Search results for: Globsl software development

Authors: Edmund Kwablah, Anthony Amoah

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The merits associated with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows to host countries in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot be overemphasized. Against this background, countries have sought to design and implement strategic policies geared towards enhacing FDI and promoting economic growth. In this study, we used the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares technique and a panel data for Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries spanning from 1998 to 2016. We hypothesize that FDI’s effect on economic growth is contingent on some absorptive capacities (e.g., financial market development and economic freedom) of the host country. We used financial market data that accounts for market fragility as a measure of financial market development and economic freedom data which uses the overall score of all the freedom indicators as a measure of economic freedom. Our results suggest that FDI has a statistically positive effect on economic growth when we account for host country’s absorptive capacities. However, a negative relationship will ensue if these absorptive capacities are not accounted for. We recommend that a developing continent like SSA should focus on identifying and building the relevant absorptive capacities that can translate the effect of FDI into a positive growth. This is because an economy with sound absorptive capacities reduces business risk and spur economic growth.

Keywords: FDI, absorptive capacity, economic growth, FMOLS, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, SSA

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Authors: Le Ngoc Hung, Abriak Nor Edine, Binetruy Christophe, Benzerzour Mahfoud, Shahrour Isam, Patrice Rivard

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Bottom ash from Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) can be viewed as a typical granular material because these industrial by-products result from the incineration of various domestic wastes. MSWI bottom ashes are mainly used in road engineering in substitution of the traditional natural aggregates. As the characterization of their mechanical behavior is essential in order to use them, specific studies have been led over the past few years. In the first part of this paper, the mechanical behavior of MSWI bottom ash is studied with triaxial tests. After analysis of the experiment results, the simulation of triaxial tests is carried out by using the software package CESAR-LCPC. As the first approach in modeling of this new class material, the Mohr-Coulomb model was chosen to describe the evolution of material under the influence of external mechanical actions.

Keywords: bottom ash, granular material, triaxial test, mechanical behavior, simulation, Mohr-Coulomb model, CESAR-LCPC

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Authors: Khair Jadaan, Qasem Alqasem

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School children are vulnerable road user groups and are particularly at high risk calling for the need to improve their safety. Safe Routes to Schools (SRTS) concept is considered as one safety improvement approach that would effectively help improve school children’s safety. This paper aims to determine the best practice SRTS for Jordan based on the international experience attained through extensive and selected literature review falling under the 5 E’s and additionally on information/data collected through a survey performed using an online predesigned questionnaire to investigate the reactions and attitudes of students and their parents towards the proposed SRTS program. Data are analyzed using SPSS and MS software, especially Excel, in addition to some literature reviews inserted in this study. The results represent some recommendations that are strongly believed to help decision makers to develop the current safety conditions of the school routes. The challenges that the implementation of this program would face including COVID-19 protection for teachers and students are addressed.

Keywords: children, COVID-19, Jordan, safety, school, SRTS, 5 E’s

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Authors: Rais Yusoh, Rosli Saad, Mokhtar Saidin, Fauzi Andika, Sabiu Bala Muhammad

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Resistivity and seismic refraction profiling have become a common method in pre-investigations for visualizing subsurface structure. The integration of the methods could reduce an interpretation ambiguity. Both methods have their individual software packages for data inversion, but potential to combine certain geophysical methods are restricted; however, the research algorithms that have this functionality was existed and are evaluated personally. The interpretation of subsurface were improve by combining inversion data from both methods by influence each other models using closure coupling; thus, by implementing both methods to support each other which could improve the subsurface interpretation. These methods were applied on a field dataset from a pre-investigation for archeology in finding the ancient river. There were no major changes in the inverted model by combining data inversion for this archetype which probably due to complex geology. The combine data analysis provides an additional technique for interpretation such as an alluvium, which can have strong influence on the ancient river findings.

Keywords: ancient river, combine inversion, resistivity, seismic refraction

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Authors: Danilo F. Rodrigues, Hérida Regina N. Salgado

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Introduction: The emergence of resistant microorganisms to a large number of clinically approved antimicrobials has been increasing, which restrict the options for the treatment of bacterial infections. As a strategy, drugs with high antimicrobial activities are in evidence. Stands out a class of antimicrobial, the cephalosporins, having as fourth generation cefepime (CEF) a semi-synthetic product which has activity against various Gram-positive bacteria (e.g. oxacillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (e.g. Pseudomonas aeruginosa) aerobic. There are few studies in the literature regarding the development of microbiological methodologies for the analysis of this antimicrobial, so researches in this area are highly relevant to optimize the analysis of this drug in the industry and ensure the quality of the marketed product. The development of microbiological methods for the analysis of antimicrobials has gained strength in recent years and has been highlighted in relation to physicochemical methods, especially because they make possible to determine the bioactivity of the drug against a microorganism. In this context, the aim of this work was the development and validation of a microbiological method for quantitative analysis of CEF in powder lyophilized for injectable solution by turbidimetric assay. Method: For performing the method, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 IAL 2082 was used as the test microorganism and the culture medium chosen was the Casoy broth. The test was performed using temperature control (35.0 °C ± 2.0 °C) and incubated for 4 hours in shaker. The readings of the results were made at a wavelength of 530 nm through a spectrophotometer. The turbidimetric microbiological method was validated by determining the following parameters: linearity, precision (repeatability and intermediate precision), accuracy and robustness, according to ICH guidelines. Results and discussion: Among the parameters evaluated for method validation, the linearity showed results suitable for both statistical analyses as the correlation coefficients (r) that went 0.9990 for CEF reference standard and 0.9997 for CEF sample. The precision presented the following values 1.86% (intraday), 0.84% (interday) and 0.71% (between analyst). The accuracy of the method has been proven through the recovery test where the mean value obtained was 99.92%. The robustness was verified by the parameters changing volume of culture medium, brand of culture medium, incubation time in shaker and wavelength. The potency of CEF present in the samples of lyophilized powder for injectable solution was 102.46%. Conclusion: The turbidimetric microbiological method proposed for quantification of CEF in lyophilized powder for solution for injectable showed being fast, linear, precise, accurate and robust, being in accordance with all the requirements, which can be used in routine analysis of quality control in the pharmaceutical industry as an option for microbiological analysis.

Keywords: cefepime hydrochloride, quality control, turbidimetric assay, validation

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Authors: B. Käfer, V. K. Bheemineni, H. Lammer, M. Kotnik, F. O. Riemelmoser

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Axial compression tests are performed on circular tubes made of Aluminum EN AW 6060 (AlMgSi0.5 alloy) in T66 state. All the received tubes have the uniform outer diameter of 40mm and thickness of 1.5mm. Two different lengths 100mm and 200mm are used in the analysis. After performing compression tests on the uniform tube, important crashworthy parameters like peak force, average force, crush efficiency and energy absorption are measured. The present paper has given importance to increase the percentage of crush efficiency without decreasing the value energy absorption of a tube, so a circumferential notch was introduced on the top section of the tube. The effects of position and cut-out lengths of a circumferential notch on the crush efficiency are well explained with relative deformation modes and force-displacement curves. The numerical simulations were carried on the software tool ANSYS/LS-DYNA. It is seen that the numerical results are reasonably good in agreement with the experimental results. 

Keywords: crash box, Notch triggering, energy absorption, FEM simulation

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Authors: Remember Samu, Kathy Kiema, Murat Fahrioglu

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This present study is aimed at minimizing the dependence on fossil fuels thus reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and also to curb for the rising energy demands in Kenya. In this analysis, 35 locations were each considered for their techno-economic potential of installation of a 10MW grid-connected PV plant. The sites are scattered across the country but are mostly concentrated in the eastern region and were selected based on their accessibility to the national grid and availability of their meteorological parameters from NASA Solar Energy Dataset. RETScreen software 4.0 version will be employed for the analysis in this present paper. The capacity factor, simple payback, equity payback, the net present value (NPV), annual life cycle savings, energy production cost, net annual greenhouse gas emission reduction and the equivalent barrels of crude oil not consumed are outlined. Energy accounting is performed and compared to the existing grid tariff for an effective feasibility argument of this 10MW grid-connected PV power system.

Keywords: photovoltaics, project viability analysis, PV module, renewable energy

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Authors: Maria Jose Ramos Villagra

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Since the boom of tourism in the late 80s and 90s, Costa Rica is considered as one of the leading countries for tourism. The size and geography of its territory, its low population density, and its image of being one of the most stable Latin American democracies make Costa Rica an attractive and safe target for foreign investors. Land ownership by foreign investors has increased as the natural resources in rural communities have been exhausted. When nature becomes an instrument to increase profit, it loses its communal value contributing to local communities losing their sovereignty and access to basic resources. The rural regions in proximity to the most tourist areas are often the most marginalized. The purpose of this research is to use the case of the rural community Sardinal and its struggle to protect its aquifer to investigate the economic and cultural consequences of the tourism boom in Costa Rican rural communities. The process of reclaiming the access to and the preservation of the aquifer enabled individuals to redefine their political views and their political power. The case of Sardinal broke the stereotypes about rural individuals and their ability to politically educate themselves and organize. Sardinal´s conflict brought to light the necessity of questioning the role of modern tourism as part of Costa Rica’s national identity, and as a tool for development

Keywords: Costa Rica, tourism, rural development, economy, ecotourism, environment, water, Sardinal

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Authors: S. Thomet, S. De-Paoli, F. Ghaffari, J. M. Daveau, P. Roche, O. Romain

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In this paper, we present a hardware module dedicated to understanding the fail reason of a System on Chip (SoC) exposed to a particle beam. Impact of Single-Event Effects (SEE) on processor-based SoCs is a concern that has increased in the past decade, particularly for terrestrial applications with automotive safety increasing requirements, as well as consumer and industrial domains. The SEE created by the impact of a particle on an SoC may have consequences that can end to instability or crashes. Specific hardening techniques for hardware and software have been developed to make such systems more reliable. SoC is then qualified using cosmic ray Accelerated Soft-Error Rate (ASER) to ensure the Soft-Error Rate (SER) remains in mission profiles. Understanding where errors are occurring is another challenge because of the complexity of operations performed in an SoC. Common techniques to monitor an SoC running under a beam are based on non-intrusive debug, consisting of recording the program counter and doing some consistency checking on the fly. To detect and understand SEE, we have developed a module embedded within the SoC that provide support for recording probes, hardware watchpoints, and a memory mapped register bank dedicated to software usage. To identify CPU failure modes and the most important resources to probe, we have carried out a fault injection campaign on the RTL model of the SoC. Probes are placed on generic CPU registers and bus accesses. They highlight the propagation of errors and allow identifying the failure modes. Typical resulting errors are bit-flips in resources creating bad addresses, illegal instructions, longer than expected loops, or incorrect bus accesses. Although our module is processor agnostic, it has been interfaced to a RISC-V by probing some of the processor registers. Probes are then recorded in a ring buffer. Associated hardware watchpoints are allowing to do some control, such as start or stop event recording or halt the processor. Finally, the module is also providing a bank of registers where the firmware running on the SoC can log information. Typical usage is for operating system context switch recording. The module is connected to a dedicated debug bus and is interfaced to a remote controller via a debugger link. Thus, a remote controller can interact with the monitoring module without any intrusiveness on the SoC. Moreover, in case of CPU unresponsiveness, or system-bus stall, the recorded information can still be recovered, providing the fail reason. A preliminary version of the module has been integrated into a test chip currently being manufactured at ST in 28-nm FDSOI technology. The module has been triplicated to provide reliable information on the SoC behavior. As the primary application domain is automotive and safety, the efficiency of the module will be evaluated by exposing the test chip under a fast-neutron beam by the end of the year. In the meantime, it will be tested with alpha particles and electromagnetic fault injection (EMFI). We will report in the paper on fault-injection results as well as irradiation results.

Keywords: fault injection, SoC fail reason, SoC soft error rate, terrestrial application

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Authors: Cristina Munoz-Shuguli, Francisco Rodriguez, Julio Bruna, M. Jose Galotto, Abel Guarda

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The microbial contamination in fruits due to the presence of fungal is the most important cause of their deterioration and loss. The development of active food packaging materials with antifungal properties has been proposed as an innovative strategy in order to prevent this problem. In this way, natural compounds as the essential oils or their derivatives, also called volatile compounds (VC), can be incorporated in the food packaging materials to control the fungal growth during fruit packaging. However, if the VC is incorporated directly in the packaging material, it is released very fast due to VC high volatility. For this reason, the formation of inclusion complexes through the encapsulation of VC into beta-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and their incorporation in package materials is an alternative to maintain an antifungal atmosphere around the packaged fruits for longer times. In this context, the aim of this work was to develop inclusion complexes based in β-CD and VC (β-CD:VC) for further application in the antifungal food packaging materials development. β-CD:VC inclusion complexes were obtained with two different molar ratios 2:1 and 1:1, through co-precipitation method. The entrapment efficiency of β-CD:VC as well the release of antifungal compound from inclusion complexes exposed to different relative humidity (25, 50, and 97 %) to headspace were determined by gaseous chromatography (GC). Also, thermal and antimicrobial properties of β-CD:VC were determined through thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and antifungal assays against Botrytis cinerea, respectively. GC results showed that β-CD:VC 2:1 had a higher entrapment efficiency than β-CD:VC 1:1, with values of 75.5 ± 3.71 % and 59.6 ± 1.51 %, respectively. It was probably because during the synthesis of β-CD:VC 1:1, there was less molecular space to the movement of VC molecules. Furthermore, the release of VC from β-CD:VC was directly related with the relative humidity. High amount of VC was released when the inclusion complexes were exposed to high humidity, possibly due to the interactions between the water molecules and the β-CD hydrophilic wall. On the other hand, a better thermal stability of VC in inclusion complexes allowed to verify its effective encapsulation into β-CD. Finally, antimicrobial assays showed that the inclusion complexes had a high antifungal activity at very low concentrations. Therefore, the results obtained in this work allow suggesting the β-CD:VC inclusion complexes as potential candidates to the development of fruit antifungal packaging materials, which activity is relative humidity dependent.

Keywords: Botrytis cinerea, fruit packaging, headspace release, volatile compounds

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Authors: Yunusa Aliyu Hadejia

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Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease caused by a bacterium called Vibrio Cholerae which spread as a result of eating food or drinking water contaminated with feaces from an infected person. In this work we proposed and analyzed the impact of isolating infected people and give them therapeutic treatment, the specific objectives of the research was to formulate a mathematical model of cholera transmission incorporating treatment class, to make analysis on stability of equilibrium points of the model, positivity and boundedness was shown to ensure that the model has a biological meaning, the basic reproduction number was derived by next generation matrix approach. The result of stability analysis show that the Disease free equilibrium was both locally and globally asymptotically stable when R_0< 1 while endemic equilibrium has locally asymptotically stable when R_0> 1. Sensitivity analysis was perform to determine the contribution of each parameter to the basic reproduction number. Numerical simulation was carried out to show the impact of the model parameters using MAT Lab Software.

Keywords: mathematical model, treatment, stability, sensitivity

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Authors: Hao Liu, Lihui Zheng, Chinedu J. Okere, Chao Wang, Xiangchun Wang, Peng Zhang

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The coalbed methane (CBM) extraction industry (an unconventional energy source) is yet to promulgated an established standard code of practice for the experimental evaluation of sensitivity damage of coal samples. The existing experimental process of previous researches mainly followed the industry standard for conventional oil and gas reservoirs (CIS). However, the existing evaluation method ignores certain critical differences between CBM reservoirs and conventional reservoirs, which could inevitably result in an inaccurate evaluation of sensitivity damage and, eventually, poor decisions regarding the formulation of formation damage prevention measures. In this study, we propose improved experimental guidelines for evaluating seepage sensitivity damage of CBM reservoirs by leveraging on the shortcomings of the existing methods. The proposed method was established via a theoretical analysis of the main drawbacks of the existing methods and validated through comparative experiments. The results show that the proposed evaluation technique provided reliable experimental results that can better reflect actual reservoir conditions and correctly guide future development of CBM reservoirs. This study is pioneering the research on the optimization of experimental parameters for efficient exploration and development of CBM reservoirs.

Keywords: coalbed methane, formation damage, permeability, unconventional energy source

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Authors: Rashmi Malik, Videep Mishra

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The practice of generative design has become a transformative approach for an efficient way of generating multiple iterations for any design project. The conventional way of modeling the game elements is very time-consuming and requires skilled artists to design. A 3D modeling tool like 3D S Max, Blender, etc., is used traditionally to create the game library, which will take its stipulated time to model. The study is focused on using the generative design tool to increase the efficiency in game development at the stage of prop and environment generation. This will involve procedural level and customized regulated or randomized assets generation. The paper will present the system design approach using generative tools like Grasshopper (visual scripting) and other scripting tools to automate the process of game library modeling. The script will enable the generation of multiple products from the single script, thus creating a system that lets designers /artists customize props and environments. The main goal is to measure the efficacy of the automated system generated to create a wide variety of game elements, further reducing the need for manual content creation and integrating it into the workflow of AAA and Indie Games.

Keywords: iterative game design, generative design, gaming asset automation, generative game design

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Authors: Ashish Kumar Pathak, Ritika Sharma, Vishal Nath, Sudhir Pratap Singh, Rakesh Tuli

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Litchi is a sub-tropical fruit crop with genotypes bearing delicious juicy fruits with variable seed size (bold to rudimentary size). Small seed size is a desirable trait in litchi, as it increases consumer acceptance and fruit processing. The biochemical activities in mid- stage ovules (e.g. 16, 20, 24 and 28 days after anthesis) determine the fate of seed and fruit development in litchi. Comprehensive ovule-specific transcriptome analysis was performed in two litchi genotypes with contrasting seed size to gain molecular insight on determinants of seed fates in litchi fruits. The transcriptomic data was de-novo assembled in 1,39,608 trinity transcripts, out of which 6,325 trinity transcripts were differentially expressed between the two contrasting genotypes. Differential transcriptional pattern was found among ovule development stages in contrasting litchi genotypes. The putative genes for salicylic acid, jasmonic acid and brassinosteroid pathway were down-regulated in ovules of small-seeded litchi. Embryogenesis, cell expansion, seed size and stress related trinity transcripts exhibited altered expression in small-seeded genotype. The putative regulators of seed maturation and seed storage were down-regulated in small-seed genotype.

Keywords: Litchi, seed, transcriptome, defence

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Authors: Partha Saha, Uttam Kumar Banerjee

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Maternal and Child Healthcare (MCH) has always been regarded as one of the important issues globally. Reduction of maternal and child mortality rates and increase of healthcare service coverage were declared as one of the targets in Millennium Development Goals till 2015 and thereafter as an important component of the Sustainable Development Goals. Over the last decade, worldwide MCH indicators have improved but could not match the expected levels. Progress of both maternal and child mortality rates have been monitored by several researchers. Each of the studies has stated that only less than 26% of low-income and middle income countries (LMICs) were on track to achieve targets as prescribed by MDG4. Average worldwide annual rate of reduction of under-five mortality rate and maternal mortality rate were 2.2% and 1.9% as on 2011 respectively whereas rates should be minimum 4.4% and 5.5% annually to achieve targets. In spite of having proven healthcare interventions for both mothers and children, those could not be scaled up to the required volume due to fragmented health systems, especially in the developing and under-developed countries. In this research, a knowledge discovery based interactive Decision Support System (DSS) has been developed on web platform which would assist healthcare policy makers to develop evidence-based policies. To achieve desirable results in MCH, efficient resource planning is very much required. In maximum LMICs, resources are big constraint. Knowledge, generated through this system, would help healthcare managers to develop strategic resource planning for combatting with issues like huge inequity and less coverage in MCH. This system would help healthcare managers to accomplish following four tasks. Those are a) comprehending region wise conditions of variables related with MCH, b) identifying relationships within variables, c) segmenting regions based on variables status, and d) finding out segment wise key influential variables which have major impact on healthcare indicators. Whole system development process has been divided into three phases. Those were i) identifying contemporary issues related with MCH services and policy making; ii) development of the system; and iii) verification and validation of the system. More than 90 variables under three categories, such as a) educational, social, and economic parameters; b) MCH interventions; and c) health system building blocks have been included into this web-based DSS and five separate modules have been developed under the system. First module has been designed for analysing current healthcare scenario. Second module would help healthcare managers to understand correlations among variables. Third module would reveal frequently-occurring incidents along with different MCH interventions. Fourth module would segment regions based on previously mentioned three categories and in fifth module, segment-wise key influential interventions will be identified. India has been considered as case study area in this research. Data of 601 districts of India has been used for inspecting effectiveness of those developed modules. This system has been developed by importing different statistical and data mining techniques on Web platform. Policy makers would be able to generate different scenarios from the system before drawing any inference, aided by its interactive capability.

Keywords: maternal and child heathcare, decision support systems, data mining techniques, low and middle income countries

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Authors: Mbambu K. Shaloom, Biba Kalengo, Pierre Echard, Olivier Gilson, Tshiswaka Ngalula, Léonard Kabeya Mukeba Yakasham

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In this 21st century, while design and eco-construction continue to be governed by considerations of functionality, safety, comfort and initial investment cost. Today, the principles of sustainable development lead us to think over longer time frames, to take into account new issues and the operating costs of green energy. DR Congo (sub-Saharan Africa) still suffers from the unusability of certain bio-sourced materials (such as bamboo, branches, etc.) and the lack of energy, i.e. 9% of the population has access to electricity and 21% of access to water. Ecoconstruction involves the energy performance of buildings which carry out a dynamic thermal simulation, which targets the different assumptions and conventional parameters (weather, occupancy, materials, thermal comfort, green energies, etc.). The objective of this article is to remedy the thermal, economic and technical artisanal problems in an aqueous environment in the city of Kinshasa. In order to establish a behavioral model to mitigate environmental impacts on architectural modifications and low-cost eco-construction through the approach of innovation and design thinking.

Keywords: thermal comfort, bio-sourced material, eco-architecture, eco-construction, squatting, design thinking

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Authors: Farzingohar Mehrnaz, Yasemi Mehran, Esmaili Zinat, Baharlouian Maedeh

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Aboozar (Ardeshir) and Bahregansar are the two important Iranian oilfields in Persian Gulf waters. The operation activities cause to create spills which impacted on the marine environment. Assumed spills are molded by ADIOS II (Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills) which is NOAA’s weathering oil software. Various atmospheric and marine data with different oil types are used for the modeling. Numerous scenarios for 100 bbls with mean daily air temperature and wind speed are input for 5 days. To find the model sensitivity in each setting, one parameter is changed, but the others stayed constant. In both fields, the evaporated and dispersed output values increased hence the remaining rate is reduced. The results clarified that wind speed first, second air temperature and finally oil type respectively were the most effective factors on the oil weathering process. The obtained results can help the emergency systems to predict the floating (dispersed and remained) volume spill in order to find the suitable cleanup tools and methods.

Keywords: ADIOS, modeling, oil spill, sensitivity analysis

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Authors: M. Kasusse, M. Rosette, E. Burke, C. Mwangi, R. Batamwita, N. Tumwesigye, S. Aisu

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A cross-sectional survey to ascertain the capacity of laboratory persons in using ICTs was conducted in 15 Ugandan districts (July-August 2013). A self-administered questionnaire served as data collection tool, interview guide and observation checklist. 69 questionnaires were filled, 12 interviews conducted, 45 HC observed. SPSS statistics 17.0 and SAS 9.2 software were used for entry and analyses. 69.35% of participants find it difficult to access a computer at work. Of the 30.65% who find it easy to access a computer at work, a significant 21.05% spend 0 hours on a computer daily. 60% of the participants cannot access internet at work. Of the 40% who have internet at work, a significant 20% lack email address but 20% weekly read emails weekly and 48% daily. It is viable/feasible to pilot informatics projects as strategies to build bridges develop skills for e-health landscape in laboratory services with a bigger financial muscle.

Keywords: ICT behavior, clinical laboratory persons, Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda

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Authors: Ashish Payal, C. S. Rai, B. V. R. Reddy

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With the increasing use and application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), need has arisen to explore them in more effective and efficient manner. An important area which can bring efficiency to WSNs is the localization process, which refers to the estimation of the position of wireless sensor nodes in an ad hoc network setting, in reference to a coordinate system that may be internal or external to the network. In this paper, we have done comparison and analysed Sigmoidal Feedforward Artificial Neural Networks (SFFANNs) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) networks for developing localization framework in WSNs. The presented work utilizes the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), measured by static node on 100 x 100 m² grid from three anchor nodes. The comprehensive evaluation of these approaches is done using MATLAB software. The simulation results effectively demonstrate that FFANNs based sensor motes will show better localization accuracy as compared to RBF.

Keywords: localization, wireless sensor networks, artificial neural network, radial basis function, multi-layer perceptron, backpropagation, RSSI, GPS

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Authors: A. G. Back

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Urban planning is a relevant tool to address, in a systemic way, several sectoral policies capable of linking the urban agenda with the reduction of socio-environmental risks. The Sao Paulo’s master plan (2014) presents innovations capable of promoting the transition to sustainability in the urban space, with a view to its regulatory instruments related to i) promotion of density in the axes of mass transport involving the mixture of commercial, residential, services, and leisure uses (principles related to the compact city); ii) vulnerabilities reduction based on housing policies including regular sources of funds for social housing and land reservation in urbanized areas; iii) reserve of green areas in the city to create parks and environmental regulations for new buildings focused on reducing the effects of heat island and improving urban drainage. However, its long-term implementation involves distributive conflicts and can undergo changes in different political, economic, and social contexts over time. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to identify and analyze the dynamics of conflicts of interest between social groups in the implementation of Sao Paulo’s urban development policy, particularly in relation to recent attempts at a (re) interpretation of the Master Plan guidelines, in view of the proposals for revision of the urban zoning law. In this sense, we seek to identify the demands, narratives of urban actors, including the real estate market, middle-class neighborhood associations ('not in my backyard' movements), and social housing rights movements. And we seek to analyze the power resources that these actors mobilize to influence the decision-making process, involving five categories: social capital, political access; discursive resource; media, juridical resource. The major findings of this research suggest that the interests and demands of the real estate market do not always prevail in urban regulation. After all, other actors also press for the definition of urban law with interests opposite to those of the real estate market. This is the case of associations of middle-class neighborhoods, which work to protect the characteristics of the locality, acting, in general, to prevent constructive and population densification in neighborhoods well located near the center, in São Paulo. One of the main demands of these “not in my backyard” movements is the delimitation of exclusively residential areas in the central region of the city, which is not only contrary to the interests of the real state market but also contrary to the principles of the compact city. On the other hand, social housing rights movements have also made progress in delimiting special areas of social interest in well-located and valued areas in the city dedicated to building social housing, also contrary to the interests of the real estate market. An urban development that follows the principles of the compact city must take into account the insertion of low-income populations in well-located regions; otherwise, such a development model may continue to push the less favored to the peripheries towards the preservation areas and/or risk areas.

Keywords: interest groups, Sao Paulo, sustainable urban development, urban policies implementation

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Authors: Ted Gournelos

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Marketing approaches in practice and academic literature usually foreground the importance of product and brand awareness in strategy. Decisions emphasize justifications and promotions of existing projects, which has the unintended consequence of pushing marketing, public relations, and other communications to secondary strategies and tactics rather than as inherent pieces of organizational development. In other words, marketers implement what others have already decided. This is a challenge not only for the communications field, but also for the organizations themselves, since integrated communications employees are often the primary, if not the only, touchpoints for client/customer/user research and interaction. Organizations thus become increasingly out of touch, raising the risk of public or human resources crisis and decreasing the focus on opportunities for development and growth. This paper will discuss the potential for social entrepreneurship to refocus marketing and communications professionals on primary strategy, and suggest best practices for developing initiatives not only to impact marketing efforts themselves, but also the guiding organizational approaches to project management, human resources, corporate social responsibility, and research. It will provide a comparative analysis of social media marketing efforts conducted by food security non-governmental organizations from several countries, pointing out both flaws and areas of opportunity for integration with for-profit organizational strategy, and discuss the implications of descriptive, proactive, and interactive messaging.

Keywords: social enterprise, strategy, innovation, social media

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Authors: Harkishen Singh, Gavin Mangeni

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This project aims at building an efficient and automatic power monitoring SCADA system, which is capable of monitoring the electrical parameters of high voltage powered devices in real time for example RMS voltage and current, frequency, energy consumed, power factor etc. The system uses RS-485 serial communication interface to transfer data over longer distances. Embedded C programming is the platform used to develop two hardware modules namely: RTU and Master Station modules, which both use the CC2540 BLE 4.0 microcontroller configured in slave / master mode. The Si8900 galvanic ally isolated microchip is used to perform ADC externally. The hardware communicates via UART port and sends data to the user PC using the USB port. Labview software is used to design a user interface to display current state of the power loads being monitored as well as logs data to excel spreadsheet file. An understanding of the Si8900’s auto baud rate process is key to successful implementation of this project.

Keywords: SCADA, RS485, CC2540, labview, Si8900

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Authors: Aref Maalej, Marwa Fakhfakh, Wael Ben Amira

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We present in this work a numerical investigation of fluid-structure interaction to study the elastic behavior of flexible rotors. The principal aim is to provide the effect of the aero/hydrodynamic parameters on the bending deformation of flexible rotors. This study is accomplished using the strong two-way fluid-structure interaction (FSI) developed by the ANSYS Workbench software. This method is used for coupling the fluid solver to the transient structural solver to study the elastic behavior of flexible rotors in water. In this study, we use a moderately flexible rotor modeled by a single blade with simplified rectangular geometry. In this work, we focus on the effect of the rotational frequency on the flapwise bending deformation. It is demonstrated that the blade deforms in the downstream direction, and the amplitude of these deformations increases with the rotational frequencies. Also, from a critical frequency, the blade begins to deform in the upstream direction.

Keywords: numerical simulation, flexible blade, fluid-structure interaction, ANSYS workbench, flapwise deformation

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Authors: Gadisa Alemayehu, Muralidhar Avvari, Atkilt Mulu G.

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Since 1962 EC, the Faffa Food Share Company has been producing and supplying flour (famix) and value-added flour (baby food) in Ethiopia. It meets nearly all of the country's total flour demand, both for relief and commercial markets. However, it is incompetent in the international market due to a poor maintenance management system. The results of recorded documents and stopwatches revealed that frequent failure machines, as well as a poor maintenance management system, cause increased production downtimes, resulting in a 29.19 percent decrease in production from the planned production. As a result, the current study's goal is to recommend newly developed software for use in and as a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). As a result, the system increases machine reliability and decreases the frequency of equipment failure, reducing breakdown time and maintenance costs. The company's overall manufacturing performance improved by 4.45 percent, particularly after the implementation of the CMMS.

Keywords: CMMS, manufacturing performance, delivery, availability, flexibility, Faffa Food Share Company

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Authors: Avdasheva Svetlanaa, Kryuchkova Polinab

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Comparative social efficiency of private and public enforcement of law is debated. This question is not of academic interest only, it is also important for the development of the legal system and regulations. Generally, involvement of ‘common citizens’ in public law enforcement is considered to be beneficial, while involvement of interest groups representatives is not. Institutional economics as well as law and economics consider the difference between public and private enforcement to be rather mechanical. Actions of bureaucrats in government agencies are assumed to be driven by the incentives linked to social welfare (or other indicator of public interest) and their own benefits. In contrast, actions of participants in private enforcement are driven by their private benefits. However administrative law enforcement may be designed in such a way that it would become driven mainly by individual incentives of alleged victims. We refer to this system as reactive public enforcement. Citizens may prefer using reactive public enforcement even if private enforcement is available. However replacement of public enforcement by reactive version of public enforcement negatively affects deterrence and reduces social welfare. We illustrate the problem of private vs pure public and private vs reactive public enforcement models with the examples of three legislation subsystems in Russia – labor law, consumer protection law and competition law. While development of private enforcement instead of public (especially in reactive public model) is desirable, replacement of both public and private enforcement by reactive model is definitely not.

Keywords: public enforcement, private complaints, legal errors, competition protection, labor law, competition law, russia

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Authors: S. Gholamrezaei, M. Mehrabizade Honarmand, Y. Zargar

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Introduction: This research was designed to assess the effect of group Interpersonal Psychotherapy on eating disorder symptom and fear of negative evaluation of Lorestan University female students. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 641 female students were randomly selected from various faculties of Lorestan University. Eating disorders symptoms and fear of negative evaluation were assessed by the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), and Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, Leary (FNES-B). Data were analyzed by SPSS software (multivariate analyze tests were used). Results: Interpersonal Psychotherapy can improve the eating disorder symptoms and reduce the fear of negative evaluation in girl students of group control in compare with control group. Conclusion: Interpersonal psychotherapy can be effective for eating disorder symptoms, and fear of negative evaluation among female students. Thus, it is suggested that this kind of psychotherapy was used for other psychological disease.

Keywords: interpersonal psychotherapy, eating disorder, fear of negative evaluation, students

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Authors: Niloofar Hooman

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The present study aims at investigating the positive and negative effects of using Smartphones on couples committed relationships. Despite the fact that many couples may benefit from the positive aspects of Smartphones, it is not clear how their feeling of trust, intimacy and connection in their relationships get affected by Smartphones. This is important as it highlights the ambivalent influences of Smartphones on couple’s relationships. On the one hand, Smartphones can enhance their social and emotional interactions and on the other hand, they can cause mistrust and isolation between them. Trust, intimacy and honesty are of important factors through which a stable relationship can be constructed. Nevertheless, some characteristics of Smartphones such as being fluid and personalized can harm the relationship and consequently destroy it. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how Iranian couples in committed relationships use Smartphone to manage their relationship and how couples feel Smartphone have enhanced or detracted a sense of trust, intimacy and connection with their partner? In the first phase of the study, in-depth-interview will be conducted with 30 couples and data will be analyzed using NVIVO software. In the next phase of the study, 1500 participants aged 20 and above will be selected based on cluster sampling. Data will be analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Keywords: couple, family, internet, intimacy, Smartphone, trust

Procedia PDF Downloads 381

Authors: Mohamad Reza Khodabakhsh

Abstract:

Violence against women is a historical phenomenon; although its form and type are common in various societies and cultures, this type of violence occurs in terms of physical, psychological, financial, and sexual dimensions. This is the cause of many social deviations and endangers the center of the family as the most important institution. This research seeks to investigate the relationship between personality characteristics and the tendency to addiction to domestic violence. One hundred fifty women and one hundred fifty men were selected by the available sampling method. One hundred fifty men were admitted to drug addiction camps, and women included domestic violence cases. A questionnaire on addiction tendency, Five Personality Traits (NEO), and attitudes toward violence against women was used. Data were analyzed in descriptive and inferential statistics. The data were analyzed at the level of descriptive mean, mean, and standard deviation and analyzed using SPSS 20 software using correlation and analysis of variance at the level of inferential level. And the data were analyzed at the p≤0.05 significance level. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between personality traits and a tendency to addiction and domestic violence.

Keywords: personality, addiction, domestic violence, family

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: X. Simon, D. Copena, M. Montero

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The last decades have witnessed a significant increase in renewable energy, especially wind energy, to achieve sustainable development. Specialized literature in this field has carried out interesting case studies to extensively analyze both the environmental benefits of this energy and its social acceptance. However, to the best of our knowledge, work to date makes no analysis of the role of private owners of lands with wind potential within a broader territory of strong wind implantation, nor does it estimate their economic incomes relating them to social acceptance. This work fills this gap by focusing on Galicia, territory housing over 4,000 wind turbines and almost 3,400 MW of power. The main difficulty in getting this financial information is that it is classified, not public. We develop methodological techniques (semi- structured interviews and work groups), inserted within the Participatory Research, to overcome this important obstacle. In this manner, the work directly compiles qualitative and quantitative information on the processes as well as the economic results derived from implementing wind energy in Galicia. During the field work, we held 106 semi-structured interviews and 32 workshops with owners of lands occupied by wind farms. The compiled information made it possible to create the socioeconomic database on wind energy in Galicia (SDWEG). This database collects a diversity of quantitative and qualitative information and contains economic information on the income received by the owners of lands occupied by wind farms. In the Galician case, regulatory framework prevented local participation under the community wind farm formula. The possibility of local participation in the new energy model narrowed down to companies wanting to install a wind farm and demanding land occupation. The economic mechanism of local participation begins here, thus explaining the level of acceptance of wind farms. Land owners can receive significant income given that these payments constitute an important source of economic resources, favor local economic activity, allow rural areas to develop productive dynamism projects and improve the standard of living of rural inhabitants. This work estimates that land owners in Galicia perceive about 10 million euros per year in total wind revenues. This represents between 1% and 2% of total wind farm invoicing. On the other hand, relative revenues (Euros per MW), far from the amounts reached in other spaces, show enormous payment variability. This signals the absence of a regulated market, the predominance of partial agreements, and the existence of asymmetric positions between owners and developers. Sustainable development requires the replacement of conventional technologies by low environmental impact technologies, especially those that emit less CO₂. However, this new paradigm also requires rural owners to participate in the income derived from the structural transformation processes linked to sustainable development. This paper demonstrates that regulatory framework may contribute to increasing sustainable technologies with high social acceptance without relevant local economic participation.

Keywords: regulatory framework, social acceptance, sustainable development, wind energy, wind income for landowners

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Authors: E. Marušić-Paloka, I. Pažanin, M. Prša

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Subject of this study is the stationary heat conduction problem through a pipe filled with incompressible viscous fluid. In previous work, we observed the existence and uniqueness theorems for the corresponding boundary-value problem and within we have taken into account the effects of the pipe's dilatation due to the temperature of the fluid inside of the pipe. The main difficulty comes from the fact that flow domain changes depending on the solution of the observed heat equation leading to a non-standard coupled governing problem. The goal of this work is to find solution estimate since the exact solution of the studied problem is not possible to determine. We use an asymptotic expansion in order of a small parameter which is presented as a heat expansion coefficient of the pipe's material. Furthermore, an error estimate is provided for the mentioned asymptotic approximation of the solution for inner area of the pipe. Close to the boundary, problem becomes more complex so different approaches are observed, mainly Theory of Perturbations and Separations of Variables. In view of that, error estimate for the whole approximation will be provided with additional software simulations of gotten situation.

Keywords: asymptotic analysis, dilated pipe, error estimate, heat conduction

Procedia PDF Downloads 230