Search results for: life cycle based analysis

Authors: Firdaus Khairi Abdul Kadir, Nazihah Rusli, Noor Aisyah Abdul Aziz

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Islam is a comprehensive religion encompassing all aspects of society’s life such as social, economic, political, cultural and environmental. The environment is part of the manifestation of God’s greatness which has pearls of wisdom, bestowed upon human beings to make them realize that everything is in the hands of God (Allah SWT). However, the equilibrium of nature could be disturbed from the excessive exploitation by humans’ hands. As a caliph on this earth, it is the responsibility of human beings to look after the environment proactively. Besides, Islam calls for the execution of accountable development and respecting the principles of sustainability. Therefore, this study focuses on the role of human beings as caliphs on this earth who are responsible for nature and their acts in conserving and preserving the environment based on the approach of religious education. This study also used the research method of the survey library.

Keywords: environment, human beings, caliph, tauhid, Allah SWT

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Authors: Ali Ganoun, Wesam Algablawi, Wasim BenAnaif

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Video based traffic surveillance based on License Plate Recognition (LPR) system is an essential part for any intelligent traffic management system. The LPR system utilizes computer vision and pattern recognition technologies to obtain traffic and road information by detecting and recognizing vehicles based on their license plates. Generally, the video based LPR system is a challenging area of research due to the variety of environmental conditions. The LPR systems used in a wide range of commercial applications such as collision warning systems, finding stolen cars, controlling access to car parks and automatic congestion charge systems. This paper presents an automatic LPR system of Libyan license plate. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated with three video sequences.

Keywords: license plate recognition, localization, segmentation, recognition

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Authors: Sakapas Saengchai, Pichamon Chansuchai

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Research Thai- Myanmar Border Trade Promotion Policy, Mae Sai District, Chiang Rai Province The objectives of this study were to study the policy of promoting Thai- Myanmar border trade in Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai province. And suitable models for the development of border trade in Mae Sai. Chiang Rai province This research uses qualitative methodology. The method of collecting data from research papers. Participatory Observation In-depth interviews in which the information is important, the governor of Chiang Rai. Chiang Rai Customs Service Executive Office of Mae Sai Immigration Bureau Maesai Chamber of Commerce and Private Entrepreneurs By specific sampling Data analysis uses content analysis. The study indicated that Border Trade Promotion Policy The direction taken by the government to focus on developing 1. Security is further reducing crime. Smuggling and human trafficking Including the preparation to protect people from terrorism and natural disasters. And cooperation with Burma on border security. 2. The development of wealth is the promotion of investment. The transport links, logistics value chain. Products and services across the Thai-Myanmar border. Improve the regulations and laws to promote fair trade. Convenient and fast 3. Sustainable development is the ability to generate income, quality of life of people in the Thai border to increase continuously. By using balanced natural resources, production and consumption are environmentally friendly. Which featured the participation of all sectors of the public and private sectors in the region to drive the development of the border with Thailand. Chiang Rai province To be more competitive .

Keywords: Border, Trade, Policy, Promote

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Authors: Arifa Batool, Ghulam Hussain Bhatti, Syed Mujtaba Shah

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Inorganic n-type (TiO2, CdO) and p-type (NiO, CuO) metal oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by a facile wet chemical method at room temperature. The morphological, compositional, structural and optical properties were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, FT-IR, XRD analysis, UV/Visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. All semiconducting nanoparticles were photosensitized with Ru (II) based Z907 dye in ethanol solvent by grafting. Grafting of dye on the surface of nanoparticles was confirmed by UV/Visible and FT-IR spectroscopy. The synthesized photo-active nanohybrid was thoroughly blended with P3HT, a solid electrolyte and I-V measurements under solar stimulated radiations 1000 W/m2 (AM 1.5) were recorded. Maximum incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 0.9% was achieved with dye functionalized Z907-TiO2 hybrid, IPCE of 0.72% was achieved with bulk-heterojunction of TiO2-Z907-CuO and IPCE of 0.68% was attained with nanocomposite of TiO2-CdO. TiO2 based Solar cells have maximum Jscvalue i.e.4.63 mA/cm2. Dye-functionalized TiO2-based photovoltaic devices were found more efficient than the reference device but the morphology of the device was a major check in progress.

Keywords: solar cell, bulk heterojunction, nanocomposites, photosensitization, dye sensitized solar cell

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Authors: H. Nikzad, S. Yoshitomi

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In this paper, an optimization procedure is applied for 3D Reinforced concrete building structure with shear wall.  In the optimization problem, cross sections of beams, columns and shear wall dimensions are considered as design variables and the optimal cross sections can be derived to minimize the total cost of the structure. As for final design application, the most suitable sections are selected to satisfy ACI 318-14 code provision based on static linear analysis. The validity of the method is examined through numerical example of 15 storied 3D RC building with shear wall.  This optimization method is expected to assist in providing a useful reference in design early stage, and to be an effective and powerful tool for structural design of RC shear wall structures.

Keywords: structural optimization, linear static analysis, ETABS, MATLAB, RC moment frame, RC shear wall structures

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Authors: Serena Salvi

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Ageistic stereotypes and practices have become a normal and therefore pervasive phenomenon in various aspects of everyday life. Over the past years, renewed awareness towards self-directed age stereotyping in older adults has given rise to a line of research focused on the potential role of attitudes towards ageing on seniors’ health and functioning. This set of studies has showed how a negative internalisation of ageistic stereotypes would discourage older adults in seeking medical advice, in addition to be associated to negative subjective health evaluation. An important dimension of mental health that is often affected in older adults is represented by sleep quality. Self-reported sleep quality among older adults has shown to be often unreliable when compared to their objective sleep measures. Investigations focused on self-reported sleep quality among older adults have suggested how this portion of the population would tend to accept disrupted sleep if believed to be up to standard for their age. On the other hand, unrealistic expectations, and dysfunctional beliefs towards sleep in ageing, might prompt older adults to report sleep disruption even in the absence of objective disrupted sleep. Objective of this study is to examine an association between personal attitudes towards ageing in adults aged 60+ and dysfunctional sleep related cognition. More in detail, this study aims to investigate a potential association between personal attitudes towards ageing, sleep locus of control and dysfunctional beliefs towards sleep among this portion of the population. Data in this study were statistically analysed in SPSS software. Participants were recruited through the online participants recruitment system Prolific. Inclusion of attention check questions throughout the questionnaire and consistency of responses were looked at. Prior to the commencement of this study, Ethical Approval was granted (ref. 39396). Descriptive statistics were used to determine the frequency, mean, and SDs of the variables. Pearson coefficient was used for interval variables, independent T-test for comparing means between two independent groups, analysis of variance (ANOVA) test for comparing the means in several independent groups, and hierarchical linear regression models for predicting criterion variables based on predictor variables. In this study self-perceptions of ageing were assessed using APQ-B’s subscales, while dysfunctional sleep related cognition was operationalised using the SLOC and the DBAS16 scales. Of the final subscales taken in consideration in the brief version of the APQ questionnaire, Emotional Representations (ER), Control Positive (PC) and Control and Consequences Negative (NC) have shown to be of particularly relevance for the remits of this study. Regression analysis show how an increase in the APQ-B subscale Emotional Representations (ER) predicts an increase in dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes towards sleep in this sample, after controlling for subjective sleep quality, level of depression and chronological age. A second regression analysis showed that APQ-B subscales Control Positive (PC) and Control and Consequences Negative (NC) were significant predictors in the change of variance of SLOC, after controlling for subjective sleep quality, level of depression and dysfunctional beliefs about sleep.

Keywords: sleep-related cognition, perceptions of aging, older adults, sleep quality

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Authors: A. Mohamed, A. El-Hamalawi, M. Frost, A. Connell

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Often design standards do not provide guidance or formulae for the calculation of stresses on buried pipelines caused by external loads. Frequently engineers rely on other methods and published sources of information to calculate such imposed stresses and a variety of methods can be used. This paper reviews three current approaches to soil pipeline interaction modelling to predict stresses on buried pipelines subjected to soil overburden and traffic loading. The traditional approach to use empirical stress formulas to calculate circumferential bending stresses on pipelines. The alternative approaches considered are the use of a finite element package to compute an estimate of circumferential bending stress and a proprietary stress analysis system (SURFLOAD) to estimate the circumferential bending stress. The results from analysis using the methods are presented and compared to experimental results in terms of predicted and measured circumferential stresses. This study shows that the approach used to assess externally generated stress is important and can lead to an over-conservative analysis. Using FE analysis either through SURFLOAD or a general FE package to predict circumferential stress is the most accurate way to undertake stress analysis due to traffic and soil loads. Although conservative, classical empirical methods will continue to be applied to the analysis of buried pipelines, an opportunity exists, therefore, in many circumstances, to use applied numerical techniques, made possible by advances in finite element analysis.

Keywords: buried pipelines, circumferential bending stress, finite element analysis, soil overburden, soil pipeline interaction analysis (SPIA), traffic loadings

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Authors: Shenouda Farag Aziz Ibrahim

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The relationship between terrorism and human rights has become an important issue in the fight against terrorism worldwide. This is based on the fact that terrorism and human rights are closely linked, so that when the former begins, the latter suffers. This direct link was recognized in the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action adopted by the International Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna on 25 June 1993, which recognized that terrorist acts aim to violate human rights in all their forms and manifestations. . Therefore, terrorism represents an attack on fundamental human rights. For this purpose, the first part of this article focuses on the relationship between terrorism and human rights and aims to show the relationship between these two concepts. In the second part, the concept of cyber threat and its manifestations are discussed. An analysis of the fight against terrorism in the context of human rights was also made..

Keywords: sustainable development, human rights, the right to development, the human rights-based approach to development, environmental rights, economic development, social sustainability human rights protection, human rights violations, workers’ rights, justice, security.

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Authors: Leo Nnamdi Ozurumba-Dwight

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Messenger ribooxynucleic acid (mRNA) molecules are compositional, protein-based. These proteins, encoding mRNA molecules (which collectively connote the transcriptome), when analyzed by RNA sequencing (RNAseq), unveils the nature of gene expression in the RNA. The obtained gene expression provides clues of cellular traits and their dynamics in presentations. These can be studied in relation to function and responses. RNAseq is a practical concept in Genomics as it enables detection and quantitative analysis of mRNA molecules. Single cell and spatial transcriptomics both present varying avenues for expositions in genomic characteristics of single cells and pooled cells in disease conditions such as cancer, auto-immune diseases, hematopoietic based diseases, among others, from investigated biological tissue samples. Single cell transcriptomics helps conduct a direct assessment of each building unit of tissues (the cell) during diagnosis and molecular gene expressional studies. A typical technique to achieve this is through the use of a single-cell RNA sequencer (scRNAseq), which helps in conducting high throughput genomic expressional studies. However, this technique generates expressional gene data for several cells which lack presentations on the cells’ positional coordinates within the tissue. As science is developmental, the use of complimentary pre-established tissue reference maps using molecular and bioinformatics techniques has innovatively sprung-forth and is now used to resolve this set back to produce both levels of data in one shot of scRNAseq analysis. This is an emerging conceptual approach in methodology for integrative and progressively dependable transcriptomics analysis. This can support in-situ fashioned analysis for better understanding of tissue functional organization, unveil new biomarkers for early-stage detection of diseases, biomarkers for therapeutic targets in drug development, and exposit nature of cell-to-cell interactions. Also, these are vital genomic signatures and characterizations of clinical applications. Over the past decades, RNAseq has generated a wide array of information that is igniting bespoke breakthroughs and innovations in Biomedicine. On the other side, spatial transcriptomics is tissue level based and utilized to study biological specimens having heterogeneous features. It exposits the gross identity of investigated mammalian tissues, which can then be used to study cell differentiation, track cell line trajectory patterns and behavior, and regulatory homeostasis in disease states. Also, it requires referenced positional analysis to make up of genomic signatures that will be sassed from the single cells in the tissue sample. Given these two presented approaches to RNA transcriptomics study in varying quantities of cell lines, with avenues for appropriate resolutions, both approaches have made the study of gene expression from mRNA molecules interesting, progressive, developmental, and helping to tackle health challenges head-on.

Keywords: transcriptomics, RNA sequencing, single cell, spatial, gene expression.

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Authors: Y. S. Zhou, C. R. Li, L. L. Tang, C. X. Gao, D. J. Wang, Y. Y. Guo

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Triangular trihedral corner reflector (CR) has been widely used as point target for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) calibration and image quality assessment. The additional “tip” of the triangular plate does not contribute to the reflector’s theoretical RCS and if it interacts with a perfectly reflecting ground plane, it will yield an increase of RCS at the radar bore-sight and decrease the accuracy of SAR calibration and image quality assessment. Regarding this problem, two types of CRs were manufactured. One was the hexagonal trihedral CR. It is a self-illuminating CR with relatively small plate edge length, while large edge length usually introduces unexpected edge diffraction error. The other was the triangular trihedral CR with extended bottom plate which considers the effect of ‘tip’ into the total RCS. In order to assess the performance of the two types of new CRs, flight campaign over the National Calibration and Validation Site for High Resolution Remote Sensors was carried out. Six hexagonal trihedral CRs and two bottom-extended trihedral CRs, as well as several traditional triangular trihedral CRs, were deployed. KOMPSAT-5 X-band SAR image was acquired for the performance analysis of the hexagonal trihedral CRs. C-band airborne SAR images were acquired for the performance analysis of the bottom-extended trihedral CRs. The analysis results showed that the impulse response function of both the hexagonal trihedral CRs and bottom-extended trihedral CRs were much closer to the ideal sinc-function than the traditional triangular trihedral CRs. The flight campaign results validated the advantages of new types of CRs and they might be useful in the future SAR calibration mission.

Keywords: synthetic aperture radar, calibration, corner reflector, KOMPSAT-5

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Authors: Jigg Pelayo, Ricardo Villar, Einstine Opiso

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The rampant and unintended spread of urban areas resulted in increasing artificial component features in the land cover types of the countryside and bringing forth the urban heat island (UHI). This paved the way to wide range of negative influences on the human health and environment which commonly relates to air pollution, drought, higher energy demand, and water shortage. Land cover type also plays a relevant role in the process of understanding the interaction between ground surfaces with the local temperature. At the moment, the depiction of the land surface temperature (LST) at city/municipality scale particularly in certain areas of Misamis Oriental, Philippines is inadequate as support to efficient mitigations and adaptations of the surface urban heat island (SUHI). Thus, this study purposely attempts to provide application on the Landsat 8 satellite data and low density Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) products in mapping out quality automated LST model and crop-level land cover classification in a local scale, through theoretical and algorithm based approach utilizing the principle of data analysis subjected to multi-dimensional image object model. The paper also aims to explore the relationship between the derived LST and land cover classification. The results of the presented model showed the ability of comprehensive data analysis and GIS functionalities with the integration of object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach on automating complex maps production processes with considerable efficiency and high accuracy. The findings may potentially lead to expanded investigation of temporal dynamics of land surface UHI. It is worthwhile to note that the environmental significance of these interactions through combined application of remote sensing, geographic information tools, mathematical morphology and data analysis can provide microclimate perception, awareness and improved decision-making for land use planning and characterization at local and neighborhood scale. As a result, it can aid in facilitating problem identification, support mitigations and adaptations more efficiently.

Keywords: LiDAR, OBIA, remote sensing, local scale

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Authors: Bassey Igri Okon, Gloria Mayen Umukoro

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The United Nations faces the formidable challenge of ensuring sustainable food provision for the world's burgeoning population, as outlined in Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2. Predominantly, underdeveloped nations bear the brunt of hunger and poverty, lacking sustainable means of self-sustenance. A critical factor contributing to this dire situation is the underperformance of their agricultural sectors, ostensibly necessitating intervention from developed nations. This paper posits that the provision of Agricultural Aid has become a modern instrument of colonization. It unveils how developed countries, under the pretext of aid, perpetuate a neo-colonial dominance over underdeveloped nations. It is argued that unless these nations revert to indigenous farming methodologies and implement effective governance to enable sustainable agriculture, they are likely to remain entrapped in a relentless cycle of hunger, poverty, and economic subservience.

Keywords: aid autonomy, self-sufficiency, rethinking, neocolonialism, underdeveloped, indigenous farming

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Authors: Sema Kayapinar, Ismail Karaoglan, Turan Paksoy, Hadi Gokcen

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Green Supply Chain Management is gaining growing interest among researchers and supply chain management. The concept of Green Supply Chain Management is to integrate environmental thinking into the Supply Chain Management. It is the systematic concept emphasis on environmental problems such as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, recycling end of life products, generation of solid and hazardous waste. This study is to present a green supply chain network model integrated Internet of Things applications. Internet of Things provides to get precise and accurate information of end-of-life product with sensors and systems devices. The forward direction consists of suppliers, plants, distributions centres and sales and collect centres while, the reverse flow includes the sales and collects centres, disassembled centre, recycling and disposal centre. The sales and collection centre sells the new products are transhipped from factory via distribution centre and also receive the end-of life product according their value level. We describe green logistics activities by presenting specific examples including “recycling of the returned products and “reduction of CO2 gas emissions”. The different transportation choices are illustrated between echelons according to their CO2 gas emissions. This problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming model to solve the green supply chain problems which are emerged from the environmental awareness and responsibilities. This model is solved by using Gams package program. Numerical examples are suggested to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed model.

Keywords: green supply chain optimization, internet of things, greenhouse gas emission, recycling

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Authors: Ekin Ozer, Maria Q. Feng, Rupa Purasinghe

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Structural deterioration of bridge systems possesses an ongoing threat to the transportation networks. Besides, landmark bridges’ integrity and safety are more than sole functionality, since they provide a strong presence for the society and nations. Therefore, an innovative and sustainable method to inspect landmark bridges is essential to ensure their resiliency in the long run. In this paper, a recently introduced concept, smartphone-based modal frequency estimation is addressed, and this paper targets to authenticate the fidelity of smartphone-based vibration measurements gathered from three landmark suspension bridges. Firstly, smartphones located at the bridge mid-span are adopted as portable and standalone vibration measurement devices. Then, their embedded accelerometers are utilized to gather vibration response under operational loads, and eventually frequency domain characteristics are deduced. The preliminary analysis results are compared with the reference publications and high-quality monitoring data to validate the usability of smartphones on long-span landmark suspension bridges. If the technical challenges such as high period of vibration, low amplitude excitation, embedded smartphone sensor features, sampling, and citizen engagement are tackled, smartphones can provide a novel and cost-free crowdsourcing tool for maintenance of these landmark structures. This study presents the early phase findings from three signature structures located in the United States.

Keywords: smart and mobile sensing, structural health monitoring, suspension bridges, vibration analysis

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Authors: Valentina Dotto

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Climate change cases used to take the form of statutory disputes rather than constitutional or common law disputes. This changed in 2015, with the Urgenda Climate case in the Netherlands (Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands, C/09/456689/HAZA 13-1396) and, the Juliana case in the U.S. (United States v. U.S. District Court for District of Oregon, 17-71692, 9th Cir.). The two cases represent a new type of climate litigation, the claims brought against the federal government were in fact grounded in constitutional rights. The complaints used the Doctrine of Public Trust as a cornerstone for the lawsuits asserting that government's actions against climate change failed to protect essential public trust resources; thus, violating a generation's constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property. The Public Trust Doctrine –a quintessentially American legal concept-, reserved to the States by virtue of the 9th and 10th amendment of the federal Constitution, gives them considerable jurisdiction over natural resources and has been refined by a number of Supreme Court rulings. The Juliana case exemplifies the Doctrine’s evolutionary nature because it attempts to apply it to the federal government, and establish a right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life as a fundamental right protected by a substantive due process. Furthermore, the flexibility of the Doctrine makes it permissible to be applied to a variety of different legal systems as in the Urgenda case. At the very heart of the lawsuits stands the question of who owns the Earth resources and, to what extent the general public can claim the services that the Earth provides as common property. By employing the widest possible definition of the Doctrine of Public Trust these lawsuits tried to redefine environmental resources as a collective right of all people. By doing case analysis, the paper explores how these cases can contribute to widening the public access to information and broadening the public voice in decision making as well as providing a precedent to equal access in seeking justice and redress from environmental failures.

Keywords: climate change, doctrine of public trust, environmental democracy, Juliana case, Urgenda climate case

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Authors: Sachin Deshmukh

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Mind and body synchronization occurs through memory and sensation production. Sensations are the guiding language of subconscious mind for conscious mind to take a proper action. Mind-mechanism is based upon memories collected so far since intrauterine life. There are three universal triggers for memory creation; they are persons, situations and objects. Memory is created as sensations experienced by special senses. Based upon experiencing comfort or discomfort, the triggers are categorized as safe or unsafe triggers. A memory comprises of ‘safe or unsafe feeling for triggers, and actions taken for that feeling’. Memories for triggers are created slowly, thoughtfully and consciously by the conscious mind, and archived in the subconscious mind for future references. Later on, similar triggers can come in contact with the individual. Subconscious mind uses these stored feelings to decide whether these triggers are safe or unsafe. It produces comfort or discomfort sensations as emotions accordingly and reacts in the same way as has been recorded in memory. Speed of sensing and processing the triggers, and reacting by subconscious mind is that of the speed of bioelectricity. Hence, formula for human emotions has been designed in this paper as follows: Emotion (Stress or Peace) = Trigger (Person or Situation or object) x Mass of feelings (stressful or peaceful) associated with the Trigger x Speed of Light². We also establish modern medical scientific facts about relationship between reflex activity and memory. This research further develops the ‘Rational Memory Therapy’ focusing on therapeutic feelings conversion techniques, for stress prevention and management.

Keywords: memory, sensations, feelings, emotions, rational memory therapy

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Authors: Fawaz A. Binsarra, Halim Boussabaine

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The notion of complexity science has been attracting the interest of researchers and professionals due to the need of enhancing the efficiency of understanding complex systems dynamic and structure of interactions. In addition, complexity analysis has been used as an approach to investigate complex systems that contains a large number of components interacts with each other to accomplish specific outcomes and emerges specific behavior. The design process is considered as a complex action that involves large number interacted components, which are ranked as design tasks, design team, and the components of the design process. Those three main aspects of the building design process consist of several components that interact with each other as a dynamic system with complex information flow. In this paper, the goal is to uncover the complex structure of information interactions in building design process. The Investigating of Royal Institute of British Architects Plan Of Work 2013 information interactions as a case study to uncover the structure and building design process complexity using network analysis software to model the information interaction will significantly enhance the efficiency of the building design process outcomes.

Keywords: complexity, process, building desgin, Riba, design complexity, network, network analysis

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Authors: Tobias Milz, L. Macpherson, Varvara Vetrova

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The law is a fundamental pillar of human societies as it shapes, controls and governs how humans conduct business, behave and interact with each other. Recent advances in computer-assisted technologies such as NLP, data science and AI are creating opportunities to support the practice, research and study of this pervasive domain. It is therefore not surprising that there has been an increase in investments into supporting technologies for the legal industry (also known as “legal tech” or “law tech”) over the last decade. A sub-discipline of particular appeal is concerned with assisted legal research. Supporting law researchers and practitioners to retrieve information from the vast amount of ever-growing legal documentation is of natural interest to the legal research community. One tool that has been in use for this purpose since the early nineteenth century is legal citation indexing. Among other use cases, they provided an effective means to discover new precedent cases. Nowadays, computer-assisted network analysis tools can allow for new and more efficient ways to reveal the “hidden” information that is conveyed through citation behavior. Unfortunately, access to openly available legal data is still lacking in New Zealand and access to such networks is only commercially available via providers such as LexisNexis. Consequently, there is a need to create, analyze and provide a legal citation network with sufficient data to support legal research tasks. This paper describes the development and analysis of a legal citation Network for New Zealand containing over 300.000 decisions from 125 different courts of all areas of law and jurisdiction. Using python, the authors assembled web crawlers, scrapers and an OCR pipeline to collect and convert court decisions from openly available sources such as NZLII into uniform and machine-readable text. This facilitated the use of regular expressions to identify references to other court decisions from within the decision text. The data was then imported into a graph-based database (Neo4j) with the courts and their respective cases represented as nodes and the extracted citations as links. Furthermore, additional links between courts of connected cases were added to indicate an indirect citation between the courts. Neo4j, as a graph-based database, allows efficient querying and use of network algorithms such as PageRank to reveal the most influential/most cited courts and court decisions over time. This paper shows that the in-degree distribution of the New Zealand legal citation network resembles a power-law distribution, which indicates a possible scale-free behavior of the network. This is in line with findings of the respective citation networks of the U.S. Supreme Court, Austria and Germany. The authors of this paper provide the database as an openly available data source to support further legal research. The decision texts can be exported from the database to be used for NLP-related legal research, while the network can be used for in-depth analysis. For example, users of the database can specify the network algorithms and metrics to only include specific courts to filter the results to the area of law of interest.

Keywords: case citation network, citation analysis, network analysis, Neo4j

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Authors: Falek Kamel

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Free vibration analysis of beams, based on the assumptions of Bernoulli-Euler theory, has been extensively studied. Many research works have focused on the study of transverse vibrations under the application of different boundary conditions where different theories have been applied. The stiffness and mass matrices considered are those obtained by assembling those resulting from the use of the finite element method. The Jacobi method has been used to solve the eigenvalue problem. These well-known concepts have been applied to the study of beams with constant geometric and mechanical characteristics having one to two overhangs with variable lengths. Murphy studied, by an algebraic solution approach, a simply supported beam with two overhangs of arbitrary length, allowing for an experimental determination of the elastic modulus E. The advantage of our article is that it offers the possibility of extending this approach to many interesting problems formed by transversely vibrating beams with various end constraints.

Keywords: beam, finite element, transverse vibrations, end restreint, Bernoulli-Euler theory

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Authors: Mehravar Javid, James Sexton, S. Taridashti, Joseph Dorer

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Objective: Intimacy is among the most important factors in marital relationships and includes different aspects. Communication skills can enable couples to promote their intimacy. This experimental study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of communication skills using Transactional Analysis (TA) on various dimensions of marital intimacy. Method: The participants in this study were female teachers. Analysis of covariance was recruited in the experimental group (n =15) and control group (n =15) with pre-test and post-test. Random assignment was applied. The experimental group received the Transactional Analysis training program for 9 sessions of 2 hours each week. The instrument was the Marital Intimacy Questionnaire, with 87 items and 9 subscales. Result: The findings suggest that training in Transactional Analysis significantly increased the total score of intimacy except spiritual intimacy on the post-test. Discussion: According to the obtained data, it is concluded that communication skills using Transactional Analysis (TA) training could increase intimacy and improve marital relationships. The study highlights the differential effects on emotional, rational, sexual, and psychological intimacy compared to physical, social/recreational, and relational intimacy over a 9-week period.

Keywords: communication skills, intimacy, marital relationships, transactional analysis

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Authors: Lina Vyas

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Gender gap, unfortunately, is still prevalent in the workplace around the world. In most countries, women are less likely than men to participate in the workplace. They earn considerably less than men for doing the same work and are generally expected to prioritize family obligations over work responsibilities. Women often face more conflicts while balancing the increasingly normalized roles of both worker and mother. True gender equality in the workplace is still a long way off. In Hong Kong, no less is this true. Despite the fact that female students are outnumbered by males at universities, only 55% of women are active participants in the labour market, and for those in the workforce, the gender pay gap is 22%. This structural inequality also exacerbates the issues of confronting biases at work for choosing to be employed as a mother, as well as reinforces the societal expectation of women to be the primary caregiver at home. These pressures are likely to add up for women and contribute to increased levels of work-life conflict, which may be a further barrier for the inclusion of women into the workplace. Family-friendly policies have long been thought to be an alleviator of work-life conflict through helping employees balance the demands in both work and family. Particularly, for women, this could be a facilitator of their integration into the workplace. However, little research has looked at how family-friendly policies may also have a gender differential in effect, as opposed to traditional notions of having universal efficacy. This study investigates both how and how much the gender dimension impacts work-family conflict. In addition to disentangling the reasons for gender gaps existing in work-life conflict for women, this study highlights what can be done at an organizational level to alleviate these conflicts. Most importantly, the policies recommendations derived from this study serve as an avenue for more active participation for women in the workplace and can be considered as a pathway for promoting greater gender egalitarianism and fairness in a traditionally gender-segregated society.

Keywords: family-friendly policies, Hong Kong, work-family conflict, workplace

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Authors: Youlu Huang, Huanjun Jiang

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A large number of old masonry buildings built in the last century still remain in the city. It generates the problems of unsafety, obsolescence, and non-habitability. In recent years, many old buildings have been reconstructed through renovating façade, strengthening, and adding floors. However, most projects only provide a solution for a single problem. It is difficult to comprehensively solve problems of poor safety and lack of building functions. Therefore, a comprehensive functional renovation program of adding reinforced concrete frame story at the bottom via integrally lifting the building and then strengthening the building was put forward. Based on field measurement and YJK calculation software, the seismic performance of an actual three-story masonry structure in Shanghai was identified. The results show that the material strength of masonry is low, and the bearing capacity of some masonry walls could not meet the code requirements. The elastoplastic time history analysis of the structure was carried out by using SAP2000 software. The results show that under the 7 degrees rare earthquake, the seismic performance of the structure reaches 'serious damage' performance level. Based on the code requirements of the stiffness ration of the bottom frame (lateral stiffness ration of the transition masonry story and frame story), the bottom frame story was designed. The integral lifting process of the masonry building was introduced based on many engineering examples. The reinforced methods for the bottom frame structure strengthened by the steel-reinforced mesh mortar surface layer (SRMM) and base isolators, respectively, were proposed. The time history analysis of the two kinds of structures, under the frequent earthquake, the fortification earthquake, and the rare earthquake, was conducted by SAP2000 software. For the bottom frame structure, the results show that the seismic response of the masonry floor is significantly reduced after reinforced by the two methods compared to the masonry structure. The previous earthquake disaster indicated that the bottom frame is vulnerable to serious damage under a strong earthquake. The analysis results showed that under the rare earthquake, the inter-story displacement angle of the bottom frame floor meets the 1/100 limit value of the seismic code. The inter-story drift of the masonry floor for the base isolated structure under different levels of earthquakes is similar to that of structure with SRMM, while the base-isolated program is better to protect the bottom frame. Both reinforced methods could significantly improve the seismic performance of the bottom frame structure.

Keywords: old buildings, adding story, seismic strengthening, seismic performance

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Authors: Ju Young Kim, Mohammad Zahirul Islam, Mahmuda Akter Mele, Su Jeong Han, Hyuk Sung Yoon, In-Lee Choi, Ho-Min Kang

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Strawberry and tomato fruits were harvested at the red ripens maturity stage in the Republic of Korea. The fruits were dipped in fungi solution and afterwards were sterilized with sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) and chlorine dioxide (ClO2) gas. Some fruits were dipped in 150μL/L NaOCl solution for 10 minutes, and others were treated with 5μL/L ClO2 gas for 12 hours and packed with 20,000 cc OTR (oxygen transmission rate) film, the rest were packed in 10,000 cc OTR film inserted with 5μL/L ClO2 gas. 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment showed the lowest carbon dioxide and ethylene, and the highest oxygen concentration was on the final storage day (15th day) in both strawberry and tomato fruits. Tomato fruits showed the lowest fresh weight loss in 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment. The visual quality as well as shelf life showed the highest in 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment of both strawberry and tomato fruits. In addition, the fungal incidence of strawberry and tomato fruits were the most suppressed in 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment. 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment showed higher firmness and soluble solids in both strawberry and tomato fruits. So, 5μL/L ClO2 gas insert treatment may be useful to prevent the fungal incidence as well as retaining the postharvest quality, and increase the shelf life of strawberry and tomato fruits for long term storage. This study was supported by Export Promotion Technology Development Program (314027-03), IPET, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Republic of Korea.

Keywords: chlorine dioxide, ethylene, fungi, sodium hypochlorite

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Authors: Sanjin Kršćanski, Josip Brnić

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Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT) is a method used for calculating stress intensity factor (SIF) of a cracked body that is easily implemented on top of basic finite element (FE) codes and as such can be applied on the various component geometries. It is a relatively simple method that does not require any special finite elements to be used and is usually used for calculating stress intensity factors at the crack tip for components made of brittle materials. This paper studies applicability and accuracy of VCCT applied on standard metal specimens containing trough thickness crack, subjected to an in-plane bending load. Finite element analyses were performed using regular 4-node, regular 8-node and a modified quarter-point 8-node 2D elements. Stress intensity factor was calculated from the FE model results for a given crack length, using data available from FE analysis and a custom programmed algorithm based on virtual crack closure technique. Influence of the finite element size on the accuracy of calculated SIF was also studied. The final part of this paper includes a comparison of calculated stress intensity factors with results obtained from analytical expressions found in available literature and in ASTM standard. Results calculated by this algorithm based on VCCT were found to be in good correlation with results obtained with mentioned analytical expressions.

Keywords: VCCT, stress intensity factor, finite element analysis, 2D finite elements, bending

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Authors: Naima Mubeen

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Multi-ethnic societies play a crucial role in managing relevant policies and their implication. Pakistan is a classic case of multicultural identity, social evils and a wide-range of preferential ethnic policies. The major objectives of this study are to explore the relationship between ethnic diversity, globalization and export diversification of Pakistan. For empirical analysis of this underlying nexus by utilizing time series data from 1970 to 2016, this study used the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) technique. The empirical finding of this study reveals that ethnic diversity is an essential component for enhancing globalization and export diversification in the case of Pakistan. Regarding the promotion of globalization and export diversification at different forums of the country, this study suggested that government needs to take steps for the promotion of society towards more cohesiveness by fair justice-based system and awareness programs.

Keywords: ethnic diversity, social exclusion, globalization, export diversification

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Authors: Allison Streutker, Josephine Tan

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Universities across Canada have experienced unprecedented growth in international student enrollment from across the world. As cultural diversity in Canada and other countries increases, understanding the social support needs of all students is important for providing them with the assistance they need to thrive psychologically and academically. Those from individualistic cultural orientations tend to seek explicit social support, which involves expressly asking for assistance in times of stress. However, those from collectivistic cultural orientations are more likely to seek implicit social support, where encouragement is obtained from spending time among valued social groups without explicitly talking about problems. This study explored whether the relationship between the type of social support needs (implicit or explicit) and psychological and academic functioning might be moderated by cultural orientations (individualistic, collectivistic) among university students. Participants were 110 university students (70 women, 40 men; mean age = 24.8 years, SD = 6.6). They completed the Individualism and Collectivism Scale (ICS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL) which assesses implicit and explicit social support, Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) which yields positive and negative experience scores, Flourishing Scale (FS), and reported their grade point average (GPA) as a measure of academic performance. Moderated regression analysis demonstrated that, for those scoring lower on individualism, reporting lower level of implicit support predicted higher levels of perceived stress. For those scoring higher on individualism, lower levels of explicit social support predicted higher levels of perceived stress and a greater number of negative experiences. Generally, higher levels of implicit support were associated with greater satisfaction with life for all students, with the association becoming stronger among students with higher collectivism scores. No other significant findings were found. The results point to the value of considering the cultural orientations of students when designing programs to maintain and improve their sense of well-being.

Keywords: cultural orientation, social support, university students, well-being

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Authors: Ahmad. A. Kardan, Amir Narimani, Foozhan Ataiefard

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Recommender Systems have been developed to provide contents and services compatible to users based on their behaviors and interests. Due to information overload in online discussion forums and users diverse interests, recommending relative topics and threads is considered to be helpful for improving the ease of forum usage. In order to lead learners to find relevant information in educational forums, recommendations are even more needed. We present a hybrid thread recommender system for MOOC forums by applying social network analysis and association rule mining techniques. Initial results indicate that the proposed recommender system performs comparatively well with regard to limited available data from users' previous posts in the forum.

Keywords: association rule mining, hybrid recommender system, massive open online courses, MOOCs, social network analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 282

Authors: C. J. Rossouw, T. I. van Niekerk

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The global manufacturing industry is utilizing the internet and cloud-based services to further explore the anatomy and optimize manufacturing processes in support of the movement into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The 4IR from a third world and African perspective is hindered by the fact that many manufacturing systems that were developed in the third industrial revolution are not inherently equipped to utilize the internet and services of the 4IR, hindering the progression of third world manufacturing industries into the 4IR. This research focuses on the development of a non-invasive and cost-effective cyber-physical IoT system that will exploit a machine’s vibration to expose semantic characteristics in the manufacturing process and utilize these results through a real-time cloud-based machine condition monitoring system with the intention to optimize the system. A microcontroller-based IoT sensor was designed to acquire a machine’s mechanical vibration data, process it in real-time, and transmit it to a cloud-based platform via Wi-Fi and the internet. Time-frequency Fourier analysis was applied to the vibration data to form an image representation of the machine’s behaviour. This data was used to train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to learn semantic characteristics in the machine’s behaviour and relate them to a state of operation. The same data was also used to train a Convolutional Autoencoder (CAE) to detect anomalies in the data. Real-time edge-based artificial intelligence was achieved by deploying the CNN and CAE on the sensor to analyse the vibration. A cloud platform was deployed to visualize the vibration data and the results of the CNN and CAE in real-time. The cyber-physical IoT system was deployed on a semi-automated metal granulation machine with a set of trained machine learning models. Using a single sensor, the system was able to accurately visualize three states of the machine’s operation in real-time. The system was also able to detect a variance in the material being granulated. The research demonstrates how non-IoT manufacturing systems can be equipped with edge-based artificial intelligence to establish a remote machine condition monitoring system.

Keywords: IoT, cyber-physical systems, artificial intelligence, manufacturing, vibration analytics, continuous machine condition monitoring

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Authors: Joy Aworo-Okoroh

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Politics is about trust and trust is challenged by the speaker’s ability to manipulate language before the electorate. Critical discourse analysis investigates the role of language in constructing social relationships between a political speaker and his audience. This paper explores the linguistic choices made by President Muhammad Buhari that enshrines his ideologies as well as the socio-political relations of power between him and Nigerians in his speeches. Two speeches of President Buhari –inaugural and Independence Day speeches are analyzed using Norman Fairclough’s perspective on Halliday’s Systemic functional grammar. The analysis is at two levels. The first level of analysis is the identification of transitivity and modality choices in the speeches and how they reveal the covert ideologies. The second analysis is premised on Normal Fairclough’s model, the clauses are analyzed to identify elements of power, hesistation, persuasion, threat and religious statement. It was discovered that Buhari is a dominant character who manipulates the material processes a lot.

Keywords: politics, critical discourse analysis, Norman Fairclough, systemic functional grammar

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Authors: Cuiyang Feng, Xu Tang, Yi Jin

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Coal is the most important primary energy source in China, which exerts a significant influence on the rapid economic growth. However, it makes the water resources to be a constraint on coal industry development, on account of the reverse geographical distribution between coal and water. To ease the pressure on water shortage, the ‘3 Red Lines’ water policies were announced by the Chinese government, and then ‘water for coal’ plan was added to that policies in 2013. This study utilized a structural path analysis (SPA) based on the multi-regional input-output table to quantify the virtual water flows caused by coal consumption in different stages. Results showed that the direct water input (the first stage) was the highest amount in all stages of coal consumption, accounting for approximately 30% of total virtual water content. Regional analysis demonstrated that virtual water trade alleviated the pressure on water use for coal consumption in water shortage areas, but the import of virtual water was not from the areas which are rich in water. Sectoral analysis indicated that the direct inputs from the sectors of ‘production and distribution of electric power and heat power’ and ‘Smelting and pressing of metals’ took up the major virtual water flows, while the sectors of ‘chemical industry’ and ‘manufacture of non-metallic mineral products’ importantly but indirectly consumed the water. With the population and economic growth in China, the water demand-and-supply gap in coal consumption would be more remarkable. In additional to water efficiency improvement measures, the central government should adjust the strategies of the virtual water trade to address local water scarcity issues. Water resource as the main constraints should be highly considered in coal policy to promote the sustainable development of the coal industry.

Keywords: coal consumption, multi-regional input-output model, structural path analysis, virtual water

Procedia PDF Downloads 290