Search results for: continental early warning system

Authors: A. M. Gada, H. U. Malami

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Timbuktu is one of the eight regions in the present day the Republic of Mali. It flourished as one of the earliest centres of Islamic learning in West Africa in the eleventh century CE. The famous Islamic centre in Timbuktu is situated in the Sankore mosque, which is known to be one of the earliest established Islamic University. This centre produced scholars who were zealous in disseminating Islamic education to different parts of West Africa and beyond. As a result, most of these centres adopted the Timbuktu pattern of learning. Some of the beneficiaries of this noble activity are Muslim scholars which are responsible for the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate in the early nineteenth century. This paper intends to reflect on the pattern of Islamic education of the Timbuktu scholars and see how it impacted on the Islamic centres of learning established by these Jihad-scholars who were successful in the establishment of an Islamic state known as the Sokoto Caliphate.

Keywords: Timbuktu, Sankore, Islamic educational system, Sokoto Caliphate, centres of Islamic learning

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Authors: Tauqeer Ahmad

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A lot of literature have been produced addressing the problem of origin and development of tomb architecture in Pakistan and India. In this attempt, the author would address this problem in the Indian prospective. Particularly, the impact of indigenous architecture would be analyzed in this research paper. As we observe that on early Muslim tombs in Indian sub-continent, to large extent, were contributed in term of architecture by local masons. So far as the material used in these early tombs is concerned was also picked from Indian tradition according to the availability and the local traditions.

Keywords: Khitti Chor, tomb of Sultan Ghari, tomb at Zairan, Lasbela

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Authors: Tofigh Hamidavi, Sepehr Abrishami, Pasquale Ponterosso, David Begg

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Structural design and analysis is an important and time-consuming process, particularly at the conceptual design stage. Decisions made at this stage can have an enormous effect on the entire project, as it becomes ever costlier and more difficult to alter the choices made early on in the construction process. Hence, optimisation of the early stages of structural design can provide important efficiencies in terms of cost and time. This paper suggests a structural design optimisation (SDO) framework in which Genetic Algorithms (GAs) may be used to semi-automate the production and optimisation of early structural design alternatives. This framework has the potential to leverage conceptual structural design innovation in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) projects. Moreover, this framework improves the collaboration between the architectural stage and the structural stage. It will be shown that this SDO framework can make this achievable by generating the structural model based on the extracted data from the architectural model. At the moment, the proposed SDO framework is in the process of validation, involving the distribution of an online questionnaire among structural engineers in the UK.

Keywords: building information, modelling, BIM, genetic algorithm, GA, architecture-engineering-construction, AEC, optimisation, structure, design, population, generation, selection, mutation, crossover, offspring

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Authors: Hamid Fallah

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Undoubtedly, flood is known as a natural disaster, and in practice, flood is considered the most terrible natural disaster in the world both in terms of loss of life and financial losses. From 1988 to 1997, about 390,000 people were killed by natural disasters in the world, 58% of which were related to floods, 26% due to earthquakes, and 16% due to storms and other disasters. The total damages in these 10 years were about 700 billion dollars, which were 33, 29, 28% related to floods, storms and earthquakes, respectively. In this regard, the worrisome point has been the increasing trend of flood deaths and damages in the world in recent decades. The increase in population and assets in flood plains, changes in hydro systems and the destructive effects of human activities have been the main reasons for this increase. During rain and snow, some of the water is absorbed by the soil and plants. A percentage evaporates and the rest flows and is called runoff. Floods occur when the soil and plants cannot absorb the rainfall, and as a result, the natural river channel does not have the capacity to pass the generated runoff. On average, almost 30% of precipitation is converted into runoff, which increases with snow melting. Floods that occur differently create an area called flood plain around the river. River floods are often caused by heavy rains, which in some cases are accompanied by snow melt. A flood that flows in a river without warning or with little warning is called a flash flood. The casualties of these rapid floods that occur in small watersheds are generally more than the casualties of large river floods. Coastal areas are also subject to flooding caused by waves caused by strong storms on the surface of the oceans or waves caused by underground earthquakes. Floods not only cause damage to property and endanger the lives of humans and animals, but also leave other effects. Runoff caused by heavy rains causes soil erosion in the upstream and sedimentation problems in the downstream. The habitats of fish and other animals are often destroyed by floods. The high speed of the current increases the damage. Long-term floods stop traffic and prevent drainage and economic use of land. The supports of bridges, river banks, sewage outlets and other structures are damaged, and there is a disruption in shipping and hydropower generation. The economic losses of floods in the world are estimated at tens of billions of dollars annually.

Keywords: flood, hydrological engineering, gis, dam, small hydropower, suitablity

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Authors: Hae Jeong Park, Joo-Ho Chung

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In this study, the effect of essential oil from Chamaecyparis obtuse (EOCO) on early life stress using maternal separation (MS) rats was investigated. Anxiety-related behaviors were examined in MS rats using the elevated plus-maze (EPM) test. The changes of gene expressions by EOCO in the hippocampus of MS rats were analyzed using a microarray method. Rats in the MS groups were separated from their respective mothers from postnatal day (pnd) 14 to 28. Rats in the EOCO-treated groups were exposed to EOCO for 1 h or 2 h by inhalation from pnd 21 to 28. The EOCO-treated MS rats showed decreased anxiety-related behaviors compared to the MS rats in the EPM test. In the microarray analysis, EOCO downregulated the expressions of cytokine genes such as Ccl2, Il6, Cxcl10, Ccl19, and Il1rl in the hippocampus of MS rats, and it was also confirmed through RT-PCR. In particular, the expressions of Ccl2 and Il6 were predominantly decreased by EOCO in the hippocampus of MS rats. Interestingly, their protein expressions were also reduced by EOCO in MS rats. These results indicate that EOCO decreases MS-induced anxiety-related behaviors, and modulate cytokines, particularly Ccl2 and Il6, in the hippocampus of MS rats.

Keywords: anxiety-related behavior, Chamaecyparis obtuse, cytokine gene, early-life stress, maternal separation

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Authors: Aneta Binkowska, Grzegorz Michalak, Slawomir Pilip, Lukasz Bondaruk, Daniel Celinski, Robert Slotwinski

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Post-traumatic mortality rates are still very high and show an increasing tendency. Early identification of patients at high risk of severe complications has a significant impact on treatment outcomes. The aim of the study was to better understand the early pathological inflammatory response to injury and infection and to determine the usefulness of the assessment of TNF-α and sTNFR1 concentrations in the peripheral blood as early indicators of severe post-traumatic complications. The study was carried out in a group of 51 patients after trauma treated in the ED, including 32 patients that met inclusion criteria for immunological analysis. Patients were divided into two groups using the ISS scale (group A with ISS ≥20, group B with ISS <20). Serum levels of TNF-α and sTNFR1 were determined after admission to the ED and after 3, 6, 12 and 24 hours. The highest TNF-α and sTNFR1 concentrations in both groups were recorded at admission and were significantly higher in group A compared to group B (A vs B TNF-α 2.46 pg/ml vs 1.78 pg/ml; sTNFR1 1667.5 pg/ml vs 875.2 p<0.005). The concentration of sTNFR1 in patients with severe complications was significantly higher compared to patients without complications and preceded clinical symptoms of complications ( C+ vs C- 1561.5 pg/ml vs 930.6 pg/ml). Spearman's correlation showed a statistically significant positive correlation between the baseline concentrations of IL-6 (r=0.38, p<0.043) and sTNFR1 (r=0.59, p=0.001) and the ISS scores. The high diagnostic sensitivity calculated from the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves was found for the concentrations of both cytokines: TNF α (AUC=0.91, p=0.004) and sTNFR1 (AUC=0.86, p=0.011). Elevated levels of sTNFR1, determined in the peripheral blood shortly after injury, is significantly associated with the occurrence of later complications, which in some patients lead to death. In contrast, high levels of TNF-α shortly after injury are associated with high mortality.

Keywords: cytokine, SIRS, MODS, trauma

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Authors: Girma Y. Iyassu Menelik

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“The world is now like a global village!” so goes the saying that shows that due to development and technology the countries of the world are now closely linked. In the field of Human rights there is a close relationship in the way that rights are recognised and enforced. This paper will show that human rights have evolved from ancient times through important landmarks such as the Magna Carta, the French Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the American Bill of Rights. The formation of the United Nations after the Second World War resulted in the need to codify and protect human rights. There are some rights which are so fundamental that they are found in international and continental instruments, national constitutions and domestic legislation. In the civil and political sphere they include the right to vote, to freedom of association, speech and assembly, right to life, privacy and fair trial. In the economic and social sphere you have the right to work, protection of the family, social security and rights to education, health and shelter. In some instance some rights can be suspended in times of public emergency but such derogations shall be circumscribed by the law and in most constitutions such limitations are subject to judicial review. However, some rights are so crucial that they cannot be derogated from under any circumstances and these include the right to life, recognition before the law, freedom from torture and slavery and of thought, conscience and religion. International jurisprudence has been developed to protect fundamental rights and avoid discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language or social origin. The elaborate protection system go to show that these rights have become part of the international order and they have universal application. We have now got to a stage where UDHR, ICCPR and ICESCR and have come to be regarded as part of an international bill of rights with horizontal and vertical enforcement mechanisms involving state parties, NGO’s , international bodies and other organs.

Keywords: rights, international, constitutional, state, judiciary

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Authors: Stephen A. Akinlabi, Esther T. Akinlabi

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The drip irrigation system is one of the important areas that affect the livelihood of farmers directly. The use of drip irrigation system has been the most efficient system compared to the other types of irrigations systems because the drip irrigation helps to save water and increase the productivity of crops. But like any other system, it can be considered inefficient when the filters and the emitters get clogged while in operation. The efficiency of the entire system is reduced when the emitters are clogged and blocked. This consequently impact and affect the farm operations which may result in scarcity of farm products and increase the demand. This design work focuses on how to overcome some of the challenges affecting drip irrigation system through the design of an efficient filtration and flushing system.

Keywords: drip irrigation system, filters, soil texture, mechanical engineering design, analysis

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Authors: Vincent Andrew Cappellano

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In the early phases of critical infrastructure system design, translating distributed computing requirements to an architecture has risk given the multitude of approaches (e.g., cloud, edge, fog). In many systems, a single requirement for system uptime / availability is used to encompass the system’s intended operations. However, when architected systems may perform to those availability requirements only during normal operations and not during component failure, or during outages caused by adversary attacks on critical infrastructure (e.g., physical, cyber). System designers lack a structured method to evaluate availability requirements against candidate system architectures through deep degradation scenarios (i.e., normal ops all the way down to significant damage of communications or physical nodes). This increases risk of poor selection of a candidate architecture due to the absence of insight into true performance for systems that must operate as a piece of critical infrastructure. This research effort proposes a process to analyze critical infrastructure system availability requirements and a candidate set of systems architectures, producing a metric assessing these architectures over a spectrum of degradations to aid in selecting appropriate resilient architectures. To accomplish this effort, a set of simulation and evaluation efforts are undertaken that will process, in an automated way, a set of sample requirements into a set of potential architectures where system functions and capabilities are distributed across nodes. Nodes and links will have specific characteristics and based on sampled requirements, contribute to the overall system functionality, such that as they are impacted/degraded, the impacted functional availability of a system can be determined. A machine learning reinforcement-based agent will structurally impact the nodes, links, and characteristics (e.g., bandwidth, latency) of a given architecture to provide an assessment of system functional uptime/availability under these scenarios. By varying the intensity of the attack and related aspects, we can create a structured method of evaluating the performance of candidate architectures against each other to create a metric rating its resilience to these attack types/strategies. Through multiple simulation iterations, sufficient data will exist to compare this availability metric, and an architectural recommendation against the baseline requirements, in comparison to existing multi-factor computing architectural selection processes. It is intended that this additional data will create an improvement in the matching of resilient critical infrastructure system requirements to the correct architectures and implementations that will support improved operation during times of system degradation due to failures and infrastructure attacks.

Keywords: architecture, resiliency, availability, cyber-attack

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Authors: Endale Fantahun Tadesse, Sabika Khalid

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The global call for increased male representation in early childhood education (ECE) has garnered significant attention. Emerging studies have indicated that involving men in ECE can yield positive outcomes for children's physical and psychological development. Challenging the prevailing misconception and stereotype that women dominate the ECE sector is crucial. In light of this, the present study undertakes a systematic review of nine studies on males working in ECE, revealing a dearth of male presence in the field in China as well. To address this issue, substantial structural changes must be implemented to enhance the inadequate pay and working conditions that dissuade both men and women from pursuing a sustainable career in ECE. It is recommended that school leadership raise awareness among female teachers and parents, encouraging them to support and uphold virtuous values for male teachers. Additionally, governing bodies should provide explicit guidelines during training programs to address concerns regarding potential abuse and gender biases. The findings of this review underscore the need for future studies to examine the self-identities of male teachers from various stakeholders' perspectives and explore the consequences of being in the profession through rigorous and robust methodologies that can inform policymakers.

Keywords: male teachers, Early Childhood Education (ECE), self-identity, perception of stakeholders

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Authors: Deanne McArthur, Melinda Wall, Claire Hanlon, Dana Agnolin, Krista Davis, Melanie Dennis, Elizabeth Glidden, Anne Marie Smith, Claudette Thomson

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Background and significance: Patients with eating disorders have traditionally been an underserviced population within the publicly-funded Canadian healthcare system. This situation was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying public health measures, such as “lockdowns” which led to increased isolation, changes in routine, and other disruptions. Illness severity and prevalence rose significantly with corresponding increases in patient suffering and poor outcomes. In Ontario, Canada, the provincial government responded by increasing funding for the treatment of eating disorders, including the launch of a new day program at an intermediate, regional health centre that already housed an outpatient treatment service. The funding was received in March 2022. The care team sought to optimize this opportunity by designing a program that would fit well within the resource-constrained context in Ontario. Methods: This case study will detail how the team consulted the literature and sought patient and family input to design a program that optimizes patient outcomes and supports for patients and families while they await treatment. Early steps include a review of the literature, expert consultation and patient and family focus groups. Interprofessional consensus was sought at each step with the team adopting a shared leadership and patient-centered approach. Methods will include interviews, observations and document reviews to detail a rich description of the process undertaken to design the program, including evaluation measures adopted. Interim findings pertaining to the early stages of the program-building process will be detailed as well as early lessons and ongoing evolution of the program and design process. Program implementation and outcome evaluation will continue throughout 2022 and early 2023 with further publication and presentation of study results expected in the summer of 2023. The aim of this study is to contribute to the body of knowledge pertaining to the design and implementation of eating disorder treatment services that combine outpatient and day treatment services in a resource-constrained context.

Keywords: eating disorders, day program, interprofessional, outpatient, adolescents, transitional aged youth

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Authors: Young-Kwan Choi, Han-Sang Jeong

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Floating photovoltaic system is a technology that combines photovoltaic power generation with floating structure. However, since floating technology has not been utilized in photovoltaic generation, there are no standardized criteria. It is separately developed and used by different installation bodies. This paper aims to discuss the change of floating photovoltaic system technology based on examples of floating photovoltaic systems installed in Korea.

Keywords: floating photovoltaic system, floating PV installation, ocean floating photovoltaic system, tracking type floating photovoltaic system

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Authors: Muhammad Hassan Khalil, Xu Jiadong

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Early detection through screening is the best tool short of a perfect treatment against the malignant tumor inside the breast of a woman. By detecting cancer in its early stages, it can be recognized and treated before it has the opportunity to spread and change into potentially dangerous. Microwave tomography is a new imaging method based on contrast in dielectric properties of materials. The mathematical theory of microwave tomography involves solving an inverse problem for Maxwell’s equations. In this paper, we present designed antenna for breast cancer detection, which will use in microwave tomography configuration.

Keywords: microwave imaging, inverse scattering, breast cancer, malignant tumor detection

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Authors: Issa Hussein Manita

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This paper presents an example of industrial information system design and implementation (IIDC), the most common software engineering design steps that are applied to the different design stages. We are going through the life cycle of software system development. We start by a study of system requirement and end with testing and delivering system, going by system design and coding, program integration and system integration step. The most modern software design tools available used in the design this includes, but not limited to, Unified Modeling Language (UML), system modeling, SQL server side application, uses case analysis, design and testing as applied to information processing systems. The system is designed to perform tasks specified by the client with real data. By the end of the implementation of the system, default or user defined acceptance policy to provide an overall score as an indication of the system performance is used. To test the reliability of he designed system, it is tested in different environment and different work burden such as multi-user environment.

Keywords: software engineering, design, system requirement, integration, unified modeling language

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Authors: Marvin R. Tenecio

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The analysis of "religious resistance" has been prevalent in Asian and Philippine studies. Discussions on religious resistance from a variety of perspectives are deemed as crucial turning points in the concept's ongoing development and expansion. By broadening the backdrop of religious protest between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, the researchers contend that a study examining the role carried by the Catholic Church in the upheavals against dictatorships in South Korea and the Philippines would be beneficial to the body of knowledge. This study examines a variety of historical writings about the activities occurring at that time. The researchers also compare and contrast the Catholic Church's contributions to the Korean and Philippine resistance against Park Chung-Hee and Ferdinand Marcos Sr., respectively, during the early 1960s until the late 1980s, using the lens of history from below, particularly the Pasyon and Revolution. The Catholic Church stood out against human rights abuses, promoted social justice, and mobilized the public for political reform in response to the dictatorships in South Korea and the Philippines. Even though the specific circumstances and personalities may have changed, the Church's position in both countries was vital in opposing authoritarian governments and supporting democratic movements.

Keywords: resistance, movements, catholic, church, dictatorship

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Authors: Kevin W. Zobrist, Patricia A. Townsend, Nora M. Haider

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Advanced Hardwood Biofuels Northwest (AHB) is a consortium funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to research the potential for a system to produce advanced biofuels (jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline) from hybrid poplar in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. An Extension team was established as part of the project to examine community readiness and willingness to adopt hybrid as a purpose-grown bioenergy crop. The Extension team surveyed key stakeholder groups, including growers, Extension professionals, policy makers, and environmental groups, to examine attitudes and concerns about growing hybrid poplar for biofuels. The surveys found broad skepticism about the viability of such a system. The top concern for most stakeholder groups was economic viability and the availability of predictable markets. Growers had additional concerns stemming from negative past experience with hybrid poplar as an unprofitable endeavor for pulp and paper production. Additional barriers identified included overall land availability and the availability of water and water rights for irrigation in dry areas of the region. Since the beginning of the project, oil and natural gas prices have plummeted due to rapid increases in domestic production. This has exacerbated the problem with economic viability by making biofuels even less competitive than fossil fuels. However, the AHB project has identified intermediate market opportunities to use poplar as a renewable source for other biochemicals produced by petroleum refineries, such as acetic acid, ethyl acetate, ethanol, and ethylene. These chemicals can be produced at a lower cost with higher yields and higher, more-stable prices. Despite these promising market opportunities, the survey results suggest that it will still be challenging to induce growers to adopt hybrid poplar. Early adopters will be needed to establish an initial feedstock supply for a budding industry. Through demonstration sites and outreach events to various stakeholder groups, the project attracted interest from wastewater treatment facilities, since these facilities are already growing hybrid poplar plantations for applying biosolids and treated wastewater for further purification, clarification, and nutrient control through hybrid poplar’s phytoremediation capabilities. Since these facilities are already using hybrid poplar, selling the wood as feedstock for a biorefinery would be an added bonus rather than something requiring a high rate of return to compete with other crops and land uses. By holding regional workshops and conferences with wastewater professionals, AHB Extension has found strong interest from wastewater treatment operators. In conclusion, there are several significant barriers to developing a successful system for producing biofuels from hybrid poplar, with the largest barrier being economic viability. However, there is potential for wastewater treatment facilities to serve as early adopters for hybrid poplar production for intermediate biochemicals and eventually biofuels.

Keywords: hybrid poplar, biofuels, biochemicals, wastewater treatment

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Authors: Emma Avoyan

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The safety standards for flood protection in the Netherlands have been revised recently. It is expected that all major flood-protection structures will have to be reinforced to meet the new standards. The Dutch Flood Protection Programme aims at accomplishing this task through innovative integrated projects such as construction of multi-functional flood defenses. In these projects, flood safety purposes will be combined with spatial planning, nature development, emergency management or other sectoral objectives. Therefore, implementation of dike reinforcement projects requires early involvement and collaboration between public and private sectors, different governmental actors and agencies. The development and implementation of such integrated projects has been an issue in Dutch flood risk management since long. Therefore, this article analyses how cross-sector collaboration within flood risk governance in the Netherlands has evolved over time, and how this development can be explained. The integrative framework for collaborative governance is applied as an analytical tool to map external factors framing possibilities as well as constraints for cross-sector collaboration in Dutch flood risk domain. Supported by an extensive document and literature analysis, the paper offers insights on how the system context and different drivers changing over time either promoted or hindered cross-sector collaboration between flood protection sector, urban development, nature conservation or any other sector involved in flood risk governance. The system context refers to the multi-layered and interrelated suite of conditions that influence the formation and performance of complex governance systems, such as collaborative governance regimes, whereas the drivers initiate and enable the overall process of collaboration. In addition, by applying a method of process tracing we identify a causal and chronological chain of events shaping cross-sectoral interaction in Dutch flood risk management. Our results indicate that in order to evaluate the performance of complex governance systems, it is important to firstly study the system context that shapes it. Clear understanding of the system conditions and drivers for collaboration gives insight into the possibilities of and constraints for effective performance of complex governance systems. The performance of the governance system is affected by the system conditions, while at the same time the governance system can also change the system conditions. Our results show that the sequence of changes within the system conditions and drivers over time affect how cross-sector interaction in Dutch flood risk governance system happens now. Moreover, we have traced the potential of this governance system to shape and change the system context.

Keywords: collaborative governance, cross-sector interaction, flood risk management, the Netherlands

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Authors: Satien Janpla, Kunyanuth Kularbphettong

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This paper aims to present the development of a web‑based system to serve the need of selling OTOP products in Samut Songkhram, Thailand. This system was designed to promote and sell OTOP products on website. We describe the design approaches and functional components of this system. The system was developed by PHP and JavaScript and MySQL database System. To evaluate the system performance, questionnaires were used to measure user satisfaction with system usability by specialists and users. The results were satisfactory as followed: Means for specialists and users were 4.05 and 3.97, and standard deviation for specialists and users were 0.563 and 0.644 respectively. Further analysis showed that the quality of One Tambon One Product (OTOP) Website was also at a good level as well.

Keywords: web-based system, OTOP, product, website

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Authors: Bander Mohayya Alotaibi

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The valuable partnerships between parents and teachers may develop positive and effective interactions between home and school. This will help these stakeholders share information and resources regarding student academics during ongoing interactions. Thus, partnerships will build a solid foundation for both families and schools to help children succeed in school. Parental involvement can be seen as an effective tool that can change homes and communities and not just schools’ systems. Seeking parents and stakeholders’ attitudes toward learning and learners can help schools design a curriculum. Subsequently, this information can be used to find ways to help improve the academic performance of students, especially in low performing schools. There may be some conflicts when designing curriculum. In addition, designing curriculum might bring more educational expectations to all the sides. There is a lack of research that targets the specific attitude of parents toward specific concepts on curriculum contents. More research is needed to study the perspective that parents of children with learning disabilities (LD) have regarding early reading curriculum. Parents and stakeholders’ perspectives on early reading intervention implemented as a curriculum for children with LD was studied through an advanced quantitative research. The purpose of this study seeks to understand stakeholders and parents’ perspectives of key concepts and essential early reading skills that impact the design of curriculum that will serve as an intervention for early struggler readers who have LD. Those concepts or stages include phonics, phonological awareness, and reading fluency as well as strategies used in house by parents. A survey instrument was used to gather the data. Participants were recruited through 29 schools and districts of the metropolitan area of the northern part of Saudi Arabia. Participants were stakeholders including parents of children with learning disability. Data were collected using distribution of paper and pen survey to schools. Psychometric properties of the instrument were evaluated for the validity and reliability of the survey; face validity, content validity, and construct validity including an Exploratory Factor Analysis were used to shape and reevaluate the structure of the instrument. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) used to find differences between the variables. The study reported the results of the perspectives of stakeholders toward reading strategies, phonics, phonological awareness, and reading fluency. Also, suggestions and limitations are discussed.

Keywords: stakeholders, learning disability, early reading, perspectives, parents, intervention, curriculum

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Authors: Nyamela M. ‘Masekhohola, Khanare P. Fumane

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The Lesotho downward trend in mathematics attainment at all levels is compounded by the absence of innovative approaches to teaching and learning in Early Childhood. However, studies have shown that play pedagogy can be used to mitigate the challenges of mathematics education. Despite the benefits of play pedagogy to rural learners, its full potential has not been realized in early childhood care and education classrooms to improve children’s performance in mathematics because the adoption of play pedagogy depends on a strength-based approach. The study explores the potential of play pedagogy to improve mathematics education in early childhood care and education in Lesotho. Strength-based approach is known for its advocacy of recognizing and utilizing children’s strengths, capacities and interests. However, this approach and its promisingattributes is not well-known in Lesotho. In particular, little is known about the attributes of play pedagogy that are essential to improve mathematic education in ECCE programs in Lesotho. To identify such attributes and strengthen mathematics education, this systematic review examines evidence published on the strengths of play pedagogy that supports the teaching and learning of mathematics education in ECCE. The purpose of this review is, therefore, to identify and define the strengths of play pedagogy that supports mathematics education. Moreover, the study intends to understand the rural teachers’ perceived intention of using play in ECCE math classrooms through a strength-based approach. Eight key strengths were found (cues for reflection, edutainment, mathematics language development, creativity and imagination, cognitive promotion, exploration, classification, and skills development). This study is the first to identify and define the strength-based attributes of play pedagogy to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in ECCE centers in Lesotho. The findings reveal which opportunities teachers find important for improving the teaching of mathematics as early as in ECCE programs. We conclude by discussing the implications of the literature for stimulating dialogues towards formulating strength-based approaches to teaching mathematics, as well as reflecting on the broader contributions of play pedagogy as an asset to improve mathematics in Lesotho and beyond.

Keywords: early childhood education, mathematics education, lesotho, play pedagogy, strength-based approach.

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Authors: Achitphol Chookaew, Paramee Thongsukhsai, Patamarerk Engsontia, Narongwit Nakwan, Pritsana Raugrut

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Lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies and primary cause of death due to cancer worldwide. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the main subtype in which majority of patients present with advanced-stage disease. Herein, we analyzed differentially expressed genes to find potential biomarkers for lung cancer diagnosis as well as prognostic markers. We used transcriptome data from our 2 NSCLC patients and public data (GSE81089) composing of 8 NSCLC and 10 normal lung tissues. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between NSCLC and normal tissue and between early-stage and late-stage NSCLC were analyzed by the DESeq2. Pairwise correlation was used to find the DEGs with false discovery rate (FDR) adjusted p-value £ 0.05 and |log2 fold change| ³ 4 for NSCLC versus normal and FDR adjusted p-value £ 0.05 with |log2 fold change| ³ 2 for early versus late-stage NSCLC. Bioinformatic tools were used for functional and pathway analysis. Moreover, the top ten genes in each comparison group were verified the expression and survival analysis via GEPIA. We found 150 up-regulated and 45 down-regulated genes in NSCLC compared to normal tissues. Many immnunoglobulin-related genes e.g., IGHV4-4, IGHV5-10-1, IGHV4-31, IGHV4-61, and IGHV1-69D were significantly up-regulated. 22 genes were up-regulated, and five genes were down-regulated in late-stage compared to early-stage NSCLC. The top five DEGs genes were KRT6B, SPRR1A, KRT13, KRT6A and KRT5. Keratin 6B (KRT6B) was the most significantly increased gene in the late-stage NSCLC. From GEPIA analysis, we concluded that IGHV4-31 and IGKV1-9 might be used as diagnostic biomarkers, while KRT6B and KRT6A might be used as prognostic biomarkers. However, further clinical validation is needed.

Keywords: differentially expressed genes, early and late-stages, gene ontology, non-small cell lung cancer transcriptomics

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Authors: N. Khodarahmi, L. Ford

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Decades of research on the impact of trauma in early childhood suggest severe risks to the mental health, emotional, social and physical development of a young child. Trauma-exposed students can pose a variety of different levels of challenges to schools and educators of young children and to date, few studies have addressed ECE teachers’ role in providing trauma support. The present study aims to contribute to this literature by exploring the beliefs of British Columbia’s (BC) early childhood education (ECE) teachers in their level of readiness and capability to work within a trauma-informed practice (TIP) framework to support their trauma-exposed students. Through a sequential, mix-methods approach, a self-report questionnaire and semi-structured interviews will be used to gauge BC ECE teachers’ knowledge of TIP, their preparedness, and their ability in using this framework to support their most vulnerable students. Teacher participants will be recruited through the ECEBC organization and various school districts in the Greater Vancouver Area. Questionnaire data will be primarily collected through an online survey tool whereas interviews will be taking place in-person and audio-recorded. Data analysis of survey responses will be largely descriptive, whereas interviews, once transcribed, will be employing thematic content analysis to generate themes from teacher responses. Ultimately, this study hopes to highlight the necessity of utilizing the TIP framework in BC ECE classrooms in order to support both trauma-exposed students and provide essential resources to compassionate educators of young children.

Keywords: early childhood education, early learning classrooms, refugee students, trauma-exposed students, trauma-informed practice

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Authors: Mohammadsadegh Zanganehfar

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Since the introduction of fractal geometry in 1970, numerous efforts have been made by architects and researchers to transfer this area of mathematical knowledge in the discipline of architecture and postmodernist discourse. The discourse of complexity and architecture is one of the most significant ongoing discourses in the discipline of architecture from the '70s until today and has generated significant styles such as deconstructivism and parametrism in architecture. During these years, several projects were designed and presented by designers and architects using fractal geometry, but due to the lack of sufficient knowledge and appropriate comprehension of the features and characteristics of this nonlinear geometry, none of the fractal-based designs have been successful and satisfying. Fractal geometry as a geometric technology has a long presence in the history of architecture. The current research attempts to identify and discover the characteristics, features, potentials, and functionality of fractals despite their aesthetic aspect by examining case studies of pre-modern architecture in Asia and investigating the function of fractals.

Keywords: Asian architecture, fractal geometry, fractal technique, geometric properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 252

Authors: Jay L. Fu

Abstract:

Patients with Alzheimer's disease progressively lose their memory and thinking skills and, eventually, the ability to carry out simple daily tasks. The disease is irreversible, but early detection and treatment can slow down the disease progression. In this research, publicly available MRI data and demographic data from 373 MRI imaging sessions were utilized to build models to predict dementia. Various machine learning models, including logistic regression, k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, random forest, and neural network, were developed. Data were divided into training and testing sets, where training sets were used to build the predictive model, and testing sets were used to assess the accuracy of prediction. Key risk factors were identified, and various models were compared to come forward with the best prediction model. Among these models, the random forest model appeared to be the best model with an accuracy of 90.34%. MMSE, nWBV, and gender were the three most important contributing factors to the detection of Alzheimer’s. Among all the models used, the percent in which at least 4 of the 5 models shared the same diagnosis for a testing input was 90.42%. These machine learning models allow early detection of Alzheimer’s with good accuracy, which ultimately leads to early treatment of these patients.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, clinical diagnosis, magnetic resonance imaging, machine learning prediction

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Şule Yanık, Emel Ertürk-Mustul, Zerrin Turan, Hasan Gürgür

Abstract:

It is known that there are policies that will support the early special education (ESE) for children requiring special care including the children with hearing loss (CHL) in many countries that give importance to early childhood (0-6 years) education, accordingly ESE services have been gradually increasing and these services provide positive contributions to the child and family. These services begin with medical diagnostics, provision of the use of assistive technologies for hearing and the orientation of children towards early education program (EEP) for the CHL. In 0-3 years of age EEP, education and support services are provided to the children and their families. In 3-6 years of age, children are supported in a pre-school education program (PSE) in which their peers and teachers are present. Therefore, the children with hearing loss and their families are going through a series of medical, educational and social transition process after diagnosed with hearing loss. Depending on their age and development, CHL also go through a transition period from hospital to home, from home to EEP and from EEP to PSE. It is seen that there is no legal regulation regarding the transition process in Turkey and hence different processes have been carried out in the transition process from EEP to PSE. The aim of this study is to reveal the problems confronted by the CHL during the transition period from EEP to PSE and the solution proposals for these problems. In this study, a document review was made by reviewing the national and international studies about transition processes of the CHL in Turkey from EEP to PSE. Accordingly, in the study carried out in two stages, firstly, a review of the body of literature was performed by creating key words related to the subject. Secondly, the problems confronted by the CHL in Turkey during the transition period from EEP to PSE and the solution proposals for these problems were demonstrated by analyzing the obtained data. According to the body of literature, it is seen that there are no laws concerning the transition processes of the children who require special care including the CHL in Turkey from EEP (sending) to PSE (receiving), and correspondingly numerous problems have been experienced during the transition period. It seems that the EEP adopts family-centered approaches for strengthening the families of the CHL. However, PSE program aims to prepare the children to school life by focusing on their social and academical development rather with the adoption of children-centered approaches. Therefore, while the families feel an inseparable part of the team in EEP, they indicated that they felt like a stranger in the school team after their children have started to PSE. Therefore, families find the transition processes worrisome and state that they are not satisfied with the process. We discovered that in the process of transition from EEP to PSE, families are not informed, there is a limited number of PSE options available, children cannot adapt to the new educational environment and cannot benefit from the existing PSE.

Keywords: early education program, early special education, children with hearing loss, transition

Procedia PDF Downloads 135

Authors: Sejin Jung, Dongho Kang, Byungsik Kim

Abstract:

Assessing the impact of climate change requires the use of a multi-model ensemble (MME) to quantify uncertainties between scenarios and produce downscaled outlines for simulation of climate under the influence of different factors, including topography. This study decreases climate change scenarios from the 13 global climate models (GCMs) to assess the impacts of future climate change. Unlike South Korea, North Korea lacks in studies using climate change scenarios of the CoupledModelIntercomparisonProject (CMIP5), and only recently did the country start the projection of extreme precipitation episodes. One of the main purposes of this study is to predict changes in the average climatic conditions of North Korea in the future. The result of comparing downscaled climate change scenarios with observation data for a reference period indicates high applicability of the Multi-Model Ensemble (MME). Furthermore, the study classifies climatic zones by applying the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system to the MME, which is validated for future precipitation and temperature. The result suggests that the continental climate (D) that covers the inland area for the reference climate is expected to shift into the temperate climate (C). The coefficient of variation (CVs) in the temperature ensemble is particularly low for the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, and accordingly, a high possibility of the shifting climatic zone of the coast is predicted. This research was supported by a grant (MOIS-DP-2015-05) of Disaster Prediction and Mitigation Technology Development Program funded by Ministry of Interior and Safety (MOIS, Korea).

Keywords: MME, North Korea, Koppen–Geiger, climatic zones, coefficient of variation, CV

Procedia PDF Downloads 109

Authors: E. Karami, M. Bohloul, P. Najmadi

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The superconducting system is a suitable system for quantum computers. Quantum entanglement is a fundamental phenomenon that is key to the power of quantum computers. Quantum entanglement has been studied in different superconducting systems. In this paper, we are investigating a superconducting two-qubit system as a macroscopic system. These systems include two coupled Quantronium circuits. We calculate quantum entanglement and thermalization for system evolution and compare them. We observe, thermalization and entanglement have different behavior, and equilibrium thermal state has maximum entanglement.

Keywords: macroscopic system, quantum entanglement, thermalization, superconducting system

Procedia PDF Downloads 148

Authors: Ng'etich K. Stephen

Abstract:

Abstract—Globally analytics in basketball has advanced tremendously in the last decade. Organizations are leveraging the insights to improve team and player performance and, in the long run, generate revenue out of it. Due to limited basketball game-related statistics in African competitions, teams are unaware of how they compete with other continental basketball teams. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the regional difference in basketball game-related statistics between African teams that played in the newly formed league, the basketball African league and the European league. The basketball African league, a competition created through the partnership between NBA and FIBA, offers a good starting point since it has valuable basketball metrics to analyze. This study sought to use multivariate linear discriminant analysis to identify the game-related statistics that discriminate the teams in Euro league and the basketball African league.

Keywords: basketball africa league, basketball, euroleague, fiba, africa

Procedia PDF Downloads 97

Authors: Abdurraouf O. Gaja, Salah Y. A. Al-Dahash, Guru Solmon Raju, Chikara Kubota

Abstract:

Corpus luteum cross sectional (by ultrasonography) and plasma progesterone (by DELFIA) were estimated in early pregnant and non pregnant cows on days 14th and 20th to 23rd post insemination. On day 14th, corpus luteum sectional area was 348.43 mm2 in pregnant and 387.84mm2 in non pregnant cows. Within days 20th to 23rd, corpus luteum sectional area ranged between 342.06 and 367.90 mm2 in pregnant and between 193.85 and 270.69 mm2 in non pregnant cows. Plasma progesterone level was 2.43 ng/ml in pregnant and 2.46 ng/ml in non pregnant cows on day 14th, while during days 20th to 23rd the level ranged between 2.47 and 2,84 ng/ml in pregnant and between 0.53 and 1.17 ng/ml in non pregnant cows. Results of both luteal tissue areas as well as plasma progesterone levels were highly significantly deferent (P<0.01) between pregnant and non pregnant cows during days 20th to 23rd, but there were no significant differences on day 14th. The correlation between CL cross-sectional area and plasma progesterone level was 0.4 in pregnant cows and 0.99 in non pregnant cow. It is clear, from this study, that ultrasonic assessment of corpora lutea is a viable alternative to determine plasma progesterone levels for early pregnancy diagnosis in cows.

Keywords: progesterone, ultrasonography, corpus luteum, pregnancy diagnosis, cow

Procedia PDF Downloads 303

Authors: Amjaad Alsalamah, Liyakathunsia Syed

Abstract:

Transportation is an essential need for many people to go to their work, school, and home. In particular, the main common method inside many cities is to drive the car. Driving a car can be an easy job to reach the destination and load all stuff in a reasonable time. However, deciding to find a parking lot for a car can take a long time using the traditional system that can issue a paper ticket for each customer. The old system cannot guarantee a parking lot for all customers. Also, payment methods are not always available, and many customers struggled to find their car among a numerous number of cars. As a result, this research focuses on providing an online smart parking system in order to save time and budget. This system provides a flexible management system for both parking owner and customers by receiving all request via the online system and it gets an accurate result for all available parking and its location.

Keywords: smart parking system, IoT, tracking system, process model, cost, time

Procedia PDF Downloads 331