Search results for: interest rate

Authors: Haibo Sheng, Yuan Hu

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Spinel structure Zinc stannate (Zn2SnO4, ZS)/Graphene was successfully synthesized by a simple in situ hydrothermal route. Morphological study and structure analysis confirmed the homogenously loading of ZS on the graphene sheets. Then, the resulted ZS/graphene hybrids were incorporated into epoxy resin to form EP/ZS/graphene composites by a solvent dispersion method. Improved thermal stability was investigated by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). Cone calorimeter result showed low peak heat release rate (PHRR). Toxical gases release during combustion was evaluated by a facile device organized in our lab. The results showed that the release of NOx, HCN decrease of about 55%. Also, TG-IR technology was used to investigate the gas release during the EP decomposition process. The CO release had decreased about 80%.The EP/G/ZS showed lowest hazards during combustion (including flame retardancy, thermal stability, lower toxical gases release and so on) than pure EP.

Keywords: fire hazards, zinc stannate, epoxy resin, toxical gas hazards

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Authors: Nazli Darkhal

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The use of gems and ornaments has been common in Iran since the beginning of history. The prosperity of the country, the wealth, and the interest of the people of this land in luxurious and glorious life, combined with beauty, have always attracted the attention of the gems and ornaments of the Iranian people. Iranians are famous in the world for having a long history of collecting and recognizing precious stones. In this case, we can use the unique treasure of national jewelry. Raman spectroscopy method is one of the oscillating spectroscopy methods that is classified in the group of nondestructive study methods, and like other methods, in addition to several advantages, it also has disadvantages and problems. Micro Raman spectroscopy is one of the different types of Raman spectroscopy in which an optical microscope is combined with a Raman device to provide more capabilities and advantages than its original method. In this way, with the help of Raman spectroscopy and a light microscope, while observing more details from different parts of the historical sample, natural or artificial pigments can be identified in a small part of it. The EDX electron microscope also functions as the basis for the interaction of the electron beam with the matter. The beams emitted from this interaction can be used to examine samples. In this article, in addition to introducing the micro Raman spectroscopy method, studies have been conducted on the structure of three samples of existing stones in the historic citadel of Bam. Using this method of study on precious and semi-precious stones, in addition to requiring a short time, can provide us with complete information about the structure and theme of these samples. The results of experiments and gemology of the stones showed that the selected beads are agate and jasper, and they can be placed in the chalcedony group.

Keywords: bam citadel, precious and semi-precious stones, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope

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Authors: Krisada Lekdee, Sunee Sammatat, Nittaya Boonsit

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This paper proposes a GLMM with spatial and temporal effects for malaria data in Thailand. A Bayesian method is used for parameter estimation via Gibbs sampling MCMC. A conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is assumed to present the spatial effects. The temporal correlation is presented through the covariance matrix of the random effects. The malaria quarterly data have been extracted from the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. The factors considered are rainfall and temperature. The result shows that rainfall and temperature are positively related to the malaria morbidity rate. The posterior means of the estimated morbidity rates are used to construct the malaria maps. The top 5 highest morbidity rates (per 100,000 population) are in Trat (Q3, 111.70), Chiang Mai (Q3, 104.70), Narathiwat (Q4, 97.69), Chiang Mai (Q2, 88.51), and Chanthaburi (Q3, 86.82). According to the DIC criterion, the proposed model has a better performance than the GLMM with spatial effects but without temporal terms.

Keywords: Bayesian method, generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), malaria, spatial effects, temporal correlation

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Authors: Zsolt Szabolcsi

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Political communication in Hungary has undergone a significant change in the 2010s. One element of the transformation is the Flashnews. This media product was launched in March 2015 and since then 40-50 blocks are broadcasted, daily, on 5 channels. Flashnews blocks are condensed news sessions, containing the summary of political narratives. It starts with the introduction of the narrator, then, usually four news topics are presented and, finally, the narrator concludes the block. The block lasts only one minute and, therefore, it provides a blink session into the main narratives of political communication at the time. Beyond its rapid pace, what makes its avoidance difficult is that these blocks are always in the first position in the commercial break of a non-political media product. Although it is only one minute long, its significance is high. The content of the Flashnews reflects the main governmental narratives and, therefore, the Flashnews is part of the agenda-setting capacity of political communication. It reaches media consumers who have limited knowledge and interest in politics, and their use of media products is not politically related. For this audience, the Flashnews pops up in the same way as commercials. Due to its structure and appearance, the impact of Flashnews seems to be similar to commercials, imbedded into the break of media products. It activates existing knowledge constructs, builds up associational links and maintains their presence in a way that the recipient is not aware of the phenomenon. The research aims to examine the extent to which the Flashnews and the main news narratives are identical in their content. This aim is realized with the content analysis of the two news products by examining the Flashnews and the evening news during main sport events from 2016 to 2018. The initial hypothesis of the research is that Flashnews is a contribution to the news management technique for an effective articulation of political narratives in public service media channels.

Keywords: flashnews, political communication, political marketing, news management

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Authors: Elisa Negretto

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Improvisation is a fundamental form of musical practice and an increasing amount of literature shows a particular interest on the consequences it might have in different kinds of social contexts. A relevant aspect of the musical experience is the ability to create expectations, which reflects a basic strategy of the human mind, an intentional movement toward the future which is based on previous experiences. Musical Expectation – an unconscious tendency to project forward in time, to predict future sound events and the ongoing of a musical experience – can be regarded as a process that strongly influences the listeners’ emotional and affective response to music, as well as their social and aesthetic experience. While improvising, composers, interpreters and listeners generate and exchange expectations, thus creating a dynamic dialogue and meaningful relationships. The aim of this paper is to investigate how expectation contributes to the creation of such a dialogue during the unfolding of the musical experience and to what extent it influences the meaning music acquires during the performance. The difference between the ability to create expectations and the anticipation of the future ongoing of music will be questioned. Does it influence in different ways the meaning of music and the kind of dialogical relationship established between musicians and between performers and audience? Such questions will be investigated with reference to recent research in music cognition and the analysis of a particular case: a free jazz performance during which musicians improvise and/or change the location of the sound source. The present paper is an attempt to provide new insights for investigating and understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying improvisation as a musical and social practice. They contribute to the creation of a model that we can find in many others social practices in which people have to build meaningful relationships and responses to environmental stimuli.

Keywords: anticipation, expectation, improvisation, meaning, musical dialogue

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Authors: Nahid Ferdousi

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Juvenile justice is a key component of the child rights to keep the best interest and completely different from criminal justice. After independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the Children Act 1974 and the Children Rules 1976 were considered as the basic law for juvenile justice which written before many international instruments on children’s rights came into existence, did not align with the international mandate set by those instruments. These Acts were not really child rights-based and modern concept such as diversion, restorative justice and community-based rehabilitation has not developed accordingly. In this backdrop, government has enacted the new Children Act 2013 and introduced extensive reforms to the juvenile justice system in Bangladesh. The Act has been adopted with the provisions for child-friendly juvenile courts in each district and different kinds of child-oriented practices in a number of settings, such as, child affairs police officer, probation officer, national child welfare board, diversion, alternative preventive measures on the basis of international principles. Prior to the Act, there had been a number of High Court rulings which considered the international standards for juvenile justice. But the recent reforms to juvenile justice system hail a new commitment to the country’s international obligations to its children and a change in the philosophy guiding the treatment of offender children. This is high time to create an effective juvenile justice system for the 21st century in Bangladesh by the proper implementation of the Children Act 2013. Additionally, the new Children Rules should be enacted and juvenile courts along with correctional institutions should be established in each district in Bangladesh. This study assesses the juvenile justice reforms in Bangladesh over the five decades (1974-2014) and focuses on changes that will improve the system as a whole and enable us to better achieve the ends of fair juvenile justice.

Keywords: Juvenile justice reforms, international obligations, child-oriented practices, commitment of the state

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Authors: Kumaresh Selvakumar, Man Young Kim

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Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) converts the nitrogen oxides with the aid of a catalyst by adding aqueous urea into the exhaust stream. In this work, the urea water droplets are sprayed over the exhaust gases by treating with Lagrangian particle tracking. The evaporation of ammonia from a single droplet of urea water solution is investigated computationally by convection-diffusion controlled model. The conversion to ammonia due to thermolysis of urea water droplets is measured downstream at different sections using finite rate/eddy dissipation model. In this paper, the mixer installed at the upstream enhances the distribution of ammonia over the entire domain which is calculated for different time steps. Calculations are made within the respective duration such that the complete decomposition of urea is possible at a much shorter residence time.

Keywords: convection-diffusion controlled model, lagrangian particle tracking, selective catalytic reduction, thermolysis

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Authors: Sukhmander Singh

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Hall thrusters are preferred over chemical thrusters because of its high exhaust velocity (around 10 times higher) and high specific impulse. The propellant Xenon is ionized inside the channel and controlled by the magnetic field. The strength of the magnetic field is such that only electrons get magnetized and ions remain unmagnetized because of larger Larmor radius as compared with the length of the channel of the device. There is quite a possibility of the existence of multi ions in a Hall thruster plasma because of dust contribution or another process which take place in the chamber. In this paper, we have derived the dispersion relation for multi ions resistive instability in a hall plasma. The analytical approach is also used to find out the propagating speed and the growth rate of the instability. In addition, some growing waves are also found to exist in the plasma. The dispersion relation is solved numerically to see the behavior of the instability with the plasma parameters viz, the temperature of plasma species, wave number, drift velocity, collision frequency, magnetic field.

Keywords: instability, resisitive, thrusters, waves

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Authors: Z. Hormozi Moghaddam, M. Mokhtari-Dizaji, M. Movahedin, M. E. Ravari

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Mechanical index (MI) is used for quantifying acoustic cavitation and the relationship between acoustic pressure and the frequency. In this study, modeling of the MI was applied to provide treatment protocol and to understand the effective physical processes on reproducibility of stem cells. The acoustic pressure and MI equations are modeled and solved to estimate optimal MI for 28, 40, 150 kHz and 1 MHz frequencies. Radial and axial acoustic pressure distribution was extracted. To validate the results of the modeling, the acoustic pressure in the water and near field depth was measured by a piston hydrophone. Results of modeling and experiments show that the model is consistent well to experimental results with 0.91 and 0.90 correlation of coefficient (p<0.05) for 1 MHz and 40 kHz. Low intensity ultrasound with 0.40 MI is more effective on the proliferation rate of the spermatogonial stem cells during the seven days of culture, in contrast, high MI has a harmful effect on the spermatogonial stem cells. This model provides proper treatment planning in vitro and in vivo by estimating the cavitation phenomenon.

Keywords: ultrasound, mechanical index, modeling, stem cell

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Authors: Abigail Wiafe, Charles Nutrokpor, Adelaide Oduro-Asante

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The advancement of technology is rapidly making people more receptive to music as computer-generated music requires minimal human interventions. Though algorithms are applied to generate music, the human experience of emotions is still explored. Thus, this study investigates the emotions humans experience listening to computer-generated music that possesses aesthetic qualities. Forty-two subjects participated in the survey. The selection process was purely arbitrary since it was based on convenience. Subjects listened and evaluated the emotions experienced from the computer-generated music through an online questionnaire. The Likert scale was used to rate the emotional levels after the music listening experience. The findings suggest that computer-generated music possesses aesthetic qualities that do not affect subjects' emotions as long as they are pleased with the music. Furthermore, computer-generated music has unique creativity, and expressioneven though the music produced is meaningless, the computational models developed are unable to present emotional contents in music as humans do.

Keywords: aesthetic, algorithms, emotions, computer-generated music

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Authors: Dejan Tanikić, Miodrag Manić, Jelena Đoković, Saša Kalinović

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This paper deals with the determination of the optimum machining parameters, according to the measured and modelled data of the cutting temperature and surface roughness, during the turning of the AISI 4140 steel. The high cutting temperatures are unwanted occurences in the metal cutting process. They impact negatively on the quality of the machined part. The machining experiments were performed using different cutting regimes (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut), with different values of the workpiece hardness, which causes different values of the measured cutting temperature as well as the measured surface roughness. The temperature and surface roughness data were modelled after that using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The obtained RSM models are used in the process of optimization of the cutting regimes using the Genetic Algorithms (GA) tool, which enables the metal cutting process in the optimum conditions.

Keywords: genetic algorithms, machining parameters, response surface methodology, turning process

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Authors: Michella Alnajjar, Frederic Christien, Krzysztof Wolski, Cedric Bosch

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Additive manufacturing (AM) has gained more interest in the past few years because it allows 3D parts often having a complex geometry to be directly fabricated, layer by layer according to a CAD model. One of the AM techniques is the selective laser melting (SLM) which is based on powder bed fusion. In this work, the corrosion resistance of 17-4 PH steel obtained by SLM is investigated. Wrought 17-4 PH steel is a martensitic precipitation hardenable stainless steel. It is widely used in a variety of applications such as aerospace, medical and food industries, due to its high strength and relatively good corrosion resistance. However, the combined findings of X-Ray diffraction and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) proved that SLM-ed 17-4 PH steel has a fully ferritic microstructure, more specifically δ ferrite. The microstructure consists of coarse ferritic grains elongated along the build direction, with a pronounced solidification crystallographic texture. These results were associated with the high cooling and heating rates experienced throughout the SLM process (10⁵-10⁶ K/s) that suppressed the austenite formation and produced a 'by-passing' phenomenon of this phase during the numerous thermal cycles. Furthermore, EDS measurements revealed a uniform distribution of elements without any dendritic structure. The extremely high cooling kinetics induced a diffusionless solidification, resulting in a homogeneous elemental composition. Consequently, the corrosion properties of this steel are altered from that of conventional ones. By using electrochemical means, it was found that SLM-ed 17-4 PH is more resistant to general corrosion than the wrought steel. However, the SLM-ed material exhibits metastable pitting due to its high porosity density. In addition, the hydrogen embrittlement of SLM-ed 17-4 PH steel is investigated, and a correlation between its behavior and the observed microstructure is made.

Keywords: corrosion resistance, 17-4 PH stainless steel, selective laser melting, hydrogen embrittlement

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Authors: Elham Ghazi Mohammad

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This study examined the female students’ understanding for the solar system concepts through the utilization of the I-Cube technology as a virtual reality technology. The study conducted in Qatar University for samples of students of eighth and ninth preparatory grade students in the State of Qatar. The research framework comprises designated quantitative research designs and methods of data collection and analysis including pre- and post-conceptual exams. This research based on experimental method design that focuses on students’ performance and conceptual questions. A group of 120 students from the eighth and ninth groups were divided into two pools of 60 students each, where the two 60-student groups represent the designated control and treatment groups. It must be mentioned that the students were selected randomly from the eighth and ninth grades. The solar system lesson of interest was taught by teacher candidates (senior students at the college of Education at QU), who taught both the experimental group (integrating I-cube) in virtual lab in Qatar University and control group (without integrating this technology) in one of independent school in the State of Qatar. It is noteworthy to mention that the students usually face some difficulties to learn by imagining real situation such as solar system and inner planet lesson. Collected data was statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA and one-way ANCOVA using SPSS Statistics. The obtained results revealed that integrating I-Cube technology has significantly enhanced female students’ conceptual understanding of the solar system. Interestingly, our findings demonstrated the applicability of utilizing integrating I-Cube technology toward enhancing the students’ understanding regarding subjects of interests within the landscapes of basic sciences.

Keywords: virtual lab, integrating technology, I-Cube, solar system

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Authors: Pyung Soo Kim, Eung Hyuk Lee, Mun Suck Jang

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A packet loss probability (PLP) estimation filter with finite memory structure is proposed to estimate the packet rate mean and variance of the input traffic process in real-time while removing undesired system and measurement noises. The proposed PLP estimation filter is developed under a weighted least square criterion using only the finite traffic measurements on the most recent window. The proposed PLP estimation filter is shown to have several inherent properties such as unbiasedness, deadbeat, robustness. A guideline for choosing appropriate window length is described since it can affect significantly the estimation performance. Using computer simulations, the proposed PLP estimation filter is shown to be superior to the Kalman filter for the temporarily uncertain system. One possible explanation for this is that the proposed PLP estimation filter can have greater convergence time of a filtered estimate as the window length M decreases.

Keywords: packet loss probability estimation, finite memory filter, infinite memory filter, Kalman filter

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Authors: A. Bolaji Adesoye, Alimi Olorunfemi

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This paper examines the impact of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) credit financing and financial market development and their shocks on the output growth of Nigeria. The study estimated a VAR model for Nigeria using 1970-2013 annual data series. Unit root tests and cointegration are carried out. The study also explores IRFs and FEVDs in a system that includes output, commercial bank loan to SMEs, domestic credit to private sector by banks, money supply, lending rate and investment. Findings suggest that shocks in commercial bank credit to SMEs has a major impact on the output changes of Nigeria. Money supply shocks also have a sizeable impact on output growth variations amidst other financial instruments. Lastly, neutrality of investment does not hold in Nigeria as it also has impact on output fluctuations.

Keywords: SMEs financing, financial development, investment, output, Nigeria

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Authors: Amandeep Singh, Niraj Bala

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In the last decades, light-weight materials such as magnesium matrix composites have become hot topic for material research due to their excellent mechanical and physical properties. However, relatively very less work has been done related to the wear behavior of these composites. Magnesium matrix composites have wide applications in automobile and aerospace sector. In this review, attempt has been done to collect the literature related to wear behavior of magnesium matrix composites fabricated through various processing techniques such as stir casting, powder metallurgy, friction stir processing etc. Effect of different reinforcements, reinforcement content, reinforcement size, wear load, sliding speed and time have been studied by different researchers in detail. Wear mechanism under different experimental condition has been reviewed in detail. The wear resistance of magnesium and its alloys can be enhanced with the addition of different reinforcements. Wear resistance can further be enhanced by increasing the percentage of added reinforcements. Increase in applied load during wear test leads to increase in wear rate of magnesium composites.

Keywords: hardness, magnesium matrix composites, reinforcement, wear

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Authors: Artur Cichowicz

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The last active mine in the Central Rand Goldfields area (50 km x 15 km) ceased operations in 2008. This resulted in the closure of the pumping stations, which previously maintained the underground water level in the mining voids. As a direct consequence of the water being allowed to flood the mine voids, seismic activity has increased directly beneath the populated area of Johannesburg. Monitoring of seismicity in the area has been on-going for over five years using the network of 17 strong ground motion sensors. The objective of the project is to improve strategies for mine closure. The evolution of the seismicity pattern was investigated in detail. Special attention was given to seismic source parameters such as magnitude, scalar seismic moment and static stress drop. Most events are located within historical mine boundaries. The seismicity pattern shows a strong relationship between the presence of the mining void and high levels of seismicity; no seismicity migration patterns were observed outside the areas of old mining. Seven years after the pumping stopped, the evolution of the seismicity has indicated that the area is not yet in equilibrium. The level of seismicity in the area appears to not be decreasing over time since the number of strong events, with Mw magnitudes above 2, is still as high as it was when monitoring began over five years ago. The average rate of seismic deformation is 1.6x1013 Nm/year. Constant seismic deformation was not observed over the last 5 years. The deviation from the average is in the order of 6x10^13 Nm/year, which is a significant deviation. The variation of cumulative seismic moment indicates that a constant deformation rate model is not suitable. Over the most recent five year period, the total cumulative seismic moment released in the Central Rand Basin was 9.0x10^14 Nm. This is equivalent to one earthquake of magnitude 3.9. This is significantly less than what was experienced during the mining operation. Characterization of seismicity triggered by a rising water level in the area can be achieved through the estimation of source parameters. Static stress drop heavily influences ground motion amplitude, which plays an important role in risk assessments of potential seismic hazards in inhabited areas. The observed static stress drop in this study varied from 0.05 MPa to 10 MPa. It was found that large static stress drops could be associated with both small and large events. The temporal evolution of the inter-event time provides an understanding of the physical mechanisms of earthquake interaction. Changes in the characteristics of the inter-event time are produced when a stress change is applied to a group of faults in the region. Results from this study indicate that the fluid-induced source has a shorter inter-event time in comparison to a random distribution. This behaviour corresponds to a clustering of events, in which short recurrence times tend to be close to each other, forming clusters of events.

Keywords: inter-event time, fluid induced seismicity, mine closure, spectral parameters of seismic source

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Authors: Lucy Tsado

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As cybercrime and cyberattacks continue to increase, the need to respond will follow suit. When cybercrimes occur, the duty to respond sometimes falls on law enforcement. However, criminal justice students are not taught concepts in cybersecurity and digital forensics. There is, therefore, an urgent need for many more institutions to begin teaching cybersecurity and related courses to social science students especially criminal justice students. However, many faculty in universities, colleges, and high schools are not equipped to teach these courses or do not have the knowledge and resources to teach important concepts in cybersecurity or digital forensics to criminal justice students. This research intends to develop curricula and training programs to equip faculty with the skills to meet this need. There is a current call to involve non-technical fields to fill the cybersecurity skills gap, according to experts. There is a general belief among non-technical fields that cybersecurity education is only attainable within computer science and technologically oriented fields. As seen from current calls, this is not entirely the case. Transitioning into the field is possible through curriculum development, training, certifications, internships and apprenticeships, and competitions. There is a need to identify how a cybersecurity eco-system can be created at a university to encourage/start programs that will lead to an interest in cybersecurity education as well as attract potential students. A short-term strategy can address this problem through curricula development, while a long-term strategy will address developing training faculty to teach cybersecurity and digital forensics. Therefore this research project addresses this overall problem in two parts, through curricula development for the criminal justice discipline; and training of faculty in criminal justice to teaching the important concepts of cybersecurity and digital forensics.

Keywords: cybersecurity education, criminal justice, curricula development, nontechnical cybersecurity, cybersecurity, digital forensics

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Authors: Mohamed Chabi, Mahmoud I. Syam, Sarah Aw

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In Summer 2012, the Foundation Program Unit of Qatar University has started implementing new ways of teaching Math by introducing MML (MyMathLab) as an innovative interactive tool to support standard teaching. In this paper, we focused on the effect of proper use of the Study Plan component of MML on student’s performance. Authors investigated the results of students of pre-calculus course during Fall 2013 in Foundation Program at Qatar University. The results showed that there is a strong correlation between study plan results and final exam results, also a strong relation between homework results and final exam results. In addition, the attendance average affected on the student’s results in general. Multiple regression is determined between passing rate dependent variable and study plan, homework as independent variable.

Keywords: MyMathLab, study plan, assessment, homework, attendance, correlation, regression

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Authors: Eka Darbaidze

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Due to its important geopolitical location and strategic economic situation, the South Caucasus has been a region that has been a crossroads of interests between different states and empires since ancient times. Over the centuries, the forms of international relations with regard to the South Caucasus region have been constantly changing, however, the national interests of the Caucasian nations as well as the interests of the regional hegemonic powers in relation to the countries of the South Caucasus have remained almost unchanged. The conflict-ridden South Caucasus's attempt to create a new format of regional cooperation has a rather rich history, dating back to the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, despite the diversity of initiatives, they do not deviate from the format of political statements and it is natural that the case was never settled before their implementation, as none of the previous cooperation initiatives was able to reach all members of the region. The current regional co-operation platform is linked to the name of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke out about the initiative during a visit to Azerbaijan. The so-called 3 + 3 platform for regional cooperation involves cooperation between three countries in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) and three "big neighbors" - Russia, Turkey and Iran. Very soon, the initiative received a positive response from the authorities of Azerbaijan, Iran and Armenia. According to them, this cooperation platform will strengthen cooperation between the countries involved in the regional platform and will focus on security, economic and transport issues. Our goal is to determine the interests of the main regional actors involved in the South Caucasus Cooperation Platform (3 + 3): Iran, Russia and Turkey. Our goal is also to determine what threats, risks or benefits may be associated with the involvement of the three countries of the South Caucasus: Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia in this platform and what will be the consequences for Georgia, whose 20% of its internationally recognized borders are still occupied by Russia and whose territory is still under creeping occupation.

Keywords: South Caucasus, Georgia's interest, the interests of Iran, the interests of Turkey, Russian interests, Georgia's occupation

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Authors: B. O. Diyaolu

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The web created by sport in academics has made it difficult for it to be separated from adolescent educational development. The enthusiasm expressed towards sport by students in higher institutions is quite enormous. Primarily, academic performance should be the pride of all students but whether sports affect the academic performance of student-athletes remain an unknown fact. This study investigated the influence of sports participation on academic performance among Afe Babalola University student-athletes. Ex post facto research design was used. Two groups of students were used for the study; Student-athlete (SA) and Regular Students (RS). Purposive sampling technique was used to select 224 student-athletes, only those that are regular in the university sports team training were considered and their records (i.e. name, department, level, matriculation number, and phone number) were collected through the assistance of their coaches. For the regular students, purposive sampling technique was used to select 224 participants, only those that have no interest in sports were considered and their records were retrieved from the college registration officer. The first and second semester examination results of the two groups were compared in 10 general study courses without their knowledge, using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, mean, and standard deviation. Out of the 10 compared courses, 7 courses result showed no significant difference between students-athlete and regular students while student-athletes perform better in 3 practically oriented courses. Sports role in academics is quite significant. Exposure to sports can help build the confidence that athletes need especially when it comes to practical courses. Student-athletes can perform better in academics if the environment is friendly and not intimidating. Lecturers and coaches need to work together in order to build a well cultured and intelligent graduate.

Keywords: academic performance, regular students, sports participation, student-athlete, university sports team

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Authors: Bounar Nedjemeddine

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Materials with the pyrochlore lattice structure have attracted much recent attention due to their wide applications in ceramic thermal barrier coatings, high-permittivity dielectrics, and potential solid electrolytes in solid-oxide fuel cells. The work described in this paper is devoted to the synthesis and characterization of a pyrochlore structure based on lanthanum (La₂O₃) and tin (SnO₂) oxides of general formula La₂Sn₂O₇, substituted by Sr at the site La. Their structures were determined from X-ray powder diffraction using CELFER analysis. All the compositions present the space group Fd-3m. The substitution of La by Sr in the La₂Sn₂O₇ compound causes a variation of the cell parameters. The difference in charge between La³⁺ and Sr²⁺ and the difference in size cause the cell parameters to decrease from a=10.7165 A° to a=10.6848 A° for the substitution rates (x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.15 ...), which leads to a decrease in the volume of the mesh. For a substitution rate x = 0.25, there is an increase in the cell parameters (a=10.7035A°), which can be explained by a competitiveness of the size effect and the presence of a gap in the structure which go in the opposite direction.

Keywords: solid-oxide fuel cells, structure, pyrochlore, X-ray diffraction

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Authors: Rafla Attia, Claudio Zucca, Bao Quang Le, Sana Dridi, Thouraya Sahli, Taoufik Hermassi

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In Tunisia, landscape change and land degradation are critical issues for landscape conservation, management, and planning. Landscapes are undergoing crucial environmental problems made evident by soil degradation and desertification. Human improper uses of land resources (e.g., unsuitable land uses, unsustainable crop intensification, and poor rangeland management) and climate change are the main factors leading to the landscape transformation and desertification affecting high proportions of the Tunisian lands. Land use planning (LUP) to achieve Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) must be supported by methodologies and technologies that help identify best solutions and practices and design context-specific sustainable land management (SLM) strategies. Such strategies must include restoration or rehabilitation efforts in areas with high land degradation, as well as prevention of degradation that could be caused by improper land use (LU) and land management (LM). The geoinformatics Land Use Planning for LDN (LUP4LDN) tool has been designed for this purpose. Its aim is to support national and sub-national planners in i) mapping geographic patterns of current land degradation; ii) anticipating further future land degradation expected in areas that are unsustainably managed; and iii) providing an interactive procedure for developing participatory LU-LM transitional scenarios over selected regions of interest and timeframes, visualizing the related expected levels of impacts on ecosystem services via maps and graphs. The tool has been co-developed and piloted with national stakeholders in Tunisia. The piloting implementation assessed how the LUP4LDN tool fits with existing LUP processes and the benefits achieved by using the tool to support land use planning for LDN.

Keywords: land use system, land cover, sustainable land management, land use planning for land degradation neutrality

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Authors: Ravinesh C. Deo

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This article reviews the role of nozzle-exit conditions on the flow field of a plane jet. The jet issuing from a sharp-edged orifice plate at a Reynolds number (Re=18000) with nozzle aspect ratio (AR=72) exhibits the greatest shear-layer instabilities, highest entrainment and jet-spreading rates compared to the radially contoured nozzle. The growth rate of the shear-layer is the highest for the orifice-jet although this property could be amplified for larger Re or AR. A local peak in turbulent energy is found at x=10h. The peak appears to be elevated for an orifice-jet with lower Re or AR. The far-field energy sustained by the orifice-jet exceeds the contoured case although a higher Re and AR may enhance this value. The spectra displays the largest eddies generated by the contoured nozzle. However, the frequency of coherent eddies is higher for the orifice-jet, with a larger magnitude achievable for lower Re and AR.

Keywords: plane jet, Reynolds number, nozzle-exit conditions, nozzle geometry, aspect ratio

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Authors: Preshanthan Moodley, E. B. Gueguim Kana

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This study examines the kinetics of S. cerevisiae BY4743 growth and bioethanol production from sugarcane leaf waste (SLW), utilizing two different optimized pretreatment regimes; under two fermentation modes: steam salt-alkali filtered enzymatic hydrolysate (SSA-F), steam salt-alkali unfiltered (SSA-U), microwave salt-alkali filtered (MSA-F) and microwave salt-alkali unfiltered (MSA-U). The kinetic coefficients were determined by fitting the Monod, modified Gompertz, and logistic models to the experimental data with high coefficients of determination R² > 0.97. A maximum specific growth rate (µₘₐₓ) of 0.153 h⁻¹ was obtained under SSA-F and SSA-U whereas, 0.150 h⁻¹ was observed with MSA-F and MSA-U. SSA-U gave a potential maximum bioethanol concentration (Pₘ) of 31.06 g/L compared to 30.49, 23.26 and 21.79g/L for SSA-F, MSA-F and MSA-U respectively. An insignificant difference was observed in the μmax and Pm for the filtered and unfiltered enzymatic hydrolysate for both SSA and MSA pretreatments, thus potentially reducing a unit operation. These findings provide significant insights for process scale up.

Keywords: lignocellulosic bioethanol, microwave pretreatment, sugarcane leaves, kinetics

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Authors: Deniz Peksen

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This thesis aims to predict trend movement of closing price of stock and to maximize portfolio by utilizing the predictions. In this context, the study aims to define a stock portfolio strategy from models created by using Logistic Regression, Gradient Boosting and Random Forest. Recently, predicting the trend of stock price has gained a significance role in making buy and sell decisions and generating returns with investment strategies formed by machine learning basis decisions. There are plenty of studies in the literature on the prediction of stock prices in capital markets using machine learning methods but most of them focus on closing prices instead of the direction of price trend. Our study differs from literature in terms of target definition. Ours is a classification problem which is focusing on the market trend in next 20 trading days. To predict trend direction, fourteen years of data were used for training. Following three years were used for validation. Finally, last three years were used for testing. Training data are between 2002-06-18 and 2016-12-30 Validation data are between 2017-01-02 and 2019-12-31 Testing data are between 2020-01-02 and 2022-03-17 We determine Hold Stock Portfolio, Best Stock Portfolio and USD-TRY Exchange rate as benchmarks which we should outperform. We compared our machine learning basis portfolio return on test data with return of Hold Stock Portfolio, Best Stock Portfolio and USD-TRY Exchange rate. We assessed our model performance with the help of roc-auc score and lift charts. We use logistic regression, Gradient Boosting and Random Forest with grid search approach to fine-tune hyper-parameters. As a result of the empirical study, the existence of uptrend and downtrend of five stocks could not be predicted by the models. When we use these predictions to define buy and sell decisions in order to generate model-based-portfolio, model-based-portfolio fails in test dataset. It was found that Model-based buy and sell decisions generated a stock portfolio strategy whose returns can not outperform non-model portfolio strategies on test dataset. We found that any effort for predicting the trend which is formulated on stock price is a challenge. We found same results as Random Walk Theory claims which says that stock price or price changes are unpredictable. Our model iterations failed on test dataset. Although, we built up several good models on validation dataset, we failed on test dataset. We implemented Random Forest, Gradient Boosting and Logistic Regression. We discovered that complex models did not provide advantage or additional performance while comparing them with Logistic Regression. More complexity did not lead us to reach better performance. Using a complex model is not an answer to figure out the stock-related prediction problem. Our approach was to predict the trend instead of the price. This approach converted our problem into classification. However, this label approach does not lead us to solve the stock prediction problem and deny or refute the accuracy of the Random Walk Theory for the stock price.

Keywords: stock prediction, portfolio optimization, data science, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 65

Authors: Katerina Nerantzaki, Panayiota Metallidou, Anastasia Efklides

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The aim of the study was to investigate: (a) changes in the intensity of various epistemic emotions during cognitive processing in a decision-making task and (b) their associations with metacognitive feelings of difficulty and confidence. One hundred and fifty-two undergraduate university students were asked individually to read in the e-prime environment decision-making scenarios about moral dilemmas concerning self-driving cars, which differed in the level of conflict they produced, and then to make a choice between two options. Further, the participants were asked to rate on a four-point scale four epistemic emotions (surprise, curiosity, confusion, and wonder) and two metacognitive feelings (feeling of difficulty and feeling of confidence) after making their choice in each scenario. Changes in cognitive processing due to the level of conflict affected differently the intensity of the specific epistemic emotions. Further, there were interrelations of epistemic emotions with metacognitive feelings.

Keywords: confusion, curiosity, epistemic emotions, metacognitive experiences, surprise

Procedia PDF Downloads 63

Authors: Bouanati Sidi Mohammed, N. E. Chabane Sari, Mostefa Kara Selma

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It is well-known that Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are attracting great interest in the display technology industry due to their many advantages, such as low price of manufacturing, large-area of electroluminescent display, various colors of emission included white light. Recently, there has been much progress in understanding the device physics of OLEDs and their basic operating principles. In OLEDs, Light emitting is the result of the recombination of electron and hole in light emitting layer, which are injected from cathode and anode. For improve luminescence efficiency, it is needed that hole and electron pairs exist affluently and equally and recombine swiftly in the emitting layer. The aim of this paper is to modeling polymer LED and OLED made with small molecules for studying the electrical and optical characteristics. The first simulation structures used in this paper is a mono layer device; typically consisting of the poly (2-methoxy-5(2’-ethyl) hexoxy-phenylenevinylene) (MEH-PPV) polymer sandwiched between an anode usually an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate, and a cathode, such as Al. In the second structure we replace MEH-PPV by tris (8-hydroxyquinolinato) aluminum (Alq3). We choose MEH-PPV because of it's solubility in common organic solvents, in conjunction with a low operating voltage for light emission and relatively high conversion efficiency and Alq3 because it is one of the most important host materials used in OLEDs. In this simulation, the Poole-Frenkel- like mobility model and the Langevin bimolecular recombination model have been used as the transport and recombination mechanism. These models are enabled in ATLAS -SILVACO software. The influence of doping and thickness on I(V) characteristics and luminescence, are reported.

Keywords: organic light emitting diode, polymer lignt emitting diode, organic materials, hexoxy-phenylenevinylene

Procedia PDF Downloads 540

Authors: Stela Doncheva

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Postpartum distress, encompassing depressive symptoms, obsessions, and anxiety, remains a subject of significant scientific interest due to its prevalence among individuals giving birth. This critical and transformative period presents a multitude of factors that impact women's health. On the one hand, variables such as social support, satisfaction in romantic relationships, shared newborn care, and birth satisfaction directly affect the mental well-being of new mothers. On the other hand, the interplay of hormonal changes, personality characteristics, emotional difficulties, and the profound life adjustments experienced by mothers can profoundly influence their self-esteem and overall physical and emotional well-being. This paper extensively explores the factors of alexithymia, social support, partners' support, and birth satisfaction to gain deeper insights into their impact on postpartum distress. Utilizing a qualitative survey consisting of six self-reflective questionnaires, this study collects valuable data regarding the individual postpartum experiences of Bulgarian mothers. The primary objective is to enrich our understanding of the complex factors involved in the development of postpartum distress during this crucial period. The results shed light on the intricate nature of the problem and highlight the significant influence of bio-psycho-social elements. By contributing to the existing knowledge in the field, this research provides valuable implications for the development of interventions and support systems tailored to the unique needs of mothers in the postpartum period. Ultimately, this study aims to improve the overall well-being of new mothers and promote optimal maternal health during the postpartum journey.

Keywords: maternal mental health, postpartum distress, postpartum depression, postnatal mothers

Procedia PDF Downloads 43

Authors: S. Bouharati, F. Allag, M. Belmahdi, M. Bounechada

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In terms of ecology forecast effects of desertification, the purpose of this study is to develop a predictive model of growth and adaptation of species in arid environment and bioclimatic conditions. The impact of climate change and the desertification phenomena is the result of combined effects in magnitude and frequency of these phenomena. Like the data involved in the phytopathogenic process and bacteria growth in arid soil occur in an uncertain environment because of their complexity, it becomes necessary to have a suitable methodology for the analysis of these variables. The basic principles of fuzzy logic those are perfectly suited to this process. As input variables, we consider the physical parameters, soil type, bacteria nature, and plant species concerned. The result output variable is the adaptability of the species expressed by the growth rate or extinction. As a conclusion, we prevent the possible strategies for adaptation, with or without shifting areas of plantation and nature adequate vegetation.

Keywords: climate changes, dry soil, phytopathogenicity, predictive model, fuzzy logic

Procedia PDF Downloads 304