Search results for: traditional media

Authors: Thomas Trouton, Sebastian Tanner, Manvir Sandher

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The use of simulation in undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula is ever-growing, is a useful addition to the traditional apprenticeship model of learning within medical education, and better prepares graduates for the team-based approach to healthcare seen in real-life clinical practice. As a learning tool, however, undergraduate medical students often have little understanding of the theory behind the use of medical simulation and have little experience in planning and delivering their own simulated teaching sessions. We designed and implemented a student-selected component (SSC) as part of the undergraduate medical curriculum at the University of Buckingham Medical School to introduce students to the concepts behind the use of medical simulation in education and allow them to plan and deliver their own simulated medical scenario to their peers. The SSC took place over a 2-week period in the 3rd year of the undergraduate course. There was a mix of lectures, seminars and interactive group work sessions, as well as hands-on experience in the simulation suite, to introduce key concepts related to medical simulation, including technical considerations in simulation, human factors, debriefing and troubleshooting scenarios. We evaluated the success of our SSC using “Net Promotor Scores” (NPS) to assess students’ confidence in planning and facilitating a simulation-based teaching session, as well as leading a debrief session. In all three domains, we showed an increase in the confidence of the students. We also showed an increase in confidence in the management of common medical emergencies as a result of the SSC. Overall, the students who chose our SSC had the opportunity to learn new skills in medical education, with a particular focus on the use of simulation-based teaching, and feedback highlighted that a number of students would take these skills forward in their own practice. We demonstrated an increase in confidence in several domains related to the use of medical simulation in education and have hopefully inspired a new generation of medical educators.

Keywords: simulation, SSC, teaching, medical students

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Authors: Anne Camille P. Balabag, Via B. Cabarda, Ruffa Mae Lomboy, Aira Joyce Nesus

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Nowadays, Filipinos seem to dominate the outsourcing industry, one factor that affects quality service is organization mismanagement. Traditionally, Filipino promotions are based on tenure rather than competence. Seniority refers to a superior rank that an employee holds in an industrial setting based on a position withheld in a company. Yet, seniority also holds the paradigm for Filipino family structures. With this, the researchers believe that Filipinos have a deeper take on seniority, which became the motivation for this study. The researchers wanted to contextualize the Filipino concept of seniority, the perception, and reactions of Filipino employees to its existence, and uncover their relevant experiences within the industrial setting. Following a phenomenological research design, data collected from ten (10) participants with various demographic backgrounds, chosen through purposive sampling, and interviewed utilizing a semi-structured interview and analyzed using thematic analysis revealed seven primary themes: (1) Reality of Tenureship and Competence, (2) Disparity in Age Influence, (3) Special Power of Seniority, (4) Seniority is Necessity, (5) The Filipino Organizational Values, (6) Art of Seniority in Human Resource, and (7) Confessions of the Inner Child. The findings suggest that seniority exists based on a ranking system created through human resource management and mirrored from traditional Filipino values. Also, the researchers identified three Filipino industrial values: respect, pakikipagkapwa-tao (treating others as a fellow human being), and utang na loob (debt of gratitude). Lastly, birth order was found to have direct and indirect effects on their conduct in an industrial context.

Keywords: organizational psychology, human resource management, filipino psychology, industrial values

Procedia PDF Downloads 83

Authors: Fathi Ali Swaid

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Soil salinization is one of the most hazardous phenomenons accelerating the land degradation processes. It either occurs naturally or is human-induced. High levels of soil salinity negatively affect crop growth and productivity leading land degradation ultimately. Thus, it is important to monitor and map soil salinity at an early stage to enact effective soil reclamation program that helps lessen or prevent future increase in soil salinity. Geophysical method has outperformed the traditional method for assessing soil salinity offering more informative and professional rapid assessment techniques for monitoring and mapping soil salinity. Soil sampling, EM38 and 2D conductivity imaging have been evaluated for their ability to delineate and map the level of salinity variations at Second Ponds Creek. The three methods have shown that the subsoil in the study area is saline. Salt variations were successfully observed under either method. However, EM38 reading and 2D inversion data show a clear spatial structure comparing to EC1:5 of soil samples in spite of that all soil samples, EM38 and 2D imaging were collected from the same location. Because EM38 readings and 2D imaging data are a weighted average of electrical soil conductance, it is more representative of soil properties than the soil samples method. The mapping of subsurface soil at the study area has been successful and the resistivity imaging has proven to be an advantage. The soil salinity analysis (EC1:5) correspond well to the true resistivity bringing together a good result of soil salinity. Soil salinity clearly indicated by previous investigation EM38 have been confirmed by the interpretation of the true resistivity at study area.

Keywords: 2D conductivity imaging, EM38 readings, soil salinization, true resistivity, urban salinity

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Authors: Semiarto Aji Purwanto, Sutji Shinto

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Over a quarter century, the idea of sustainable development has become a global discussion. In Indonesia, more than five decades since the development of the country took priority over any other matter, a discussion on the need of development is still an intriguing. Far from the enthusiasm of development programs run by the Indonesian government since 1967, the Dayak community in the interior of Kalimantan tropical forest was significantly abandoned from the changes. There were not many programs for the interior because the focus of development mostly was in Java island. Consequently, the Dayak live their life as shifting cultivator that has been practiced for centuries. Our ethnographic observation conducted in April-July 2016, found that today, they still maintain the knowledge and keeping the existence of local variety of rice. While in Java, these varieties have been replaced by more-productive-and-resistant-to-pest varieties, the Dayak still maintain more than 60s varieties. From the biodiversity’s perspective, it is a delightful news; while from the cultural perspective, the persistence of their custom regarding to the practice of traditional cultivation is fascinating as well. The local knowledge of agriculture is well conserved and practice daily. It is revealed that the resilience of those rice varieties is related to the local social structure since the distribution of each variety usually limited to the particular clans in the community. While experiencing the lack of programs for village development, the community has maintained the local leadership and its government structure at the village level. The paper will explore the effect of how a neglected area, which was disregarded by development program, sustains their culture and biodiversity. We would like to discuss the concept of sustainability whether it needed for the development programs, for the changes into a modern civilisation, or for the sake of the local to survive.

Keywords: sustainable development, local knowledge, rice, resilience, Kalimantan, Indonesia

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Authors: Siliang Luan, Zhongtai Jiang

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The risk of highway incidents is commonly recognized as a major concern for transportation authorities due to the hazardous consequences and negative influence. It is crucial to respond to these unpredictable events as soon as possible faced by emergency management decision makers. In this paper, we focus on path planning for emergency vehicles, one of the most significant processes to avoid congestion and reduce rescue time. A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming with Semi-Soft Time Windows Model (MIPSSTWM) is conducted to plan an optimal routing respectively considering the time consumption of arcs and nodes of the urban road network and the highway network, especially in developing countries with an enormous population. Here, the arcs indicate the road segments and the nodes include the intersections of the urban road network and the on-ramp and off-ramp of the highway networks. An attempt in this research has been made to develop a comprehensive and executive strategy for emergency vehicle routing in heavy traffic conditions. The proposed Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm is designed by imitating obligate brood parasitic behaviors of cuckoos and Lévy Flights (LF) to solve this hard and combinatorial problem. Using a Chinese city as our case study, the numerical results demonstrate the approach we applied in this paper outperforms the previous method without considering the nodes of the road network for a real-world situation. Meanwhile, the accuracy and validity of the CS algorithm also show better performances than the traditional algorithm.

Keywords: emergency vehicle, path planning, cs algorithm, urban traffic management and urban planning

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Authors: Hu Ding, Kai Liu, Guoan Tang

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The Chinese Loess Plateau suffers from serious gully erosion induced by natural and human causes. Gully features detection including gully-affected area and its two dimension parameters (length, width, area et al.), is a significant task not only for researchers but also for policy-makers. This study aims at gully-affected area detection in three catchments of Chinese Loess Plateau, which were selected in Changwu, Ansai, and Suide by using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The methodology includes a sequence of UAV data generation, image segmentation, feature calculation and selection, and random forest classification. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influences of segmentation strategy and feature selection. Results showed that vertical and horizontal root-mean-square errors were below 0.5 and 0.2 m, respectively, which were ideal for the Loess Plateau region. The segmentation strategy adopted in this paper, which considers the topographic information, and optimal parameter combination can improve the segmentation results. Besides, the overall extraction accuracy in Changwu, Ansai, and Suide achieved was 84.62%, 86.46%, and 93.06%, respectively, which indicated that the proposed method for detecting gully-affected area is more objective and effective than traditional methods. This study demonstrated that UAV can bridge the gap between field measurement and satellite-based remote sensing, obtaining a balance in resolution and efficiency for catchment-scale gully erosion research.

Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), object-analysis image analysis, gully erosion, gully-affected area, Loess Plateau, random forest

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Authors: Tooraj Karimi, Mohammadreza Sadeghi Moghadam

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Grey set theory has the advantage of using fewer data to analyze many factors, and it is therefore more appropriate for system study rather than traditional statistical regression which require massive data, normal distribution in the data and few variant factors. So, in this paper grey clustering and entropy of coefficient vector of grey evaluations are used to analyze energy consumption in buildings of the Oil Ministry in Tehran. In fact, this article intends to analyze the results of energy audit reports and defines most favorable characteristics of system, which is energy consumption of buildings, and most favorable factors affecting these characteristics in order to modify and improve them. According to the results of the model, ‘the real Building Load Coefficient’ has been selected as the most important system characteristic and ‘uncontrolled area of the building’ has been diagnosed as the most favorable factor which has the greatest effect on energy consumption of building. Grey clustering in this study has been used for two purposes: First, all the variables of building relate to energy audit cluster in two main groups of indicators and the number of variables is reduced. Second, grey clustering with variable weights has been used to classify all buildings in three categories named ‘no standard deviation’, ‘low standard deviation’ and ‘non- standard’. Entropy of coefficient vector of Grey evaluations is calculated to investigate greyness of results. It shows that among the 38 buildings surveyed in terms of energy consumption, 3 cases are in standard group, 24 cases are in ‘low standard deviation’ group and 11 buildings are completely non-standard. In addition, clustering greyness of 13 buildings is less than 0.5 and average uncertainly of clustering results is 66%.

Keywords: energy audit, grey set theory, grey incidence matrixes, grey clustering, Iran oil ministry

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Authors: Siripen Yiamjanya, Kevin Wongleedee

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This research paper aims to identify travel motivation by push and pull factors that affected decision making of international tourists in selecting Thailand as their destination choice. A total of 200 international tourists who traveled to Thailand during January and February, 2014 were used as the sample in this study. A questionnaire was employed as a tool in collecting the data, conducted in Bangkok. The list consisted of 30 attributes representing both psychological factors as “push- based factors” and destination factors as “pull-based factors”. Mean and standard deviation were used in order to find the top ten travel motives that were important determinants in the respondents’ decision making process to select Thailand as their destination choice. The finding revealed the top ten travel motivations influencing international tourists to select Thailand as their destination choice included [i] getting experience in foreign land; [ii] Thai food; [iii] learning new culture; [iv] relaxing in foreign land; [v] wanting to learn new things; [vi] being interested in Thai culture, and traditional markets; [vii] escaping from same daily life; [viii] enjoying activities; [ix] adventure; and [x] good weather. Classification of push- based and pull- based motives suggested that getting experience in foreign land was the most important push motive for international tourists to travel, while Thai food portrayed its highest significance as pull motive. Discussion and suggestions were also made for tourism industry of Thailand.

Keywords: decision making, destination choice, international tourist, pull factor, push factor, Thailand, travel motivation

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Authors: Shady S. Hassan, Brijesh K. Tiwari, Gwilym A. Williams, Amit K. Jaiswal

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Waste materials from a wide range of agro-industrial processes may be used as substrates for microbial growth, and subsequently the production of a range of high value products and bioenergy. In addition, utilization of these agro-residues in bioprocesses has the dual advantage of providing alternative substrates, as well as solving their disposal problems. Spent coffee grounds (SCG) are a by-product (45%) of coffee processing. SCG is a lignocellulosic material, which is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicelluloses, and lignin. Thus, a pretreatment process is required to facilitate an efficient enzymatic hydrolysis of such carbohydrates. In this context, microwave pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass without the addition of harsh chemicals represents a green technology. Moreover, microwave treatment has a high heating efficiency and is easy to implement. Thus, microwave pretreatment of SCG without adding of harsh chemicals investigated as a green technology to enhance enzyme hydrolysis. In the present work, microwave pretreatment experiments were conducted on SCG at varying power levels (100, 250, 440, 600, and 1000 W) for 60 s. By increasing microwave power to a certain level (which vary by varying biomass), reducing sugar increases, then reducing sugar from biomass start to decrease with microwave power increase beyond this level. Microwave pretreatment of SCG at 60s followed by enzymatic hydrolysis resulted in total reducing sugars of 91.6 ± 7.0 mg/g of biomass (at microwave power of 100 w). Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was employed to investigate changes in functional groups of biomass after pretreatment, while high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was employed for determination of glucose. Pretreatment of lignocellulose using microwave was found to be an effective and energy efficient technology to improve saccharification and glucose yield. Energy performance will be evaluated for the microwave pretreatment, and the enzyme hydrolysate will be used as media component substitute for the production of ethanol and other high value products.

Keywords: lignocellulose, microwave, pretreatment, spent coffee grounds

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Authors: Marta Skwarecka, Patrycja Bloch, Rafal Walkusz, Oliwia Urbanowicz, Grzegorz Zielinski, Sabina Zoledowska, Dawid Nidzworski

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Upper respiratory tract infections are one of the most common reasons for visiting a general doctor. Streptococci are the most common bacterial etiological factors in these infections. There are many different types of Streptococci and infections vary in severity from mild throat infections to pneumonia. For example, S. pyogenes mainly contributes to acute pharyngitis, palatine tonsils and scarlet fever, whereas S. Streptococcus pneumoniae is responsible for several invasive diseases like sepsis, meningitis or pneumonia with high mortality and dangerous complications. There are only a few diagnostic tests designed for detection Streptococci from the infected throat of patients. However, they are mostly based on lateral flow techniques, and they are not used as a standard due to their low sensitivity. The diagnostic standard is to culture patients throat swab on semi selective media in order to multiply pure etiological agent of infection and subsequently to perform antibiogram, which takes several days from the patients visit in the clinic. Therefore, the aim of our studies is to develop and implement to the market a Point of Care device for the rapid identification of Streptococcus pyogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae with simultaneous identification of antibiotic resistance genes. In the course of our research, we successfully selected genes for to-species identification of Streptococci and genes encoding antibiotic resistance proteins. We have developed a reaction to amplify these genes, which allows detecting the presence of S. pyogenes or S. pneumoniae followed by testing their resistance to erythromycin, chloramphenicol and tetracycline. What is more, the detection of β-lactamase-encoding genes that could protect Streptococci against antibiotics from the ampicillin group, which are widely used in the treatment of this type of infection is also developed. The test is carried out directly from the patients' swab, and the results are available after 20 to 30 minutes after sample subjection, which could be performed during the medical visit.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, Streptococci, respiratory infections, diagnostic test

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Authors: Amita Jain, Shantanu Prakash, Suruchi Shukla

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Introduction: Acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) is a complex multi etiology syndrome posing a great public health problem in the northern part of India. Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus is an established etiology of AES in this region. Recently, Scrub typhus (ST) is being recognized as an emerging aetiology of AES in JE endemic belt. This study was conducted to establish the direct evidence of Central nervous system invasion by Orientia tsutsugamushi leading to AES. Methodology: A total of 849 cases with clinical diagnosis of AES were enrolled from six districts (Deoria and its adjoining area) of the traditional north Indian Japanese encephalitis (JE) belt. Serum and Cerebrospinal fluid samples were collected and tested for major agent causing acute encephalitis. AES cases either positive for anti-ST IgM antibodies or negative for all tested etiologies were investigated for ST-DNA by real-time PCR. Results: Of these 505 cases, 250 patients were laboratory confirmed for O. tsutsugamushi infection either by anti-ST IgM antibodies positivity (n=206) on serum sample or by ST-DNA detection by real-time PCR assay on CSF sample (n=2) or by both (n=42).Total 29 isolate could be sequenced for 56KDa gene. Conclusion: All the strains were found to cluster with Gilliam strains. The majority of the isolates showed a 97–99% sequence similarity with Thailand and Cambodian strains. Gilliam strain of O.tsusugamushi is an emerging as one of the major aetiologies leading to AES in northern part of India.

Keywords: acute encephalitis syndrome, O. tsutsugamushi, Gilliam strain, North India, cerebrospinal fluid

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Authors: Richard I. Licayan, Aisle Janne B. Dagpin, Romeo M. Del Rosario, Nenita D. Palmes

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Hiptage benghalensis, Antigonon leptopus, Macroptillium atropurpureum, and Dioscorea bulbifera L. are herbal weeds that have been used by traditional healers in rural communities in the Philippines as medicine. In this study, the basic pharmacological components of the crude secondary metabolites extracted from the four herbal weeds and their in vitro antioxidant properties was investigated to provide baseline data for the possible development of these metabolites in pharmaceutical products. Qualitative screening of the secondary metabolites showed that alkaloids, tannins, saponins, steroids, and flavonoids were present in their leaf extracts. All of the plant extracts showed varied antioxidant activity. The greatest DPPH radical scavenging activity was observed in H. begnhalensis (84.64%), followed by A. leptopus (68.21%), M. atropurpureum (26.62%), and D. bulbifera L. (19.04%). The FRAP assay revealed that H. benghalensis had the highest antioxidant activity (8.32 mg/g) while ABTS assay showed that M. atropurpureum had the strongest scavenging ability of free radicals (0.0842 mg Trolox/g). The total flavonoid content (TFC) analysis showed that D. bulbifera L. had the highest TFC (420.35 mg quercetin per gram-dried material). The total phenolic content (TPC) of the four herbal weeds showed large variations, between 26.56±0.160 and 55.91±0.087 mg GAE/g dried material. The plant leaf extracts arranged in increasing values of TPC are H. benghalensis (26.565) < A. leptopus (37.29) < D. bulbifera L. (46.81) < M. atropurpureum (55.91). The obtained results may support their use in herbal medicine and as baseline data for the development of new drugs and standardized phytomedicines.

Keywords: antioxidant properties, total flavonoids, total phenolics, creeping herbal weeds

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Authors: Parisa Afshin, Terje Grønning

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Norway, similar to many other countries, has set the focus of its policies in creating new strong and highly innovative sectors in recent years, as the oil and gas sector profitability is declining. Biotechnology sector in Norway has a great potential, especially in marine-biotech and cancer medicine. However, Norway being a periphery faces especial challenges in the path of creating internationally well-known biotech sector and an international knowledge hub. The aim of this article is to analyze the progress of the Norwegian biotechnology industry, its pathway to build up an innovation network and conduct collaborative innovation based on its initial conditions and its own advantage and disadvantages. The findings have important implications not only for politicians and academic in understanding the infrastructure of biotechnology sector in the country, but it has important lessons for other periphery countries or regions aiming in creating strong biotechnology sector and catching up with the strong internationally-recognized regions. Data and methodology: To achieve the main goal of this study, information has been collected via secondary resources such as web pages and annual reports published by the officials and mass media along with interviews were used. The data were collected with the goal to shed light on a brief history and current status of Norway biotechnology sector, as well as geographic distribution of biotech industry, followed by the role of academic and industry collaboration and public policies in Norway biotech. As knowledge is the key input in innovation, knowledge perspective of the system such as knowledge flow in the sector regarding the national and regional innovation system has been studied. Primary results: The internationalization has been an important element in development of periphery regions' innovativeness enabling them to overcome their weakness while putting more weight on the importance of regional policies. Following such findings, suggestions on policy decision and international collaboration, regarding national and regional system of innovation, has been offered as means of promoting strong innovative sector.

Keywords: biotechnology sector, knowledge-based industry, national innovation system, regional innovation system

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Authors: Saima Kalsoom, Sobia Masood, Muhammad Faran

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This study aimed to examine the association between emotional intelligence and gender role attitudes of married individuals. Another aim of this study was to test the moderating role of gender work status of married individuals for predicting gender role attitudes from emotional intelligence. A sample of (N = 500) married working men and women (both working & housewives) was approached through purposive convenience sampling technique. The data was collected employing cross-sectional research design. The indigenous versions of the Gender Role Attitudes Scale and perceived Emotional Intelligence Scale were used. The results of alpha coefficients for both the scales and subscales used in this study designated satisfactory evidence for internal consistency and reliability. Assessment of correlation coefficients showed significant positive correlation between gender role attitudes and emotional intelligence, subfactors of emotional intelligence i.e., emotional self-regulation, emotional self-awareness, and interpersonal skills with gender role attitudes. Results of model testing revealed that gender (the effect was significant for women) and work status (the effect was more significant for married working women than married working men and housewives) of the married individuals significantly moderated the relationship between emotional intelligence and gender role attitudes into the positive direction. Further, it was also found that gender and work status also moderated the relationship between emotional self-regulation (as sub factor of emotional intelligence) and gender role attitudes in a positive direction. In conclusion, this empirical evidence is vital contribution derived from the traditional and collectivistic socio-cultural background of Pakistan.

Keywords: gender role attitudes, emotional intelligence, emotional self-regulation, gender, work status, married working women

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Authors: Ram Prasad Baral, Vinogradov Dmitriy Valerievich, Rameshwar Adhikari

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Diabetes has posed a great threat to the human health worldwide, both in developed and developing countries. The disease has basically rooted from the dramatically changed way of living of the present day human civilization as our living has deviated from what the nature has adapted us for. In this context, due to availability of wide range of climatic condition and hence the wide spectrum of biodiversity, Nepal is blessed with a valuable reservoir of medicinal herbs. These assets have been utilized and developed practices in traditional medicines and Ayurvedic way of treatment over several thousand years in the region. It has been established since ancient times that each and every plant has a specific medicinal value. There are many plants’ products which have been utilized in Ayurvedic medicine for the effective treatment of diabetes. The medicaments are less expensive and pose practically no side effects. In this work, we report a general survey of anti-diabetic properties of some medicinal herbs with pronounced effects and their applications. The plants covered in this study originate from far western region of Nepal and include Ficus racemosa, Momordica charantia, Azadirachta indica, Helieteres isora, Saraca asoca, Ichnocarpus frutescens, Tinospora sinensis, Commiphora mukul, Coccinia grandis, and Hippophae salicifolia.

Keywords: Ficus racemosa, Momordica charantia, Azadirachta indica, Helieteres isora, Saraca asoca, Ichnocarpus frutescens, Tinospora sinensis, Commiphora mukul, Coccinia grandis, Hippophae salicifolia

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Authors: Asmaa Tahiri, Mouktafi Amine

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A substantial number of traditional medical research has been put forward to managing and treating mental disorders. At the present time, to our best knowledge, it is believed that fundamental understanding of the underlying causes of the majority psychological disorders needs to be explored further to inform early diagnosis, managing symptoms and treatment. The emerging field of evolutionary psychology is a promising prospect to address the origin of mental disorders, potentially leading to more effective treatments. Schizophrenia as a topical mental disorder has been linked to the evolutionary adaptation of the human brain represented in the brain connectivity and asymmetry directly linked to humans higher brain cognition in contrast to other primates being our direct living representation of the structure and connectivity of our earliest common African ancestors. As proposed in the evolutionary psychology scientific literature the pathophysiology of schizophrenia is expressed and directly linked to altered connectivity between the Hippocampal Formation (HF) and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC). This research paper presents the results of the use of tractography analysis using multiple open access Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) datasets of healthy subjects, schizophrenia-affected subjects and primates to illustrate the relevance of the aforementioned brain regions connectivity and the underlying evolutionary changes in the human brain. Deterministic fiber tracking and streamline analysis were used to generate connectivity matrices from the DWI datasets overlaid to compute distances and highlight disconnectivity patterns in conjunction with other fiber tracking metrics; Fractional Anisotropy (FA), Mean Diffusivity (MD) and Radial Diffusivity (RD).

Keywords: tractography, evolutionary psychology, schizophrenia, brain connectivity

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Authors: Danilo Pesce, Emilio Paolucci, Mariolina Affatato

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Looking at the future and at the post-digital era, innovations commonly tend to dismiss the old and replace it with the new. The aim of this research is to study the role that digital innovation can play alongside the information chain within the traditional sectors and the subsequent value creation opportunities that actors and stakeholders can exploit. By drawing on a wide body of literature on innovation and strategic management and by conducting a case study on the cultural heritage industry, namely Google Arts & Culture, this study shows that technology augments complements, and amplifies the way people experience their cultural interests and experience. Furthermore, the study shows a process of democratization of art since museums can exploit new digital and virtual ways to distribute art globally. Moreover, new needs arose from the 2020 pandemic that hit and forced the world to a state of cultural fasting and caused a radical transformation of the paradigm online vs. onsite. Finally, the study highlights the capabilities that are emerging at different stages of the value chain, owing to the technological innovation available in the market. In essence, this research underlines the role of Google in allowing museums to reach users worldwide, thus unlocking new mechanisms of value creation in the cultural heritage industry. Likewise, this study points out how Google provides value to users by means of increasing the provision of artworks, improving the audience engagement and virtual experience, and providing new ways to access the online contents. The paper ends with a discussion of managerial and policy-making implications.

Keywords: big data, digital platforms, digital transformation, digitization, Google Arts and Culture, stakeholders’ interests

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Authors: Chih-Yi Ho, Tzu-Fang Chang, Chih-Chia Huang, Chia-Yen Lee

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In dental clinics, the dentists use the periapical radiography image to assess the effectiveness of endodontic treatment of teeth with chronic apical periodontitis. Periapical radiography images are taken at different times to assess alveolar bone variation before and after the root canal treatment, and furthermore to judge whether the treatment was successful. Current clinical assessment of apical tissue recovery relies only on dentist personal experience. It is difficult to have the same standard and objective interpretations due to the dentist or radiologist personal background and knowledge. If periapical radiography images at the different time could be registered well, the endodontic treatment could be evaluated. In the image registration area, it is necessary to assign representative control points to the transformation model for good performances of registration results. However, detection of representative control points (feature points) on periapical radiography images is generally very difficult. Regardless of which traditional detection methods are practiced, sufficient feature points may not be detected due to the low-contrast characteristics of the x-ray image. Barnard detector is an algorithm for feature point detection based on grayscale value gradients, which can obtain sufficient feature points in the case of gray-scale contrast is not obvious. However, the Barnard detector would detect too many feature points, and they would be too clustered. This study uses the local extrema of clustering feature points and the suppression radius to overcome the problem, and compared different feature point detection methods. In the preliminary result, the feature points could be detected as representative control points by the proposed method.

Keywords: feature detection, Barnard detector, registration, periapical radiography image, endodontic treatment

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Authors: Michael Williams

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The ability to control a flowing well is of the utmost important. During the kill phase, heavy weight kill mud is circulated around the well. While increasing bottom hole pressure near wellbore formation, the damage is increased. The addition of high density spherical objects has the potential to minimise this near wellbore damage, increase bottom hole pressure and reduce operational time to kill the well. This operational time saving is seen in the rapid deployment of high density spherical objects instead of building high density drilling fluid. The research aims to model the well kill process using a Computational Fluid Dynamics software. A model has been created as a proof of concept to analyse the flow of micron sized spherical objects in the drilling fluid. Initial results show that this new methodology of spherical objects in drilling fluid agrees with traditional stream lines seen in non-particle flow. Additional models have been created to demonstrate that areas of higher flow rate around the bit can lead to increased probability of wash out of formations but do not affect the flow of micron sized spherical objects. Interestingly, areas that experience dimensional changes such as tool joints and various BHA components do not appear at this initial stage to experience increased velocity or create areas of turbulent flow, which could lead to further borehole stability. In conclusion, the initial models of this novel well control methodology have not demonstrated any adverse flow patterns, which would conclude that this model may be viable under field conditions.

Keywords: well control, fluid mechanics, safety, environment

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Authors: Pronob Kumar Mozumder, M. Abdur Rob Mollah

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This research was conducted in two coastal locations of Bangladesh from February, 2013 to January, 2014.The objective of this research was to assess the potential vulnerabilities of climate change on local ecosystem and people and to identify and recommend local level adaptation strategies to climate change. Focus group discussions, participatory rural appraisal, interviewing local elderly people were conducted. Perceptions about climate change indicate that local people are experiencing impacts of climate change. According to local people, temperature, cyclone, rain, water-logging, siltation, salinity, erosion, and flash flood are increasing. Vulnerability assessment revealed that local people are variously affected by abnormal climate related disasters. This is jeopardizing their livelihoods, risking their lives, health, and their assets. This prevailing climatic situation in the area is also impacting their environmental conditions, biodiversity and natural resources, and their economic activities. The existing adaptation includes using traditional boat and mobile phone while fishing and making house on high land and lower height. Proposed adaptation for fishing boat are using more than 60 feet length with good timber, putting at least 3 longitudinal bar along upper side, using enough vertical side bars. The homestead measures include use of cross bracing of wall frame, roof tying with extra-post by ropes and plantation of timber tree against wind.

Keywords: community level vulnerabilities, climate change, Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf Coastal Area, Bangladesh

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Authors: Jessica Wood, Serge Desmarais

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There has been recent resurgence in the popular and academic interest of consensual non-monogamous (CNM) relationships- an umbrella term that defines relationships in which each partner has openly agreed to engage in additional romantic and/or sexual relationships outside of their primary partnership. Despite an increase in the academic study of CNM, little psychological attention has been paid to the study of CNM, with the consideration of these relationships commonly occurring within related social science disciplines such as sociology or anthropology. As a discipline, psychology has a history of conducting research in the area of intimate relationships, and psychologists have amassed a wealth of theoretical knowledge in this field. However, historically individuals who engage in "alternative" sexual and romantic behaviours, such as non-heterosexual sex or sex with multiple partners have been pathologized within psychological research. Individuals in CNM relationships or individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer have often been excluded from research or “othered” in psychological interpretations of what healthy relationships entail. Thus, our current theoretical understandings of romantic relationships are limited to heterosexual, monogamous relationships. The goal of this presentation is to examine commonly cited components of relationship satisfaction (e.g., commitment, communication) and to critically assess how CNM experiences are presented in, or missing from, the psychological literature on romantic relationships. Additionally, the presentation will also consider how CNM relationships may add to our understanding or enhancement of traditional psychological theories and address issues related to heteronormativity and mononormativity within the discipline. Finally, we will close with a consideration of additional theoretical perspectives that may aid in our understanding of CNM relationships and suggest directions for future research.

Keywords: heteronormativity, mononormativity, psychological research, diverse relationships, gender, sexuality, feminism, queer theory

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Authors: Mahmoud Nabilu

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The present study explored the effect of using Mobile listening applications on developing listening skills by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Fifty male intermediate English learners whose age range was between 15 and 20, participated in the study. The participants were placed in two groups on the basis of their scores on a placement test. Therefore, the participants of the study were homogenized in terms of general proficiency, and groups were assigned as one experimental group and one control group. The experimental group was instructed by the treatment which was using mobile applications to develop their listening skills while the control group received traditional methods. The research data were obtained from the 40-item multiple-choice tests as a pre-test and a post-test. The results of the t-test clearly revealed that the learners in the experimental group performed better in the post-test than the pre-test. This implies that using a mobile application for developing listening skills as a treatment was effective in helping the language learners perform better on post-test. However, a statistically significant difference was found between the post-tests scores of the two groups. The mean of the experimental group was greater compared to the control group. The participants were Iranian and from an Iranian Language Institute, so care should be taken while generalizing the results to the learners of other nationalities. However, in the researcher's view, the findings of this study have valuable implications for teachers and learners, methodologists and syllabus designers, linguists and MALL/CALL (mobile/computer-assisted language learning) experts. Using the result of the present paper is an aim of raising the consciousness of a better technique of developing listening skills in order to make language learning more efficient for the learners.

Keywords: Mobile listening applications, intermediate EFL learners, MALL, CALL

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Authors: Aurora Gitto, Philipp Proksch

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The presence of various microorganisms (bacteria, fungi) in surface water and groundwater represents an important issue for human health worldwide. The matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has emerged as a promising and reliable tool for bacteria identification in clinical diagnostic microbiology and environmental strains thanks to an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. The study aims first to conceptualise and set up library information and create a comprehensive database of MALDI-TOF-MS spectra from environmental water samples. The samples were analysed over a year (2021-2022) using membrane filtration methodology (0.45 μm and 0.22 μm) and then isolated on R2A agar for a period of 5 days and Yeast extract agar growing at 22 °C up to 4 days and 37 °C for 48 hours. The undetected organisms by MALDI-TOF-MS were analysed by PCR and then sequenced. The information obtained by the sequencing was further implemented in the MALDI-TOF-MS library. Among the culturable bacteria, the results show how the incubator temperature affects the growth of some genera instead of others, as demonstrated by Pseudomonas sp., which grows at 22 °C, compared to Bacillus sp., which is abundant at 37 °C. The bacteria community shows a variation in composition also between the media used, as demonstrated with R2A agar which has been defined by a higher presence of organisms not detected compared to YEA. Interesting is the variability of the Genus over one year of sampling and how the seasonality impacts the bacteria community; in fact, in some sampling locations, we observed how the composition changed, moving from winter to spring and summer. In conclusion, the bacteria community in groundwater and river bank filtration represents important information that needs to be added to the library to simplify future water quality analysis but mainly to prevent potential risks to human health.

Keywords: water quality, MALDI-TOF-MS, sequencing, library

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Authors: Faith Eweluegim Enahoro-Ofagbe

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Worldwide, every nation is experiencing the effects of global warming. In developing countries, due to the heavy reliance on agriculture for socioeconomic growth and security, among other things, these countries are more affected by climate change, particularly with the availability of water. Floods, droughts, rising temperatures, saltwater intrusion, groundwater depletion, and other severe environmental alterations are all brought on by climatic change. Life depends on water, a vital resource; these ecological changes affect all water use, including agriculture and household water use. Therefore adequate and adaptive water usage strategies for sustainability are essential in developing countries. Therefore, this paper investigates Nigeria's challenges due to climate change and adaptive techniques that have evolved in response to such issues to ensure water management and sustainability for irrigation and provide quality water to residents. Questionnaires were distributed to respondents in the study area, central Nigeria, for quantitative evaluation of sustainable water resource management techniques. Physicochemical analysis was done, collecting soil and water samples from several locations under investigation. Findings show that farmers use different methods, ranging from intelligent technologies to traditional strategies for water resource management. Also, farmers need to learn better water resource management techniques for sustainability. Since more residents obtain their water from privately held sources, the government should enforce legislation to ensure that private borehole construction businesses treat water sources of poor quality before the general public uses them.

Keywords: developing countries, irrigation, strategies, sustainability, water resource management, water usage

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Authors: Raghava Dhanya, Shashank S.

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This paper delves into the intersection of chess and computer science, specifically focusing on the efficient representation of chess game states. We propose two methods: the Static Method and the Dynamic Method, each offering unique advantages in terms of space efficiency and computational complexity. The Static Method aims to represent the game state using a fixedlength encoding, allocating 192 bits to capture the positions of all pieces on the board. This method introduces a protocol for ordering and encoding piece positions, ensuring efficient storage and retrieval. However, it faces challenges in representing pieces no longer in play. In contrast, the Dynamic Method adapts to the evolving game state by dynamically adjusting the encoding length based on the number of pieces in play. By incorporating Alive Bits for each piece kind, this method achieves greater flexibility and space efficiency. Additionally, it includes provisions for encoding additional game state information such as castling rights and en passant squares. Our findings demonstrate that the Dynamic Method offers superior space efficiency compared to traditional Forsyth-Edwards Notation (FEN), particularly as the game progresses and pieces are captured. However, it comes with increased complexity in encoding and decoding processes. In conclusion, this study provides insights into optimizing the representation of chess game states, offering potential applications in chess engines, game databases, and artificial intelligence research. The proposed methods offer a balance between space efficiency and computational overhead, paving the way for further advancements in the field.

Keywords: chess, optimisation, encoding, bit manipulation

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Authors: Catriona Hilliard

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Food identity is synonymous with many national tourism destinations and perceptions in tourist source markets – stereotypes could include snails in France; beer in Britain and Germany; paella in Spain - and is an accepted element of national identity that can be incorporated into tourism experiences. Irish transatlantic food connections are culturally strong with diaspora subsequent generations in the US displaying an online interest in traditional Irish food, even with a twist. Back ‘home’, the value of the local indigenous experience was a specific element of the way The Gathering 2013 was promoted to the Irish diaspora, developing community interest and input to tourism. Over the past 20 years, Ireland has realized the value of its food industry to tourism. This has included the establishment of food development programmes for the hospitality industry; food festivals as a possible element of the tourist experience; and a programmes of food ambassadors to market Irish produce and to encourage service providers to understand; utilize and incorporate this into their offerings. Irish produce is being now actively marketed as part of the proposed tourism experience, to particular segment markets including transatlantic visitors. In addition, individual providers are becoming aware of the value of the market, and how to gain from it. Also, networks of food providers have developed collaborative structures of promoting their experiences to audiences, displaying a cluster approach of tourism development towards that sector. A power point presentation will look at how Irish produce contributes to tourism marketing and promotion of Ireland to America; how that may have assisted sustainable development of communities here; and hopes to elicit some discussion relating to longer term identification of Irish food, as part of tourism, for the potential benefit of the ‘locale’.

Keywords: Irish, USA, food, tourism

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Authors: Rosaria Tizzani, Tomas Morosinotto, Fabrizio Bezzo, Eleonora Sforza

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Red microalga Porphyridium marinum CCAP 13807/10 has the potential to produce a broad range of commercially valuable chemicals such as PhycoErytrin (PE) and sulphated ExoPolySaccharides (EPS). Multiple abiotic factors influence the growth of Porphyridium sp., e.g. the wavelength of the light source and different cultivation strategies (one or two steps, batch, semi-, and continuous regime). The microalga of interest is cultivated in a two-step system. First, the culture grows photoautotrophically in a controlled bioreactor with pH-dependent CO2 injection, temperature monitoring, light intensity, and LED wavelength remote control in a semicontinuous mode. In the second step, the harvested biomass is subjected to mixotrophic conditions to enhance further growth. Preliminary tests have been performed to define the suitable media, salinity, pH, and organic carbon substrate to obtain the highest biomass productivity. Dynamic light and operational conditions (e.g. HRT) are evaluated to achieve high biomass production, high PE accumulation in the biomass, and high EPS release in the medium. Porphyridium marinum is able to chromatically adapt the photosynthetic apparatus to efficiently exploit the full light spectra composition. The effect of specific narrow LED wavelengths (white W, red R, green G, blue B) and a combination of LEDs (WR, WB, WG, BR, BG, RG) are identified to understand the phenomenon of chromatic adaptation under photoautotrophic conditions. The effect of light intensity, residence time, and light quality are investigated to define optimal operational strategies for full scale commercial applications. Production of biomass, phycobiliproteins, PE, EPS, EPS sulfate content, EPS composition, Chlorophyll-a, and pigment content are monitored to determine the effect of LED wavelength on the cultivation Porphyridium marinum in order to optimize the production of these multiple, highly valuable bioproducts of commercial interest.

Keywords: red microalgae, LED, exopolysaccharide, phycoerythrin

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Authors: Flavio Gazzani

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Nitrogen is an important agricultural input that is critical for the production. However, the introduction of large amounts of nitrogen into the environment has a number of undesirable impacts such as: the loss of biodiversity, eutrophication of waters and soils, drinking water pollution, acidification, greenhouse gas emissions, human health risks. It is a challenge to sustain or increase food production and at the same time reduce losses of reactive nitrogen to the environment, but there are many potential benefits associated with improving nitrogen use efficiency. Reducing nutrient losses from agriculture is crucial to the successful implementation of agricultural policy. Traditional regulatory instruments applied to implement environmental policies to reduce environmental impacts from nitrogen fertilizers, despite some successes, failed to address many environmental challenges and imposed high costs on the society to achieve environmental quality objectives. As a result, economic instruments started to be recognized for their flexibility and cost-effectiveness. The objective of the research project is to analyze the potential for increased use of market-based instruments in nitrogen control policy. The report reviews existing knowledge, bringing different studies together to assess the global nitrogen situation and the most relevant environmental management policy that aims to reduce pollution in a sustainable way without affect negatively agriculture production and food price. This analysis provides some guidance on how different market based instruments might be orchestrated in an overall policy framework to the development and assessment of sustainable nitrogen management from the economics, environmental and food security point of view.

Keywords: nitrogen emissions, chemical fertilizers, eutrophication, non-point of source pollution, dairy farm

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Authors: Ranojoy Dutta, Adam Barker

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Multifamily residential buildings are increasingly being built with large glazed areas to provide tenants with greater daylight and outdoor views. However, traditional double-glazed window assemblies can lead to significant thermal discomfort from high radiant temperatures as well as increased cooling energy use to address solar gains. Dynamic glazing provides an effective solution by actively controlling solar transmission to maintain indoor thermal comfort, without compromising the visual connection to outdoors. This study uses thermal simulations across three Canadian cities (Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal) to verify if dynamic glazing along with operable windows and ceiling fans can maintain the indoor operative temperature of a prototype southwest facing high-rise apartment unit within the ASHRAE 55 adaptive comfort range for a majority of the year, without any mechanical cooling. Since this study proposes the use of natural ventilation for cooling and the typical building life cycle is 30-40 years, the typical weather files have been modified based on accepted global warming projections for increased air temperatures by 2050. Results for the prototype apartment confirm that thermal discomfort with dynamic glazing occurs only for less than 0.7% of the year. However, in the baseline scenario with low-E glass there are up to 7% annual hours of discomfort despite natural ventilation with operable windows and improved air movement with ceiling fans.

Keywords: electrochromic glazing, multi-family housing, passive cooling, thermal comfort, natural ventilation

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Authors: Pratap K. Chhotaray, Jitendriya Swain, Ashok Mishra, Ramesh L. Gardas

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Ionic liquids (ILs) are molten salts, consist predominantly of ions and found to be liquid below 100°C. The unparalleled growing interest in ILs is based upon their never ending design flexibility. The use of ILs as a co-solvent in binary as well as a ternary mixture with molecular solvents multifold it’s utility. Since polarity is one of the most widely applied solvent concepts which represents simple and straightforward means for characterizing and ranking the solvent media, its study for a binary mixture of ILs is crucial for its widespread application and development. The primary approach to the assessment of solution phase intermolecular interactions, which generally occurs on the picosecond to nanosecond time scales, is to exploit the optical response of photophysical probe. Pyrene butyric acid (PBA) is used as fluorescence probe due to its high quantum yield, longer lifetime and high solvent polarity dependence of fluorescence spectra. Propylammonium formate (PAF) is the IL used for this study. Both the UV-absorbance spectra and steady state fluorescence intensity study of PBA in different concentration of aqueous PAF, reveals that with an increase in PAF concentration, both the absorbance and fluorescence intensity increases which indicate the progressive solubilisation of PBA. Whereas, near about 50% of IL concentration, all of the PBA molecules get solubilised as there are no changes in the absorbance and fluorescence intensity. Furthermore, the ratio II/IV, where the band II corresponds to the transition from S1 (ν = 0) to S0 (ν = 0), and the band IV corresponds to transition from S1 (ν = 0) to S0 (ν = 2) of PBA, indicates that the addition of water into PAF increases the polarity of the medium. Time domain lifetime study shows an increase in lifetime of PBA towards the higher concentration of PAF. It can be attributed to the decrease in non-radiative rate constant at higher PAF concentration as the viscosity is higher. The monoexponential decay suggests that homogeneity of solvation environment whereas the uneven width at full width at half maximum (FWHM) indicates there might exist some heterogeneity around the fluorophores even in the water-IL mixed solvents.

Keywords: fluorescence, ionic liquid, lifetime, polarity, pyrene butyric acid

Procedia PDF Downloads 440