technology makes possible to include new energy storage devices in the electrical power system. The integration of Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) into Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM) can lead to increase their flexibility in improvement of power system dynamic behaviour by exchanging both active and reactive powers with power grids. This paper describes structure and behaviour of SMES, specifications and performance principles of the STATCOM/SMES compensator. Moreover, the benefits and effectiveness of integrated SMES with STATCOM in power systems is presented. Also, the performance of the STATCOM/SMES compensator is evaluated using an IEEE 3-bus system through the dynamic simulation by PSCAD/EMTDC software.

Keywords: STATCOM/SMES compensator, chopper, converter, energy storage system, power systems

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Authors: Getachew Belay, Getachew Kahsu, Brhane Berhe, Kebede Tesfay, Fitsum Mardu, Nigus Shishay, Hadush Negash, Aster Tsegaye

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Background: Malaria kills million people around the world, and it is still a serious public health problem in Ethiopia. Over the past years, the disease has been consistently reported as leading cause of outpatient visits, hospitalization and death in health facilities across the country. This study assessed malaria trend in Humera Town Kahsay Abera Hospital Tigrai region, Northern Ethiopia. Method: A Health facility retrospective cross sectional study was conducted in Kahsay Abera General Hospital from January 2011 to December 2019. Data of Malaria cases were reviewed from Health Management Information System with the help of experts in the office. The nine year data were extracted and analyzed using Excel by excluding those which lack demographic data. Result: A total of 36,604 smear positive malaria cases were confirmed in last nine years in the study area. Plasmodim falcifarum was the most prevalent reported species. Higher number of malaria cases were reported during October season.Males were more infected by the disese (63.1%) than females and males aged 15 years and above were the most iffected ones. The percentage proportion of P.falcifarum and P.vivax were 61.6% to 38.4%, respectively. There was a decreasing trend over the nine years following the peak in 2013. Conclusion: Malaria smear positivity, with highest cases being recorded in October, was declined over the nine years after peaking in 2013. Males aged 15 years and above were more affected, and P falciparum was the predominat species. Strengtheing the prevention and control activities is warranted in the study area.

Keywords: trend, malaria, kahsay abera general hospital, tigray, ethiopia

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Authors: Seetanah Boopen, Padachi Kesseven, R. Juwaheer , R. V. Sannassee, M. L. Lamport

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This study aims primarily at investigating the importance of soft infrastructure in tourism development for the case of an island economy namely Mauritius. The study in the first place assesses the level of perceived and actual satisfaction of the present state of the different types of soft tourism infrastructure and the allied services provided by tourism stakeholders in Mauritius and address the identified gaps. In order to address the study objectives, a rigorous survey analysis among 1741 international tourists at the departure lounge of the Sir Seewoosagur International Airport of Mauritius was carried out. The respondents placed significant emphasis on the different elements of the soft infrastructure dimension, where many of the elements falling under this dimension were rated with a high mean score. In particular the visitors rated communication, both internet and telephone services, and security to be most important. Significant gap has been found in the categories of ‘Health’ and ‘Security’. This indicates that the tourists ascribe high importance to the soft infrastructure dimension. The link between the respondent profile and the key variables which influence the tourist choice of the island as a destination are found to be equally important for most of the international tourists. However, these were deemed to be more critical for tourists travelling with family members. Although the survey instrument attempted to measure any gap between on the one hand, the importance of the infrastructure dimension and on the other hand, the level of satisfaction with the infrastructure dimension, overall the results do not show any statistically significant gap among the different elements of the infrastructural dimension. The study dwells into further analysis by engaging into an econometric framework related to a Probit Model, using the data collected, to gauge the effect of soft infrastructure on tourist intention to repeat or recommend the destination. The results confirm that soft infrastructure is found to be sensible to tourists, although relatively less sensitive as compared to tourism and transport and hotel infrastructure.

Keywords: tourism development, soft infrastructure, Mauritius, hotel infrastructure

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Authors: P. Valdez, M. Pelissero, A. Haim, F. Muiño, F. Galia, R. Tula

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As a result of the studies performed on the wave energy resource worldwide, a research project was set up to harvest wave energy for its conversion into electrical energy. Within this framework, a theoretical model of the electromechanical energy harvesting system, developed with MATLAB’s Simulink software, will be provided. This tool recreates the site conditions where the device will be installed and offers valuable information about the amount of energy that can be harnessed. This research provides a deeper understanding of the utilization of wave energy in order to improve the efficiency of a 1:1 scale prototype of the device.

Keywords: electromechanical device, modeling, renewable energy, sea wave energy, simulation

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Authors: Sarchil H. Qader, Andrew Harfoot, Mathias Kuepie, Sabrina Juran, Attila Lazar, Andrew J. Tatem

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The need for high-quality, reliable, and timely population data, including demographic information, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in all countries was recognized by the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. However, many low and middle-income countries lack reliable and recent census data. To achieve reliable and accurate census and survey outputs, up-to-date census enumeration areas and digital national sampling frames are critical. Census enumeration areas (EAs) are the smallest geographic units for collection, disseminating, and analyzing census data and are often used as a national sampling frame to serve various socio-economic surveys. Even for countries that are wealthy and stable, creating and updating EAs is a difficult yet crucial step in preparing for a national census. Such a process is commonly done manually, either by digitizing small geographic units on high-resolution satellite imagery or walking the boundaries of units, both of which are extremely expensive. We have developed a user-friendly tool that could be employed to generate draft EA boundaries automatically. The tool is based on high-resolution gridded population and settlement datasets, GPS household locations, building footprints and uses publicly available natural, man-made and administrative boundaries. Initial outputs were produced in Burkina Faso, Paraguay, Somalia, Togo, Niger, Guinea, and Zimbabwe. The results indicate that the EAs are in line with international standards, including boundaries that are easily identifiable and follow ground features, have no overlaps, are compact and free of pockets and disjoints, and the boundaries are nested within administrative boundaries.

Keywords: enumeration areas, national sampling frame, gridded population data, preEA tool

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Authors: Byeongju Choi, Sanggil Lee, Kyung-Eun Lee

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Introduction: In the republic of Korea, the number of workers in the beauty industry has been increasing. Because the prevalence of hepatitis B carriers in Korea is higher than in other countries, the risk of blood-borne infection including viral hepatitis B and C, among the workers by using the sharp and contaminated instruments during procedure can be expected among beauty salon workers. However, the health care policies for the workers to prevent the blood-borne infection are not established due to the lack of evidences. Moreover, the workers in hair and nail salon were mostly employed at small businesses, where national mandatory systems or policies for workers’ health management are not applied. In this study, the risk of the viral hepatitis B and C from the job experiencing the hair and nail procedures in the mortality was assessed. Method: We conducted a retrospective review of the job histories and causes of death in the female deaths from 2006-2016. 132,744 of female deaths who had one more job experiences during their lifetime were included in this study. Job histories were assessed using the employment insurance database in Korea Employment Information Service (KEIS) and the causes of death were in death statistics produced by Statistics Korea. Case group (n= 666) who died from viral hepatitis was classified the death having record involved in ‘B15-B19’ as a cause of deaths based on Korean Standard Classification of Diseases(KCD) with the deaths from other causes, control group (n=132,078). The group of the workers in the beauty service industry were defined as the employees who had ever worked in the industry coded as ‘9611’ based on Korea Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) and others were others. Other than job histories, birth year, marital status, education level were investigated from the death statistics. Multiple logistic regression analysis were used to assess the risk of deaths from viral hepatitis in the case and control group. Result: The number of the deaths having ever job experiences at the hair and nail salon was 255. After adjusting confounders of age, marital status and education, the odds ratio(OR) for deaths from viral hepatitis was quite high in the group having experiences with working in the beauty service industry with 3.14(95% confidence interval(CI) 1.00-9.87). Other associated factors with increasing the risk of deaths from viral hepatitis were low education level(OR=1.34, 95% CI 1.04-1.73), married women (OR=1.42, 95% CI 1.02-1.97). Conclusion: The risk of deaths from viral hepatitis were high in the workers in the beauty service industry but not statistically significant, which might attributed from the small number of workers in beauty service industry. It was likely that the number of workers in beauty service industry could be underestimated due to their temporary job position. Further studies evaluating the status and the incidence of viral infection among the workers with consideration of the vertical transmission would be required.

Keywords: beauty service, viral hepatitis, blood-borne infection, viral infection

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Authors: Syed Khurram Mahmud, Athar Naveed, Shoaib Arif

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Beamforming is a signal processing technique extensively utilized in wireless communications and radars for desired signal intensification and interference signal minimization through spatial selectivity. In this paper, we present a method for calculation of optimal weight vectors for smart antenna array, to achieve a directive pattern during transmission and selective reception in interference prone environment. In proposed scheme, Mutual Information (MI) extrema are evaluated through an energy constrained objective function, which is based on a-priori information of interference source and desired array factor. Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) performance is evaluated for both transmission and reception. In our scheme, MI is presented as an index to identify trade-off between information gain, SINR, illumination time and spatial selectivity in an energy constrained optimization problem. The employed method yields lesser computational complexity, which is presented through comparative analysis with conventional methods in vogue. MI based beamforming offers enhancement of signal integrity in degraded environment while reducing computational intricacy and correlating key performance indicators.

Keywords: beamforming, interference, mutual information, wireless communications

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Authors: Steven Sam, Ximena Schmidt, Hugh Dickinson, Jens Jensen

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The goal of this study is to explore the potential of data science and citizen science approaches to develop an interactive, digital, open infrastructure that pulls together African indigenous agriculture and food systems data from multiple sources, making it accessible and reusable for policy, research and practice in modern food production efforts. The World Bank has recognised that African Indigenous Knowledge (AIK) is innovative and unique among local and subsistent smallholder farmers, and it is central to sustainable food production and enhancing biodiversity and natural resources in many poor, rural societies. AIK refers to tacit knowledge held in different languages, cultures and skills passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. AIK is a key driver of food production, preservation, and consumption for more than 80% of citizens in Africa, and can therefore assist modern efforts of reducing food insecurity and hunger. However, the documentation and dissemination of AIK remain a big challenge confronting librarians and other information professionals in Africa, and there is a risk of losing AIK owing to urban migration, modernisation, land grabbing, and the emergence of relatively small-scale commercial farming businesses. There is also a clear disconnect between the AIK and scientific knowledge and modern efforts for sustainable food production. The study combines data science and citizen science approaches through active community participation to generate and share AIK for facilitating learning and promoting knowledge that is relevant for policy intervention and sustainable food production through a curated digital platform based on FAIR principles. The study adopts key informant interviews along with participatory photo and video elicitation approach, where farmers are given digital devices (mobile phones) to record and document their every practice involving agriculture, food production, processing, and consumption by traditional means. Data collected are analysed using the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council’s proven methodology of citizen science (Zooniverse) and data science. Outcomes are presented in participatory stakeholder workshops, where the researchers outline plans for creating the platform and developing the knowledge sharing standard framework and copyrights agreement. Overall, the study shows that learning from AIK, by investigating what local communities know and have, can improve understanding of food production and consumption, in particular in times of stress or shocks affecting the food systems and communities. Thus, the platform can be useful for local populations, research, and policy-makers, and it could lead to transformative innovation in the food system, creating a fundamental shift in the way the North supports sustainable, modern food production efforts in Africa.

Keywords: Africa indigenous agriculture knowledge, citizen science, data science, sustainable food production, traditional food system

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Authors: Kaoutar Chbihi, Aziza Menouni, Imane Berni, Tarik Abchouch, Samir El Jaafari

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The unpredictability and ambiguity of a pandemic, combined with the economic impact, sedentary lifestyle, and increased living cost, have the potential to seriously raise the risk of mental health issues among the population. Therefore, this study had the aim to assess the magnitude of mental health outcomes and risk factors among the general population in Morocco in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study consisted of a cross-sectional design and was survey-based and region-stratified by collecting demographic data and mental health measurements from 523 participants. The degree of depression, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms were assessed by using the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the 7-items Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The survey was completed by 523 individuals. Results showed that 67.9% were women, and 58.6% were aged 18-30 years. 49% of participants reported depression issues, while 39.8% experienced anxiety. Being a married woman with children was associated with severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. Finally, our findings reported a significant mental health burden among the general population of Morocco, which needs to be tackled by specific co-created interventions and adapted strategies in order to prevent impacts on public health.

Keywords: anxiety, COVID-19, depression, mental health, Morocco, pandemic

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Authors: Yang Xiong, Hua Cheng

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In this paper, for the basic problem of wireless sensor network topology control and deployment, the Roesser model in rectangular grid sensor networks is presented. In addition, a general constructive realization procedure will be proposed. The procedure enables a distributed implementation of linear systems on a sensor network. A non-trivial example is illustrated.

Keywords: grid sensor networks, Roesser model, state-space realization, multidimensional systems

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Authors: Agburuga Obi, Madumere Akuego Jane

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This paper explores the important role sports can play in the promotion of good health and prevention of diseases. Technological advancements in today’s world has come along with some difficulties to man. This is because work formally done by man has been taken over by machines, thus, man has become sedentary. This has created a lot of health problems to man such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, obesity, and osteoporosis. To nip this ugly situation in the bud, the following recommendations are made: specific measures should be taken to raise the awareness within the government, key sectors and the population of the diverse benefits or physical activity and sports and the risk and costs of inactivity, provision of equipment, facilities for sports and recreational activities in every community, participation in physical activities in sports if not on daily basis at least thrice a week.

Keywords: physical activities, sport, good health, prevention, diseases

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Authors: Jane Killough

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A podcast series was developed to support learning amongst first-year undergraduate mental health nursing students. Many first-year students do not have any clinical experience and find it difficult to engage with theory, which can present as cumbersome. Further, it can be challenging to relate abstract concepts to everyday mental health practice. Mental health professionals and service users from practice were interviewed on a range of core topics that are key to year one learning. The podcasts were made available, and students could access these recordings at their convenience to fit in with busy daily routines. The aim was to enable meaningful learning by providing access to those who have lived experience and who can, in effect, bring to life the theory being taught in university and essentially bridge the theory and practice gap while fostering working relationships between practice and academics. The student experience will be evaluated using a logic model.

Keywords: education, mental health nursing students, podcast, practice, undergraduate

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Authors: Van Trieu, Shouhuai Xu, Yusheng Feng

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Tracking attack trajectories can be difficult, with limited information about the nature of the attack. Even more difficult as attack information is collected by Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) due to the current IDSs having some limitations in identifying malicious and anomalous traffic. Moreover, IDSs only point out the suspicious events but do not show how the events relate to each other or which event possibly cause the other event to happen. Because of this, it is important to investigate new methods capable of performing the tracking of attack trajectories task quickly with less attack information and dependency on IDSs, in order to prioritize actions during incident responses. This paper proposes a two-level graph causality framework for tracking attack trajectories in internet networks by leveraging observable malicious behaviors to detect what is the most probable attack events that can cause another event to occur in the system. Technically, given the time series of malicious events, the framework extracts events with useful features, such as attack time and port number, to apply to the conditional independent tests to detect the relationship between attack events. Using the academic datasets collected by IDSs, experimental results show that the framework can quickly detect the causal pairs that offer meaningful insights into the nature of the internet network, given only reasonable restrictions on network size and structure. Without the framework’s guidance, these insights would not be able to discover by the existing tools, such as IDSs. It would cost expert human analysts a significant time if possible. The computational results from the proposed two-level graph network model reveal the obvious pattern and trends. In fact, more than 85% of causal pairs have the average time difference between the causal and effect events in both computed and observed data within 5 minutes. This result can be used as a preventive measure against future attacks. Although the forecast may be short, from 0.24 seconds to 5 minutes, it is long enough to be used to design a prevention protocol to block those attacks.

Keywords: causality, multilevel graph, cyber-attacks, prediction

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Authors: Panagiotis Kyratsis, Konstantinos Kakoulis

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Nowadays, the rapid development of CAD systems’ programming environments results in the creation of multiple downstream applications, which are developed and becoming increasingly available. CAD based manufacturing simulations is gradually following the same trend. Drilling is the most popular hole-making process used in a variety of industries. A specially built piece of software that deals with the drilling kinematics is presented. The cutting forces are calculated based on the tool geometry, the cutting conditions and the tool/work piece materials. The results are verified by experimental work. Finally, the response surface methodology (RSM) is applied and mathematical models of the total thrust force and the thrust force developed because of the main cutting edges are proposed.

Keywords: CAD, application programming interface, response surface methodology, drilling, RSM

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Authors: Chonlawit Yuwajitaa, Suttipong Pruangkab

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Existing situation on labour use, health management and problems, and ancillary work done along with buffalo farming in Thailand was studied, There were 52 farms had been interviewed during August to September 2014. The study revealed that 100 percent of labor use was family labors themselves and all of farmers reared their buffaloes and grew rice simultaneously. The farmers valued veterinary service and advice as the most important problem (40.40%) and buffalo farming health problems was found 7.69% of dystocia, retain placenta and abortion. The major problem that should be taken into account was officials involved and buffalo farming should be continually promoted by government sectors to help solving economic problems as a whole.

Keywords: buffalo, labor use, health management, Thailand

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Authors: Nuzhat Sharmin

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Human being is the most integral part of the nature and responsible for maintaining ecological balance both in rural and urban areas. But unfortunately, we are not doing our job with a holistic approach. The rapid growth of urbanization is making human life more isolated from greenery. Nowadays modern urban living involves sensory deprivation and overloaded stress. In many cities and towns of the world are expanding unabated in the name of urbanization and industrialization and in fact becoming jungles of concrete. Dhaka is one of the examples of such cities where open and green spaces are decreasing because of accommodating the overflow of population. This review paper has been prepared based on interviewing 30 teenagers, both male and female in Dhaka city. There were 12 open-ended questions in the questionnaire. For the literature review information had been gathered from scholarly papers published in various peer-reviewed journals. Some information was collected from the newspapers and some from fellow colleagues working around the world. Ideally about 25% of an urban area should be kept open or with parks, fields and/or plants and vegetation. But currently Dhaka has only about 10-12% open space and these also are being filled up rapidly. Old Dhaka has only about 5% open space while the new Dhaka has about 12%. Dhaka is now one of the most populated cities in the world. Accommodating this huge influx of people Dhaka is continuously losing its open space. As a result, children and teenagers are losing their interest in playing games and making friends, rather they are mostly occupied by television, gadgets and social media. It has been known from the interview that only 28% of teenagers regularly play. But the majority of them have to play on the street and rooftop for the lack of open space. On an average they are occupied with electronic devices for 8.3 hours/day. 64% of them has chronic diseases and often visit doctors. Most shockingly 35% of them claimed for not having any friends. Green space offers relief from stress. Areas of natural environment in towns and cities are theoretically seen providing setting for recovery and recuperation from anxiety and strains of the urban environment. Good quality green spaces encourage people to walk, run, cycle and play. Green spaces improve air quality and reduce noise, while trees and shrubbery help to filter out dust and pollutants. Relaxation, contemplation and passive recreation are essential to stress management. All city governments that are losing its open spaces should immediately pay attention to this aesthetic issue for the benefit of urban people. All kinds of development must be sustainable both for human being and nature.

Keywords: greenery, health, human, urban

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Authors: Yountaik Leem, Sang Ho Lee

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In this paper, different goals and the ways to reach smart cities shown in many countries during planning and implementation processes will be discussed. Each country dealt with technologies which have been embedded into space as development of ICTs (information and communication technologies) for their own purposes and by their own ways. For example, European countries tried to adapt technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emission to overcome global warming while US-based global companies focused on the way of life using ICTs such as EasyLiving of Microsoft™ and CoolTown of Hewlett-Packard™ during last decade of 20th century. In the North-East Asian countries, urban space with ICTs were developed in large scale on the viewpoint of capitalism. Ubiquitous city, first introduced in Korea which named after Marc Weiser’s concept of ubiquitous computing pursued new urban development with advanced technologies and high-tech infrastructure including wired and wireless network. Japan has developed smart cities as comprehensive and technology intensive cities which will lead other industries of the nation in the future. Not only the goals and strategies but also new directions to which smart cities are oriented also suggested at the end of the paper. Like a Finnish smart community whose slogan is ‘one more hour a day for citizens,’ recent trend is forwarding everyday lives and cultures of human beings, not capital gains nor physical urban spaces.

Keywords: smart cities, urban strategy, future direction, comparative study

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Authors: Mohamed Abo El Nasr, Mohamed Shoeib, Abdelhamid Abdelkhalik, Amro Serag

Abstract:

Background: Early assessment of severity of chest trauma, either blunt or penetrating is of critical importance in prediction of patient outcome. Different trauma scoring systems are widely available and are based on anatomical or physiological parameters to expect patient morbidity or mortality. Up till now, there is no ideal, universally accepted trauma score that could be applied in all trauma centers and is suitable for assessment of severity of chest trauma patients. Aim: Our aim was to compare various trauma scoring systems regarding their predictability of morbidity and mortality in chest trauma patients. Patients and Methods: This study was a prospective study including 400 patients with chest trauma who were managed at Tanta University Emergency Hospital, Egypt during a period of 2 years (March 2014 until March 2016). The patients were divided into 2 groups according to the mode of trauma: blunt or penetrating. The collected data included age, sex, hemodynamic status on admission, intrathoracic injuries, and associated extra-thoracic injuries. The patients outcome including mortality, need of thoracotomy, need for ICU admission, need for mechanical ventilation, length of hospital stay and the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome were also recorded. The relevant data were used to calculate the following trauma scores: 1. Anatomical scores including abbreviated injury scale (AIS), Injury severity score (ISS), New injury severity score (NISS) and Chest wall injury scale (CWIS). 2. Physiological scores including revised trauma score (RTS), Acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHE II) score. 3. Combined score including Trauma and injury severity score (TRISS ) and 4. Chest-Specific score Thoracic trauma severity score (TTSS). All these scores were analyzed statistically to detect their sensitivity, specificity and compared regarding their predictive power of mortality and morbidity in blunt and penetrating chest trauma patients. Results: The incidence of mortality was 3.75% (15/400). Eleven patients (11/230) died in blunt chest trauma group, while (4/170) patients died in penetrating trauma group. The mortality rate increased more than three folds to reach 13% (13/100) in patients with severe chest trauma (ISS of >16). The physiological scores APACHE II and RTS had the highest predictive value for mortality in both blunt and penetrating chest injuries. The physiological score APACHE II followed by the combined score TRISS were more predictive for intensive care admission in penetrating injuries while RTS was more predictive in blunt trauma. Also, RTS had a higher predictive value for expectation of need for mechanical ventilation followed by the combined score TRISS. APACHE II score was more predictive for the need of thoracotomy in penetrating injuries and the Chest-Specific score TTSS was higher in blunt injuries. The anatomical score ISS and TTSS score were more predictive for prolonged hospital stay in penetrating and blunt injuries respectively. Conclusion: Trauma scores including physiological parameters have a higher predictive power for mortality in both blunt and penetrating chest trauma. They are more suitable for assessment of injury severity and prediction of patients outcome.

Keywords: chest trauma, trauma scores, blunt injuries, penetrating injuries

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Authors: Babak Qasemi-Panahi, Gholamali Moghaddam, Seyed-Abbas Rafat, Hossein Daghigh Kia, Mansoureh Movahedin, Reza Hadavi

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of IGF-I on ovine oocytes maturation and subsequent development of embryos derived from in vitro fertilization (IVF). In vitro maturation (IVM) of oocytes and in vitro culture (IVC) of embryos was conducted with or without 100 ng/mL IGF-1. In the IGF-I treated group, mean percentage of oocyte maturation was significantly higher than the control group (57.67 ± 3.04 versus 49.81 ± 3.04%, respectively, P < 0.05). However, in comparison with control group, there was no significant effect of IGF-1 on rates of cleavage, morula, and blastocyst formation (85% versus 84%; 63% versus 65%, and 40% to 39%, respectively). These data demonstrate that IGF-I has a positive effect on ovine oocyte maturation rate, but it has not the significant outcome on embryo development.

Keywords: ovine, IGF-I, IVM, ICSI

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Authors: Dušan Bojović, Wei Huang, Zdravko Stojanović, Jovan Ilić

Abstract:

In an era of ever-growing electricity generation from renewable energy sources, namely wind and solar, a need for reliable energy storage and intensive balancing of the electric power system gains significance. For decades, pump storage hydroelectric power plants have proven to be an important asset regarding the storage of generated electricity. However, with the increasing overall share of wind and solar in electric systems at large, the importance of electric grid stability keeps growing. A large pump storage project, the Bistrica Pump Storage Plant (PSP), is currently under development in Serbia. The Bistrica PSP will be designed as a 600+ MW power plant, which is envisaged as a significant contributor to the Serbian power grid stability as more and more renewable energy sources are implemented over time. PSP Bistrica is seen as a strategically important project on the green agenda path of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia as a necessary pre-condition for the safe implementation of other renewable energy sources. The importance of such a plant would also play an important role in reducing the electricity production from coal, i.e., thermoelectric power plants. During the project’s development, various techniques and technologies are evaluated for the purpose of determining the optimum (the most profitable) solution. Over the course of this paper, these technologies – such as frequency-regulated pump turbines and ternary sets will be presented, with a detailed explanation of their possible application within the Bistrica PSP project and their relative advantages/disadvantages in this particular case.

Keywords: hydraulic turbines, pumped storage, renewable energy, competing technologies

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Authors: Pranab Kumar Goswami

Abstract:

According to WHO, over 1000 million people worldwide are employed in small-scale industries. The ‘garment’ industry’ is one such industry in developing countries. These garment SMEs are mostly run by private establishments in the unorganized sector to avoid legal obligations of OSH provisions. The OSH standards are very poor and even basic health and safety provisions are not provided in such units. The study has been conducted in India among workers employed in the ‘garment’ industry with the objectives to analyze the types and extent of occupational health hazards of the garment workers and to assess the relationship of sociodemographic and occupational factors with various health hazards. The survey method, the tabular method followed by applying simple statistical technique, has been taken into account to analyze the data collected from three SME garment industries in Delhi (India-Asia). The study was conducted in Delhi from August-2019 to October-2020. A random sampling of 70 workers from three factories has been chosen for this study. The study shows that most of the workers were males (82%) and were in the 18-50 age group (78%), with none below 18 years of age. It was found that 26% of the workers were illiterate and most of them belonged to poor socioeconomic status. The study revealed that the nature of the hazards in garment industries in India is mostly physical and mechanical. We found that musculoskeletal problems (54%) were the commonest health problem. The body areas commonly affected were neck, low back, hand, wrist, finger, and shoulder. If garment workers’ health is affected by occupational hazards, it will impact on national health and economic growth of developing countries. Health is a joint responsibility of both government and employing authority.

Keywords: garment, MSD, health hazard, social factor

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Authors: Jean Paul M. Milambo

Abstract:

Purpose: Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are indicated in the treatment of hormone-receptive breast cancer in postmenopausal women in various settings. Studies have shown cardiovascular events in some developed countries. To date the data is sparce for evidence-based recommendations in African clinical settings due to lack of cancer registries, capacity building and surveillance systems. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the feasibility of HyBeacon® probe genotyping adjunctive to standard care for timely prediction and diagnosis of Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) associated adverse events in breast cancer survivors in Africa. Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted to assess the knowledge of POCT among six African countries using online survey and telephonically contacted. Incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) was calculated, using diagnostic accuracy study. This was based on mathematical modeling. Results: One hundred twenty-six participants were considered for analysis (mean age = 61 years; SD = 7.11 years; 95%CI: 60-62 years). Comparison of genotyping from HyBeacon® probe technology to Sanger sequencing showed that sensitivity was reported at 99% (95% CI: 94.55% to 99.97%), specificity at 89.44% (95% CI: 87.25 to 91.38%), PPV at 51% (95%: 43.77 to 58.26%), and NPV at 99.88% (95% CI: 99.31 to 100.00%). Based on the mathematical model, the assumptions revealed that ICER was R7 044.55. Conclusion: POCT using HyBeacon® probe genotyping for AI-associated adverse events maybe cost effective in many African clinical settings. Integration of preventive measures for early detection and prevention guided by different subtype of breast cancer diagnosis with specific clinical, biomedical and genetic screenings may improve cancer survivorship. Feasibility of POCT was demonstrated but the implementation could be achieved by improving the integration of POCT within primary health cares, referral cancer hospitals with capacity building activities at different level of health systems. This finding is pertinent for a future envisioned implementation and global scale-up of POCT-based initiative as part of risk communication strategies with clear management pathways.

Keywords: breast cancer, diagnosis, point of care, South Africa, aromatase inhibitors

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Authors: Regina Kulugomba, Richard Blanchard, Harold Mapoma, Gregory Gamula, Stanley Mlatho

Abstract:

Malawi is a country with low energy access with only 10% of people having access to electricity and 97% of people relying on charcoal and fuel wood. The over dependence on the traditional biomass has brought in a number of negative consequences on people’s health and the environment. To curb the situation, the Government of Malawi (GoM), through its national policy of 2018 and charcoal strategies of 2007, identified biogas as a suitable alternative energy source for cooking. The GoM intends to construct tubular digesters across the country and one of the most crucial factors is the availability of livestock manure. The study was conducted to assess biogas potential from livestock manure by using Quantum Geographic information system (QGIS) software. Potential methane was calculated based on the population of livestock, amount of manure produced per capita and year, total solids, biogas yield and availability coefficient. The results of the study estimated biogas potential at 687 million m3 /year. Districts identified with highest biogas potential were Lilongwe, Ntcheu, Mangochi, Neno, Mwanza, Blantyre, Chiradzulu and Mulanje. The information will help investors and the Government of Malawi to locate potential sites for biogas plants installation.

Keywords: biogas, energy, feedstock, livestock

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Authors: Mohsen Rezaei Aghdam

Abstract:

Recombinant DNA technology has meaningfully augmented the conventional crop improvement and has a great possibility to contribution plant breeders to encounter the augmented food request foretold for the 21st century. Predictable changes in weather and its erraticism, chiefly extreme fevers and vicissitudes in rainfall are expected to brand crop upgrading even more vital for food manufacture. Tissue attitude has been downtrodden to create genetic erraticism from which harvest plants can be better, to improve the state of health of the recognized physical and to upsurge the number of wanted germplasms obtainable to the plant breeder. This appraisal delivers an impression of the chances obtainable by the integration of vegetable biotechnology into plant development efforts and increases some of the social subjects that need to be considered in their application. Public-private companies offer chances to catalyze new approaches and investment while accelerating integrated research and development and commercial supply chain-based solutions. Novel varieties derivative by encouraged mutatgenesis are used commonly: rice in Thailand. These paper combinations obtainable data about the influence of change breeding-derived crop changes around the world, traveler magnetism the possibility of mutation upbringing as a flexible and feasible approach appropriate to any crop if that suitable objectives and selection approaches are used.

Keywords: crop, improve, genetic, agricultural

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