Search results for: generalized local homology modules

Authors: Wen-Bin Chiou, Hsiao-Chiao Weng

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Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter are low-cost tools that can promote the creation of social connections by providing a convenient platform that can be accessed at any time. In the current research, a laboratory experiment was conducted test the hypothesis that reminders of losing SNS would alter the impact of social events, especially those involving social exclusion. Specifically, this study explored whether losing SNS would intensify perceived social distress induced by exclusionary bogus feedback. Eighty-eight Facebook users (46 females, 42 males; mean age = 22.6 years, SD = 3.1 years) were recruited via campus posters and flyers at a national university in southern Taiwan. After participants provided consent, they were randomly assigned to a 2 (SNS non-use vs. neutral) between-subjects experiment. Participants completed an ostensible survey about online social networking in which we included an item about the time spent on SNS per day. The last question was used to manipulate thoughts about losing SNS access. Participants under the non-use condition were asked to record three conditions that would render them unable to use SNS (e.g., a network adaptor problem, malfunctioning cable modem, or problems with Internet service providers); participants under the neutral condition recorded three conditions that would render them unable to log onto the college website (e.g., server maintenance, local network or firewall problems). Later, this experiment employed a bogus-feedback paradigm to induce social exclusion. Participants then rated their social distress on a four-item scale, identical to that of Experiment 1 (α = .84). The results showed that thoughts of losing SNS intensified distress caused by social exclusion, suggesting that the loss of SNS has a similar effect to the loss of a primary source for social reconnections. Moreover, the priming effects of SNS on perceived distress were more prominent for heavy users. The demonstrated link between the idea of losing SNS use and increased pain of social exclusion manifests the importance of SNS as a crucial gateway for acquiring and rebuilding social connections. Use of online social networking appears to be a two-edged sword for coping with social exclusion in human lives in the e-society.

Keywords: online social networking, perceived distress, social exclusion, SNS

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Authors: Saad Bin Ismail, Muhammad Ateeq Qureshi, Rao Muhammad Zahid Khalil

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In the last few decades, urbanization worldwide has been sprawled manifold, which is denunciated in the growth of urban infrastructure and transportation. Urban Heat Island (UHI) can induce deterioration of the living environment, disabilities, and rises in energy usages. In this study, the prevalence/presence of Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) effect in major cities of Pakistan, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, and Peshawar has been investigated. Landsat and SPOT satellite images were acquired for the assessment of urban sprawl. MODIS Land Surface Temperature product MOD11A2 was acquired between 1000-1200 hours (local time) for assessment of urban heat island. The results of urban sprawl informed that the extent of Islamabad and Rawalpindi urban area increased from 240 km2 to 624 km2 between 2000 and 2016, accounted 24 km2 per year, Lahore 29 km2, accounted 1.6 km2 per year, Karachi 261 km2, accounted for 16 km2/ per year, Peshawar 63 km2, accounted 4 km2/per year, and Quetta 76 km2/per year, accounted 5 km2/per year approximately. The average Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) magnitude is observed at a scale of 0.63 ᵒC for Islamabad and Rawalpindi, 1.25 ᵒC for Lahore, and 1.16 ᵒC for Karachi, which is 0.89 ᵒC for Quetta, and 1.08 ᵒC for Peshawar from 2000 to 2016. The pixel-based maximum SUHI intensity reaches up to about 11.40 ᵒC for Islamabad and Rawalpindi, 15.66 ᵒC for Lahore, 11.20 ᵒC for Karachi, 14.61 ᵒC for Quetta, and 15.22 ᵒC for Peshawar from the baseline of zero degrees Centigrade (ᵒC). The overall trend of SUHI in planned cities (e.g., Islamabad) is not found to increase significantly. Spatial and temporal patterns of SUHI for selected cities reveal heterogeneity and a unique pattern for each city. It is well recognized that SUHI intensity is modulated by land use/land cover patterns (due to their different surface properties and cooling rates), meteorological conditions, and anthropogenic activities. The study concluded that the selected cities (Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, and Peshawar) are examples where dense urban pockets observed about 15 ᵒC warmer than a nearby rural area.

Keywords: urban heat island , surface urban heat island , urbanization, anthropogenic source

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Authors: Fei Ye, Åsa Barrefelt, Manuchehr Abedi-Valugerdi, Khalid M. Abu-Salah, Salman A. Alrokayan, Mamoun Muhammed, Moustapha Hassan

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With appropriate encapsulation in functional nanoparticles drugs are more stable in physiological environment and the kinetics of the drug can be more carefully controlled and monitored. Furthermore, targeted drug delivery can be developed to improve chemotherapy in cancer treatment, not only by enhancing intracellular uptake by target cells but also by reducing the adverse effects in non-target organs. Inorganic imaging agents, delivered together with anti-cancer drugs, enhance the local imaging contrast and provide precise diagnosis as well as evaluation of therapy efficacy. We have developed biodegradable polymeric vesicles as a nanocarrier system for multimodal bio-imaging and anticancer drug delivery. The poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) PLGA) vesicles were fabricated by encapsulating inorganic imaging agents of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION), manganese-doped zinc sulfide (MN:ZnS) quantum dots (QDs) and the anticancer drug busulfan into PLGA nanoparticles via an emulsion-evaporation method. T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of PLGA-SPION-Mn:ZnS phantoms exhibited enhanced negative contrast with r2 relaxivity of approximately 523 s-1 mM-1 Fe. Murine macrophage (J774A) cellular uptake of PLGA vesicles started fluorescence imaging at 2 h and reached maximum intensity at 24 h incubation. The drug delivery ability PLGA vesicles was demonstrated in vitro by release of busulfan. PLGA vesicles degradation was studied in vitro, showing that approximately 32% was degraded into lactic and glycolic acid over a period of 5 weeks. The biodistribution of PLGA vesicles was investigated in vivo by MRI in a rat model. Change of contrast in the liver could be visualized by MRI after 7 min and maximal signal loss detected after 4 h post-injection of PLGA vesicles. Histological studies showed that the presence of PLGA vesicles in organs was shifted from the lungs to the liver and spleen over time.

Keywords: biodegradable polymers, multifunctional nanoparticles, quantum dots, anticancer drugs

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Authors: Nikolaos Petropoulos, Elena Blokhina, Andrii Sokolov, Andrii Semenov, Panagiotis Giounanlis, Xutong Wu, Dmytro Mishagli, Eugene Koskin, Robert Bogdan Staszewski, Dirk Leipold

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We investigate entanglement and quantum information scrambling (QIS) by the example of a many-body Extended and spinless effective Fermi-Hubbard Model (EFHM and e-FHM, respectively) that describes a special type of quantum dot array provided by Equal1 labs silicon-based quantum computer. The concept of QIS is used in the framework of quantum information processing by quantum circuits and quantum channels. In general, QIS is manifest as the de-localization of quantum information over the entire quantum system; more compactly, information about the input cannot be obtained by local measurements of the output of the quantum system. In our work, we will first make an introduction to the concept of quantum information scrambling and its connection with the 4-point out-of-time-order (OTO) correlators. In order to have a quantitative measure of QIS we use the tripartite mutual information, in similar lines to previous works, that measures the mutual information between 4 different spacetime partitions of the system and study the Transverse Field Ising (TFI) model; this is used to quantify the dynamical spreading of quantum entanglement and information in the system. Then, we investigate scrambling in the quantum many-body Extended Hubbard Model with external magnetic field Bz and spin-spin coupling J for both uniform and thermal quantum channel inputs and show that it scrambles for specific external tuning parameters (e.g., tunneling amplitudes, on-site potentials, magnetic field). In addition, we compare different Hilbert space sizes (different number of qubits) and show the qualitative and quantitative differences in quantum scrambling as we increase the number of quantum degrees of freedom in the system. Moreover, we find a "scrambling phase transition" for a threshold temperature in the thermal case, that is, the temperature of the model that the channel starts to scramble quantum information. Finally, we make comparisons to the TFI model and highlight the key physical differences between the two systems and mention some future directions of research.

Keywords: condensed matter physics, quantum computing, quantum information theory, quantum physics

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Authors: H. N. Alyaseen, S. E. Alalawi, T. Cordoba, É. Delisle, C. Cordoba, A. Odobescu

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Sternal dehiscence is defined as the persistent separation of sternal bones that are often complicated with mediastinitis. Etiologies that lead to sternal dehiscence vary, with cardiovascular and thoracic surgeries being the most common. Early diagnosis in susceptible patients is crucial to the management of such cases, as they are associated with high mortality rates. A recent meta-analysis of more than four hundred thousand patients concluded that deep sternal wound infections were the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in patients undergoing cardiac procedures. Long-term complications associated with sternal dehiscence include increased hospitalizations, cardiac infarctions, and renal and respiratory failures. Numerous osteosynthesis methods have been described in the literature. Surgical materials offer enough rigidity to support the sternum and can be flexible enough to allow physiological breathing movements of the chest; however, these materials fall short when managing patients with extensive bone loss, osteopenia, or general poor bone quality, for such cases, flaps offer a better closure system. Early utilization of flaps yields better survival rates compared to delayed closure or to patients treated with sternal rewiring and closed drainage. The utilization of pectoralis major flaps, rectus abdominus, and latissimus muscle flaps have all been described in the literature as great alternatives. Flap selection depends on a variety of factors, mainly the size of the sternal defect, infection, and the availability of local tissues. Free fibular flaps are commonly harvested flaps utilized in reconstruction around the body. In cases regarding sternal reconstruction with free fibular flaps, the literature exclusively discussed the flap applied vertically to the chest wall. We present a different technique applying the free fibular triple barrel flap oriented in a transverse manner, in parallel to the ribs. In our experience, this method could have enhanced results and improved prognosis as it contributes to the normal circumferential shape of the chest wall.

Keywords: sternal dehiscence, management, free fibular flaps, novel surgical techniques

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Authors: Raj Banerjee, Aniruddha Sengupta

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An earthquake event, associated with a typical fault rupture, initiates at the source, propagates through a rock or soil medium and finally daylights at a surface which might be a populous city. The detrimental effects of an earthquake are often quantified in terms of the responses of superstructures resting on the soil. Hence, there is a need for the estimation of amplification of the bedrock motions due to the influence of local site conditions. In the present study, field borehole log data of Mangalwadi and Walkeswar sites in Mumbai city are considered. The data consists of variation of SPT N-value with the depth of soil. A correlation between shear wave velocity (Vₛ) and SPT N value for various soil profiles of Mumbai city has been developed using various existing correlations which is used further for site response analysis. MATLAB program is developed for studying the ground response analysis by performing two dimensional linear and equivalent linear analysis for some of the typical Mumbai soil sites using pure shear (Multi Point Constraint) boundary condition. The model is validated in linear elastic and equivalent linear domain using the popular commercial program, DEEPSOIL. Three actual earthquake motions are selected based on their frequency contents and durations and scaled to a PGA of 0.16g for the present ground response analyses. The results are presented in terms of peak acceleration time history with depth, peak shear strain time history with depth, Fourier amplitude versus frequency, response spectrum at the surface etc. The peak ground acceleration amplification factors are found to be about 2.374, 3.239 and 2.4245 for Mangalwadi site and 3.42, 3.39, 3.83 for Walkeswar site using 1979 Imperial Valley Earthquake, 1989 Loma Gilroy Earthquake and 1987 Whitter Narrows Earthquake, respectively. In the absence of any site-specific response spectrum for the chosen sites in Mumbai, the generated spectrum at the surface may be utilized for the design of any superstructure at these locations.

Keywords: deepsoil, ground response analysis, multi point constraint, response spectrum

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Authors: Bernard Kumi-Boateng, Issaka Yakubu

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Forest fire, which is, an uncontrolled fire occurring in nature has become a major concern for the Forestry Commission of Ghana (FCG). The forest fires in Ghana usually result in massive destruction and take a long time for the firefighting crews to gain control over the situation. In order to assess the effect of forest fire at local scale, it is important to consider the role fire plays in vegetation composition, biodiversity, soil erosion, and the hydrological cycle. The occurrence, frequency and behaviour of forest fires vary over time and space, primarily as a result of the complicated influences of changes in land use, vegetation composition, fire suppression efforts, and other indigenous factors. One of the forest zones in Ghana with a high level of vegetation stress is the Goaso forest area. The area has experienced changes in its traditional land use such as hunting, charcoal production, inefficient logging practices and rural abandonment patterns. These factors which were identified as major causes of forest fire, have recently modified the incidence of fire in the Goaso area. In spite of the incidence of forest fires in the Goaso forest area, most of the forest services do not provide a cartographic representation of the burned areas. This has resulted in significant amount of information being required by the firefighting unit of the FCG to understand fire risk factors and its spatial effects. This study uses Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System techniques to develop a fire risk hazard model using the Goaso Forest Area (GFA) as a case study. From the results of the study, natural forest, agricultural lands and plantation cover types were identified as the major fuel contributing loads. However, water bodies, roads and settlements were identified as minor fuel contributing loads. Based on the major and minor fuel contributing loads, a forest fire risk hazard model with a reasonable accuracy has been developed for the GFA to assist decision making.

Keywords: forest, GIS, remote sensing, Goaso

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Authors: Themistoklis Tzimas

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The proposed paper focuses on a triangular relationship, between human security, human development and responsibility to rebuild. This relationship constitutes the innovative contribution to the debate about human security. Human security constitutes a generic and legally binding notion, which orientates from an integrated approach the UN Charter principles and of the collective security system. Such an approach brings at the forefront of international law and of international relations not only states but non- state actors as well. Several doctrines attempt to implement the fore-mentioned approach among which the Responsibility to Protect- hereinafter R2P- doctrine and its aspect of Responsibility to Rebuild- hereinafter R2R. In this sense, R2P in general and R2R are supposed to be guided by human security imperatives. Human security because of its human- centered approach encompasses as an integral part of it, human development. Human development constitutes part of the backbone of human security, since it deals with the social and economic root- causes of the threats, which human security attempts to confront. In this sense, doctrines which orientate from human security, such as R2P and its R2R aspect should also take into account human development imperatives, in order to improve their efficiency. On the contrary though, R2R is more often linked with market- orientated policies, which are often imposed under transitional authorities, regardless of local needs. The implementation of such policies can be identified as a cause for striking failures in the framework of R2R. In addition it is a misinterpretation of the essence of human security and subsequently of R2P as well. The findings of the article, on the basis of the fore-mentioned argument is that a change must take place from a market- orientated misinterpretation of R2R to an approach attempting to implement human development doctrines, since the latter lie at the heart of human security and can be proven more effective in dealing with the root- causes of conflicts. Methodologically, the article begins with an examination of human security and of its binding nature on the basis of its orientation from the UN Charter. It also examines its significance in the framework of the collective security system. Then, follows the analysis of why and how human development constitutes an integral part of human security. At the next part it is proven that R2P in general and R2R more specifically constitute or should constitute an attempt to implement human security doctrines within the collective security system. Having built this triangular relationship it is argued that human development is proven to be the most suitable notion, so that the spirit of human security and the scopes of R2P are successfully implemented.

Keywords: human security, un charter, responsibility to protect, responsibility to rebuild, human development

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Authors: Madifedile Thasi, Azola Mayeza

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In South Africa, provision of housing to the growing population has been described as one of the greatest challenges facing the government. Between 1994 to 2015, more than 2.5 million housing units were provided by the government for the poorest households and the low-income earners under the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Yet, the latest census figure revealed that about 2.1 million households still live in shacks and informal dwellings. Human settlements patterns remain dysfunctional across in South Africa because of rapid urbanisation. The housing backlog is growing at a rate of 178 000 units a year. The aforementioned predicament calls the need for innovative approaches to address the issue in a sustainable way and this need not be overemphasized. Aside from the issue of cost, the delivery of more housing units comes with environmental and sustainability issues. The prefabrication building technology has resulted into accelerated housing delivery to a satisfactory level in some countries such as Nigeria and Malaysia that are facing similar issue. It is therefore expected to be a foremost option to address the social housing backlog in South Africa and within the country housing sustainability agenda. This paper appraises the factors responsible for the limited implementation of prefabrication technology in South African housing projects. The objective is to recommend the method and materials that can be best sustained in the country in terms of local availability, cost effectiveness and environmental friendliness. It presents empirical data to support the hypothesis that a wider implementation of prefabrication technology in the social housing projects will be of significant benefit, by providing fast turnaround, cost-effective and sustainable solution that will dent the housing backlog, as well as improving the quality of the social housings. It was found that only 17 000 units of the RDP housings provided were constructed using alternative building technologies. Furthermore, there are variety of prefabricated technologies in the market but mostly have limited production capacity, minimal manufacturing capacity and most materials are imported, which leads to unavailability of the technology for large scale delivery and utilization despite its obvious advantages.

Keywords: prefabrication technology, sustainable social housings, South Africa, housing delivery

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Authors: Mohd Sabere Sulaiman, Masyitah Abd Aziz, Norsiah Hassan, Jamilah Halina Abdul Halim, Mohd Saipul Asrafi Haron

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The use of clay roof tiles was spread out through Asia and Europe, including Malaysia, since the early 17th Century. Most of the common type of clay roof tiles are used in a flat and rectangular shape, measurement, styles, and characteristics through each tradition and interest, including responsive to the climate. Various types of heritage clay roof tiles were used in Malaysia’s Government Buildings dated 1865, 1919, 1936, and so forth, which mostly were imported from India, France, and Italy. Until now, these heritage clay roof tiles are still found throughout Malaysia, including the ‘Interlocking’ clay roof tile type. This study is to investigate and overview the existence of heritage clay roof tiles used in Malaysia; the ‘interlocking’ type with ‘lip’ and ‘hooks’, through literature reviews as desktop study besides carried out a preliminary observation on various sites and interviews. From the literatures, the last production and used of the local heritage clay roof tiles in Malaysia dated in mid 1900s in Batu Arang, Selangor. The brick factory was abandoned since early 2000s. Although the modern ‘Interlocking’ type were produced to duplicate its form, pattern, and size of the original one, they still facing the problem to blend and merged, which end up dismantling the original version, or replacing one to one condition and even replaced overall with the modern materials. This is quite contradicting with the basic principles of building conservation and had become a challenge. Initial findings from the preliminary observation on site in various state in Malaysia shows some evidence that the heritage clay roof tiles are still intact and been used. Some of them might change to modern roof materials such as metal deck, probably due to easy maintenance and cheaper. Also, some are still struggling to maintain and retain its looks and authenticity of the roof while facing the increasing of material cost. Those improper alteration and changes made is due to lack of knowledge among the owner and end user. Various aspect needs to be considered in order to sustain its usage and its original looks by looking at the proper maintenance aspects of the heritage clay roof tiles to prolong the building life for future generation preferences.

Keywords: challenges, clay, interlocking, maintenance

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Authors: Giorgi Katamadze

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Open public service and accountability towards citizens is an important feature of democratic state based on rule of law. Effective use of electronic resources simplifies bureaucratic procedures, makes direct communications, helps exchange information, ensures government’s openness and in general helps develop electronic/digital democracy. Development of electronic democracy should be a strategic dimension of Georgian governance. Formation of electronic democracy, its functional improvement should become an important dimension of the state’s information policy. Electronic democracy is based on electronic governance and implies modern information and communication systems, their adaptation to universal standards. E-democracy needs involvement of governments, voters, political parties and social groups in an electronic form. In the last years the process of interaction between the citizen and the state becomes simpler. This process is achieved by the use of modern technological systems which gives to a citizen a possibility to use different public services online. For example, the website my.gov.ge makes interaction between the citizen, business and the state more simple, comfortable and secure. A higher standard of accountability and interaction is being established. Electronic democracy brings new forms of interactions between the state and the citizen: e-engagement – participation of society in state politics via electronic systems; e-consultation – electronic interaction among public officials, citizens and interested groups; e-controllership – electronic rule and control of public expenses and service. Public transparency is one of the milestones of electronic democracy as well as representative democracy as only on mutual trust and accountability can democracy be established. In Georgia, institutional changes concerning establishment and development of electronic democracy are not enough. Effective planning and implementation of a comprehensive and multi component e-democracy program (central, regional, local levels) requires telecommunication systems, institutional (public service, competencies, logical system) and informational (relevant conditions for public involvement) support. Therefore, a systematic project of formation of electronic governance should be developed which will include central, regional, municipal levels and certain aspects of development of instrumental basis for electronic governance.

Keywords: e-democracy, e-governance, e-services, information technology, public administration

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Authors: Rima Al Garni, Emad Al Shdaifat, Sahar Elmetwalli, Mohammad Alzaid, Abdulrahman Alghothayyan, Sara Al Abd Al Hai, Seham Al Rashidi

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Aim: To investigate the prevalence of non-adherence of patients on haemodialysis and explore their perception of the importance of adherence to the therapeutic regime and estimate the predictors for adherence to the therapeutic regime. Background: End-stage renal disease is commonly treated by haemodialysis. Haemodialysis treatment alone is not effective in replacing kidney function. Diet and fluid restrictions, along with supplementary medications, are mandatory for the survival and well-being of patients. Hence, adherence to this therapeutic regimen is essential. However, non-adherence to diet and fluid restrictions, medications, and dialysis is common among patients on haemodialysis. Design: Descriptive cross-sectional method was applied to investigate the prevalence of non-adherence to treatment, including adherence to diet and fluid restrictions, medications, and dialysis sessions. Methods: Structured interviews were conducted using the Arabic version of the End-Stage Renal Disease Adherence Questionnaire. The sample included 230 patients undergoing haemodialysis in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions. Results/Findings: Most patients had good adherence (71.3%), and only 3.9% had poor adherence. The divorced or widowed patient had higher adherence compared with single (P=0.011) and married participants (P=0.045) through using the post hoc test. Patients above 60 years had higher adherence compared to patients below 40 years old (P=0.016) using the post hoc test. For the perception of the importance of adherence to the therapeutic regime subscale, two-thirds of the patients had lower scores (<=11). Conclusion: Adherence to therapeutic regime is high for three fourth of patients undergoing haemodialysis in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia; this finding is similar to results abstracted from the local literature. This result would help us highlight the needs of patients who are not compliant with their treatment plans and investigate the consequences of non-adherence on their well-being and general health. Hence, plan individualised therapeutic programmes that could raise their awareness and influence their adherence to therapeutic regimes.

Keywords: adherence to treatment, haemodialysis, end stage renal disease, diet and fluid restrictions

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Authors: Obadiah Nwabueze

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Bodija market is classified as Central Business District (CBD) of Ibadan North Local Government Area of Oyo State (Nigeria) because of socio economic activities, so Crime is a peculiar social issue that causes insecurity. The law enforcement agencies tasked with crime prevention and control such as the Nigerian Police have insufficient manpower, and a resultant effect is the emergence of Vigilante groups as citizen’s response to crime control and prevention (self-help). The research design adopted for this study is a case study design exploring Vigilante activities in Bodija Market. The study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative approach, sources of data includes primary and secondary sources. A sample of 127 respondents randomly picked from the 4 sections of Bodija Market through questionnaire, comprising of 50 male and 77 females which alienates issues of gender bias in addition to the 4 in-depth interview, making a total of 131 respondents. Statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used. The descriptive statistics of simple frequency, percentage, charts and graphs were computed for the analysis. Finding in the study shows that the market vigilante is able to deter and disrupt criminal activities through strategic spiritual intelligence (SSI), use of charm and juju, physical presence in strategic locations vulnerable to crime occurrence. Findings in the study also show that vigilantes collaborate with the police by assisting them in surveillance, tracking down criminals, identifying black spots, acting as informants to the police, arrest and handover criminal to police. Their challenges include poor equipment, motivation, unhealthy rivalry between the vigilante and the police. The study recommends that the government should support vigilantes with logistics and training, including patrol vehicle and radio communication. The study also recommends the integration of the informal mechanism (juju and charm) of crime detection and prevention into the formal policing strategy, an office should be created in the force commands for use of SSI.

Keywords: central business district, CBD, charm, Juju, strategic spiritual intelligence, SSI

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Authors: Wisdom Robert Duruji

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Local farmers and fruit processors in developing countries of West Africa use different ripening agents to accelerate the ripening process of plantain and banana. This study reports on the influence of different ripening agents on the shelf-life and microbial load of organic and inorganic plantain (Musa paradisiaca) and banana (Musa sapientum) during ripening process and the health implication for food security in Nigeria. The experiment consisted of four treatments, namely: Calcium carbide, Irvingia gabonensis fruits, Newbouldia laevis leaves and a control, where no ripening agent was applied to the fingers of plantain and banana. The unripe and ripened plantain and banana were subjected to microbial analysis by isolating their micro flora (Bacteria, Yeast and Mould) using pour plate method. Microbes present in the samples were enumerated, characterized and classified to genera and species. The result indicated that the microbial load of inorganic plantain from (Urban day) open market in Ile-Ife increased from 8.00 for unripe to 12.11 cfu/g for ripened; and the microbial load of organic plantain from Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching and Research Farm (OAUTRF) increased from 6.00 for unripe to 11.60 cfu/g for ripened. Also, the microbial load of inorganic banana from (Urban day) open market in Ile-Ife increased from 8.00 for unripe to 11.50 cfu/g for ripened; while the microbial load of organic banana from OAUTRF increased from 6.50 for unripe to 9.40 cfu/g for ripened. The microbial effects of the ripening agents increased from 10.00 for control to 16.00 cfu/g for treated (ripened) organic and inorganic plantain; while that of organic and inorganic banana increased from 7.50 for control to 14.50 cfu/g for ripened. Visual observation for the presence of fungal colonies and deterioration rates were monitored till seven days after the plantain and banana fingers have fully ripened. Inorganic plantain and banana from (Urban day) open market in Ile-Ife are more contaminated than organic plantain and banana fingers from OAUTRF. The ripening accelerators reduced the shelf life, increased senescence, and microbial load of plantain and banana. This study concluded that organic Agriculture is better and microbial friendlier than inorganic farming.

Keywords: organic agriculture, food security, Musaceae, calcium carbide, Irvingia gabonensis, Newbouldia laevis

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Authors: Gal Zagron, Nitza Abramson, Deena R. Zimmerman, Chen Stein-Zamir

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Background: Salmonella enteritidis is a common cause of foodborne outbreaks, primarily associated with poultry eggs. S. enteritidis This is the only Salmonella type that is found inside the eggshell. A rise in Salmonella enteritidis notifications was noted in spring 2017. Aims: The aim of this study is to describe the epidemiological investigation of the outbreak in the Jerusalem district, along with the containment measures taken. Methods: This study is a population-based epidemiological study with a description of environmental control activities. Results: During the months May - July, 2017 848 salmonellosis cases were reported to the Jerusalem district health office compared to 294 cases May - July 2016. Salmonella enteritidis was isolated in 58% of reported cases. Clusters and outbreaks ( > 2 cases) were reported among nursery schools, nursing homes, persons residing in one kibbutz and several cases in different food service establishments in the Jerusalem district. Epidemiological investigations revealed eggs consumption as a common feature among the cases (uncooked or undercooked eggs in most cases). A national investigation among egg suppliers revealed that most cases consumed eggs provided by a single provider with isolation of Salmonella enteritidis at the source as well. Containment measures were taken to control the epidemic including distributing information via electronic and written media to the public, searching for all egg distribution centers, informing local authorities, the poultry council and food stores. The eggs originating from the provider were recalled and extinguished. Written instructions to all food preparation facilities in the district were distributed regarding the proper storage and preparation of eggs. The number of reported cases declined and the outbreak vanished during correlating months of 2018. Conclusions: The investigation of Salmonella enteritidis outbreaks should include epidemiological and laboratory investigations, tracing the source of the eggs and testing the eggs and the source of eggs. Health education activities are essential as to the proper handling of eggs and egg products aiming to minimize susceptibility to Salmonella infection.

Keywords: epidemiological investigation, food-borne disease, food safety, Salmonella enteritidis

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Authors: Joshua Adan Valdez, Shawn Gallaher

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Global climate change has impacted atmospheric temperatures contributing to rising sea levels, decreasing sea ice, and increased freshening of high latitude oceans. This freshening has contributed to increased stratification inhibiting local mixing and nutrient transport, modifying regional circulations in polar oceans. In recent years, the Western Arctic has seen an increase in freshwater volume at an average rate of 397+-116km3/year across the Beaufort Gyre. The majority of the freshwater volume resides in the Beaufort Gyre surface lens driven by anticyclonic wind forcing, sea ice melt, and Arctic river runoff, and is typically defined as water fresher than 34.8. The near-isothermal nature of Arctic seawater and non-linearities in the equation of state for near-freezing waters result in a salinity-driven pycnocline as opposed to the temperature-driven density structure seen in the lower latitudes. In this study, we investigate the relationship between freshwater content and dynamic ocean topography (DOT). In situ measurements of freshwater content are useful in providing information on the freshening rate of the Beaufort Gyre; however, their collection is costly and time-consuming. Utilizing NASA’s ICESat-2’s DOT remote sensing capabilities and Air Expendable CTD (AXCTD) data from the Seasonal Ice Zone Reconnaissance Surveys (SIZRS), a linear regression model between DOT and freshwater content is determined along the 150° west meridian. Freshwater content is calculated by integrating the volume of water between the surface and a depth with a reference salinity of ~34.8. Using this model, we compare interannual variability in freshwater content within the gyre, which could provide a future predictive capability of freshwater volume changes in the Beaufort-Chukchi Sea using non-in situ methods. Successful employment of the ICESat-2’s DOT approximation of freshwater content could potentially demonstrate the value of remote sensing tools to reduce reliance on field deployment platforms to characterize physical ocean properties.

Keywords: Cryosphere, remote sensing, Arctic oceanography, climate modeling, Ekman transport

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Authors: Augustar Omoze Ehighalua, Itotenaan Henry Ogiri

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As a mono-product economy, Nigeria relies largely on oil revenues for its foreign exchange earnings and the exploration activities of firms operating in the Niger Delta region have left in its wake tales of environmental degradation, poverty and misery. This, no doubt, have created corporate social responsibility issues in the region. The focus of this research is the critical evaluation of the ethical response to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice by firms operating in Nigeria Delta Swamplands. While CSR is becoming more popular in developed society with effective practice guidelines and reporting benchmark, there is a relatively low level of awareness and selective applicability of existing international guidelines to effectively support CSR practice in Nigeria. This study, haven identified the lack of CSR institutional framework attempts to develop an ethically-driven CSR transparency benchmark laced within a regulatory framework based on international best practices. The research adopts a qualitative methodology and makes use of primary data collected through semi-structured interviews conducted across the six core states of the Niger Delta Region. More importantly, the study adopts an inductive, interpretivist philosophical paradigm that reveal deep phenomenological insights into what local communities, civil society and government officials consider as good ethical benchmark for responsible CSR practice by organizations. The institutional theory provides for the main theoretical foundation, complemented by the stakeholder and legitimacy theories. The Nvivo software was used to analyze the data collected. This study shows that ethical responsibility is lacking in CSR practice by firms in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. Furthermore, findings of the study indicate key issues of environmental, health and safety, human rights, and labour as fundamental in developing an effective CSR practice guideline for Nigeria. The study has implications for public policy formulation as well as managerial perspective.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, CSR, ethics, firms, Niger-Delta Swampland, Nigeria

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Authors: Filip Rusak, Yulia Arzhaeva, Dadong Wang

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Machine learning based Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) is gaining much popularity in medical imaging and diagnostic radiology. However, it requires a large amount of high quality and labeled training image datasets. The training images may come from different sources and be acquired from different radiography machines produced by different manufacturers, digital or digitized copies of film radiographs, with various sizes as well as different pixel intensity distributions. In this paper, a content-aware image augmentation method is presented to deal with these variations. The results of the proposed method have been validated graphically by plotting the removed and added seams of pixels on original images. Two different chest X-ray (CXR) datasets are used in the experiments. The CXRs in the datasets defer in size, some are digital CXRs while the others are digitized from analog CXR films. With the proposed content-aware augmentation method, the Seam Carving algorithm is employed to resize CXRs and the corresponding labels in the form of image masks, followed by histogram matching used to normalize the pixel intensities of digital radiography, based on the pixel intensity values of digitized radiographs. We implemented the algorithms, resized the well-known Montgomery dataset, to the size of the most frequently used Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT) dataset and normalized our digital CXRs for testing. This work resulted in the unified off-the-shelf CXR dataset composed of radiographs included in both, Montgomery and JSRT datasets. The experimental results show that even though the amount of augmentation is large, our algorithm can preserve the important information in lung fields, local structures, and global visual effect adequately. The proposed method can be used to augment training and testing image data sets so that the trained machine learning model can be used to process CXRs from various sources, and it can be potentially used broadly in any medical imaging applications.

Keywords: computer-aided diagnosis, image augmentation, lung segmentation, medical imaging, seam carving

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Authors: Abubakar Maitama Yusuf Hotoro, Olokpo Israel Olofu, Yusuf U. Tarauni, Mudassir A. Umar, Aliyu A, Dahiru Garba Diso, Usman H. Jamoh, M. Sale

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The study assessed the impact of environmental pollution on groundwater potential at Tudun Murtala waste land fill using electrical resistivity, induced polarization and Physiochemical methods. The study area is located between latitude 12.023678N and longitude 8.573676 E. Geophysical data were collected at maximum length of 140m along twelve profiles using ABEM Terrameter SAS 1000. Results from the Geophysical analysis showed that the profiles were underlain by three lithological layers; the top layer consisting of Loamy and Sand soils, alluvium, granite, shale and sandstone. The second and third layers were predominantly made of weathered and fractured basements respectively. The potential groundwater water bearing zones of the study area occurred at VES2, VES4, VES5, VES6 and VES7. The thicknesses of the sounding points were found to be 20.8m at VES2; 25.2m at VES4; 13.2m at VES5; 50.8m at VES6 and 13.3m at VES7. The corresponding depths for the sounding points were 20.8m at VES2; 27.9m at VES4; 26.7m at VES5; 51.6m at VES6 and 24.9m at VES7 respectively. The Physiochemical study of selected groundwater samples assessed parameters such as the Electrical Conductivity, EC (288dS/m to 1365dS/m), TDS (170.8mg/L to 820mg/L) Pb (0.546mg/l to 0.629mg/l), Cu (-0.001mg/l to 0.004mg/l), and Cd (0.031mg/l to 0.092mg/l). The physiochemical results showed that the groundwater around the dumpsite may have been contaminated, especially in Dumpsite Hole 1 and Hole 2 at VES4 and VES6 respectively. There are indications for suspected leachate mitigation around the two VES points. Even though, the pH values of 6.4 and 6.2 at the two sounding points were considered to be within the permissible pH range (6.5 to 6.8). The values of other elements present in the groundwater for the samples at other VES points were found to be above permissible WHO and Nigerian Standards for Drinking Water.

Keywords: resistivity induced polarization, chargeability, landfill, leachate, contamination

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Authors: Dau Lal Bohra, Sradha Vyas

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Bird species are already showing climate-related changes in the dates they migrate and breed, and in the timing of other key life-history events. Treats of feeding managements raptors have performed important ecological, traditional and aesthetic functions throughout the Indian subcontinent. The declines in India result from elevated adult and juvenile mortality, and low breeding success. The widespread and rapid pattern of declines, i.e. in all areas irrespective of habitat or protection status suggest that persecution through shooting or poisoning, whilst important at a local scale, are unlikely to have caused the declines. A mass killing of several species of vultures in the Indian subcontinent over the last two decades is largely blamed on the presence of a drug. Veterinary diclofenac caused an unprecedented decline in South Asia’s Gyps vulture populations, with some species declining by more than 97% between 1992 and 2007. Veterinary diclofenac causes renal failure in vultures, and killed tens of millions of such birds in the Indian sub-continent. The drug was finally banned there for veterinary purposes in 2006. This drug is now ‘a global problem’ threatening many vulnerable birds of prey. Recently, stappe eagles are also susceptible to veterinary diclofenac, effectively increasing the potential threat level, and the risks for European biodiversity. Steppe eagles are closely related with golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetus), imperial eagles (Aquila heliaca) and Spanish imperial eagles (Aquila adalberti), and all these species scavenge opportunistically on carcasses throughout their range. The Spanish imperial eagle, considered Vulnerable at global level, is now particularly at risk, due to the availability of diclofenac in Spain. These findings strengthen the case for banning veterinary diclofenac across. From year 2011 to 2014 more than 300 hundred birds dead in jorbeer, Bikaner. Now, with unequivocal evidence that this veterinary drug can cause a much wider impact on Europe´s biodiversity, it is time for action – please ban diclofenac human brand also in multi-dose vial from market.

Keywords: mortility, prey of birds, diclofenac, Rajasthan

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Authors: Sang Wook Park, Jun Su Park, Byung Kwan Oh, Yousok Kim, Hyo Seon Park

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This study suggests the estimation method of stress distribution for the beam structures based on TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanning). The main components of method are the creation of the lattices of raw data from TLS to satisfy the suitable condition and application of CSSI (Cubic Smoothing Spline Interpolation) for estimating stress distribution. Estimation of stress distribution for the structural member or the whole structure is one of the important factors for safety evaluation of the structure. Existing sensors which include ESG (Electric strain gauge) and LVDT (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) can be categorized as contact type sensor which should be installed on the structural members and also there are various limitations such as the need of separate space where the network cables are installed and the difficulty of access for sensor installation in real buildings. To overcome these problems inherent in the contact type sensors, TLS system of LiDAR (light detection and ranging), which can measure the displacement of a target in a long range without the influence of surrounding environment and also get the whole shape of the structure, has been applied to the field of structural health monitoring. The important characteristic of TLS measuring is a formation of point clouds which has many points including the local coordinate. Point clouds is not linear distribution but dispersed shape. Thus, to analyze point clouds, the interpolation is needed vitally. Through formation of averaged lattices and CSSI for the raw data, the method which can estimate the displacement of simple beam was developed. Also, the developed method can be extended to calculate the strain and finally applicable to estimate a stress distribution of a structural member. To verify the validity of the method, the loading test on a simple beam was conducted and TLS measured it. Through a comparison of the estimated stress and reference stress, the validity of the method is confirmed.

Keywords: structural healthcare monitoring, terrestrial laser scanning, estimation of stress distribution, coordinate transformation, cubic smoothing spline interpolation

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Authors: Ari Prasetyo, Taufik Faturohman

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The COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It was confirmed to have spread to Indonesia on 2 March 2020. Moreover, the government of Indonesia has been conducting a local lockdown to limit people's movement from one city to another city. Therefore, this situation has impact on business operation, especially on highway companies listed on the Indonesia stock exchange. This study evaluates and measures three companies’ financial performance and health conditions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic from 2016 – 2020. The measurement is conducted by using financial ratio analysis and the Altman Z-score method. The ratio used to measure the financial ratio analysis is taken from the decree of the Ministry of SOE’s KEP-100/MBU/2002 about the company’s health level condition. From the decree, there are eight financial ratios used such as return on equity (ROE), return on investment (ROI), current ratio, cash ratio, collection period, inventory turnover, total asset turnover, and total equity to total asset. Altman Z-score is used to calculate the financial distress condition. The result shows that the highway companies for the period 2016 – 2020 are as follows: PT Jasa Marga (Persero) Tbk (AA, BB, BB, BB, C), PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada Tbk (BB, AA, BB, BBB, C), and PT Nusantara Infrastructure Tbk (BB, BB, AA, BBB, C). In addition, the Altman Z-score assessment performed in 2016-2020 shows that PT Jasa Marga (Persero) Tbk was in the grey zone area for 2015-2018 and in the distress zone for 2019-2020. PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada Tbk was in the grey zone area for 2015-2019 and in the distress zone for 2020. PT Nusantara Infrastructure Tbk was in the grey zone area for 2015-2018 and in the distress zone for 2019-2020.

Keywords: financial performance, financial ratio, Altman Z-score, financial distress, highway company

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Authors: Nangialai Yousufzai, Eysosiyas Etana, Ikuo Sugiyama

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Kabul population has been growing continually since 2001 and reaching six million in 2025 due to the rapid inflow from the neighboring countries. As a result of the population growth, lack of living facilities supported by infrastructure services is becoming serious in social and economic aspects. However, about 70% of the city is still occupied illegally and the government has little information on the infrastructure demands. To improve this situation, land readjustment is one of the powerful development tools, because land readjustment does not need a high governmental budget of itself. Instead, the method needs cooperation between stakeholders such as landowners, developers and a local government. So it is becoming crucial for both government and citizens to implement land readjustment for providing tidy urban areas with enough public services to realize more livable city as a whole. On the contrary, the traditional land readjustment tends to spend a long time until now to get consensus on the new plan between stakeholders. One of the reasons is that individual land area (land parcel) is decreased due to the contribution to public such as roads/parks/squares for improving the urban environment. The second reason is that the new plan is difficult for dwellers to imagine new life after the readjustment. Because the paper-based plan is made by an authority not for dwellers but for specialists to precede the project. This paper aims to shorten the time to realize quick consensus between stakeholders. The first improvement is utilizing questionnaire(s) to assess the demand and preference of the landowners. The second one is utilizing 3D model for dwellers to visualize the new environment easily after the readjustment. In additions, the 3D model is reflecting the demand and preference of the resident so that they could select a land parcel according to their sense value of life. The above-mentioned two improvements are carried out after evaluating total land prices of the new plans to select for maximizing the project value. The land price forecasting formula is derived from the current market ones in Kabul. Finally, it is stressed that the rapid consensus-building of land readjustment utilizing ICT and open data analysis is essential to redevelop slums and illegal occupied areas in Kabul.

Keywords: land readjustment, consensus building, land price formula, 3D simulation

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Authors: Lola Vivour-Adeniyi, Oluwatoyosi Abikoye

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The death penalty in the 21st century is often considered a relic of the past in many contemporary societies, except where cultural or religious beliefs heavily influence legal systems. However, a recent study on gender-based violence in Lagos State, Nigeria, suggests that this perception might not hold universally. This paper provides a balanced jurisprudential analysis of the death penalty as a punitive measure for sexual offences, particularly against minors, drawing on comprehensive demographic data from 3,225 respondents across various demographics, including gender, age, marital status, religious beliefs, literacy levels, and ethnicity in ten major Local Government Areas. The research captures the diverse perspectives of different demographic groups, weighing the arguments of proponents who see the death penalty as a significant deterrent, a source of justice for victims, and a means to permanently remove dangerous offenders from society against opponents who raise ethical concerns, highlight the risk of wrongful convictions and question its effectiveness in deterring crime. Through a thorough examination of legal frameworks, case studies, and statistical data, this paper presents empirical evidence to reopen the discussion in developing countries. Key questions are addressed: Could the death penalty be an effective measure against sexual assault, particularly involving minors? Would it deter potential offenders? Is it humane to include it in modern legal systems? If not, what long-term reforms could ensure accountability, justice, and enlightenment for those affected by such crimes? This paper aims to foster a nuanced and progressive dialogue, providing insights for policymakers, legal practitioners, jurists, and scholars on the complexities of this contentious issue. The goal is to consider the implications for justice systems in developing countries and to advocate for more effective responses to sexual assault cases and justice for survivors.

Keywords: sexual offences, death penalty, jurisprudential analysis, criminal justice reform

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Authors: Manal Elsayed Elkheshin, Rasha Saleh Mansour, Mohamed Fawzy Mohamed Eldnasury, Mamdouh Elbadry Mohamed

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This research Aims to identify the main factors affecting the production and the fish consumption in Egypt, through the econometric estimation for various forms functions of fish production and fish consumption during the period (1991-2014), as the aim of this research to forecast the production and the fish consumption in Egypt until 2020, through determine the best standard methods using (ARIMA).This research also aims to the economic feasibility of the production of fish in aquaculture farms study; investment cost and represents the value of land, buildings, equipment and irrigation. Aquaculture requires three types of fish (Tilapia, carp fish, and mullet fish), and the total area of the farm, about an acre. The annual Fish production from this project about 3.5 tons. The annual investment costs of about 50500 pounds, Find conclude that the project can repay the cost of their investments after about 4 years and 5 months, and therefore recommend the implementation of the project, and internal rate of return reached (IRR) of about 22.1%, where it is clear that the rate of large internal rate of return, and achieves pound invested in this project annual return is estimated at 22.1 pounds, more than the opportunity cost, so we recommend the need to implement the project.Recommendations:1. Increasing the fish agriculture to decrease the gap of animal protein. 2.Increasing the number of mechanism fishing boats, and the provision of transport equipped to maintain the quality of fish production. 3.Encourage and attract the local and foreign investments, providing advice to the investor on the aquaculture field. 4. Action newsletters awareness of the importance of these projects where these projects resulted in a net profit after recovery in less than five years, IRR amounted to about 23%, which is much more than the opportunity cost of a bank interest rate is about 7%, helping to create work and graduates opportunities, and contribute to the reduction of imports of the fish, and improve the performance of the food trade balance.

Keywords: equation model, individual share, red meat, consumption, production, endogenous variable, exogenous variable, financial performance evaluates fish culture, feasibility study, fish production, aquaculture

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Authors: Zhende Hou, Fan Yang, Guoli Zhang

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Dielectric elastomer is a promising class of Electroactive polymers which can deform in response to an applied electric field. Comparing general smart material, the Dielectric elastomer is more compliance and can achieve higher energy density, which can be for diverse applications such as actuators, artificial muscles, soft robotics, and energy harvesters. The coupling of the Electroactive polymers and the electric field is that the elastomer is sandwiched between two compliant electrodes and when the electrodes are subjected to a voltage, the positive and negative charges on the two electrodes compress the polymer, so that the polymer reduces in thickness and expands in area. However, the pre-stretched dielectric elastomer film not only can achieve large electric-field induced deformation but also is prone to wrinkling, under the interaction of its own strain energy and the applied electric field energy. For a uniaxially pre-stretched dielectric elastomer film, the electrode area is an important parameter to the electric-field induced deformation and may also be a key factor affecting the film wrinkling. To determine and quantify the effect experimentally, VHB 9473 tapes were employed and compliant electrodes with different areas were pant on each of them. The tape was first tensed to a uniaxial stretch of 8. Then a DC voltage was applied to the electrodes and increased gradually until wrinkling occurred in the film. Then, the critical wrinkling voltages of the film with different electrode areas were obtained, and the wrinkle wavelengths were obtained simultaneously for analyzing the wrinkling characteristics. Experimental results indicate when the electrode area is smaller the wrinkling voltage is higher, and with the increases of electrode area, the wrinkling voltage decreases rapidly until a specific area. Beyond that, the wrinkling voltage becomes larger gradually with the increases of the area. While the wrinkle wavelength decreases gradually with the increase of voltage monotonically. That is, the relation between the critical wrinkling voltage and the electrode areas is U-shaped. Analysis believes that the film wrinkling is a kind of local effect, the interaction and the energy transfer between electrode region and non-electrode region have great influence on wrinkling. In the experiment, very thin copper wires are used as the electrode leads that just contact with the electrodes, which can avoid the stiffness of the leads affecting the wrinkling.

Keywords: elastomers, uniaxial stretch, electrode area, wrinkling

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Authors: Rosa Figueroa, Christopher Flores

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Text categorization is the problem of assigning a new document to a set of predetermined categories, on the basis of a training set of free-text data that contains documents whose category membership is known. To train a classification model, it is necessary to extract characteristics in the form of tokens that facilitate the learning and classification process. In text categorization, the feature extraction process involves the use of word sequences also known as N-grams. In general, it is expected that documents belonging to the same category share similar features. The Smith-Waterman (SW) algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm that performs a local sequence alignment in order to determine similar regions between two strings or protein sequences. This work explores the use of SW algorithm as an alternative to feature extraction in text categorization. The dataset used for this purpose, contains 2,610 annotated documents with the classes Obese/Non-Obese. This dataset was represented in a matrix form using the Bag of Word approach. The score selected to represent the occurrence of the tokens in each document was the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF). In order to extract features for classification, four experiments were conducted: the first experiment used SW to extract features, the second one used unigrams (single word), the third one used bigrams (two word sequence) and the last experiment used a combination of unigrams and bigrams to extract features for classification. To test the effectiveness of the extracted feature set for the four experiments, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was tuned using 20% of the dataset. The remaining 80% of the dataset together with 5-Fold Cross Validation were used to evaluate and compare the performance of the four experiments of feature extraction. Results from the tuning process suggest that SW performs better than the N-gram based feature extraction. These results were confirmed by using the remaining 80% of the dataset, where SW performed the best (accuracy = 97.10%, weighted average F-measure = 97.07%). The second best was obtained by the combination of unigrams-bigrams (accuracy = 96.04, weighted average F-measure = 95.97) closely followed by the bigrams (accuracy = 94.56%, weighted average F-measure = 94.46%) and finally unigrams (accuracy = 92.96%, weighted average F-measure = 92.90%).

Keywords: comorbidities, machine learning, obesity, Smith-Waterman algorithm

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Authors: Thalita Carvalho Martins de Castro, Núbia Bernardi

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Currently, studies evidence that our cities are portraits of social relations. In the midst of so many segregations, cultural buildings emerge as a place to assemble collective activities and expressions. Through theater, exhibitions, educational workshops, libraries, the architecture approaches human relations and seeks to propose meeting places. The purpose of this research is to deepen the discussions about the contributions of cultural buildings in the use of the spaces of the contemporary city, based on the data and measure collected in the master's research in progress. The graphic analysis of the insertion of contemporary cultural buildings seeks to highlight the social use of space. The urban insertions of contemporary cultural buildings in the city of São Paulo (Brazil) will be analyzed to understand the relations between the architectural form and its audience. The collected data describe a dynamic of flows and the permanence in the use of these spaces, indicating the contribution of the cultural buildings, associated with artistic production, in the dynamics of urban spaces and the social modifications of their milieu. Among the case studies, the research in development is based on the registration and graphic analysis of the Praça das Artes (2012) building located in the historical central region of the city, which after a long period of great degradation undergoes a current redevelopment. The choice of this building was based on four parameters, both on the architectural scale and on the urban scale: urban insertion, local impact, cultural production and a mix of uses. For the analysis will be applied two methodologies of graphic analysis, one with diagrams accompanied by texts and another with the active analysis for open space projects using complementary graphic methodologies, with maps, plants, info-graphics, perspectives, time-lapse videos and analytical tables. This research aims to reinforce the debates between the methodologies of form-use spaces and visual synthesis applied in cultural buildings, in order that new projects can structure public spaces as catalysts for social use, generating improvements in the daily life of its users and in the cities where they are inserted.

Keywords: cultural buildings, design methodologies, graphic analysis, public spaces

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Authors: Nyong Princely Awazi, Gadinga Walter Forje, Barnabas Neba Nfornkah, Ndzifon Jude Kimengsi

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Ecotourism is documented as a sustainable measure of bridging conservation goals and livelihood sustenance around protected areas, due to its ability of not just providing alternative livelihood, but also in providing the necessary resources that can help finance conservation initiatives. In Cameroon, all ecotourism activities around national parks are aimed at generating revenue through the conservation service while providing sustainable livelihood options to the local population. There exists an information lacuna regarding the contribution of ecotourism finances to conservation efforts in the country. This study was aimed at establishing the contribution of ecotourism finances to conservation initiatives in and around the Campo Ma’an National Park (CMNP). Data were collected through the administering of 120 structured questionnaires to ecotourism actors and 15 key/expert interviews with tourism and conservation actors in the Campo Ma’an landscape. Chi-square test, Spearman’s rank correlation and regressions were used for data analysis. The study revealed that the main sources of ecotourism financing to the park service are through entrance fees, cameras and vehicle fees paid by tourists as well as ecotourism project financing through NGOs. Calculations from the tourism register of the park showed that the park was able to raise as much as 1,576,000 FCFA (US$ 3,152) annually. It was further established that ecotourism revenue has not greatly supported conservation, with 54% of respondents perceiving ecotourism not contributing to biodiversity conservation. Chi Square test results highlighted poor ecotourism governance, low level of ecotourism development, corruption from park management staff, obsolete nature of the current finance law on the management of protected area revenue as key factors hindering ecotourism financing in conservation. For ecotourism financing to contribute to biodiversity conservation in the CMNP and in Cameroon’s protected areas, the government needs to revise the finance law on the management of revenue generated from protected areas, improve park governance to fight corruption and enhance transparency, invest in the development and marketing of the Campo Ma’an national park as a tourism destination in the country.

Keywords: Cameroon, Campo Ma’an National Park, conservation, ecotourism, ecotourism financing

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Authors: Md Monir Hossain, Anne Staples, Kuya Takami, Tomonari Furukawa

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Tire noise has a significant impact on ride quality and vehicle interior comfort, even at low frequency. Reduction of tire noise is especially important due to strict state and federal environmental regulations. The primary sources of tire noise are the low frequency structure-borne noise and the noise that originates from the release of trapped air between the tire tread and road surface during each revolution of the tire. The frequency response of the tire changes at low and high frequency. At low frequency, the tension and bending moment become dominant, while the internal structure and local deformation become dominant at higher frequencies. Here, we analyze tire response in terms of deformation and rolling velocity at low revolution frequency. An Abaqus FEA finite element model is used to calculate the static and dynamic response of a rolling tire under different rolling conditions. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of a deformed tire are calculated with the FEA package where the subspace-based steady state dynamic analysis calculates dynamic response of tire subjected to harmonic excitation. The analysis was conducted on the dynamic response at the road (contact point of tire and road surface) and side nodes of a static and rolling tire when the tire was excited with 200 N vertical load for a frequency ranging from 20 to 200 Hz. The results show that frequency has little effect on tire deformation up to 80 Hz. But between 80 and 200 Hz, the radial and lateral components of displacement of the road and side nodes exhibited significant oscillation. For the static analysis, the fluctuation was sharp and frequent and decreased with frequency. In contrast, the fluctuation was periodic in nature for the dynamic response of the rolling tire. In addition to the dynamic analysis, a steady state rolling analysis was also performed on the tire traveling at ground velocity with a constant angular motion. The purpose of the computation was to demonstrate the effect of rotating motion on deformation and rolling velocity with respect to a fixed Newtonian reference point. The analysis showed a significant variation in deformation and rolling velocity due to centrifugal and Coriolis acceleration with respect to a fixed Newtonian point on ground.

Keywords: natural frequency, rotational motion, steady state rolling, subspace-based steady state dynamic analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 352