Search results for: day night task modification

Authors: Jonqlan Lin, C. Y. Tasi, K. H. Lin

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This paper addresses the issue of the autonomous mobile robot (AMR) navigation task based on the hybrid control modes. The novel hybrid control mode, based on multi-sensors information by using the fuzzy approach, has been presented in this research. The system operates in real time, is robust, enables the robot to operate with imprecise knowledge, and takes into account the physical limitations of the environment in which the robot moves, obtaining satisfactory responses for a large number of different situations. An experiment is simulated and carried out with a pioneer mobile robot. From the experimental results, the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed AMR obstacle avoidance and navigation scheme are confirmed. The experimental results show the feasibility, and the control system has improved the navigation accuracy. The implementation of the controller is robust, has a low execution time, and allows an easy design and tuning of the fuzzy knowledge base.

Keywords: autonomous mobile robot, obstacle avoidance, MEMS, hybrid control mode, navigation control

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Authors: R. V. Dahibhate, A. B. Deoghare, P. M. Padole

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Maintaining natural integrity of biosystem is paramount significant for orthopedic surgeon while performing surgery. Restoration is challenging task to rehabilitate trauma patient. Drilling is an inevitable procedure to fix implants. The task leads to rise in temperature at the contact site which intends to thermal necrosis. A precise monitoring can avoid thermal necrosis. To accomplish it, data acquiring instrument is integrated with the drill bit. To contemplate it, electronic feedback system is developed. It not only measures temperature without any physical contact in between measuring device and target but also visualizes the site and monitors correct movement of tool path. In the current research work an infrared thermometer data acquisition system is used which monitors variation in temperature at the drilling site and a camera captured movement of drill bit advancement. The result is presented in graphical form which represents variations in temperature, drill rotation and time. A feedback system helps in keeping drill speed in threshold limit.

Keywords: thermal necrosis, infrared thermometer, drilling tool, feedback system

Procedia PDF Downloads 231

Authors: Ribeiro Tiago Magalhães

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Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of a hydroelectric power plant in the state of Amapá, and to present the results obtained by dimensioning the diversity of the main mosquito vectors involved in the transmission of pathogens that cause diseases such as malaria, dengue and leishmaniasis. Methodology: The present study was conducted on the banks of the Araguari River, in the municipalities of Porto Grande and Ferreira Gomes in the southern region of Amapá State. Nine monitoring campaigns were conducted, the first in April 2014 and the last in March 2016. The selection of the catch sites was done in order to prioritize areas with possible occurrence of the species considered of greater importance for public health and areas of contact between the wild environment and humans. Sampling efforts aimed to identify the local vector fauna and to relate it to the transmission of diseases. In this way, three phases of collection were established, covering the schedules of greater hematophageal activity. Sampling was carried out using Shannon Shack and CDC types of light traps and by means of specimen collection with the hold method. This procedure was carried out during the morning (between 08:00 and 11:00), afternoon-twilight (between 15:30 and 18:30) and night (between 18:30 and 22:00). In the specific methodology of capture with the use of the CDC equipment, the delimited times were from 18:00 until 06:00 the following day. Results: A total of 32 species of mosquitoes was identified, and a total of 2,962 specimens was taxonomically subdivided into three genera (Culicidae, Psychodidae and Simuliidae) Psorophora, Sabethes, Simulium, Uranotaenia and Wyeomyia), besides those represented by the family Psychodidae that due to the morphological complexities, allows the safe identification (without the method of diaphanization and assembly of slides for microscopy), only at the taxonomic level of subfamily (Phlebotominae). Conclusion: The nine monitoring campaigns carried out provided the basis for the design of the possible epidemiological structure in the areas of influence of the Cachoeira Caldeirão HPP, in order to point out among the points established for sampling, which would represent greater possibilities, according to the group of identified mosquitoes, of disease acquisition. However, what should be mainly considered, are the future events arising from reservoir filling. This argument is based on the fact that the reproductive success of Culicidae is intrinsically related to the aquatic environment for the development of its larvae until adulthood. From the moment that the water mirror is expanded in new environments for the formation of the reservoir, a modification in the process of development and hatching of the eggs deposited in the substrate can occur, causing a sudden explosion in the abundance of some genera, in special Anopheles, which holds preferences for denser forest environments, close to the water portions.

Keywords: Amazon, hydroelectric, power, plants

Procedia PDF Downloads 193

Authors: Cristóbal Moënne-Loccoz, Rodrigo C. Vergara, Vladimir López, Domingo Mery, Diego Cosmelli

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Our daily interaction with computational interfaces is plagued of situations in which we go from inexperienced users to experts through self-motivated exploration of the same task. In many of these interactions, we must learn to find our way through a sequence of decisions and actions before obtaining the desired result. For instance, when drawing cash from an ATM machine, choices are presented in a step-by-step fashion so that a specific sequence of actions must be performed in order to produce the expected outcome. But, as they become experts in the use of such interfaces, do users adopt specific search and learning strategies? Moreover, if so, can we use this information to follow the process of expertise development and, eventually, predict future actions? This would be a critical step towards building truly adaptive interfaces that can facilitate interaction at different moments of the learning curve. Furthermore, it could provide a window into potential mechanisms underlying decision-making behavior in real world scenarios. Here we tackle this question using a simple game interface that instantiates a 4-level binary decision tree (BDT) sequential decision-making task. Participants have to explore the interface and discover an underlying concept-icon mapping in order to complete the game. We develop a Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based approach whereby a set of stereotyped, hierarchically related search behaviors act as hidden states. Using this model, we are able to track the decision-making process as participants explore, learn and develop expertise in the use of the interface. Our results show that partitioning the problem space into such stereotyped strategies is sufficient to capture a host of exploratory and learning behaviors. Moreover, using the modular architecture of stereotyped strategies as a Mixture of Experts, we are able to simultaneously ask the experts about the user's most probable future actions. We show that for those participants that learn the task, it becomes possible to predict their next decision, above chance, approximately halfway through the game. Our long-term goal is, on the basis of a better understanding of real-world decision-making processes, to inform the construction of interfaces that can establish dynamic conversations with their users in order to facilitate the development of expertise.

Keywords: behavioral modeling, expertise acquisition, hidden markov models, sequential decision-making

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Authors: Zhilong Xie, Jinwen Huang, Guofang Zeng

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The existing body of research on bilingualism has consistently linked the use of multiple languages to enhanced cognitive control. Numerous studies have demonstrated that bilingual individuals exhibit advantages in non-linguistic tasks demanding cognitive control. However, recent investigations have challenged these findings, leading to a debate regarding the extent and nature of bilingual advantages. The adaptive control hypothesis posits that variations in bilingual experiences hold the key to resolving these controversies. This study aims to contribute to this discussion by exploring the impact of second language (L2) listening experience on cognitive control among young Chinese-English bilinguals. By examining this specific aspect of bilingualism, the study offers a perspective on the origins of bilingual advantages. This study employed a range of cognitive tasks, including the Flanker task, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Operation Span Task (OSPAN), and a second language listening comprehension test. After controlling for potential confounding variables such as intelligence, socioeconomic status, and overall language proficiency, independent sample t-test analysis revealed significant differences in performance between groups with high and low L2 listening proficiency in the Flanker task and OSPAN. However, no significant differences emerged between the two groups in the WCST. These findings suggest that L2 listening proficiency has a significant impact on inhibitory control and working memory but not on conflict monitoring or mental set shifting. These specific findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the origins of bilingual advantages within a specific bilingual context, highlighting the importance of considering the nature of bilingual experience when exploring cognitive benefits.

Keywords: bilingual advantage, inhibitory control, L2 listening, working memory

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Authors: Salim Ahmad, Ahamed Sani Kazaure, Haruna Musa

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Outsourcing had been the contractual relationship in which the responsibility for a function or task is handed over to an outside firm for a fixed period of time which is not the same as contracting where a specific one-off task is allocated to an external business; therefore in information technology a specialist area such as maintenance of web servers is controlled by an outside firm or if the department is not a critical factor the whole IT section may be outsourced. Organisation contracts is frequently a major area in successful outsourcing relationship, whereby the contracts specify the right, liability and expectation of the vendor and contracts are mostly of high value and last for very long. Therefore, in this research one particular project that is been outsourced for the financial industry (Guarantee Trust Assurance PlC) is been discussed along with the approach used and the various problems encountered, though Outsourcing is not necessarily a perfect and easy way out for business. It is extremely critical for a company to look at all the aspect of outsourcing before deciding to use it as an instrument for development. Moreover, critical analysis of the management issues encountered while implementing the outsourcing project have been fully discussed in the paper.

Keywords: outsourcing, techniques used in outsourcing, challenges of outsourcing implementation, management issues during implementation of outsourcing project

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Authors: Zainab Mutlaq Ibrahim, Mohamed Bader-El-Den, Mihaela Cocea

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Students' textual feedback can hold unique patterns and useful information about learning process, it can hold information about advantages and disadvantages of teaching methods, assessment components, facilities, and other aspects of teaching. The results of analysing such a feedback can form a key point for institutions’ decision makers to advance and update their systems accordingly. This paper proposes a data mining framework for analysing end of unit general textual feedback using part of speech feature (PoS) with four machine learning algorithms: support vector machines, decision tree, random forest, and naive bays. The proposed framework has two tasks: first, to use the above algorithms to build an optimal model that automatically classifies the whole data set into two subsets, one subset is tailored to assessment practices (assessment related), and the other one is the non-assessment related data. Second task to use the same algorithms to build an optimal model for whole data set, and the new data subsets to automatically detect their sentiment. The significance of this paper is to compare the performance of the above four algorithms using part of speech feature to the performance of the same algorithms using n-grams feature. The paper follows Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDDM) framework to construct the classification and sentiment analysis models, which is understanding the assessment domain, cleaning and pre-processing the data set, selecting and running the data mining algorithm, interpreting mined patterns, and consolidating the discovered knowledge. The results of this paper experiments show that both models which used both features performed very well regarding first task. But regarding the second task, models that used part of speech feature has underperformed in comparison with models that used unigrams and bigrams.

Keywords: assessment, part of speech, sentiment analysis, student feedback

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Authors: Insaf Ajili, Malik Mallem, Jean-Yves Didier

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Human motion recognition has been extensively increased in recent years due to its importance in a wide range of applications, such as human-computer interaction, intelligent surveillance, augmented reality, content-based video compression and retrieval, etc. However, it is still regarded as a challenging task especially in realistic scenarios. It can be seen as a general machine learning problem which requires an effective human motion representation and an efficient learning method. In this work, we introduce a descriptor based on Laban Movement Analysis technique, a formal and universal language for human movement, to capture both quantitative and qualitative aspects of movement. We use Discrete Hidden Markov Model (DHMM) for training and classification motions. We improve the classification algorithm by proposing two DHMMs for each motion class to process the motion sequence in two different directions, forward and backward. Such modification allows avoiding the misclassification that can happen when recognizing similar motions. Two experiments are conducted. In the first one, we evaluate our method on a public dataset, the Microsoft Research Cambridge-12 Kinect gesture data set (MSRC-12) which is a widely used dataset for evaluating action/gesture recognition methods. In the second experiment, we build a dataset composed of 10 gestures(Introduce yourself, waving, Dance, move, turn left, turn right, stop, sit down, increase velocity, decrease velocity) performed by 20 persons. The evaluation of the system includes testing the efficiency of our descriptor vector based on LMA with basic DHMM method and comparing the recognition results of the modified DHMM with the original one. Experiment results demonstrate that our method outperforms most of existing methods that used the MSRC-12 dataset, and a near perfect classification rate in our dataset.

Keywords: human motion recognition, motion representation, Laban Movement Analysis, Discrete Hidden Markov Model

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Authors: Shekoufeh Behdad, Amirhossein Yadegari, Leila Ghodrati, Saman Yadegari

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Context: Preoperative anxiety is a common psychological reaction experienced by all patients undergoing surgery. It can have negative effects on the patient's well-being and even impact surgical outcomes. Therefore, finding effective interventions to reduce preoperative anxiety is important in improving patient care. Research Aim: The aim of this study is to compare the effects of oral administration of zaleplon (5 mg) and alprazolam (0.5 mg) on preoperative anxiety levels in women undergoing gynecological abdominal surgery. Methodology: This study is a double-blind, randomized clinical trial conducted after receiving approval from the university's ethics committee and obtaining written informed consent from the patients. The night before the surgery, patients were randomly assigned to receive either 0.5 mg of alprazolam or 5 mg of zaleplon orally. Anxiety levels, measured using a 10-cm visual analog scale, and hemodynamic variables (blood pressure and heart rate) were assessed before drug administration and on the morning of the operation after the patient entered the pre-operation room. Findings: The study found that there were no significant differences in mean anxiety levels or hemodynamic variables before and after administration of either drug in both groups (P value > 0.05). This suggests that both 0.5 mg of alprazolam and 5 mg of zaleplon effectively reduce preoperative anxiety in women undergoing abdominal surgery without serious side effects. Theoretical Importance: This study contributes to the understanding of the effectiveness of alprazolam and zaleplon in reducing preoperative anxiety. It adds to the existing literature on pharmacological interventions for anxiety management, specifically in the context of gynecological abdominal surgery. Data Collection: Data for this study were collected through the assessment of anxiety levels using a visual analog scale and measuring hemodynamic variables, including systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressures, as well as heart rate. These measurements were taken before drug administration and on the morning of the surgery. Analysis Procedures: Statistical analysis was performed to compare the mean anxiety levels and hemodynamic variables before and after drug administration in the two groups. The significance of the differences was determined using appropriate statistical tests. Questions Addressed: This study aimed to answer the question of whether there are differences in the effects of alprazolam and zaleplon on preoperative anxiety levels in women undergoing gynecological abdominal surgery. Conclusion: The oral administration of both 0.5 mg of alprazolam and 5 mg of zaleplon the night before surgery effectively reduces preoperative anxiety in women undergoing abdominal surgery. These findings have important implications for the management of preoperative anxiety and can contribute to improving the overall surgical experience for patients.

Keywords: zaleplon, alprazolam, premedication, abdominal surgery

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Authors: Januar Parlaungan Siregar, Davindra Brabu Mathivanan, Dandi Bachtiar, Mohd Ruzaimi Mat Rejab, Tezara Cionita

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Natural fibres play a significant role in mass industries such as automotive, construction and sports. Many researchers have found that the natural fibres are the best replacement for the synthetic fibres in terms of cost, safety, and degradability due to the shortage of landfill and ingestion of non biodegradable plastic by animals. This study mainly revolved around pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) which is available abundantly in tropical countries and with excellent mechanical properties. The composite formed in this study is highly biodegradable as both fibre and matrix are both derived from natural based products. The matrix which is polylactic acid (PLA) is made from corn starch which gives the upper hand as both material are renewable resources are easier to degrade by bacteria or enzyme. The PALF is treated with different alkaline solution to remove excessive moisture in the fibre to provide better interfacial bonding with PLA. Thereafter the PALF is washed with distilled water several times before placing in vacuum oven at 80°C for 48 hours. The dried PALF later were mixed with PLA using extrusion method using fibre in percentage of 30 by weight. The temperature for all zone were maintained at 160°C with the screw speed of 50 rpm for better bonding and afterwards the products of the mixture were pelletized using pelletizer. The pellets were placed in the specimen-sized mould for hot compression under the temperature of 170°C at 5 MPa for 5 min and subsequently were cold pressed under room temperature at 5 MPa for 5 min. The specimen were tested for tensile and flexure strength according to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D638 and D790 respectively. The effect of surface modification on PALF with different alkali solution will be investigated and compared.

Keywords: natural fibre, PALF, PLA, composite

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Authors: Norah Alosayl

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English is considered the most important foreign language in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) because of the usefulness of English as a global language compared to Arabic. As students’ desire to improve their English language skills has grown, English writing has been identified as the most difficult problem for Saudi students in their language learning. Although the English language in Saudi Arabia is taught beginning in the seventh grade, many students have problems at the university level, especially in writing, due to a gap between what is taught in secondary and high schools and university expectations- pupils generally study English at school, based on one book with few exercises in vocabulary and grammar exercises, and there are no specific writing lessons. Moreover, from personal teaching experience at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University, students face real problems with their writing. This paper revolves around the blackboard-based collaborative writing to help the undergraduate Saudi EFL students, in their first year enrolled in two sections of ENGL 101 in the first semester of 2021 at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University, practice the most difficult skill they found in their writing through a small group. Therefore, a sequential mixed methods design will be suited. The first phase of the study aims to highlight the most difficult skill experienced by students from an official writing exam that is evaluated by their teachers through an official rubric used in King Saud bin Abdulaziz University. In the second phase, this study will intend to investigate the benefits of social interaction on the process of learning writing. Students will be provided with five collaborative writing tasks via discussion feature on Blackboard to practice a skill that they found difficult in writing. the tasks will be formed based on social constructivist theory and pedagogic frameworks. The interaction will take place between peers and their teachers. The frequencies of students’ participation and the quality of their interaction will be observed through manual counting, screenshotting. This will help the researcher understand how students actively work on the task through the amount of their participation and will also distinguish the type of interaction (on task, about task, or off-task). Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with students to understand their perceptions about the blackboard-based collaborative writing tasks, and questionnaires will be distributed to identify students’ attitudes with the tasks.

Keywords: writing difficulties, blackboard-based collaborative writing, process of learning writing, interaction, participations

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Authors: Kanupriya Rawat, Aleksandra Błachnio, Paweł Izdebski

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Achievement motivation, which drives a person to strive for success, is an important construct in sports psychology. This systematic review aims to analyze the methods of measuring achievement motivation used in previous studies published over the past four decades and to find out which method of measuring achievement motivation is the most prevalent and the most effective by thoroughly examining measures of achievement motivation used in each study and by evaluating most highly cited achievement motivation measures in sport. In order to understand this latent construct, thorough measurement is necessary, hence a critical evaluation of measurement tools is required. The literature search was conducted in the following databases: EBSCO, MEDLINE, APA PsychARTICLES, Academic Search Ultimate, Open Dissertations, ERIC, Science direct, Web of Science, as well as Wiley Online Library. A total of 26 articles met the inclusion criteria and were selected. From this review, it was found that the Achievement Goal Questionnaire- Sport (AGQ-Sport) and the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) were used in most of the research, however, the average weighted impact factor of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire- Sport (AGQ-Sport) is the second highest and most relevant in terms of research articles related to the sport psychology discipline. Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ) is highly popular in cross-cultural adaptation but has the second last average IF among other scales due to the less impact factor of most of the publishing journals. All measures of achievement motivation have Cronbach’s alpha value of more than .70, which is acceptable. The advantages and limitations of each measurement tool are discussed, and the distinction between using implicit and explicit measures of achievement motivation is explained. Overall, both implicit and explicit measures of achievement motivation have different conceptualizations of achievement motivation and are applicable at either the contextual or situational level. The conceptualization and degree of applicability are perhaps the most crucial factors for researchers choosing a questionnaire, even though they differ in their development, reliability, and use.

Keywords: achievement motivation, task and ego orientation, sports psychology, measures of achievement motivation

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Authors: Balogun R. Ayodeji, Adefisan E. Adesanya, Adeyewa Z. Debo, E. C. Okogbue

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The need to investigate diurnal weather circles in West Africa is coined in the fact that complex interactions often results from diurnal weather patterns. This study investigates diurnal circles of wind, rainfall and convective properties using six (6) hour interval data from the ERA-Interim and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM). The seven distinct zones, used in this work and classified as rainforest (west-coast, dry, Nigeria-Cameroon), Savannah (Nigeria, and Central Africa and South Sudan (CASS)), Sudano-Sahel, and Sahel, were clearly indicated by the rainfall pattern in each zones. Results showed that the land‐ocean warming contrast was more strongly sensitive to seasonal cycle and has been very weak during March-May (MAM) but clearly spelt out during June-September (JJAS). Dipoles of wind convergence/divergence and wet/dry precipitation, between CASS and Nigeria Savannah zones, were identified in morning and evening hours of MAM, whereas distinct night and day anomaly, in the same location of CASS, were found to be consistent during the JJAS season. Diurnal variation of convective properties showed that stratiform precipitation, due to the extremely low occurrence of flashcount climatology, was dominant during morning hours for both MAM and JJAS than other periods of the day. On the other hand, diurnal variation of the system sizes showed that small system sizes were most dominant during the day time periods for both MAM and JJAS, whereas larger system sizes were frequent during the evening, night, and morning hours. The locations of flashcount and system sizes agreed with earlier results that morning and day-time hours were dominated by stratiform precipitation and small system sizes respectively. Most results clearly showed that the eastern locations of Sudano and Sahel were consistently dry because rainfall and precipitation features were predominantly few. System sizes greater than or equal to 800 km² were found in the western axis of the Sudano and Sahel zones, whereas the eastern axis, particularly in the Sahel zone, had minimal occurrences of small/large system sizes. From the results of locations of extreme systems, flashcount greater than 275 in one single system was never observed during the morning (6Z) diurnal, whereas, the evening (18Z) diurnal had the most frequent cases (at least 8) of flashcount exceeding 275 in one single system. Results presented had shown the importance of diurnal variation in understanding precipitation, flashcount, system sizes patterns at diurnal scales, and understanding land-ocean contrast, precipitation, and wind field anomaly at diurnal scales.

Keywords: convective properties, diurnal circle, flashcount, system sizes

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Authors: Graham Hancox, Saydia Razak, Sue Hignett, Jo Barnes, Jyri Silmari, Florian Kading

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In the event of a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) incident rapidly gaining, situational awareness is of paramount importance and advanced technologies have an important role to play in improving detection, identification, monitoring (DIM) and patient tracking. Understanding how these advanced technologies can fit into current response systems is essential to ensure they are optimally designed, usable and meet end-users’ needs. For this reason, Human Factors (Ergonomics) methods have been used within an EU Horizon 2020 project (TOXI-Triage) to firstly describe (map) the hierarchical structure in a CBRN response with adapted Accident Map (AcciMap) methodology. Secondly, Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) has been used to describe and review the sequence of steps (sub-tasks) in a CBRN scenario response as a task system. HTA methodology was then used to map one advanced technology, ‘Tag and Trace’, which tags an element (people, sample and equipment) with a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip in the Hot Zone to allow tracing of (monitoring), for example casualty progress through the response. This HTA mapping of the Tag and Trace system showed how the provider envisaged the technology being used, allowing for review and fit with the current CBRN response systems. These methodologies have been found to be very effective in promoting and supporting a dialogue between end-users and technology providers. The Human Factors methods have given clear diagrammatic (visual) representations of how providers see their technology being used and how end users would actually use it in the field; allowing for a more user centered approach to the design process. For CBRN events usability is critical as sub-optimum design of technology could add to a responders’ workload in what is already a chaotic, ambiguous and safety critical environment.

Keywords: AcciMap, CBRN, ergonomics, hierarchical task analysis, human factors

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Authors: Elena Antonova Unlu, Cigdem Sagin Simsek

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The research presents two studies examining the impact of formal interpreting training (FIT) on Working Memory Capacity (WMC) of student-interpreters. In Study 1, the storage and processing capacities of the working memory (WM) of last-year student-interpreters were compared with those of last-year Foreign Language Education (FLE) students. In Study 2, the impact of FIT on the WMC of student-interpreters was examined via comparing their results on WM tasks at the beginning and the end of their FIT. In both studies, Digit Span Task (DST) and Reading Span Task (RST) were utilized for testing storage and processing capacities of WM. The results of Study 1 revealed that the last-year student-interpreters outperformed the control groups on the RST but not on the DST. The findings of Study 2 were consistent with Study 1 showing that after FIT, the student-interpreters performed better on the RST but not on the DST. Our findings can be considered as evidence supporting the view that FIT has a beneficial effect not only on the interpreting skills of student-interpreters but also on the central executive and processing capacity of their WM.

Keywords: working memory capacity, formal interpreting training, student-interpreters, cross-sectional and longitudinal data

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Authors: R.T.P. De Silva, T. K. Wijayasiriwardhane, B. Jayawardena

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Most people nowadays spend their time indoor environment. Because of that, a quality indoor environment needs for them. This study was conducted to identify how to improve indoor visual comfort using a personalized light system. Light intensity, light color, glare, and contrast are the main facts that affect visual comfort. The light intensity which needs to perform a task is changed according to the task. Using necessary light intensity and we can improve the visual comfort of occupants. The hue can affect the emotions of occupants. The preferred light colors and intensity change according to the occupant's age and gender. The research was conducted to identify is there any relationship between personalization and visual comfort. To validate this designed an Internet of Things-based reading light. This light can work according to the standard light levels and personalized light levels. It also can measure the current light intensity of the environment and maintain continuous light levels according to the task. The test was conducted by using 25 undergraduates, and 5school students, and 5 adults. The feedbacks are gathered using Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) techniques. Feedbacks are gathered in three steps, It was done without any light control, with standard light level, and with personalized light level Users had to spend 10 minutes under each condition. After finishing each step, collected their feedbacks. According to the result gathered, 94% of participants rated a personalized light system as comfort for them. The feedbacks show stay under continuous light level help to keep their concentrate. Future research can be conducted on how the color of indoor light can affect for indoor visual comfort of occupants using a personalized light system. Further proposed IoT based can improve to change the light colors according to the user's preference.

Keywords: indoor environment quality, internet of things based light system, post occupancy evaluation, visual comfort

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Authors: Smita Mathur

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Play is an innate, player-centric, joyful, fundamental activity of early childhood development that significantly contributes to social, emotional, and academic learning. Leveraging the power of play can enhance these domains by creating engaging, interactive, and developmentally appropriate learning experiences for young children. This research aimed to systematically examine young children’s play behaviors with a focus on four primary objectives: (1) the frequency and duration of on-task behaviors, (2) social interactions and emotional expressions during play, (3) the correlation between academic skills and play, and (4) identifying best practices for integrating play-based curricula. To achieve these objectives, a mixed-method study was conducted among young preschool-aged children in low socio-economic populations in the United States. The children were identified using purposive sampling. The children were observed during structured play in classrooms and unstructured play during outdoor playtime and in their home environments. The study sampled 97 preschool-aged children. A total of 3970 minutes of observations were coded to address the research questions. Thirty-seven percent of children lived in linguistically isolated families, and 76% lived in basic budget poverty. Children lived in overcrowded housing situations (67%), and most families had mixed citizenship status (66%). The observational study was conducted using the observation protocol during the Oxford Study Project. On-task behaviors were measured by tracking the frequency and duration of activities where children maintained focus and engagement. In examining social interactions and emotional expressions, the study recorded social interactions, emotional responses, and teacher involvement during play. The study aimed to identify best practices for integrating play-based curricula into early childhood education. By analyzing the effectiveness of different play-based strategies and their impact on on-task behaviors, social-emotional development, and academic skills, the research sought to provide actionable recommendations for educators and caregivers. The findings from study 1. Highlight play behaviors that increase on-task behaviors and academic, & social skills in young children. 2. Offers insights into teacher preparation and designing play-based curriculum 3. Research critiques observation as a data collection technique.

Keywords: play, early childhood education, social-emotional development, academic development

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Authors: Z. A. Ahmad Noor Syukri, A. J. Nawal Aswan, S. V. Wong

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The motorcycle has become one of the most common type of vehicles used on the road, particularly in the Asia region, including Malaysia, due to its size-convenience and affordable price. This study focuses only on crashes involving motorcycles with passenger cars consisting 43 real world crashes obtained from in-depth crash investigation process from June 2016 till July 2017. The study collected and analyzed vehicle and site parameters obtained during crash investigation and injury information acquired from the patient-treating hospital. The investigation team, consisting of two personnel, is stationed at the Emergency Department of the treatment facility, and was dispatched to the crash scene once receiving notification of the related crashes. The injury information retrieved was coded according to the level of severity using the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and classified into different body regions. The data revealed that weekend crashes were significantly higher for the night time period and the crash occurrence was the highest during morning hours (commuting to work period) for weekdays. Bad weather conditions play a minimal effect towards the occurrence of motorcycle – passenger vehicle crashes and nearly 90% involved motorcycles with single riders. Riders up to 25 years old are heavily involved in crashes with passenger vehicles (60%), followed by 26-55 year age group with 35%. Male riders were dominant in each of the age segments. The majority of the crashes involved side impacts, followed by rear impacts and cars outnumbered the rest of the passenger vehicle types in terms of crash involvement with motorcycles. The investigation data also revealed that passenger vehicles were the most at-fault counterpart (62%) when involved in crashes with motorcycles and most of the crashes involved situations whereby both of the vehicles are travelling in the same direction and one of the vehicles is in a turning maneuver. More than 80% of the involved motorcycle riders had sustained yellow severity level during triage process. The study also found that nearly 30% of the riders sustained injuries to the lower extremities, while MAIS level 3 injuries were recorded for all body regions except for thorax region. The result showed that crashes in which the motorcycles were found to be at fault were more likely to occur during night and raining conditions. These types of crashes were also found to be more likely to involve other types of passenger vehicles rather than cars and possess higher likelihood in resulting higher ISS (>6) value to the involved rider. To reduce motorcycle fatalities, it first has to understand the characteristics concerned and focus may be given on crashes involving passenger vehicles as the most dominant crash partner on Malaysian roads.

Keywords: motorcycle crash, passenger vehicle, in-depth crash investigation, injury mechanism

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Authors: Jaspreet Singh, Gurvinder Singh, Prabhsimran Singh, Rajinder Singh, Prithvipal Singh, Karanjeet Singh Kahlon, Ravinder Singh Sawhney

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Morphological evaluation of Indian languages is one of the burgeoning fields in the area of Natural Language Processing (NLP). The evaluation of a language is an eminent task in the era of information retrieval and text mining. The extraction and classification of knowledge from text can be exploited for sentiment analysis and morphological evaluation. This study coalesce morphological evaluation and sentiment analysis for the task of classification of farmer suicide cases reported in Punjab state of India. The pre-processing of Punjabi text involves morphological evaluation and normalization of Punjabi word tokens followed by the training of proposed model using deep learning classification on Punjabi language text extracted from online Punjabi news reports. The class-wise accuracies of sentiment prediction for four negatively oriented classes of farmer suicide cases are 93.85%, 88.53%, 83.3%, and 95.45% respectively. The overall accuracy of sentiment classification obtained using proposed framework on 275 Punjabi text documents is found to be 90.29%.

Keywords: deep neural network, farmer suicides, morphological processing, punjabi text, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Khatia Tavidashvili, Nino Jamrishvili, Valerian Omsarashvili

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Studies of the vertical distribution of the air temperature in the atmosphere have great value for the solution of different problems of meteorology and climatology (meteorological forecast of showers, thunderstorms, and hail, weather modification, estimation of climate change, etc.). From the end of May 2015 in Kakheti after 25-year interruption, the work of anti-hail service was restored. Therefore, in connection with climate change, the need for the detailed study of the contemporary regime of the vertical distribution of the air temperature above this territory arose. In particular, the indicated information is necessary for the optimum selection of rocket means with the works on the weather modification (fight with the hail, the regulation of atmospheric precipitations, etc.). Construction of the detailed maps of the potential damage distribution of agricultural crops from the hail, etc. taking into account the dimensions of hailstones in the clouds according to the data of radar measurements and height of locality are the most important factors. For now, in Georgia, there is no aerological probing of atmosphere. To solve given problem we processed information about air temperature profiles above Telavi, at 27 km above earth's surface. Information was gathered during four observation time (4, 10, 16, 22 hours with local time. After research, we found vertical distribution of the average monthly values of the air temperature above Kakheti in ‎2012-2017 from January to December. Research was conducted from 0.543 to 27 km above sea level during four periods of research. In particular, it is obtained: -during January the monthly average air temperature linearly diminishes with 2.6 °C on the earth's surface to -57.1 °C at the height of 10 km, then little it changes up to the height of 26 km; the gradient of the air temperature in the layer of the atmosphere from 0.543 to 8 km - 6.3 °C/km; height of zero isotherm - is 1.33 km. -during July the air temperature linearly diminishes with 23.5 °C to -64.7 °C at the height of 17 km, then it grows to -47.5 °C at the height of 27 km; the gradient of the air temperature of - 6.1 °C/km; height of zero isotherm - is 4.39 km, which on 0.16 km is higher than in the sixties of past century.

Keywords: hail, Kakheti, meteorology, vertical distribution of the air temperature

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Authors: Angelo Corallo, Maria Elena Latino, Marta Menegoli

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Agri-food value chain involves various stakeholders with different roles. All of them abide by national and international rules and leverage marketing strategies to advance their products. Food products and related processing phases carry with it a big mole of data that are often not used to inform final customer. Some data, if fittingly identified and used, can enhance the single company, and/or the all supply chain creates a math between marketing techniques and voluntary traceability strategies. Moreover, as of late, the world has seen buying-models’ modification: customer is careful on wellbeing and food quality. Food citizenship and food democracy was born, leveraging on transparency, sustainability and food information needs. Internet of Things (IoT) and Analytics, some of the innovative technologies of Industry 4.0, have a significant impact on market and will act as a main thrust towards a genuine ‘4.0 change’ for agriculture. But, realizing a traceability system is not simple because of the complexity of agri-food supply chain, a lot of actors involved, different business models, environmental variations impacting products and/or processes, and extraordinary climate changes. In order to give support to the company involved in a traceability path, starting from business model analysis and related business process a Framework to Manage Product Data in Agri-Food Supply Chain for Voluntary Traceability was conceived. Studying each process task and leveraging on modeling techniques lead to individuate information held by different actors during agri-food supply chain. IoT technologies for data collection and Analytics techniques for data processing supply information useful to increase the efficiency intra-company and competitiveness in the market. The whole information recovered can be shown through IT solutions and mobile application to made accessible to the company, the entire supply chain and the consumer with the view to guaranteeing transparency and quality.

Keywords: agriculture 4.0, agri-food suppy chain, industry 4.0, voluntary traceability

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Authors: Tarek M. Alguhane, Ayman H. Khalil, M. N. Fayed, Ayman M. Ismail

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This paper deals with different modeling aspects of masonry infill: no infill model, Layered shell infill model, and strut infill model. These models consider the complicated behavior of the in-filled plane frames under lateral load similar to an earthquake load. Three strut infill models are used: NBCC (2005) strut infill model, ASCE/SEI 41-06 strut infill model and proposed strut infill model based on modification to Canadian, NBCC (2005) strut infill model. Pushover and modal analyses of a masonry infill concrete frame with a single storey and an existing 5-storey RC building have been carried out by using different models for masonry infill. The corresponding hinge status, the value of base shear at target displacement as well as their dynamic characteristics have been determined and compared. A validation of the structural numerical models for the existing 5-storey RC building has been achieved by comparing the experimentally measured and the analytically estimated natural frequencies and their mode shapes. This study shows that ASCE/SEI 41-06 equation underestimates the values for the equivalent properties of the diagonal strut while Canadian, NBCC (2005) equation gives realistic values for the equivalent properties. The results indicate that both ASCE/SEI 41-06 and Canadian, NBCC (2005) equations for strut infill model give over estimated values for dynamic characteristic of the building. Proposed modification to Canadian, NBCC (2005) equation shows that the fundamental dynamic characteristic values of the building are nearly similar to the corresponding values using layered shell elements as well as measured field results.

Keywords: masonry infill, framed structures, RC buildings, non-structural elements

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Authors: Jamie A. Prowse Turner, Jamie I. D. Campbell, Valerie A. Thompson

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The objective of the current research was to use a dual-process theory framework to explain these age-related differences in reasoning. Seventy-two older (M = 80.0 years) and 72 younger (M = 24.6 years) adults were given a variety of reasoning tests (i.e., a syllogistic task, base rate task, the Cognitive Reflection Test, and a perspective manipulation), as well as independent tests of capacity (working memory, processing speed, and inhibition), thinking styles, and metacognitive ability, to account for these age-related differences. It was revealed that age-related differences were limited to problems that required Type 2 processing and were related to differences in cognitive capacity, individual difference factors, and strategy choice. Furthermore, older adults’ performance can be improved by reasoning from another’s’ perspective and cannot, at this time, be explained by metacognitive differences between young and older adults. All of these findings fit well within a dual-process theory of reasoning, which provides an integrative framework accounting for previous findings and the findings presented in the current manuscript.

Keywords: aging, dual-process theory, performance, reasoning ability

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Authors: Arto Grasten

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Given the rising trend in obesity in children and youth, age-related decline in moderate- to- vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) in several Western, African, and Asian countries in addition to limited evidence of behavioral, affective, cognitive outcomes in physical education, it is important to clarify the motivational processes in physical education classes behind total MVPA engagement. The present study examined the full sequence of the Hierarchical Model of Motivation in physical education including motivational climate, basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, contextual behavior, affect, cognition, total MVPA, and associated links to body mass index (BMI) and gender differences. A cross-sectional data comprised self-reports and objective assessments of 770 middle school students (Mage = 13.99 ± .81 years, 52% of girls) in North-East Finland. In order to test the associations between motivational climate, psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, cognition, behavior, affect, and total MVPA, a path model was implemented. Indirect effects between motivational climate and cognition, behavior, affect and total MVPA were tested by setting basic needs and intrinsic motivation as mediators into the model. The findings showed that direct and indirect paths for girls and boys associated with different contextual outcomes and girls’ indirect paths were not related with total MVPA. Precisely, task-involving climate-mediated by physical competence and intrinsic motivation related to enjoyment, importance, and graded assessments within girls, whereas task-involving climate associated with enjoyment and importance via competence and autonomy, and total MVPA via autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and importance within boys. Physical education assessments appeared to be essential in motivating students to participate in greater total MVPA. BMI was negatively linked with competence and relatedness only among girls. Although, the current and previous empirical findings supported task-involving teaching methods in physical education, in some cases, ego-involving climate should not be totally avoided. This may indicate that girls and boys perceive physical education classes in a different way. Therefore, both task- and ego-involving teaching practices can be useful ways of driving behavior in physical education classes.

Keywords: achievement goal theory, assessment, enjoyment, hierarchical model of motivation, physical activity, self-determination theory

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Authors: Piyarat Parklug, Busaba Supawattanaobodee, Penpat Pinyowattanasilp

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The radioactive iodine thyroid uptake (RAIU) has been widely used to differentiate the cause of thyrotoxicosis and treatment. Twenty-four hours RAIU is routinely used to calculate the dose of radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy; however, 2 days protocol is required. This study aims to evaluate the modification of Penpat Pinyowattanasilp equation application by the exclusion of outlier data, 3 hours RAIU less than 20% and more than 80%, to improve prediction of 24-hour uptake. The equation is predicted 24 hours RAIU (P24RAIU) = 32.5+0.702 (3 hours RAIU). Then calculating separation first and second therapeutic doses in Graves’ disease patients. Methods; This study was a retrospective study at Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Inclusion were Graves’ disease patients who visited RAI clinic between January 2014-March 2019. We divided subjects into 2 groups according to first and second therapeutic doses. Results; Our study had a total of 151 patients. The study was done in 115 patients with first RAI dose and 36 patients with second RAI dose. The P24RAIU are highly correlated with actual 24-hour RAIU in first and second therapeutic doses (r = 0.913, 95% CI = 0.876 to 0.939 and r = 0.806, 95% CI = 0.649 to 0.897). Bland-Altman plot shows that mean differences between predictive and actual 24 hours RAI in the first dose and second dose were 2.14% (95%CI 0.83-3.46) and 1.37% (95%CI -1.41-4.14). The mean first actual and predictive therapeutic doses are 8.33 ± 4.93 and 7.38 ± 3.43 milliCuries (mCi) respectively. The mean second actual and predictive therapeutic doses are 6.51 ± 3.96 and 6.01 ± 3.11 mCi respectively. The predictive therapeutic doses are highly correlated with the actual dose in first and second therapeutic doses (r = 0.907, 95% CI = 0.868 to 0.935 and r = 0.953, 95% CI = 0.909 to 0.976). Bland-Altman plot shows that mean difference between predictive and actual P24RAIU in the first dose and second dose were less than 1 mCi (-0.94 and -0.5 mCi). This modification equation application is simply used in clinical practice especially patient with 3 hours RAIU in range of 20-80% in a Thai population. Before use, this equation for other population should be tested for the correlation.

Keywords: equation, Graves’disease, prediction, 24-hour uptake

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Authors: Randall Gray Underwood

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Within the past few decades, zombie cinema has evolved from a niche outgrowth of the horror genre into one of the most widely-discussed and thoroughly-analyzed subgenres of film. Rising to international popularity during the 1970s and 1980s following the release of George Romero’s landmark classic, Night of the Living Dead (1968), and its much-imitated sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978), the zombie genre returned to global screens in full force at the turn of the century following earth-shattering events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, America’s subsequent war in the Middle East, environmental pandemics, and the emergence of a divided and disconnected global populace in the age of social media. Indeed, the presence of the zombie in all manner of art and entertainment—movies, literature, television, video games, comic books, and more—has become nothing short of pervasive, engendering a plethora of scholarly writings, books, opinion pieces, and video essays from all manner of academics, cultural commentators, critics, and casual fans, with each espousing their own theories regarding the zombie’s allegorical and symbolic value within global fiction. Consequently, the walking dead of recent years have been variously positioned as fictive manifestations of human fears of societal collapse, environmental contagion, sexually-transmitted disease, primal regression, dwindling population rates, global terrorism, and the foreign “Other”. Less commonly analyzed within film scholarship, however, is the connection between the zombie’s folkloric roots and native African/Haitian spiritual practice; specifically, how this connection impacts the zombie’s presentation in African films by native storytellers versus in similar narratives told from a western perspective. This work will examine the unlikely connections and contrasts inherent the portrayal of the traditional African/Haitian zombie (or zombi, in Haitian French) in the Nollywood film Witchdoctor of the Livingdead (1985, Charles Abi Enonchong) versus its depiction in the early Hollywood films White Zombie (1932, Victor Halperin) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943, Jacques Tourneur), through analysis of each cinemas’ use of the zombie as a visual metaphor for subjugation/slavery, as well as differences in their representation of the the spiritual folklore from which the figure of the zombie originates. Select films from the post-Night of the Living Dead zombie cinema landscape will also warrant brief discussion in relation to Witchdoctor of the Livingdead.

Keywords: Nollywood, Zombie cinema, Horror cinema, Classical Hollywood

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Authors: Khajeerat Phumpurk

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This research aims to study the knowledge, attitude toward household accounting of people in Bangkeaw Samutsongkhram. The sample use in this study was the people in tambol bangkeao Mueang Samut songkhram province. The Sample size for 100 household by using the accidental sampling and data collection was a questionnaire. Statistical analysis for frequency, percentage, mean, minimum, maximum value and standard deviation. It was found that the most of the respondent are farmers for 63.4. Most of them are male, with average of age 49.54 years. The education is vocational. The average household income is 60,873.74 per year. The respondent has the debt with the bank for 64.4 percent. The greatest influence to do the household accounting of farmers is the bank expertise. All the advice about doing household accounts get it from the staff of the bank for agriculture and agricultural cooperatives. The farmers for 57.3 do household accounting during the night time.

Keywords: Bangkeaw Samutsongkhram, household accounting, knowledge, sufficiency economy

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Authors: Simone F. Medeiros, Isabela F. Santos, Rodolfo M. Moraes, Jaspreet K. Kular, Marcus A. Johns, Ram Sharma, Amilton M. Santos

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Tissue engineering aims to develop alternatives to treat damaged tissues by promoting their regeneration. Its basic principle is to place cells on a scaffold capable of promoting cell functions, and for this purpose, polymeric nanoparticles have been successfully used due to the ability of some macro chains to mimic the extracellular matrix and influence cell functions. In general, nanoparticles require surface chemical modification to achieve cell adhesion, and recent advances in their synthesis include methods for modifying the ligand density and distribution onto nanoparticles surface. However, this work reports the development of biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles capable of promoting cellular adhesion without any surface chemical modification by ligands. Biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles based on poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBHV) were synthesized by solvent evaporation method. The produced nanoparticles were small in size (85 and 125 nm) and colloidally stable against time in aqueous solution. Morphology evaluation showed their spherical shape with small polydispersity. Human osteoblast-like cells (MG63) were cultured in the presence of PHBHV nanoparticles, and growth kinetics were compared to those grown on tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). Cell attachment on non-tissue culture polystyrene (non-TCPS) pre-coated with nanoparticles was assessed and compared to attachment on TCPS. These findings reveal the potential of PHBHV nanoparticles for cell adhesion and growth, without requiring a matrix ligand to support cells, to be used as scaffolds, in tissue engineering applications.

Keywords: tissue engineering, PHBHV, stem cells, cellular attachment

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Authors: Endrick Barnacin, Jean-Luc Henry, Jack Molinié, Jimmy Nagau, Hélène Delatte, Gérard Lebreton

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Palynology is a field of interest for many disciplines. It has multiple applications such as chronological dating, climatology, allergy treatment, and even honey characterization. Unfortunately, the analysis of a pollen slide is a complicated and time-consuming task that requires the intervention of experts in the field, which is becoming increasingly rare due to economic and social conditions. So, the automation of this task is a necessity. Pollen slides analysis is mainly a visual process as it is carried out with the naked eye. That is the reason why a primary method to automate palynology is the use of digital image processing. This method presents the lowest cost and has relatively good accuracy in pollen retrieval. In this work, we propose a system combining recognition and grouping of pollen. It consists of using a Logistic Model Tree to classify pollen already known by the proposed system while detecting any unknown species. Then, the unknown pollen species are divided using a cluster-based approach. Success rates for the recognition of known species have been achieved, and automated clustering seems to be a promising approach.

Keywords: pollen recognition, logistic model tree, expectation-maximization, local binary pattern

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Authors: Ana Paula Soares, Alexandrina Lages, Helena Oliveira, Francisco-Javier Gutiérrez-Domínguez, Marisa Lousada

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From an early age, exposure to a spoken language allows us to implicitly capture the structure underlying the succession of the speech sounds in that language and to segment it into meaningful units (words). Statistical learning (SL), i.e., the ability to pick up patterns in the sensory environment even without intention or consciousness of doing it, is thus assumed to play a central role in the acquisition of the rule-governed aspects of language and possibly to lie behind the language difficulties exhibited by children with development language disorder (DLD). The research conducted so far has, however, led to inconsistent results, which might stem from the behavioral tasks used to test SL. In a classic SL experiment, participants are first exposed to a continuous stream (e.g., syllables) in which, unbeknownst to the participants, stimuli are grouped into triplets that always appear together in the stream (e.g., ‘tokibu’, ‘tipolu’), with no pauses between each other (e.g., ‘tokibutipolugopilatokibu’) and without any information regarding the task or the stimuli. Following exposure, SL is assessed by asking participants to discriminate between triplets previously presented (‘tokibu’) from new sequences never presented together during exposure (‘kipopi’), i.e., to perform a two-alternative-forced-choice (2-AFC) task. Despite the widespread use of the 2-AFC to test SL, it has come under increasing criticism as it is an offline post-learning task that only assesses the result of the learning that had occurred during the previous exposure phase and that might be affected by other factors beyond the computation of regularities embedded in the input, typically the likelihood two syllables occurring together, a statistic known as transitional probability (TP). One solution to overcome these limitations is to assess SL as exposure to the stream unfolds using online techniques such as event-related potentials (ERP) that is highly sensitive to the time-course of the learning in the brain. Here we collected ERPs to examine the neurofunctional correlates of SL in preschool children with DLD, and chronological-age typical language development (TLD) controls who were exposed to an auditory stream in which eight three-syllable nonsense words, four of which presenting high-TPs and the other four low-TPs, to further analyze whether the ability of DLD and TLD children to extract-word-like units from the steam was modulated by words’ predictability. Moreover, to ascertain if the previous knowledge of the to-be-learned-regularities affected the neural responses to high- and low-TP words, children performed the auditory SL task, firstly, under implicit, and, subsequently, under explicit conditions. Although behavioral evidence of SL was not obtained in either group, the neural responses elicited during the exposure phases of the SL tasks differentiated children with DLD from children with TLD. Specifically, the results indicated that only children from the TDL group showed neural evidence of SL, particularly in the SL task performed under explicit conditions, firstly, for the low-TP, and, subsequently, for the high-TP ‘words’. Taken together, these findings support the view that children with DLD showed deficits in the extraction of the regularities embedded in the auditory input which might underlie the language difficulties.

Keywords: development language disorder, statistical learning, transitional probabilities, word segmentation

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