Search results for: change making

Authors: Slim Namouchi, Bruno Vallet, Imed Riadh Farah

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3D urban models provide powerful tools for decision making, urban planning, and smart city services. The accuracy of this 3D based systems is directly related to the quality of these models. Since manual large-scale modeling, such as cities or countries is highly time intensive and very expensive process, a fully automatic 3D building generation is needed. However, 3D modeling process result depends on the input data, the proprieties of the captured objects, and the required characteristics of the reconstructed 3D model. Nowadays, producing 3D real-world model is no longer a problem. Remotely sensed data had experienced a remarkable increase in the recent years, especially data acquired using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). While the scanning techniques are developing, the captured data amount and the resolution are getting bigger and more precise. This paper presents a literature review, which aims to identify different methods of automatic 3D buildings extractions either from LiDAR or the combination of LiDAR and satellite or aerial images. Then, we present open source technologies, and data models (e.g., CityGML, PostGIS, Cesiumjs) used to integrate these models in geospatial base layers for smart city services.

Keywords: CityGML, LiDAR, remote sensing, SIG, Smart City, 3D urban modeling

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Authors: Wilmer Esteban Vallejo Narváez, Serguei Fomine

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The theoretical investigation of Si-doped graphene nanoflakes (NFs) was conducted to understand their catalytic impact on CO₂ reduction using molecular hydrogen at the Density Functional Theory (DFT) level. The introduction of silicon by substituting carbon induces defects in the NF structure, resulting in a polyradical ground state. This silicon defect significantly boosts reactivity towards substrates, making Si-doped graphene NFs more catalytically active in CO₂ reduction to formic acid compared to silicene. Notably, Si-doped graphene demonstrates a preference for formic acid over carbon monoxide, mirroring the behavior of silicene. Furthermore, investigations into formic acid-to-formaldehyde and formaldehyde-to-methanol conversions reveal instances where Si-doped graphene outperforms silicene in terms of efficacy. In the final reduction step, the methanol-to-methane reaction unfolds in four stages, with the rate-determining step involving hydrogen transfer from silicon to methyl. Notably, the activation energy for this step is lower in Si-doped graphene compared to silicene. Consequently, Si-doped graphene NFs emerge as superior catalysts with lower activation energies overall. Remarkably, throughout these catalytic processes, Si-doped graphene maintains environmental stability, further highlighting its enhanced catalytic activity without compromising graphene's inherent stability.

Keywords: silicon-doped graphene, CO₂ reduction, DFT, catalysis

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Authors: Harun Ozdemirci

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Complexity and chaos are the characteristics of our new world today. Either business or governmental sector, inner and outer environment changes in all aspects. To ensure leaders to guide organizations accurately and effectively, leaders also must change their attitudes towards this changing world . We need new tools, new mindsets and new views for new century. Every leader have to operate within an cerative and innovative way of thinking. But how it will occur and at which direction it will be managed or directed? What kind of abilities and attitudes make leader compatible with this ever-changing and ambigous environment? Leader who will lead in the future must have some special skillls. But how can we develop these skills and behaviours? What must be the mindset of a future leader? This paper searchs for answers of some of these questions. But asking questions is more important than giving answers to them. Innovation and creativity have been at the centerpiece of our lives for some years. But we don’t know how to manage and how to tackle with the challenges come up with this new situation. This new world order compel us to take some new positions against new employees who have different types of lives and habits, new productivity processes, new adversaries… Future environment will not be the same as we experience before. So, our responses to this new environment can not be the same as our predecessors gave. We have to innovate new ways of thinking, and new tools for solving new type of problems.

Keywords: innovation, creativity, leader, future, liberal arts

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Authors: Elisa Y. M. Ang, Teng Yong Ng, Jingjie Yeo, Rongming Lin, Zishun Liu, K. R. Geethalakshmi

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By stacking carbon nanotubes (CNT) one on top of another, single layer CNT arrays can perform water-salt separation with ultra-high permeability and selectivity. Such outer-wall CNT slit membrane is named as the transverse flow CNT membrane. By adjusting the slit size between neighboring CNTs, the membrane can be configured to sieve out different solutes, right down to the separation of monovalent salt ions from water. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation results show that the permeability of transverse flow CNT membrane is more than two times that of conventional axial-flow CNT membranes, and orders of magnitude higher than current reverse osmosis membrane. In addition, by carrying out MD simulations with different CNT size, it was observed that the variance in desalination performance with CNT size is small. This insensitivity of the transverse flow CNT membrane’s performance to CNT size is a distinct advantage over axial flow CNT membrane designs. Not only does the membrane operate well under constant pressure desalination operation, but MD simulations further indicate that oscillatory operation can further enhance the membrane’s desalination performance, making it suitable for operation such as electrodialysis reversal. While there are still challenges that need to be overcome, particularly on the physical fabrication of such membrane, it is hope that this versatile membrane design can bring the idea of using low dimensional structures for desalination closer to reality.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes, membrane desalination, transverse flow carbon nanotube membrane, molecular dynamics

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Authors: A. Luft, S. Bremen, N. Balc

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The task of flexibility planning and design, just like factory planning, for example, is to create the long-term systemic framework that constitutes the restriction for short-term operational management. This is a strategic challenge since, due to the decision defect character of the underlying flexibility problem, multiple types of flexibility need to be considered over the course of various scenarios, production programs, and production system configurations. In this context, an evaluation model has been developed that integrates both conventional and additive resources on a basic task level and allows the quantification of flexibility enhancement in terms of mix and volume flexibility, complexity reduction, and machine capacity. The model helps companies to decide in early decision-making processes about the potential gains of implementing additive manufacturing technologies on a strategic level. For companies, it is essential to consider both additive and conventional manufacturing beyond pure unit costs. It is necessary to achieve an integrative view of manufacturing that incorporates both additive and conventional manufacturing resources and quantifies their potential with regard to flexibility and manufacturing complexity. This also requires a structured process for the strategic production systems design that spans the design of various scenarios and allows for multi-dimensional and comparative analysis. A respective guideline for the planning of additive resources on a strategic level is being laid out in this paper.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, production system design, flexibility enhancement, strategic guideline

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Authors: Kuei-Chun Liu, Yu-Yu Lai, Ching-Hong Wu

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A good automated testing tool could reduce as much as possible the manual work done by testers. Traditional record-replay testing tool provides an automated testing solution by recording mouse coordinates as test scripts, but it will be easily broken if any change of resolutions. Therefore, more and more testers design multiple test scripts to automate the testing process for different devices. In order to improve the traditional record-replay approach and reduce the effort that the testers spending on writing test scripts, we propose an approach for generating the Android application test scripts based on accessibility service without connecting to a computer. This approach simulates user input actions and replays them correctly even at the different conditions such as the internet connection is unstable when the device under test, the different resolutions on Android devices. In this paper, we describe how to generate test scripts automatically and make a comparison with existing tools for Android such as Robotium, Appium, UIAutomator, and MonkeyTalk.

Keywords: accessibility service, Appium, automated testing, MonkeyTalk, Robotium, testing, UIAutomator

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Authors: Alberto Azevedo, Ricardo Martins, André B. Fortunato, Anabela Oliveira

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Water is under severe threat today because of the rising population, increased agricultural and industrial needs, and the intensifying effects of climate change. Due to sea-level rise, erosion, and demographic pressure, the coastal regions are of significant concern to the scientific community. The Water Monitoring Sentinel Cloud platform (WORSICA) service is focused on providing new tools for monitoring water in coastal and inland areas, taking advantage of remote sensing, in situ and tidal modeling data. WORSICA is a service that can be used to determine the coastline, coastal inundation areas, and the limits of inland water bodies using remote sensing (satellite and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles - UAVs) and in situ data (from field surveys). It applies to various purposes, from determining flooded areas (from rainfall, storms, hurricanes, or tsunamis) to detecting large water leaks in major water distribution networks. This service was built on components developed in national and European projects, integrated to provide a one-stop-shop service for remote sensing information, integrating data from the Copernicus satellite and drone/unmanned aerial vehicles, validated by existing online in-situ data. Since WORSICA is operational using the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) computational infrastructures, the service can be accessed via a web browser and is freely available to all European public research groups without additional costs. In addition, the private sector will be able to use the service, but some usage costs may be applied, depending on the type of computational resources needed by each application/user. Although the service has three main sub-services i) coastline detection; ii) inland water detection; iii) water leak detection in irrigation networks, in the present study, an application of the service to Óbidos lagoon in Portugal is shown, where the user can monitor the evolution of the lagoon inlet and estimate the topography of the intertidal areas without any additional costs. The service has several distinct methodologies implemented based on the computations of the water indexes (e.g., NDWI, MNDWI, AWEI, and AWEIsh) retrieved from the satellite image processing. In conjunction with the tidal data obtained from the FES model, the system can estimate a coastline with the corresponding level or even topography of the inter-tidal areas based on the Flood2Topo methodology. The outcomes of the WORSICA service can be helpful for several intervention areas such as i) emergency by providing fast access to inundated areas to support emergency rescue operations; ii) support of management decisions on hydraulic infrastructures operation to minimize damage downstream; iii) climate change mitigation by minimizing water losses and reduce water mains operation costs; iv) early detection of water leakages in difficult-to-access water irrigation networks, promoting their fast repair.

Keywords: remote sensing, coastline detection, water detection, satellite data, sentinel, Copernicus, EOSC

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Authors: Yizhen Zhao, Adam S. Z. Belloum, Goncalo Maia Da Costa, Zhiming Zhao

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Machine learning has evolved from an area of academic research to a real-word applied field. This change comes with challenges, gaps and differences exist between common practices in academic environments and the ones in production environments. Following continuous integration, development and delivery practices in software engineering, similar trends have happened in machine learning (ML) systems, called MLOps. In this paper we propose a framework that helps to streamline and introduce best practices that facilitate the ML lifecycle in an industrial setting. This framework can be used as a template that can be customized to implement various machine learning experiment. The proposed framework is modular and can be recomposed to be adapted to various use cases (e.g. data versioning, remote training on cloud). The framework inherits practices from DevOps and introduces other practices that are unique to the machine learning system (e.g.data versioning). Our MLOps practices automate the entire machine learning lifecycle, bridge the gap between development and operation.

Keywords: cloud computing, continuous development, data versioning, DevOps, industrial setting, MLOps

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Authors: Robert Bušić, Ivana Miličević, Larisa Šargač

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The construction industry generates a large amount of waste, which poses a challenge for disposal and often requires significant areas for landfill. Therefore, recycling construction waste has become imperative. This study focuses on investigating the use of locally available recycled concrete as a substitute for traditional aggregates and analyzing the impact of this change on the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. The research begins with the crushing of locally available waste concrete, followed by sieving and sorting the aggregate into different fractions. Four concrete mix designs were created, with one serving as a reference mixture without recycled aggregate, while the remaining three mixes included recycled aggregate in varying proportions. The experimental part includes testing the key properties of concrete in both fresh and hardened states, including slump and flow tests, compressive strength, static modulus of elasticity, and shrinkage of the concrete, with the aim of assessing the impact of locally available recycled aggregate on concrete properties. By using experimental testing methods, the results were compared with conventional concrete, providing deeper insights into the potential advantages and disadvantages of using locally available recycled concrete in various construction projects.

Keywords: concrete, durability, recycled aggregate, sustainability

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Authors: Obsi Terfasa, Bhanupriya Das, Mithilish Passawan

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The large-scale application of microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology is significantly hindered by the high cost of the commonly used proton exchange membrane, Nafion. This has led to the recent development of ceramic membranes using various clay minerals. This study evaluates the characteristics and potential use of a new ceramic membrane made from potter’s clay © mixed with different proportions (0, 5, 10 wt%) of fly ash (FA), labeled as CFA0, CFA5, CFA10, for cost-effective and sustainable MFC use. Among these, the CFA10 membrane demonstrated superior quality with a fine pore size distribution (average 0.41 μm), which supports higher water uptake and reduced oxygen diffusion. Its oxygen mass transfer coefficient was 4.13 ± 0.13 × 10⁻⁴ cm/s, about 40% lower than the control. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the CFA membrane is rich in quartz, which enhances proton conductance and water retention. Electrochemical kinetics studies, including cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), also confirmed the effectiveness of the CFA10 membrane in MFC, showing a peak current output of 15.35 mA and low ohmic resistance (78.2 Ω). The novel CFA10 ceramic membrane, incorporating coal fly ash, a waste material, shows promise for high MFC performance at a significantly reduced cost (96%), making it suitable for sustainable scaling up of the technology.

Keywords: ceramic membrane, Coulombic efficiency, electro-chemical kinetics, fly ash, proton conductivity, microbial fuel cell

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Authors: Michal Štros, Eva Polanská, Šárka Pospíšilová

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HMGB1 is an architectural protein in chromatin, acting also as a signaling molecule outside the cell. Recent reports from several laboratories provided evidence that a number of both the intracellular and extracellular functions of HMGB1 may depend on redox-sensitive cysteine residues of the protein. MALDI-TOF analysis revealed that mild oxidization of HMGB1 resulted in a conformational change of the protein due to formation of an intramolecular disulphide bond by opposing Cys23 and Cys45 residues. We have demonstrated that redox state of HMGB1 could significantly modulate the ability of the protein to bind and bend DNA. We have also shown that reduced HMGB1 could easily displace histone H1 from DNA, while oxidized HMGB1 had limited capacity for H1 displacement. Using microscale thermophoresis (MST) we have further studied mechanism of HMGB1 interaction with histone H1 in free solution or when histone H1 was bound to DNA. Our MST analysis indicated that reduced HMGB1 exhibited in free solution > 1000 higher affinity of for H1 (KD ~ 4.5 nM) than oxidized HMGB1 (KD <10 M). Finally, we present a novel mechanism for the HMGB1-mediated modulation of histone H1 binding to DNA.

Keywords: HMGB1, histone H1, redox state, interaction, cross-linking, DNA bending, DNA end-joining, microscale thermophoresis

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Authors: Pedro H. S. Messetti, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino

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Sustainability is a very important and heavily discussed subject, expanding through tourism as well. The study proposition was to collect data and present it to the competent bodies so they can mold their public politics to improve the conditions of the site. It was hypothesized that the lack of data is currently affecting the quality of life and the sustainable development of the site and the tourism. The research was held in Mateiros, a city in the state of Tocantins (TO)/Brasil, 275km far from the capital city Palmas, being one of the 8 cities that comprises the Jalapão region, an ecotourism and adventure tourism site as well as an environmental protection area (Jalapão State Park). Because of the concentration of tourists during the high season and several tourist attractions being around, the research took place in Mateiros. The methodological procedure had a script of theoretical construction and investigation of the deductive scientific method parameters through a case study in the Jalapão/TO/Brazil region, using it as a tool for a questionnaire given to the competent bodies in an interview system with the UN sustainability indexes as a base. In the three sustainable development scope: environmental, social and economic, the results indicated that the data presented by the interviewed were scarce or nonexistent. It shows that more research is necessary, providing the tools for the ones responsible to propose action plans to improve the site, strengthening the tourism and making it even more sustainable.

Keywords: Jalapão/Brazil state park, sustainable tourism, UN sustainability indexes

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Authors: Dimitrios Ntardas, Alexandros Tzanetos, Georgios Dounias

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High Voltage Substations (HVS) are the intermediate step between production of power and successfully transmitting it to clients, making them one of the most important checkpoints in power grids. Nowadays - renewable resources and consequently distributed generation are growing fast, the construction of HVS is of high importance both in terms of quality and time completion so that new energy producers can quickly and safely intergrade in power grids. The resources needed, such as machines and workers, should be carefully allocated so that the construction of a HVS is completed on time, with the lowest possible cost (e.g. not spending additional cost that were not taken into consideration, because of project delays), but in the highest quality. In addition, there are milestones and several checkpoints to be precisely achieved during construction to ensure the cost and timeline control and to ensure that the percentage of governmental funding will be granted. The management of such a demanding project is a NP-hard problem that consists of prerequisite constraints and resource limits for each task of the project. In this work, a hybrid meta-heuristic method is implemented to solve this problem. Meta-heuristics have been proven to be quite useful when dealing with high-dimensional constraint optimization problems. Hybridization of them results in boost of their performance.

Keywords: hybrid meta-heuristic methods, substation construction, resource allocation, time-cost efficiency

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Authors: Rebekah Granger Ellis, Richard B. Speaker, Pat Austin

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This study used two psychological scales to examine the level of social and emotional intelligence and moral judgment of over 500 gifted and talented high school students in various academic and creative arts programs in a large metropolitan area in the southeastern United States. For decades, numerous models and programs purporting to encourage socio-affective characteristics of adolescent development have been explored in curriculum theory and design. Socio-affective merges social, emotional, and moral domains. It encompasses interpersonal relations and social behaviors; development and regulation of emotions; personal and gender identity construction; empathy development; moral development, thinking, and judgment. Examining development in these socio-affective domains can provide insight into why some gifted and talented adolescents are not successful in adulthood despite advanced IQ scores. Particularly whether nonintellectual characteristics of gifted and talented individuals, such as emotional, social and moral capabilities, are as advanced as their intellectual abilities and how these are related to each other. Unique characteristics distinguish gifted and talented individuals; these may appear as strengths, but there is the potential for problems to accompany them. Although many thrive in their school environments, some gifted students struggle rather than flourish. In the socio-affective domain, these adolescents face special intrapersonal, interpersonal, and environmental problems. Gifted individuals’ cognitive, psychological, and emotional development occurs asynchronously, in multidimensional layers at different rates and unevenly across ability levels. Therefore, it is important to examine the long-term effects of participation in various gifted and talented programs on the socio-affective development of gifted and talented adolescents. This quasi-experimental longitudinal study examined students in several gifted and talented education programs (creative arts school, urban charter schools, and suburban public schools) for (1) socio-affective development level and (2) whether a particular gifted and talented program encourages developmental growth. The following research questions guided the study: (1) How do academically and artistically talented gifted 10th and 11th grade students perform on psychometric scales of social and emotional intelligence and moral judgment? Do they differ from their age or grade normative sample? Are their gender differences among gifted students? (2) Does school environment impact 10th and 11th grade gifted and talented students’ socio-affective development? Do gifted adolescents who participate in a particular school gifted program differ in their developmental profiles of social and emotional intelligence and moral judgment? Students’ performances on psychometric instruments were compared over time and by type of program. Participants took pre-, mid-, and post-tests over the course of an academic school year with Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) assessing moral judgment and BarOn EQ-I: YV assessing social and emotional intelligence. Based on these assessments, quantitative differences in growth on psychological scales (individual and school) were examined. Change scores between schools were also compared. If a school showed change, artifacts (culture, curricula, instructional methodology) provided insight as to environmental qualities that produced this difference.

Keywords: gifted and talented education, moral development, socio-affective development, socio-affective education

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Authors: Zbigniew Olczykowski

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The paper presents the impact of work on the electric arc furnace power grid. The arc furnace operating will be modeled at different power conditions of steelworks. The paper will describe how to determine the increase in voltage fluctuations caused by working in parallel arc furnaces. The analysis of indicators characterizing the quality of electricity recorded during several cycles of measurement made at the same time at three points grid, with different power and different short-circuit rated voltage, will be carried out. The measurements analysis presented in this paper were conducted in the mains of one of the Polish steel. The indicators characterizing the quality of electricity was recorded during several cycles of measurement while making measurements at three points of different power network short-circuit power and various voltage ratings. Measurements of power quality indices included the one-week measurement cycles in accordance with the EN-50160. Data analysis will include the results obtained during the simultaneous measurement of three-point grid. This will determine the actual propagation of interference generated by the device. Based on the model studies and measurements of quality indices of electricity we will establish the effect of a specific arc on the mains. The short-circuit power network’s minimum value will also be estimated, this is necessary to limit the voltage fluctuations generated by arc furnaces.

Keywords: arc furnaces, long-term flicker, measurement and modeling of power quality, voltage fluctuations

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Authors: Ruwan Gunawardane

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This paper attempts to emphasize the benefits of conducting an intensive course in English for university entrants. In the Sri Lankan university context, an intensive course in English is usually conducted amidst various obstacles. In the 1970s and 1980s, undergraduates had intensive programmes in English for two to three months. Towards the end of the 1990s, a programme called General English Language Training (GELT) was conducted for the new students, and it was done outside universities before they entered their respective universities. Later it was not conducted, and that also resulted in students’ poor performance in English at university. However, having understood its importance, an eight week long intensive course in English was conducted for the new intake of the Faculty of Science, University of Ruhuna. As the findings show, the students heavily benefited from the programme. More importantly, they had the opportunity to refresh their knowledge of English gained at school and private institutions while gaining new knowledge. Another advantage was that they had plenty of time to enjoy learning English since the learners had adequate opportunities to carry out communicative tasks and the course was not exam-oriented, which reduced their fear of making mistakes in English considerably. The data was collected through an open-ended questionnaire given to 60 students, and their oral feedback was also taken into consideration. In addition, a focus group interview with 6 teachers was also conducted to get an idea about their experience and perception. The data were qualitatively analyzed. The findings suggest that an intensive programme in English undoubtedly lays a good foundation for the students’ academic career at university.

Keywords: intensive course, English, teachers, undergraduates, experience, perception

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Authors: Namrata Hangala

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This paper dives into the powerful intersection between film music and storytelling and how it elevates the visuals while primarily focusing on Mychael Danna’s compositions for the study. Danna, an Academy Award-winning composer, is known for his brilliant ability to mix non-Western and culturally rich instruments with minimalist techniques. This unique approach forms the backbone of the analysis here. We take a close look at key scenes from films like Life of Pi, Moneyball, The Good Dinosaur, and Little Miss Sunshine, where Danna’s music plays a crucial role in shaping the story. By breaking down how these scores impact the scenes emotionally and dramatically, we can see how his music becomes part of the narrative itself. The paper blends different approaches to get to the heart of this scene-by-scene breakdowns, music theory, audience survey, and even insights directly from Danna. It discusses how his scores deepen the emotional connection and give more weight to the visual storytelling. The research also dives into the use of leitmotifs, cultural authenticity, and how his music can psychologically impact the viewer, making the story even more powerful. This study reveals how film music, especially Danna’s, doesn’t just sit in the background. It’s often the driving force behind the emotional and narrative core of the film, anchoring the visuals and shaping the way the viewers experience the story.

Keywords: ethnomusicology, psychological impact, film scores, cultural music, compositional techniques, emotional storytelling

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Authors: Xueying Li

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Different from English, it is common to observe Chinese clauses logically related in an implicit way without any conjunctions. This typological difference has posed a great challenge for Chinese-English translators, as 1) translators may interpret logical meaning in different ways when there are no conjunctions in Chinese Source Text (ST); 2) translators may have questions whether to make Chinese implicit logical meaning explicit or to remain implicit in Target Text (TT), and whether other dimensions of logical meaning (e.g., type of logical meaning) should be shifted or not. Against this background, this study examines a comprehensive arrange of Chinese-English translation choices of logical meaning to deal with this challenge in a systematic way. It compiles several ST-TT passages from a set of translation textbooks in a corpus, namely Ying Yu Bi Yi Shi Wu (Er Ji)) [Translation Practice between Chinese and English: Intermediate Level] and its supportive training book, analyzes how logical meaning in ST are translated in TT in texts across different text types with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as the theoretical framework, and finally draws a system network of translation choices of logical meaning from Chinese into English. Since translators may probably think about semantic meaning rather than lexico-grammatical resources in translation, this study goes away from traditional lexico-grammatical choices, but rather describing translation choices from the semantic level. The findings in this study can provide some help and support for translation practitioners so that they can understand that besides explicitation, there are a variety of possible linguistic choices available for making informed decisions when translating Chinese logical meaning into English.

Keywords: Chinese-English translation, logical meaning, systemic functional linguistics, translation choices

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Authors: Heidarali Malmir

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The effects of acid rain (AR), smog’s cars (SC), and combined AR+SC on the antioxidants enzymes, lipid-soluble antioxidants, and water-soluble antioxidants were studied in the two cultivars of rice. The results showed that simulated AR significantly increased the total glutathione (TGSH), thiobarbituric acid (TBA), and α-tocopherol, accompanied by decreases in dry weight and leaves area in the two cultivars, and this change was more obvious in Shirudi cultivar than in Aus cultivar (p≤0.05). Under SC stress cultivar shirudi had higher H+-ATPase, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-px), and catalase (CAT) activities than cultivar Aus. The results of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, TGSH, and α-tocopherol levels affected by AR treatments were very different to those of SOD activity, TGSH, and α-tocopherol levels, as shown in SC treatment. It seems that SOD activity coupled with the water-soluble antioxidants and α-tocopherol levels correlated with the lipid-soluble antioxidants. It is suggested that α-tocopherol increases H+-ATPase activity.

Keywords: H+-ATPase, membrane permeability, lipid soluble antioxidants, water soluble antioxidants, associated enzyme

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Authors: Mannal Tariq

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Construction industry is making progress at a high pace. The trend of the world is getting more biased towards the high rise buildings. Deep beams are one of the most common elements in modern construction having small span to depth ratio. Deep beams are mostly used as transfer girders. This experimental study consists of 16 reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams. These beams were divided into two groups; A and B. Groups A and B consist of eight beams each, having 381 mm (15 in) and 457 mm (18 in) depth respectively. Each group was further subdivided into four sub groups each consisting of two identical beams. Each subgroup was comprised of solid/control beam (without opening), opening above neutral axis (NA), at NA and below NA. Except for control beams, all beams with openings were strengthened with carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) vertical strips. These eight groups differ from each other based on depth and location of openings. For testing sake, all beams have been loaded with two symmetrical point loads. All beams have been designed based on strut and tie model concept. The outcome of experimental investigation elaborates the difference in the shear behaviour of deep beams based on depth and location of circular openings variation. 457 mm (18 in) deep beam with openings above NA show the highest strength and 381 mm (15 in) deep beam with openings below NA show the least strength. CFRP sheets played a vital role in increasing the shear capacity of beams.

Keywords: CFRP, deep beams, openings in deep beams, strut and tie modal, shear behaviour

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Authors: Jui-Pui Hung, Yong-Run Chen, Wei-Cheng Shih, Chun-Wei Lin

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This study was aimed to assess the variations of the modal characteristics of the feeding stage with different linear guide modulus. The dynamic characteristics of the feeding stage were characterized in terms of the modal stiffness, modal frequency and modal damping, which are assessed from the vibration tests. According to the experimental measurements, the actual preload of the linear guide modulus was found to deviate from the rated values as setting in factory. This may be due to the assemblage errors of guide modules. For the stage with linear guides, the dynamic stiffness was affected to change by the preload set on the rolling balls. The variation of the dynamic stiffness at first and second modes is 20.8 and 10.5%, respectively when the linear guide preload is adjusted from medium and high amount. But the modal damping ratio is reduced by 8.97 and 9.65%, respectively. For high-frequency mode, the modal stiffness increases by 171.2% and the damping ratio reduced by 34.4%. Current results demonstrate the importance in the determining the preloaded amount of linear guide modulus in practical application.

Keywords: contact stiffness, feeding stage, linear guides, modal characteristics, pre-load

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Authors: Thirayu Jumsai Na Ayudhya

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The study of what architecture means to people in their everyday lives inadequately addresses the contextualized and holistic theoretical framework. This article succinctly presents theoretical framework obtained from the comparative study of how people experience the everyday architecture in three different contexts including 1) Bangkok CBD, 2) Phuket island old-town, and 3) Nan province old-town. The way people make sense of the everyday architecture can be addressed in four super-ordinate themes; (1) building in urban (text), (2) building in (text), (3) building in human (text), (4) and building in time (text). In this article, these super-ordinate themes were verified whether they recur in three studied-contexts. In each studied-context, the participants were divided into two groups, 1) local people, 2) visitors. Participants were asked to take photographs of the everyday architecture during the everyday routine and to participate the elicit-interview with photographs produced by themselves. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was adopted to interpret elicit-interview data. Sub-themes emerging in each studied-context were brought into the cross-comparison among three studied- contexts. It is found that four super-ordinate themes recur with additional distinctive sub-themes. Further studies in other different contexts, such as socio-political, economic, cultural differences, are recommended to complete the theoretical framework.

Keywords: sense of place, the everyday architecture, architectural experience, the everyday

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Authors: Behre O. Ozalp

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Cinema is a reflection of the society, as much as it captures the social codes. These codes are learned within the society; and through movies these practices of the gender order are reproduced as well. One of the best examples engendering these codes is a modern classic of Turkish cinema, Cholera District (1997), originally Ağır Roman in Turkish. It is a coming of age movie of a teenage boy in an old neighborhood of Istanbul, where he learns to be a 'man' through the hegemonic masculinity codes of the society. The corporal and verbal practices that are used in the representation of the male protagonist's portrayal is based on his performativity. This paper, through narrative analysis of the aforementioned movie, reviews how gender and narrative are intertwined within the context of queer theory. The methodology follows the protagonist's object of desire while evaluating his heterosexuality which requires affirmative performances. The framework of the study firstly focuses on the protagonist's own life and his interactions with the males of his kinship. Later, the focus gravitates towards his interactions with the female object of desire while evaluating how this relationship shapes his status in society. Lastly, the study focuses on the relationship between the protagonist and non-relative males of the neighborhood. The journey of a young male becoming a man by copying the other males delivers a clear representation of how heterosexuality is favored in terms of gender order.

Keywords: hegemonic masculinity, performativity, queer theory, Turkish cinema

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Authors: Ivan Ramos Sampe Immanuel, Linung Kresno Adikusumo, Liston Sitanggang

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Achieving the production targets of oil and gas in an upstream oil and gas company represents a complex undertaking necessitating collaborative engagement from a multidisciplinary team. In addition to conducting exploration activities and executing well intervention programs, an upstream oil and gas enterprise must assess the feasibility of attaining predetermined production goals. The monitoring of production performance serves as a critical activity to ensure organizational progress towards the established oil and gas performance targets. Subsequently, decisions within the upstream oil and gas management team are informed by the received information pertaining to the respective production performance. To augment the decision-making process, the implementation of a production performance dashboard emerges as a viable solution, providing an integrated and centralized tool. The deployment of a production performance dashboard manifests as an instrumental mechanism fostering a user-friendly interface for monitoring production performance, while concurrently preserving the intrinsic characteristics of granular data. The integration of diverse data sources into a unified production performance dashboard establishes a singular veritable source, thereby enhancing the organization's capacity to uphold a consolidated and authoritative foundation for its business requisites. Additionally, the heightened accessibility of the production performance dashboard to business users constitutes a compelling substantiation of its consequential impact on facilitating the monitoring of organizational targets.

Keywords: production, performance, dashboard, data analytics

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Authors: Halimah Abdul Manaf, Ahmad Martadha Mohamed, Zainal M. Zan, Nur Rusydina Khadzali

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Strengthening accountability among civil servants has been at the centre of government transformation ever since the country is striving to become a developed nation by the year 2020. One critical area that has become the loci of attention is increasing the accountability of local government by delivering services that are preferred by the communities. This article explores the practices of citizen participation and political accountability in local government in Malaysia. The existing literature has identified a mismatch between the demands of the community and the actual services delivered by the local government. Based upon this framework, this research attempts to examine the linkages between citizen participation and political accountability in selected local governments in Malaysia. This study employs quantitative method involving 1155 respondents who were randomly selected from local government personnel as well as local citizens. The instruments in the questionnaires were adopted from Wang and Wart (2007) who have also studied local government accountability. The findings reveal that respondents are satisfied with the services provided to the community. However, three areas of concerned are the inadequacy of citizens’ participation in programs, immediate actions on complaints as well as the slow response to repair dilapidated basic infrastructures such as roads, park, and recreations. It is recommended that local governments in Malaysia continue to engage the citizens in the decision making process so that the needs and demands of the citizens can be adequately fulfilled.

Keywords: citizen participation, political accountability, local government, Malaysia

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Authors: Negar Ganjouhaghighi, Amirali Dolatshahi

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The origin of most risks of a mega project usually takes place in the phases before closing the contract. As a practical point of view, using project risk management techniques for preparing a proposal is not a total solution for managing the risks of a contract. The objective of this paper is to cover all those activities associated with risk management of a mega project sale’s processes; from entrance to a new market to awarding activities and the review of contract performance. In this study, the risk management happens in six consecutive steps that are divided into three distinct but interdependent phases upstream of the award of the contract: pre-tendering, tendering and closing. In the first step, by preparing standard market risk report, risks of the new market are identified. The next step is the bid or no bid decision making based on the previous gathered data. During the next three steps in tendering phase, project risk management techniques are applied for determining how much contingency reserve must be added or reduced to the estimated cost in order to put the residual risk to an acceptable level. Finally, the last step which happens in closing phase would be an overview of the project risks and final clarification of residual risks. The sales experience of more than 20,000 MW turn-key power plant projects alongside this framework, are used to develop a software that assists the sales team to have a better project risk management.

Keywords: project marketing, risk management, tendering, project management, turn-key projects

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Authors: Sum Lau, Wing Chung Cleo Lau, Wing Yan Chu, Long Ching Ip, Wan Yin Lo, Jo Long Sam Yau, Ka Ho Hui, Sze Yi Mak

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Biomedical engineering (BME) is an interdisciplinary subject where knowledge about biology and medicine is applied to novel applications, solving clinical problems. This subject is crucial for cities such as Hong Kong, where the burden on the medical system is rising due to reasons like the ageing population. Hong Kong, who is actively boosting technological advancements in recent years, sets BME, or biotechnology, as a major category, as reflected in the 2018-19 Budget, where biotechnology was one of the four pillars for development. Over the years, while resources in terms of money and space have been provided, there has been a lack of talents expressed by both the academia and industry. While exogenous factors, such as COVID, may have hindered talents from outside Hong Kong to come, endogenous factors should also be considered. In particular, since there are already a few local universities offering BME programmes, their curriculum or style of education requires to be reviewed to intensify the network of the BME community and support post-academic career development. It was observed that while undergraduate (UG) studies focus on knowledge teaching with some technical training and postgraduate (PG) programmes concentrate on upstream research, the programmes are generally confined to the academic sector and lack connections to the industry. In light of that, a “Biomedical Innovation and Outreach Programme 2022” (“B.I.O.2022”) was held to connect students and professors from academia with clinicians and engineers from the industry, serving as a comparative approach to conventional education methods (UG and PG programmes from tertiary institutions). Over 100 participants, including undergraduates, postgraduates, secondary school students, researchers, engineers, and clinicians, took part in various outreach events such as conference and site visits, all held from June to July 2022. As a case study, this programme aimed to tackle the aforementioned problems with the theme of “4Cs” (connection, communication, collaboration, and commercialisation). The effectiveness of the programme is investigated by its ability to serve as an adult and continuing education and the effectiveness of causing social change to tackle current societal challenges, with the focus on tackling the lack of talents engaging in biomedical engineering. In this study, B.I.O.2022 is found to be able to complement the traditional educational methods, particularly in terms of knowledge exchange between the academia and the industry. With enhanced communications between participants from different career stages, there were students who followed up to visit or even work with the professionals after the programme. Furthermore, connections between the academia and industry could foster the generation of new knowledge, which ultimately pointed to commercialisation, adding value to the BME industry while filling the gap in terms of human resources. With the continuation of events like B.I.O.2022, it provides a promising starting point for the development and relationship strengthening of a BME community in Hong Kong, and shows potential as an alternative way of adult education or learning with societal benefits.

Keywords: biomedical engineering, adult education for social change, comparative methods and principles, lifelong learning, faced problems, promises, challenges and pitfalls

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Authors: K. Marciniak, M. Owoc

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Managers as decision-makers present in different sectors should be supported in efficient and more and more sophisticated way. There are huge number of software tools developed for such users starting from simple registering data from business area – typical for operational level of management – up to intelligent techniques with delivering knowledge - for tactical and strategic levels of management. There is a big challenge for software developers to create intelligent management dashboards allowing to support different decisions. In more advanced solutions there is even an option for selection of intelligent techniques useful for managers in particular decision-making phase in order to deliver valid knowledge-base. Such a tool (called Intelligent Dashboard for SME Managers–InKOM) is prepared in the Business Intelligent framework of Teta products. The aim of the paper is to present solutions assumed for InKOM concerning on management of stored knowledge bases offering for business managers. The paper is managed as follows. After short introduction concerning research context the discussed supporting managers via information systems the InKOM platform is presented. In the crucial part of paper a process of knowledge transformation and validation is demonstrated. We will focus on potential and real ways of knowledge-bases acquiring, storing and validation. It allows for formulation conclusions interesting from knowledge engineering point of view.

Keywords: business intelligence, decision support systems, knowledge management, knowledge transformation, knowledge validation, managerial systems

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Authors: James Taylor

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This paper considers the political, geo-philosophical musings of Deleuze and Guattari on spatialisation, place and movement in relation to the religious nomad (wandering ascetics and reclusive forest monks) inhabiting the borderlands of Thailand. A nomadic science involves improvised ascetic practices between the molar lines striated by modern state apparatuses. The wandering ascetics, inhabiting a frontier political ecology, stand in contrast to the appropriating, sedentary metaphysics and sanctifying arborescence of statism and its corollary place-making, embedded in rootedness and territorialisation. It is argued that the religious nomads, residing on the endo-exteriorities of the state, came to represent a rhizomatic and politico-ontological threat to centre-nation and its apparatus of capture. The paper also theorises transitions and movement at the borderlands in the context of the state’s monastic reforms. These reforms, and its pervasive royal science, problematised the interstitial zones of the early ascetic wanderers in their radical cross-cutting networks and lines, moving within and across demarcated frontiers. Indeed, the ascetic wanderers and their allegorical war machine were seen as a source of wild, free-floating charisma and mystical power, eventually appropriated by the centre-nation in it’s becoming unitary and fixed.

Keywords: Deleuze and Guattari, religious nomad, centre-nation, borderlands, Buddhism

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Authors: Ömer Ateş, Atilla Savaş

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Reducers and transmission systems are power and speed transfer tools that have been used for many years in the technology world and in all engineering fields. Since today's transmissions have a threaded tap system, torque interruption occurs during tap change. besides, breakdown and manufacturing costs are high. Another problem is the limited torque and rpm setting in stepped gearbox systems. In this study, a new type of transmission system is designed to solve these problems. This new type of transmission system has been called the Continuously Variable Pulley. The most important feature of the transmission system in the study is that it can be adjusted Revolutions Per Minute-wise and torque-wise at the millimeter (precision) adjustment level. In order to make adjustments at this level, an adjustable pulley with the help of hydraulic piston is designed. The efficiency of the designed transmission system is 97 percent, the efficiency of today's transmissions is in the range of 85-95 percent. examined at the analysis and calculations, it is seen that the designed system gives realistic results and can be compared with today's transmissions and reducers. Therefore, this new type of transmission has been proven to be usable in production areas and the world of technology.

Keywords: gearbox, reducer, transmission, torque

Procedia PDF Downloads 121