Search results for: absolutely continuous function

Authors: Muhammad Faheem Khakhi, Jian Yu Wang, Salman Muhammad, Muhammad Faisal Shabir

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Population growth and Chinese two-child policy will boost pharmaceutical market, and it will continue to maintain the growth for a period of time in the future, the traditional pharmacy dispensary has been unable to meet the growing medical needs of the peoples. Under the strong support of the national policy, the automatic transformation of traditional pharmacies is the inclination of the Times, the new type of intelligent pharmacy system will continue to promote the development of the pharmaceutical industry. Under this background, based on PLC control, the paper proposed an intelligent storage and automatic drug delivery system; complete design of the lower computer's control system and the host computer's software system has been present. The system can be applied to dispensing work for Chinese herbal medicinal and Western medicines. Firstly, the essential of intelligent control system for pharmacy is discussed. After the analysis of the requirements, the overall scheme of the system design is presented. Secondly, introduces the software and hardware design of the lower computer's control system, including the selection of PLC and the selection of motion control system, the problem of the human-computer interaction module and the communication between PC and PLC solves, the program design and development of the PLC control system is completed. The design of the upper computer software management system is described in detail. By analyzing of E-R diagram, built the establish data, the communication protocol between systems is customize, C++ Builder is adopted to realize interface module, supply module, main control module, etc. The paper also gives the implementations of the multi-threaded system and communication method. Lastly, each module of the lower computer control system is tested. Then, after building a test environment, the function test of the upper computer software management system is completed. On this basis, the entire control system accepts the overall test.

Keywords: automatic pharmacy, PLC, control system, management system, communication

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Authors: A. Soni, D. R. Mishra, D. K. Koul

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α-Al2O3:C has been reported to have deeper traps at 600°C and 900°C respectively. These traps have been reported to accessed at relatively earlier temperatures (122 and 322 °C respectively) using thermally assisted OSL (TA-OSL). In this work, the dose response α-Al2O3:C was studied in the dose range of 10Gy to 10kGy for its application in food irradiation in low ( upto 1kGy) and medium(1 to 10kGy) dose range. The TOL (Thermo-optically stimulated luminescence) measurements were carried out on RisØ TL/OSL, TL-DA-15 system having a blue light-emitting diodes (λ=470 ±30nm) stimulation source with power level set at the 90% of the maximum stimulation intensity for the blue LEDs (40 mW/cm2). The observations were carried on commercial α-Al2O3:C phosphor. The TOL experiments were carried out with number of active channel (300) and inactive channel (1). Using these settings, the sample is subjected to linear thermal heating and constant optical stimulation. The detection filter used in all observations was a Hoya U-340 (Ip ~ 340 nm, FWHM ~ 80 nm). Irradiation of the samples was carried out using a 90Sr/90Y β-source housed in the system. A heating rate of 2 °C/s was preferred in TL measurements so as to reduce the temperature lag between the heater plate and the samples. To study the dose response of deep traps of α-Al2O3:C, samples were irradiated with various dose ranging from 10 Gy to 10 kGy. For each set of dose, three samples were irradiated. In order to record the TA-OSL, initially TL was recorded up to a temperature of 400°C, to deplete the signal due to 185°C main dosimetry TL peak in α-Al2O3:C, which is also associated with the basic OSL traps. After taking TL readout, the sample was subsequently subjected to TOL measurement. As a result, two well-defined TA-OSL peaks at 121°C and at 232°C occur in time as well as temperature domain which are different from the main dosimetric TL peak which occurs at ~ 185°C. The linearity of the integrated TOL signal has been measured as a function of absorbed dose and found to be linear upto 10kGy. Thus, it can be used for low and intermediate dose range of for its application in food irradiation. The deep energy level defects of α-Al2O3:C phosphor can be accessed using TOL section of RisØ reader system.

Keywords: α-Al2O3:C, deep traps, food irradiation, TA-OSL

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Authors: Jarmila Štěpánová, Martin Kudláček, Lukáš Jakubec

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The people with spinal cord injury are one of the least sport active members of our society. Their hypoactivity is determined by primary injury, i.e., the loss of motor function, the injured part of the body is connected with health complications and social handicap. Study performs one part of the standardization process of semi-structured interview PARA-SCI.CZ (Czech version of the Physical Activity Recall Assessment for People with Spinal Cord Injury), which measures the type, frequency, duration, and intensity of physical activity of people with spinal cord injury. The study focused on persons with paraplegia who use a wheelchair as their primary mode of mobility. The aim of this study was to perform a process to determine the criterion validity of PARA-SCI.CZ. The actual physical activity of wheelchair users was monitored during three days by using accelerometers Actigraph GT3X fixed on the non-dominant wrist, and semi-structured interview PARA-SCI.CZ. During the PARA-SCI.CZ interview, participants were asked to recall activities they had done over the past 3 days, starting with the previous day. PARA-SCI.CZ captured frequency, duration, and intensity (low, moderate, and heavy) of two categories of physical activity (leisure time physical activity and activities of a usual day). Accelerometer Actigraph GT3X captured duration and intensity (low and moderate + heavy) of physical activity during three days and nights. The study presented three potential recalculations of measured data. Standardization process of PARA-SCI.CZ is essential to critically approach issues of health and active lifestyle of persons with spinal cord injury in the Czech Republic. Standardized PARA-SCI.CZ can be used in practice by physiotherapists and sports pedagogues from the field of adapted physical activities.

Keywords: physical activity, lifestyle, paraplegia, semi-structure interview, accelerometer

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Authors: Farzan Gity, Lida Ansari, Ian M. Povey, Roger E. Nagle, James C. Greer

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Titanium nitride (TiN) films have been widely used in variety of fields, due to its unique electrical, chemical, physical and mechanical properties, including low electrical resistivity, chemical stability, and high thermal conductivity. In microelectronic devices, thin continuous TiN films are commonly used as diffusion barrier and metal gate material. However, as the film thickness decreases below a few nanometers, electrical properties of the film alter considerably. In this study, the physical and electrical characteristics of 1.5nm to 22nm thin films deposited by Plasma-Enhanced Atomic Layer Deposition (PE-ALD) using Tetrakis(dimethylamino)titanium(IV), (TDMAT) chemistry and Ar/N2 plasma on 80nm SiO2 capped in-situ by 2nm Al2O3 are investigated. ALD technique allows uniformly-thick films at monolayer level in a highly controlled manner. The chemistry incorporates low level of oxygen into the TiN films forming titanium oxynitride (TiON). Thickness of the films is characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) which confirms the uniformity of the films. Surface morphology of the films is investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) indicating sub-nanometer surface roughness. Hall measurements are performed to determine the parameters such as carrier mobility, type and concentration, as well as resistivity. The >5nm-thick films exhibit metallic behavior; however, we have observed that thin film resistivity is modulated significantly by film thickness such that there are more than 5 orders of magnitude increment in the sheet resistance at room temperature when comparing 5nm and 1.5nm films. Scattering effects at interfaces and grain boundaries could play a role in thickness-dependent resistivity in addition to quantum confinement effect that could occur at ultra-thin films: based on our measurements the carrier concentration is decreased from 1.5E22 1/cm3 to 5.5E17 1/cm3, while the mobility is increased from < 0.1 cm2/V.s to ~4 cm2/V.s for the 5nm and 1.5nm films, respectively. Also, measurements at different temperatures indicate that the resistivity is relatively constant for the 5nm film, while for the 1.5nm film more than 2 orders of magnitude reduction has been observed over the range of 220K to 400K. The activation energy of the 2.5nm and 1.5nm films is 30meV and 125meV, respectively, indicating that the TiON ultra-thin films are exhibiting semiconducting behaviour attributing this effect to a metal-semiconductor transition. By the same token, the contact is no longer Ohmic for the thinnest film (i.e., 1.5nm-thick film); hence, a modified lift-off process was developed to selectively deposit thicker films allowing us to perform electrical measurements with low contact resistance on the raised contact regions. Our atomic scale simulations based on molecular dynamic-generated amorphous TiON structures with low oxygen content confirm our experimental observations indicating highly n-type thin films.

Keywords: activation energy, ALD, metal-semiconductor transition, resistivity, titanium oxynitride, ultra-thin film

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Authors: Promil Mehra, Nanthi Bolan, Jack Desbiolles, Risha Gupta

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Agricultural practices affect the soil physical and chemical properties, which in turn influence the soil microorganisms as a function of the soil biological environment. On the return to conventional tillage (CT) from continuing no-till (NT) cropping system, a very little information is available from the impact caused by the intermittent tillage on the soil biochemical properties from a short-term (2-year) study period. Therefore, the contribution made by different microorganisms (fungal, bacteria) was also investigated in order to find out the effective changes in the soil microbial activity under a South Australian dryland faring system. This study was conducted to understand the impact of microbial dynamics on the soil organic carbon (SOC) under NT and CT systems when treated with different levels of mulching (0, 2.5 and 5 t/ha). Our results demonstrated that from the incubation experiment the cumulative CO2 emitted from CT system was 34.5% higher than NT system. Relatively, the respiration from surface layer (0-10 cm) was significantly (P<0.05) higher by 8.5% and 15.8 from CT; 8% and 18.9% from NT system w.r.t 10-20 and 20-30 cm respectively. Further, the dehydrogenase enzyme activity (DHA) and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) were both significantly lower (P<0.05) under CT, i.e., 7.4%, 7.2%, 6.0% (DHA) and 19.7%, 15.7%, 4% (MBC) across the different mulching levels (0, 2.5, 5 t/ha) respectively. In general, it was found that from both the tillage system the enzyme activity and MBC decreased with the increase in depth (0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm) and with the increase in mulching rate (0, 2.5 and 5 t/ha). From the perspective of microbial stress, there was 28.6% higher stress under CT system compared to NT system. Whereas, the microbial activity of different microorganisms like fungal and bacterial activities were determined by substrate-induced inhibition respiration using antibiotics like cycloheximide (16 mg/gm of soil) and streptomycin sulphate (14 mg/gm of soil), by trapping the CO2 using an alkali (0.5 M NaOH) solution. The microbial activities were confirmed through platting technique, where it was that found bacterial activities were 46.2% and 38.9% higher than fungal activity under CT and NT system. In conclusion, it was expected that changes in the relative abundance and activity of different microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) under different tillage systems could significantly affect the C cycling and storage due to its unique structures and differential interactions with the soil physical properties.

Keywords: tillage, soil respiration, MBC, fungal-bacterial activity

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Authors: Chandan Kundu, Sankar Bhattacharya

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A significant disadvantage of fossil fuel energy production is the considerable amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) released, which is one of the contributors to climate change. Apart from environmental concerns, changing fossil fuel prices have pushed society gradually towards renewable energy sources in recent years. Biomass is a plentiful and renewable resource and a source of carbon. Recent years have seen increased research interest in generating fuels and chemicals from biomass. Unlike fossil-based resources, biomass is composed of lignocellulosic material, which does not contribute to the increase in atmospheric CO₂ over a longer term. These considerations contribute to the current move of the chemical industry from non-renewable feedstock to renewable biomass. This presentation focuses on generating bio-oil and two major platform chemicals that can potentially improve the environment. Thermochemical processes such as pyrolysis are considered viable methods for producing bio-oil and biomass-based platform chemicals. Fluidized bed reactors, on the other hand, are known to boost bio-oil yields during pyrolysis due to their superior mixing and heat transfer features, as well as their scalability. This review and the associated experimental work are focused on the thermochemical conversion of biomass to bio-oil and two high-value platform chemicals, Levoglucosenone (LGO) and 5-Chloromethyl furfural (5-CMF), in a fluidized bed reactor. These two active molecules with distinct features can potentially be useful monomers in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries since they are well adapted to the manufacture of biologically active products. This process took several meticulous steps. To begin, the biomass was delignified using a peracetic acid pretreatment to remove lignin. Because of its complicated structure, biomass must be pretreated to remove the lignin, increasing access to the carbohydrate components and converting them to platform chemicals. The biomass was then characterized by Thermogravimetric analysis, Synchrotron-based THz spectroscopy, and in-situ DRIFTS in the laboratory. Based on the results, a continuous-feeding fluidized bed reactor system was constructed to generate platform chemicals from pretreated biomass using hydrogen chloride acid-gas as a catalyst. The procedure also yields biochar, which has a number of potential applications, including soil remediation, wastewater treatment, electrode production, and energy resource utilization. Consequently, this research also includes a preliminary experimental evaluation of the biochar's prospective applications. The biochar obtained was evaluated for its CO₂ and steam reactivity. The outline of the presentation will comprise the following: Biomass pretreatment for effective delignification Mechanistic study of the thermal and thermochemical conversion of biomass Thermochemical conversion of untreated and pretreated biomass in the presence of an acid catalyst to produce LGO and CMF A thermo-catalytic process for the production of LGO and 5-CMF in a continuously-fed fluidized bed reactor and efficient separation of chemicals Use of biochar generated from the platform chemicals production through gasification

Keywords: biomass, pretreatment, pyrolysis, levoglucosenone

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Authors: Ben Morrow, Patrick O'Hara, Natalie Ban, Tunai Marques, Molly Fraser, Christopher Bone

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Relative to commercial fisheries, recreational fisheries are often poorly understood and pose various challenges for monitoring frameworks. In British Columbia (BC), Canada, Pacific salmon are heavily targeted by recreational fishers while also being a key source of nutrient flow and crucial prey for a variety of marine and terrestrial fauna, including endangered Southern Resident killer whales (Orcinus orca). Although commercial fisheries were historically responsible for the majority of salmon retention, recreational fishing now comprises both greater effort and retention. The current monitoring scheme for recreational salmon fisheries involves aerial-roving creel surveys. However, this method has been identified as costly and having low predictive power as it is often limited to sampling fragments of fluid and temporally dynamic fisheries. This study used imagery from two shore-based autonomous cameras in a highly active recreational fishery around Sooke, BC, and evaluated their efficacy in supplementing existing aerial-roving surveys for monitoring a recreational salmon fishery. This study involved continuous monitoring and high temporal resolution (over one million images analyzed in a single fishing season), using a deep learning-based vessel detection algorithm and a custom image annotation tool to efficiently thin datasets. This allowed for the quantification of peak-season effort from a busy harbour, species-specific retention estimates, high levels of detected fishing events at a nearby popular fishing location, as well as the proportion of the fishery management area represented by cameras. Then, this study demonstrated how it could substantially enhance the temporal resolution of a fishery through diel activity pattern analyses, scaled monthly to visualize clusters of activity. This work also highlighted considerable off-season fishing detection, currently unaccounted for in the existing monitoring framework. These results demonstrate several distinct applications of autonomous cameras for providing enhanced detail currently unavailable in the current monitoring framework, each of which has important considerations for the managerial allocation of resources. Further, the approach and methodology can benefit other studies that apply shore-based camera monitoring, supplement aerial-roving creel surveys to improve fine-scale temporal understanding, inform the optimal timing of creel surveys, and improve the predictive power of recreational stock assessments to preserve important and endangered fish species.

Keywords: cameras, monitoring, recreational fishing, stock assessment

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Authors: D. Anderlini, G. Wallis

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Background: The number of people experiencing stroke is steadily increasing due to changes in diet and lifestyle, to longer life expectancy resulting in older population, to higher survival rates as a consequence of improvements during the acute phase. This study considers what risk factors might contribute to delayed entry to hospital for treatment. Methods: We analyzed data from 2472 patients admitted to the Stroke Unit of the Royal Brisbane Women's Hospital, Australia, between 2002 to 2011. Results: Previous studies have reported that factors which can contribute to delay include the patient’s age, the time of day, physical location, visit the GP instead of going to the emergency, means of transport, severity of symptoms and type of stroke. Contrary to findings of other studies, we found a strong correlation between side of lesion and delay in admission: patients with right hemisphere lesions had an average delay of 3.78 days, while patients with left hemisphere lesions had an average delay of 1.49 days. Damage to the right hemisphere generally ends in motor impairment in the non-dominant hand and no speech impediment. In contrast, left hemisphere lesions can result in deficit to; dominant hand function and aphasia which will be noticed even if their impact on performance is relatively minor. A finding which goes against many previous studies, is the fact that women get to the hospital much sooner than men, showing an average delay of 0.92 days in women vs. 3.36 days in men. Conclusion: Acute surgical-pharmacological therapies are most effective if applied immediately after stroke. Hence delays to admission can be crucial to the degree of recovery. The tendency of patients to overlook symptoms of right hemisphere lesion should be the target of information campaigns both for the general public and GPs. Why do men go to hospital so late? We don't know yet! Nevertheless an awareness plan specifically direct to male population should be on the agenda of Health Departments.

Keywords: gender, admission delay, stroke location, bioinformatics, biomedicine

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Authors: Seyyed Mohammad Amin Mousavi Sagharchi, Elham Javanroudi

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Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is a known disease with hidden features caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). This disease, which is one of the 10 deadliest in the world, has caused millions of deaths in recent decades. Furthermore, TB is responsible for infecting about 30% population of world. Like any infection, TB can activate the immune system by locating and colonization in the human body, especially in the alveoli. TB is granulomatosis, so MTB can absorb the host’s immune cells and other cells to form granuloma. Method: Different databases (e.g., PubMed) were recruited to prepare this paper and fulfill our goals to search and find effective papers and investigations. Results: Immune response to MTB is related to T cell killers and contains CD1, CD4, and CD8 T lymphocytes. CD1 lymphocytes can recognize glycolipids, which highly exist in the Mycobacterial fatty cell wall. CD4 lymphocytes and macrophages form granuloma, and it is the main line of immune response to Mycobacteria. On the other hand, CD8 cells have cytolytic function for directly killing MTB by secretion of granulysin. Other functions and secretion to the deal are interleukin-12 (IL-12) by induction of expression interferon-γ (INF-γ) for macrophages activation and creating a granuloma, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) by promoting macrophage phagolysosomal fusion. Conclusion: Immune cells in battle with MTB are macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), neutrophils, and natural killer (NK) cells. These immune cells can recognize the Mycobacterium by various receptors, including Toll-like receptors (TLRs), Nod-like receptors (NLRs), and C-type lectin receptors (CLRs) located in the cell surface. In human alveoli exist about 50 dendritic macrophages, which have close communication with other immune cells in the circulating system and epithelial cells to deal with Mycobacteria. Against immune cells, MTB handles some factors (e.g., cordfactor, O-Ag, lipoarabinomannan, sulfatides, and adenylate cyclase) and practical functions (e.g., inhibition of macrophages).

Keywords: mycobacterium tuberculosis, immune responses, immunological mechanisms, respiratory tuberculosis

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Authors: C. F. Alegretti, F. R. Cunha, R. G. Gontijo

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This work investigates the effects of an applied magnetic field on the geometry-driven boundary layer detachment flow of a ferrofluid over a sudden expansion. Both constitutive equation and global magnetization equation for a ferrofluid are considered. Therefore, the proposed formulation consists in a coupled magnetic-hydrodynamic problem. Computational simulations are carried out in order to explore, not only the viability to control flow instabilities, but also to evaluate the consistency of theoretical aspects. The unidirectional sudden expansion in a ferrofluid flow is investigated numerically under the perspective of Ferrohydrodynamics in a two-dimensional domain using a Finite Differences Method. The boundary layer detachment induced by the sudden expansion results in a recirculating zone, which has been extensively studied in non-magnetic hydrodynamic problems for a wide range of Reynolds numbers. Similar investigations can be found in literature regarding the sudden expansion under the magnetohydrodynamics framework, but none considering a colloidal suspension of magnetic particles out of the superparamagnetic regime. The vorticity-stream function formulation is implemented and results in a clear coupling between the flow vorticity and its magnetization field. Our simulations indicate a systematic decay on the length of the recirculation zone as increasing physical parameters of the flow, such as the intensity of the applied field and the volume fraction of particles. The results all are discussed from a physical point of view in terms of the dynamical non-dimensional parameters. We argue that the decrease/reduction in the recirculation region of the flow is a direct consequence of the magnetic torque balancing the action of the torque produced by viscous and inertial forces of the flow. For the limit of small Reynolds and magnetic Reynolds parameters, the diffusion of vorticity balances the diffusion of the magnetic torque on the flow. These mechanics control the growth of the recirculation region.

Keywords: boundary layer detachment, ferrofluid, ferrohydrodynamics, magnetization, sudden expansion

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Authors: Bing Chen, Xiang Ni, Eric Li

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With the population ageing, the number of patients suffering from chronic diseases is increasing, among which stroke is a high incidence for the elderly. In addition, there is a gradual increase in the number of patients with orthopedic or neurological conditions such as spinal cord injuries, nerve injuries, and other knee injuries. These diseases are chronic, with high recurrence and complications, and normal walking is difficult for such patients. Nowadays, robotic knee exoskeletons have been developed for individuals with knee impairments. However, the currently available robotic knee exoskeletons are generally developed with heavyweight, which makes the patients uncomfortable to wear, prone to wearing fatigue, shortening the wearing time, and reducing the efficiency of exoskeletons. Some lightweight materials, such as carbon fiber and titanium alloy, have been used for the development of robotic knee exoskeletons. However, this increases the cost of the exoskeletons. This paper illustrates the design of a new ultra-light and ultra-stiff truss type of lattice structure. The lattice structures are arranged in a fan shape, which can fit well with circular arc surfaces such as circular holes, and it can be utilized in the design of rods, brackets, and other parts of a robotic knee exoskeleton to reduce the weight. The metamaterial is formed by continuous arrangement and combination of small truss structure unit cells, which changes the diameter of the pillar section, geometrical size, and relative density of each unit cell. It can be made quickly through additive manufacturing techniques such as metal 3D printing. The unit cell of the truss structure is small, and the machined parts of the robotic knee exoskeleton, such as connectors, rods, and bearing brackets, can be filled and replaced by gradient arrangement and non-uniform distribution. Under the condition of satisfying the mechanical properties of the robotic knee exoskeleton, the weight of the exoskeleton is reduced, and hence, the patient’s wearing fatigue is relaxed, and the wearing time of the exoskeleton is increased. Thus, the efficiency and wearing comfort, and safety of the exoskeleton can be improved. In this paper, a brief description of the hardware design of the prototype of the robotic knee exoskeleton is first presented. Next, the design of the ultra-light and ultra-stiff truss type of lattice structures is proposed, and the mechanical analysis of the single-cell unit is performed by establishing the theoretical model. Additionally, simulations are performed to evaluate the maximum stress-bearing capacity and compressive performance of the uniform arrangement and gradient arrangement of the cells. Finally, the static analysis is performed for the cell-filled rod and the unmodified rod, respectively, and the simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the designed ultra-light and ultra-stiff truss type of lattice structures. In future studies, experiments will be conducted to further evaluate the performance of the designed lattice structures.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, lattice structures, metamaterial, robotic knee exoskeleton

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Authors: Azizollah Arbabisarjou, Leila Safabakhsh, Mozhgan Jahantigh, Mahshid Nazemzadeh, Shahindokht Navabi

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Background: Health promotion is an essential strategy for reduction of health disparities. Health promotion includes all activities that encourage optimum physical, spiritual, and mental function. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a Health Promotion Program (HPP) on behavior in terms of the dimensions of the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP) in patients after Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG). Methods and Materials: In this clinical trial study, 80 patients who had undergone CABG surgery (2011-2012) were selected and randomly divided in two groups: Experimental and Control that investigated by (HPLP II). Then the experimental group was educated about diet, walking and stress management. The program process was followed up for 3months and after that all variables were investigated again. The overall score and the scores for the six dimensions of the HPLP (self-actualization, health responsibility, exercise, nutrition, interpersonal support and stress management) were measured in the pre- and post-test periods. Statistical analysis was performed using Student's t-test and paired t-test. Results: Results showed that Score of stress management (p=.036), diet (p=.002), Spiritual Growth (p=.001) and interrelationship (p=002) increase in experimental group after intervention .Average scores after 3 months in the control group had no significant changes; except responsibility for health (p < .05). Results of the study revealed that comparison the scores of the experimental group were significantly different from the control group in all lifestyle aspects except for spiritual growth. Conclusion: This study showed that Health promoting program on lifestyle and health promotion in patients who suffer from CAD could enhance patient's awareness of healthy behaviors and improves the quality of life.

Keywords: coronary artery bypass graft, health promotion, lifestyle, education

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Authors: Areej Al-Hamad, Yasin Yasin, Kateryna Metersky

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This mixed-method systematic review and meta-analysis provide an encompassing understanding of the barriers, facilitators, and predictors of refugee women's employment and economic inclusion. The study sheds light on the complex interplay of sociocultural, personal, political, and environmental factors influencing these outcomes, underlining the urgent need for a multifaceted, tailored approach to devising strategies, policies, and interventions aimed at boosting refugee women's economic empowerment. Our findings suggest that sociocultural factors, including gender norms, societal attitudes, language proficiency, and social networks, profoundly shape refugee women's access to and participation in the labor market. Personal factors such as age, educational attainment, health status, skills, and previous work experience also play significant roles. Political factors like immigration policies, regulations, and rights to work, alongside environmental factors like labor market conditions, availability of employment opportunities, and access to resources and support services, further contribute to the complex dynamics influencing refugee women's economic inclusion. The significant variability observed in the impacts of these factors across different contexts underscores the necessity of adopting population and region-specific strategies. A one-size-fits-all approach may prove to be ineffective due to the diversity and unique circumstances of refugee women across different geographical, cultural, and political contexts. The study's findings have profound implications for policy-making, practice, education, and research. The insights garnered a call for coordinated efforts across these domains to bolster refugee women's economic participation. In policy-making, the findings necessitate a reassessment of current immigration and labor market policies to ensure they adequately support refugee women's employment and economic integration. In practice, they highlight the need for comprehensive, tailored employment services and interventions that address the specific barriers and leverage the facilitators identified. In education, they underline the importance of language and skills training programs that cater to the unique needs and circumstances of refugee women. Lastly, in research, they emphasize the need for ongoing investigations into the multifaceted factors influencing refugee women's employment experiences, allowing for continuous refinement of our understanding and interventions. Through this comprehensive exploration, the study contributes to ongoing efforts aimed at creating more inclusive, equitable societies. By continually refining our understanding of the complex factors influencing refugee women's employment experiences, we can pave the way toward enhanced economic empowerment for this vulnerable population.

Keywords: refugee women, employment barriers, systematic review, employment facilitators

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Authors: Khatuna Buskivadze

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The aim of the present study is to investigate the sociolinguistic and classroom functions and frequency of Teacher’s Code Switching (CS) in the Content and Language Integrated (CLIL) Lesson. Nowadays, Georgian society struggles to become the part of the European world, the English language itself plays a role in forming new generations with European values. Based on our research conducted in 2019, out of all 114 private schools in Tbilisi, full- programs of CLIL are taught in 7 schools, while only some subjects using CLIL are conducted in 3 schools. The goal of the former research was to define the features of Content and Language Integrated learning (CLIL) methodology within the process of teaching English on the Example of Georgian private high schools. Taking the Georgian reality and cultural features into account, the modified version of the questionnaire, based on the classification of using CS in ESL Classroom proposed By Ferguson (2009) was used. The qualitative research revealed students’ and teacher’s attitudes towards teacher’s code-switching in CLIL lesson. Both qualitative and quantitative research were conducted: the observations of the teacher’s lessons (Recording of T’s online lessons), interview and the questionnaire among Math’s T’s 20 high school students. We came to the several conclusions, some of them are given here: Math’s teacher’s CS behavior mostly serves (1) the conversational function of interjection; (2) the classroom functions of introducing unfamiliar materials and topics, explaining difficult concepts, maintaining classroom discipline and the structure of the lesson; The teacher and 13 students have negative attitudes towards using only Georgian in teaching Math. The higher level of English is the more negative is attitude towards using Georgian in the classroom. Although all the students were Georgian, their competence in English is higher than in Georgian, therefore they consider English as an inseparable part of their identities. The overall results of the case study of teaching Math (Educational discourse) in one of the private schools in Tbilisi will be presented at the conference.

Keywords: attitudes, bilingualism, code-switching, CLIL, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics.

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Authors: Serdar Delice, Mehmet Isik, Nizami Hasanli, Kadir Goksen

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Researchers have donated great interest to ternary and quaternary semiconductor compounds especially with the improvement of the optoelectronic technology. The quaternary compound Tl2Ga2Se3S which was grown by Bridgman method carries the properties of ternary thallium chalcogenides group of semiconductors with layered structure. This compound can be formed from TlGaSe2 crystals replacing the one quarter of selenium atom by sulfur atom. Although Tl2Ga2Se3S crystals are not intentionally doped, some unintended defect types such as point defects, dislocations and stacking faults can occur during growth processes of crystals. These defects can cause undesirable problems in semiconductor materials especially produced for optoelectronic technology. Defects of various types in the semiconductor devices like LEDs and field effect transistor may act as a non-radiative or scattering center in electron transport. Also, quick recombination of holes with electrons without any energy transfer between charge carriers can occur due to the existence of defects. Therefore, the characterization of defects may help the researchers working in this field to produce high quality devices. Thermoluminescence (TL) is an effective experimental method to determine the kinetic parameters of trap centers due to defects in crystals. In this method, the sample is illuminated at low temperature by a light whose energy is bigger than the band gap of studied sample. Thus, charge carriers in the valence band are excited to delocalized band. Then, the charge carriers excited into conduction band are trapped. The trapped charge carriers are released by heating the sample gradually and these carriers then recombine with the opposite carriers at the recombination center. By this way, some luminescence is emitted from the samples. The emitted luminescence is converted to pulses by using an experimental setup controlled by computer program and TL spectrum is obtained. Defect characterization of Tl2Ga2Se3S single crystals has been performed by TL measurements at low temperatures between 10 and 300 K with various heating rate ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 K/s. The TL signal due to the luminescence from trap centers revealed one glow peak having maximum temperature of 36 K. Curve fitting and various heating rate methods were used for the analysis of the glow curve. The activation energy of 13 meV was found by the application of curve fitting method. This practical method established also that the trap center exhibits the characteristics of mixed (general) kinetic order. In addition, various heating rate analysis gave a compatible result (13 meV) with curve fitting as the temperature lag effect was taken into consideration. Since the studied crystals were not intentionally doped, these centers are thought to originate from stacking faults, which are quite possible in Tl2Ga2Se3S due to the weakness of the van der Waals forces between the layers. Distribution of traps was also investigated using an experimental method. A quasi-continuous distribution was attributed to the determined trap centers.

Keywords: chalcogenides, defects, thermoluminescence, trap centers

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Authors: Marwa A. A. Ragab, Hadir M. Maher, Eman I. El-Kimary

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Co-administration of methotrexate (MTX) and aspirin (ASP) can cause a pharmacokinetic interaction and a subsequent increase in blood MTX concentrations which may increase the risk of MTX toxicity. Therefore, it is important to develop a sensitive, selective, accurate and precise method for their simultaneous determination in urine. A new hybrid chemometric method has been applied to the emission response data of the two drugs. Spectrofluorimetric method for determination of MTX through measurement of its acid-degradation product, 4-amino-4-deoxy-10-methylpteroic acid (4-AMP), was developed. Moreover, the acid-catalyzed degradation reaction enables the spectrofluorimetric determination of ASP through the formation of its active metabolite salicylic acid (SA). The proposed chemometric method deals with convolution of emission data using 8-points sin xi polynomials (discrete Fourier functions) after the derivative treatment of these emission data. The first and second derivative curves (D1 & D2) were obtained first then convolution of these curves was done to obtain first and second derivative under Fourier functions curves (D1/FF) and (D2/FF). This new application was used for the resolution of the overlapped emission bands of the degradation products of both drugs to allow their simultaneous indirect determination in human urine. Not only this chemometric approach was applied to the emission data but also the obtained data were subjected to non-parametric linear regression analysis (Theil’s method). The proposed method was fully validated according to the ICH guidelines and it yielded linearity ranges as follows: 0.05-0.75 and 0.5-2.5 µg mL-1 for MTX and ASP respectively. It was found that the non-parametric method was superior over the parametric one in the simultaneous determination of MTX and ASP after the chemometric treatment of the emission spectra of their degradation products. The work combines the advantages of derivative and convolution using discrete Fourier function together with the reliability and efficacy of the non-parametric analysis of data. The achieved sensitivity along with the low values of LOD (0.01 and 0.06 µg mL-1) and LOQ (0.04 and 0.2 µg mL-1) for MTX and ASP respectively, by the second derivative under Fourier functions (D2/FF) were promising and guarantee its application for monitoring the two drugs in patients’ urine samples.

Keywords: chemometrics, emission curves, derivative, convolution, Fourier transform, human urine, non-parametric regression, Theil’s method

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Authors: Lydia Novozhilova, Vladimir Urazhdin

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An optimization problem for reinforced thin-walled vessels under uniform external pressure is considered. The conventional approaches to optimization generally start with pre-defined geometric parameters of the vessels, and then employ analytic or numeric calculations and/or experimental testing to verify functionality, such as stability under the projected conditions. The proposed approach consists of two steps. First, the feasibility domain will be identified in the multidimensional parameter space. Every point in the feasibility domain defines a design satisfying both geometric and functional constraints. Second, an objective function defined in this domain is formulated and optimized. The broader applicability of the suggested methodology is maximized by implementing the Support Vector Machines (SVM) classification algorithm of machine learning for identification of the feasible design region. Training data for SVM classifier is obtained using the Simulation package of SOLIDWORKS®. Based on the data, the SVM algorithm produces a curvilinear boundary separating admissible and not admissible sets of design parameters with maximal margins. Then optimization of the vessel parameters in the feasibility domain is performed using the standard algorithms for the constrained optimization. As an example, optimization of a ring-stiffened closed cylindrical thin-walled vessel with semi-spherical caps under high external pressure is implemented. As a functional constraint, von Mises stress criterion is used but any other stability constraint admitting mathematical formulation can be incorporated into the proposed approach. Suggested methodology has a good potential for reducing design time for finding optimal parameters of thin-walled vessels under uniform external pressure.

Keywords: design parameters, feasibility domain, von Mises stress criterion, Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier

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Authors: Purushottam P. Khatiwada, Bikash Paudel, Ram B. Rana, Parshuram Biswakarma, Roshan Pudasaini

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Nepal has been putting its efforts into securing food and nutrition security for its citizens adopting different models and approaches. Home Garden approach, that integrates vegetables, fruits, small livestock, poultry along with other components like fish, honeybee, mushroom, spices for the promotion of nutritional security of resource-poor and disadvantaged groups was implemented during March 2009 to July 2013 spreading over 16 districts of Nepal covering 115 farmers groups, directly working with 3500 households. Sustained long-term impact of development interventions targeted to the resource-poor and disadvantaged groups has been a recurrent issue for donors, policymakers and practitioners alike. Considering the issue, a post-project evaluation was carried out in a selected project group (Dangibari of Jhapa) after four years of project completion in 2017 in order to evaluate the impact and understand the factors associated with its success. Qualitative information was collected through focus group discussion with group members and associated local institutions. For quantitative information, a quick survey was carried out to the same group members only selecting few indicators. The results are compared with the data obtained from the baseline study conducted by the project in March 2009. The impact of project intervention was evident as compared to the benchmarks established during the baseline, even after four years of project completion. The area under home garden is increased to 729 m² from 386 m² and average food self-sufficiency months increased to 10.22 from 8.11. Seven to eleven fruit species are maintained in the home gardens. An average number of vegetable species grown increased to 15.85 from 9.86. It has resulted in an increase in vegetables self-sufficient month to 8.74 from 4.74 and a huge increase in cash income NPR 6142.8 (USD 59.6) from NPR 385.7 (USD 3.9) from the sale of surplus vegetables. Coaching and mentoring including nutrition sensitization by the project staff at the beginning, inputs and technical support during the project implementation phase and projects effort on the institutional building of disadvantaged farmers were the key drivers of home garden sustainability and expansion. Specifically, package of home garden management trainings provided by the project staff, availability of group funds for buying inputs even after the project, uniting home garden group members in a cooperative, resource leveraging by local institutions through group lobbying, farmers innovations for maintaining home garden diversity and continuous backstopping support by few active members as local resource persons to other members are some additional factors contributing to sustain and/or improve the home garden status by the resource-poor and disadvantaged group.

Keywords: food-based nutrition, home garden, resource-poor and disadvantaged group, sustained impact

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Authors: Suganiya Rama Rao, Yoon-Yen Yow, Thor-Seng Liew, Shyamala Ratnayeke

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Invasive snails in the genus Pomacea have spread across Southeast Asia including Peninsular Malaysia. Apart from significant economic costs to wetland crops, very little is known about the snails’ effects on native species, and wetland function through their alteration of macrophyte communities. This study was conducted to establish diagnostic characteristics of Pomacea species in the Malaysian environment using genetic and morphological criteria. Snails were collected from eight localities in northern and central regions of Peninsular Malaysia. The mitochondrial COI gene of 52 adult snails was amplified and sequenced. Maximum likelihood analysis was used to analyse species identity and assess phylogenetic relationships among snails from different geographic locations. Shells of the two species were compared using geometric morphometric analysis and covariance analyses. Shell height accounted for most of the observed variation between P. canaliculata and P. maculata, with the latter possessing a smaller mean ratio of shell height: aperture height (p < 0.0001) and shell height to shell width (give p < 0.0001). Genomic and phylogenetic analysis demonstrated the presence of two monophyletic taxa, P. canaliculata and P. maculata, in Peninsular Malaysia samples. P. maculata co-occurred with P. canaliculata in 5 localities, but samples from 3 localities contained only P. canaliculata. This study is the first to confirm the presence of two of the most invasive species of Pomacea in Peninsular Malaysia using a genomic approach. P. canaliculata appears to be the more widespread species. Despite statistical differences, both quantitative and qualitative morphological characteristics demonstrate much interspecific overlap and intraspecific variability; thus morphology alone cannot reliably verify species identity. Molecular techniques for distinguishing between these two highly invasive Pomacea species are needed to understand their specific ecological niches and develop effective protocols for their management.

Keywords: Pomacea canaliculata, Pomacea maculata, invasive species, phylog enetic analysis, geometric morphometric analysis

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Authors: Jovana Grahovac, Ivana Pajcin, Natasa Lukic, Jelena Dodic, Aleksandar Jokic

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To obtain purified biomass to be used in the plant pathogen biocontrol or as soil biofertilizer, it is necessary to eliminate residual broth components at the end of the fermentation process. The main drawback of membrane separation techniques is permeate flux decline due to the membrane fouling. Fouling mitigation measures increase the pressure drop along membrane channel due to the increased resistance to flow of the feed suspension, thus increasing the hydraulic power drop. At the same time, these measures lead to an increase in the permeate flux due to the reduced resistance of the filtration cake on the membrane surface. Because of these opposing effects, the energy efficiency of fouling mitigation measures is limited, and the justification of its application is provided by information on a reducing specific energy consumption compared to a case without any measures employed. In this study, the influence of static mixer (Kenics) and air-sparging (two-phase flow) on reduction of specific energy consumption (ER) was investigated. Cultivation Bacillus velezensis was carried out in the 3-L bioreactor (Biostat® Aplus) containing 2 L working volume with two parallel Rushton turbines and without internal baffles. Cultivation was carried out at 28 °C on at 150 rpm with an aeration rate of 0.75 vvm during 96 h. The experiments were carried out in a conventional cross-flow microfiltration unit. During experiments, permeate and retentate were recycled back to the broth vessel to simulate continuous process. The single channel ceramic membrane (TAMI Deutschland) used had a nominal pore size 200 nm with the length of 250 mm and an inner/external diameter of 6/10 mm. The useful membrane channel surface was 4.33×10⁻³ m². Air sparging was brought by the pressurized air connected by a three-way valve to the feed tube by a simple T-connector without diffusor. The different approaches to flux improvement are compared in terms of energy consumption. Reduction of specific energy consumption compared to microfiltration without fouling mitigation is around 49% and 63%, for use of two-phase flow and a static mixer, respectively. In the case of a combination of these two fouling mitigation methods, ER is 60%, i.e., slightly lower compared to the use of turbulence promoter alone. The reason for this result can be found in the fact that flux increase is more affected by the presence of a Kenics static mixer while sparging results in an increase of energy used during microfiltration. By comparing combined method with turbulence promoter flux enhancement method ER is negative (-7%) which can be explained by increased power consumption for air flow with moderate contribution to the flux increase. Another confirmation for this fact can be found by comparing energy consumption values for combined method with energy consumption in the case of two-phase flow. In this instance energy reduction (ER) is 22% that demonstrates that turbulence promoter is more efficient compared to two phase flow. Antimicrobial activity of Bacillus velezensis biomass against phytopathogenic isolates Xanthomonas campestris was preserved under different fouling reduction methods.

Keywords: Bacillus velezensis, microfiltration, static mixer, two-phase flow

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Authors: Gregor Kosec

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Simple and robust numerical approach for solving flow problems is presented, where involved physical fields are represented through the local approximation functions, i.e., the considered field is approximated over a local support domain. The approximation functions are then used to evaluate the partial differential operators. The type of approximation, the size of support domain, and the type and number of basis function can be general. The solution procedure is formulated completely through local computational operations. Besides local numerical method also the pressure velocity is performed locally with retaining the correct temporal transient. The complete locality of the introduced numerical scheme has several beneficial effects. One of the most attractive is the simplicity since it could be understood as a generalized Finite Differences Method, however, much more powerful. Presented methodology offers many possibilities for treating challenging cases, e.g. nodal adaptivity to address regions with sharp discontinuities or p-adaptivity to treat obscure anomalies in physical field. The stability versus computation complexity and accuracy can be regulated by changing number of support nodes, etc. All these features can be controlled on the fly during the simulation. The presented methodology is relatively simple to understand and implement, which makes it potentially powerful tool for engineering simulations. Besides simplicity and straightforward implementation, there are many opportunities to fully exploit modern computer architectures through different parallel computing strategies. The performance of the method is presented on the lid driven cavity problem, backward facing step problem, de Vahl Davis natural convection test, extended also to low Prandtl fluid and Darcy porous flow. Results are presented in terms of velocity profiles, convergence plots, and stability analyses. Results of all cases are also compared against published data.

Keywords: fluid flow, meshless, low Pr problem, natural convection

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Authors: Guo Bingkun

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With the rapid development of China's social economy and the continuous improvement of urbanization level, people's living standards have undergone tremendous changes, and more and more people are gathering in cities. The demand for urban residents' housing has been greatly released in the past decade. The demand for housing and related construction land required for urban development has brought huge pressure to urban operations, and land prices have also risen rapidly in the short term. On the other hand, from the comparison of the eastern and western regions of China, there are also great differences in urban socioeconomics and land prices in the eastern, central and western regions. Although judging from the current overall market development, after more than ten years of housing market reform and development, the quality of housing and land use efficiency in Chinese cities have been greatly improved. However, the current contradiction between land demand for urban socio-economic development and land supply, especially the contradiction between land supply and demand for urban residential land, has not been effectively alleviated. Since land is closely linked to all aspects of society, changes in land prices will be affected by many complex factors. Therefore, this paper studies the factors that may affect urban residential land prices and compares them among eastern, central and western cities, and finds the main factors that determine the level of urban residential land prices. This paper provides guidance for urban managers in formulating land policies and alleviating land supply and demand. It provides distinct ideas for improving urban planning and improving urban planning and promotes the improvement of urban management level. The research in this paper focuses on residential land prices. Generally, the indicators for measuring land prices mainly include benchmark land prices, land price level values, parcel land prices, etc. However, considering the requirements of research data continuity and representativeness, this paper chooses to use residential land price level values. Reflects the status of urban residential land prices. First of all, based on the existing research at home and abroad, the paper considers the two aspects of land supply and demand and, based on basic theoretical analysis, determines some factors that may affect urban housing, such as urban expansion, taxation, land reserves, population, and land benefits. Factors of land price and correspondingly selected certain representative indicators. Secondly, using conventional econometric analysis methods, we established a model of factors affecting urban residential land prices, quantitatively analyzed the relationship and intensity of influencing factors and residential land prices, and compared the differences in the impact of urban residential land prices between the eastern, central and western regions. Compare similarities. Research results show that the main factors affecting China's urban residential land prices are urban expansion, land use efficiency, taxation, population size, and residents' consumption. Then, the main reason for the difference in residential land prices between the eastern, central and western regions is the differences in urban expansion patterns, industrial structures, urban carrying capacity and real estate development investment.

Keywords: urban housing, urban planning, housing prices, comparative study

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Authors: Anil Saini, Jatinder Kumar Ratan

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Now a day, the key issue for the scientific community is to devise the innovative technologies for sustainable control of urban pollution. In urban cities, a large surface area of the masonry structures, buildings, and pavements is exposed to the open environment, which may be utilized for the control of air pollution, if it is built from the photocatalytically active cement-based constructional materials such as concrete, mortars, paints, and blocks, etc. The photocatalytically active cement is formulated by incorporating a photocatalyst in the cement matrix, and such cement is generally known as self-cleaning cement In the literature, self-cleaning cement has been synthesized by incorporating nanosized-TiO₂ (n-TiO₂) as a photocatalyst in the formulation of the cement. However, the utilization of n-TiO₂ for the formulation of self-cleaning cement has the drawbacks of nano-toxicity, higher cost, and agglomeration as far as the commercial production and applications are concerned. The use of microsized-TiO₂ (m-TiO₂) in place of n-TiO₂ for the commercial manufacture of self-cleaning cement could avoid the above-mentioned problems. However, m-TiO₂ is less photocatalytically active as compared to n- TiO₂ due to smaller surface area, higher band gap, and increased recombination rate. As such, the use of m-TiO₂ in the formulation of self-cleaning cement may lead to a reduction in photocatalytic activity, thus, reducing the self-cleaning, depolluting, and antimicrobial abilities of the resultant cement material. So improvement in the photoactivity of m-TiO₂ based self-cleaning cement is the key issue for its practical applications in the present scenario. The current work proposes the use of surface-fluorinated m-TiO₂ for the formulation of self-cleaning cement to enhance its photocatalytic activity. The calcined dolomite, a constructional material, has also been utilized as co-adsorbent along with the surface-fluorinated m-TiO₂ in the formulation of self-cleaning cement to enhance the photocatalytic performance. The surface-fluorinated m-TiO₂, calcined dolomite, and the formulated self-cleaning cement were characterized using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller) surface area, and energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF). The self-cleaning property of the as-prepared self-cleaning cement was evaluated using the methylene blue (MB) test. The depolluting ability of the formulated self-cleaning cement was assessed through a continuous NOX removal test. The antimicrobial activity of the self-cleaning cement was appraised using the method of the zone of inhibition. The as-prepared self-cleaning cement obtained by uniform mixing of 87% clinker, 10% calcined dolomite, and 3% surface-fluorinated m-TiO₂ showed a remarkable self-cleaning property by providing 53.9% degradation of the coated MB dye. The self-cleaning cement also depicted a noteworthy depolluting ability by removing 5.5% of NOx from the air. The inactivation of B. subtiltis bacteria in the presence of light confirmed the significant antimicrobial property of the formulated self-cleaning cement. The self-cleaning, depolluting, and antimicrobial results are attributed to the synergetic effect of surface-fluorinated m-TiO₂ and calcined dolomite in the cement matrix. The present study opens an idea and route for further research for acile and economical formulation of self-cleaning cement.

Keywords: microsized-titanium dioxide (m-TiO₂), self-cleaning cement, photocatalysis, surface-fluorination

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Authors: Elia Efraim, Boris Blostotsky

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The phenomenon of buckling of structural elements under compression is revealed in many cases of loading and found consideration in many structures and mechanisms. In the present work the method and results of dynamic test for buckling of bar loaded by a compression force directed towards the pole are considered. Experimental determination of critical force for such system has not been made previously. The tested object is a bar with semi-rigid connection to the base at one of its ends, and with a hinge moving along a circle at the other. The test includes measuring the natural frequency of the bar at different values of compression load. The lateral stiffness is calculated based on natural frequency and reduced mass on the bar's movable end. The critical load is determined by extrapolation the values of lateral stiffness up to zero value. For the experimental investigation the special test-bed was created that allows the stability testing at positive and negative curvature of the movable end's trajectory, as well as varying the rotational stiffness of the other end connection. Decreasing a friction at the movable end allows extend the diapason of applied compression force. The testing method includes : - methodology of the experiment planning, that allows determine the required number of tests under various loads values in the defined range and the type of extrapolating function; - methodology of experimental determination of reduced mass at the bar's movable end including its own mass; - methodology of experimental determination of lateral stiffness of uncompressed bar rotational semi-rigid connection at the base. For planning the experiment and for comparison of the experimental results with the theoretical values of critical load, the analytical dependencies of lateral stiffness of the bar with defined end conditions on compression load. In the particular case of perfectly rigid connection of the bar to the base, the critical load value corresponds to solution by S.P. Timoshenko. Correspondence of the calculated and experimental values was obtained.

Keywords: buckling, dynamic method, end-fixity factor, force directed towards a pole

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Authors: Gianpaolo Ghiani, Emanuela Guerriero, Emanuele Manni, Alessandro Romano

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In this article, we deal with a variant of the classical course timetabling problem that has a practical application in many areas of education. In particular, in this paper we are interested in high schools remedial courses. The purpose of such courses is to provide under-prepared students with the skills necessary to succeed in their studies. In particular, a student might be under prepared in an entire course, or only in a part of it. The limited availability of funds, as well as the limited amount of time and teachers at disposal, often requires schools to choose which courses and/or which teaching units to activate. Thus, schools need to model the training offer and the related timetabling, with the goal of ensuring the highest possible teaching quality, by meeting the above-mentioned financial, time and resources constraints. Moreover, there are some prerequisites between the teaching units that must be satisfied. We first present a Mixed-Integer Programming (MIP) model to solve this problem to optimality. However, the presence of many peculiar constraints contributes inevitably in increasing the complexity of the mathematical model. Thus, solving it through a general purpose solver may be performed for small instances only, while solving real-life-sized instances of such model requires specific techniques or heuristic approaches. For this purpose, we also propose a heuristic approach, in which we make use of a fast constructive procedure to obtain a feasible solution. To assess our exact and heuristic approaches we perform extensive computational results on both real-life instances (obtained from a high school in Lecce, Italy) and randomly generated instances. Our tests show that the MIP model is never solved to optimality, with an average optimality gap of 57%. On the other hand, the heuristic algorithm is much faster (in about the 50% of the considered instances it converges in approximately half of the time limit) and in many cases allows achieving an improvement on the objective function value obtained by the MIP model. Such an improvement ranges between 18% and 66%.

Keywords: heuristic, MIP model, remedial course, school, timetabling

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Authors: Mitra Assadi, Md. Faan

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Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in a common neurodevelopmental disorder with limited pharmacological interventions. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) has produced promising results in ASD, although there is no consensus regarding optimal targets or stimulation paradigms. A prevailing theory in ASD attributes the core deficits to dysfunction of the mirror neurons located in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Methods: Thus far, 11 subjects with ASD, 10 boys and 1 girl with the mean age of 13.36 years have completed the study by receiving 10 session of high frequency rTMS to the IPL. The subjects were randomized to receive stimulation on the left or right IPL and sham stimulation to the opposite side. The outcome measures included the Social Responsiveness Scale – Second Edition (SRS-2) and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Verbal Fluency task. Results: None of the 11 subjects experienced any adverse effects. The rTMS did not produce any improvement in verbal fluency, nor there was any statistically significant difference between the right versus left sided stimulation. Analysis of social awareness on SRS-2 (SRS-AWR) indicated a close to significant effect of the treatment with a small to medium effect size. After removing a single subject with Level 3 ASD, we demonstrated a close to significant improvement on SRS-AWR with a large effect size. The analysis of the data 3-month post TMS demonstrated return of the SRS-AWR values to baseline. Conclusion: This preliminary analysis of the 11 subjects who have completed our study thus far shows a favorable response to high frequency rTMS stimulation of the mirror neurons/IPL on social awareness. While the decay of the response noted during the 3-month follow-up may be considered a limitation of rTMS, the presence of the improvement, especially the effect size despite the small sample size, is indicative of the efficacy of this technique.

Keywords: rTMS, autism, scoial cognition, mirror neurons

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Authors: Hung-Sheng Lin, Cheng-Hsuan Li

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Over the past few years, kernel-based algorithms have been widely used to extend some linear feature extraction methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), linear discriminate analysis (LDA), and nonparametric weighted feature extraction (NWFE) to their nonlinear versions, kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), generalized discriminate analysis (GDA), and kernel nonparametric weighted feature extraction (KNWFE), respectively. These nonlinear feature extraction methods can detect nonlinear directions with the largest nonlinear variance or the largest class separability based on the given kernel function. Moreover, they have been applied to improve the target detection or the image classification of hyperspectral images. The double nearest proportion feature extraction (DNP) can effectively reduce the overlap effect and have good performance in hyperspectral image classification. The DNP structure is an extension of the k-nearest neighbor technique. For each sample, there are two corresponding nearest proportions of samples, the self-class nearest proportion and the other-class nearest proportion. The term “nearest proportion” used here consider both the local information and other more global information. With these settings, the effect of the overlap between the sample distributions can be reduced. Usually, the maximum likelihood estimator and the related unbiased estimator are not ideal estimators in high dimensional inference problems, particularly in small data-size situation. Hence, an improved estimator by shrinkage estimation (regularization) is proposed. Based on the DNP structure, LDA is included as a special case. In this paper, the kernel method is applied to extend DNP to kernel-based DNP (KDNP). In addition to the advantages of DNP, KDNP surpasses DNP in the experimental results. According to the experiments on the real hyperspectral image data sets, the classification performance of KDNP is better than that of PCA, LDA, NWFE, and their kernel versions, KPCA, GDA, and KNWFE.

Keywords: feature extraction, kernel method, double nearest proportion feature extraction, kernel double nearest feature extraction

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Authors: Ioanna Garefi, Irene Kalemaki

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Education is not solely about preparing young people for the world of work but also about equipping them with competences that will enable them to become socially proactive, empowered, responsible, and engaged citizens who will collectively contribute to and benefit from an inclusive and sustainable future. Hence, progress assessment towards competence development is an ongoing process where continuous efforts are needed. This paper abstract presents the work of the H2020 NEMESIS project that aims to investigate, experiment and co-create together with schools a model for introducing and embedding social innovation education (SIE henceforth) in European primary and secondary schools. All in all, during the 2018-2019 academic year, 8 schools from 5 European countries involving 56 teachers, 1030 students, and 80 external stakeholders, experimented with different methodologies for embedding SIE in their contexts. This paper captures briefly the impact of these efforts towards the cultivation and progression of students’ social innovation (SI henceforth) competences. As part of the model, 14 SI competences, whose progress was evaluated, have been introduced falling under 3 interrelated categories: competences for identifying opportunities for social and collective value creation, competences for developing collaborations and building meaningful relations and competences for taking action both on an individual and collective level. Methodologically wise, the evaluation strategy employed was informed by a realist approach, enabling the researchers to go beyond synthesizing 'what happened' and towards understanding 'why it happened', delving into ‘what works, for whom and in what circumstances’. The reason for choosing such an approach was because it goes beyond attempting to answer the basic yes or no question of evaluation and focus on an ‘explanatory quest’ tracing the limits of when and where intervention is effective. A rich mix of sources of evidence have been employed, from focus groups with 80 people from the 5 EU countries to an online survey to 206 students, classroom observations, students’ narratives granting them with the opportunity to freely express their opinions, short stories letting students express their feelings through their imagination and also, drawings so that younger children can express their perception of reality. All these evidences offered insights on the impact of SIE on the development of students’ competences. Research findings showed that students progressed in all 14 SI competences through their involvement in the different activities. This positive progression is attributed to the model’s three core principles: 1) the student-centered approach, rendering students active and self-determined producers of their own learning, 2) the co-creation process fostering intergenerational interactions, empowering thus students by making their voices heard and valued and also, 3) the transformative social action whereby through their projects, students are able to witness the impact they are bringing about with their actions. Concluding, these initial findings, together with the forthcoming evaluation research to a pool of 30 schools around Europe, have the potential to raise the dynamics of the under-investigated field of SIE and encourage its embeddedness in more schools around Europe.

Keywords: competence development, education, social innovation, students

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Authors: Shivani Dolas, A. Richa Mishra

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The existence of Courtyards in India can be traced back to ‘Indus valley civilization’ and various layers of history bearing implications like socio-cultural, traditional, religious, climatic, etc., moreover serving as a breathing space in case of historical core areas. Over time, with the overlay of various historic layers within the historic urban cores and the present high density populace, the cores are getting congested day by day. In this case, courtyards may emerge out as an efficient medium to provide quality of life through livable spaces. Presently, with the growing population of the historic town of Gwalior, town in Madhya Pradesh holds remarkable essence of courtyards with its multiple concepts over time. Its scale and function varies from an imposing grand appearance in palatial form, up to functional practices as residential. Its privilege can also be drawn in urban forms, in sharing single space by multiple dwellings and in temples which can be sketched specifically in the region. Moreover, the effectiveness of courtyards has proven balance and control of micro-climate in such composite climate region. The research paper aims to underline the concept of courtyards in case of a mixed use neighborhood, Naya bazar, in Lashkar area of Gwalior, which developed during 19th century, highlighting the need of its preservation. The paper also elaborates its various implications on user-space relationship as in the present context, and growing congestion in the area, user and space relationship is seen lost. The noticeable change in the behavioral context in buildings and users can be noticed with the downfall of courtyards, isolating users with land. Also, a concern has been expressed on negligence of courtyard planning in future development, suggesting recommendations on preserving the courtyard typology as heritage.

Keywords: courtyards, Gwalior, historic settlement, heritage

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Authors: Nehal F. Hassib, Rasha M. El Hossini, Inas M. Sayed, Maha R. Abouzeid, Nermeen A. Bayoumi, Aida M. Mosaad, Lamia K. Gadallah, Moataz Bellah A. T. Abdelbari, Heba A. El-Sayed, Hasnaa Elbendary, Ghada Abdel-Salam, Maha Zaki, Mostafa I. Mostafa, Mohamed S. Abdel-Hamid

Abstract:

Enamel, the outermost layer of the tooth crown, is the hardest dental tissue and serves as a protective barrier. Amelogenesis, the process of enamel formation, is regulated by multiple genes to ensure normal, defect-free enamel. Defective enamel manifests as hypoplasia or as amelogenesis imperfecta (AI), which may occur in isolation or as part of a syndrome. This study presents 29 patients from 18 unrelated families (16 females and 13 males) who exhibited distinctive enamel abnormalities. We conducted thorough clinical examinations and requested laboratory and radiological investigations. Blood samples were collected for molecular analysis, utilizing a targeted panel for known AI variants and whole exome sequencing for unknown variants. Eleven variants linked to enamel anomalies were identified: four genes associated with isolated AI (WDR72, ACP4, SLC24A4, and FAM83H) and seven associated with syndromic forms, including enamel renal syndrome (FAM20A), tricho-dento-osseous syndrome (DLX3), Jalili syndrome (CNNM4), and others linked to neurological and mitochondrial disorders, skeletal dysplasia, and peroxisome disorders. Abnormal oral and dental phenotypes in individuals may indicate serious inherited disorders. Enamel defects have significant implications for aesthetics, function, and patients' psychological well-being. Dental examination, alongside clinical and molecular investigations, is crucial for the accurate diagnosis and prediction of inherited conditions.

Keywords: amelogenesis imperfecta, enamel defect, Enamel renal syndrome, DLX3, Jalili syndrome, WDR72, FAM83H, whole exome sequencing

Procedia PDF Downloads 25