Search results for: nurse schedule problem

Authors: Gulnaz Erkomaishvili

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Introduction. One of the most important issues of state economic policy in the 21st century is the problem of environmental protection. The Georgian government considers the green economy as one of the most important means of sustainable economic development and takes the initiative to implement voluntary measures to promote sustainable development. In this context, it is important to promote the development of ecosystem services, clean production, environmental education and green jobs.The development of the green economy significantly reduces the inefficient use of natural resources, waste generation, emissions into the atmosphere and the discharge of untreated water into bodies of water.It is, therefore, an important instrument in the environmental orientation of sustainable development. Objectives.The aim of the paper is to analyze the current status of the green economy in Georgia and identify effective ways to improve the environmental, economic policy of sustainable development. Methodologies: This paper uses general and specific methods, in particular, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, scientific abstraction, comparative and statistical methods, as well as experts’ evaluation. bibliographic research of scientific works and reports of organizations was conducted; Publications of the National Statistics Office of Georgia are used to determine the regularity between analytical and statistical estimations. Also, theoretical and applied research of international organizations and scientist-economists are used. Contributions: The country should implement such an economic policy that ensures the transition to a green economy, in particular, revising water, air and waste laws, strengthening existing environmental management tools and introcing new tools (including economic tools). Perfecting the regulatory legal framework of the environmental impact assessment system, which includes the harmonization of Georgian legislation with the requirements of the European Union. To ensure the protection and rational use of Georgia's forests, emphasis should be placed on sustainable forestry, protection and restoration of forests.

Keywords: green economy, environmental protection, environmental protection economic policy, environmental protection policy challanges

Procedia PDF Downloads 63

Authors: Norzaliza Md. Nor, Sh-Hussain Salleh, Mahyar Hamedi, Hadrina Hussain, Wahab Abdul Rahman

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Motivational factor is mainly the students’ desire to involve in learning process. However, it also depends on the goal towards their involvement or non-involvement in academic activity. Even though, the students’ motivation might be in the same level, but the basis of their motivation may differ. In this study, it focuses on the intrinsic motivational factor which student enjoy learning or feeling of accomplishment the activity or study for its own sake. The intrinsic motivational factor of students in learning mathematics and science has found as difficult to be achieved because it depends on students’ interest. In the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for mathematics and science, Malaysia is ranked as third lowest. The main problem in Malaysian educational system, students tend to have extrinsic motivation which they have to score in exam in order to achieve a good result and enrolled as university students. The use of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals has found to be scarce especially to identify the students’ intrinsic motivational factor in learning science and mathematics. In this research study, we are identifying the correlation between precursor emotion and its dynamic emotion to verify the intrinsic motivational factor of students in learning mathematics and science. The 2-D Affective Space Model (ASM) was used in this research in order to identify the relationship of precursor emotion and its dynamic emotion based on the four basic emotions, happy, calm, fear and sad. These four basic emotions are required to be used as reference stimuli. Then, in order to capture the brain waves, EEG device was used, while Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) was adopted to be used for extracting the features before it will be feed to Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) to classify the valence and arousal axes for the ASM. The results show that the precursor emotion had an influence the dynamic emotions and it identifies that most students have no interest in mathematics and science according to the negative emotion (sad and fear) appear in the EEG signals. We hope that these results can help us further relate the behavior and intrinsic motivational factor of students towards learning of mathematics and science.

Keywords: EEG, MLP, MFCC, intrinsic motivational factor

Procedia PDF Downloads 364

Authors: Tadesse Menjetta, Daniel Dana, Serkadis Debalke

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Schistosomiasis/Bilharziasis is one of the neglected tropical parasitic diseases caused by different species of genus Schistosoma. Among the species, S. mansoni (causative agents of intestinal schistosomiasis) is one of the causes of severe intestinal parasitic infections with high public and medical importance in Ethiopia. There is a scarcity of information about the status of S. mansoni infection among the fisherman in our study area and in the country at large. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the prevalence and risk factors of S.mansoni infection among fishermen at Lake Hawassa, southern Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the fishermen from April to June 2013 in Hawassa, Southern Ethiopia. A total of 243 fishermen were included by systematic sampling from the lists of the fishermen members in the registration book of fishermen associations in the Hawassa Town. Data on socio-demographic features and risk factors were collected by using semi-structured questionnaires. Stool samples were collected and processed using Kato-Katz thick smear techniques and examined between 30- 40 minute for hookworm and after 24 hours for S. mansoni and other soil-transmitted helminths (STHs). The overall prevalence of S.mansoni among the fishermen was 29.21% (71/243), and the mean intensity of infection was 158.88 egg per gram (EPG). The prevalence of intestinal helminths including S. mansoni was 69.54% (169/243). Moreover, the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) was 40.74% (99/243), 35.80% (87/243) and 5.76% (14/243) for A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura and hookworm species, respectively. Almost similar prevalence of S.mansoni, 31.82%, 31.75%, 31.94% were recorded in age groups of 15-19, 20-24 and 25-29 years, respectively. Fishermen who are swimming always were 2.92 times [95% CI: 1.554, 5.502] more likely to acquire S. mansoni infection than other water contacting habit of the study participants. The results of the current investigation indicated the moderate endemicity of S. mansoni among the fishermen at Lake Hawassa, southern Ethiopia. Fishermen could be the potential risk group for S. mansoni infection and might be responsible for the transmission of S. mansoni to other segments of the communities. Since the high prevalence of STH was recorded among the fishermen, integrated prevention and control strategies from different sectors might be important to tackle the problem.

Keywords: S. mansoni, soil transmitted helminths, fishermen, Lake Hawassa, Ethiopia

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Authors: Teguh R. Hakim, Frenny F. F. Kairupan, Alberta M. Mantiri

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The face of the coastal city is generally the same as other cities face showing the dualistic, traditional and modern, rural and urbanity, planned and unplanned, slum and high quality. Manado city is located on the northern coastal areas of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Manado city is located on the northern coastal areas of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Urban environmental problems ever occurred in this city, which is the impact of dualistic urban. Overcrowding, inadequate infrastructure, and limited human resources become the main cause of untidiness the coastal settlements in Malalayang. This has an impact on the activities of social, economic, public health level in the environment of coastal City of Manado, Malalayang. This is becoming a serious problem which must be tackled jointly by the government, private parties, and the community. Community-based settlement environment setup, into one solution to realize the city's coastal settlements livable. As for this research aims to analyze the involvement of local communities in arrangements of the settlement. The participatory approach of the model used in this study. Its application is mainly at macro and meso-scale (region, city, and environment) or community architecture. Model participatory approach leads more operational research approach to find a solution/answer to the problems of settlement. The participatory approach is a model for research that involves researchers and society as an object at the same time the subject of research, which in the process in addition to researching also developed other forms of participation in the design and build together. The expected results of this study were able to provide education to the community about environmental and set up a livable settlement for the sake of improving the quality of life. The study also becomes inputs to the government in applying the pattern of development that will be implemented in the future.

Keywords: arrangements the coastal environment, community participation, urban environmental problems, livable settlement

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Authors: Yujie Zhao, Jiantao Weng

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In the past decade, with the rapid development of China's economy, the purchasing power and physical demand of residents have been improved, which results in the vast emergence of public buildings like large shopping malls. However, the architects usually focus on the internal functions and streamlines of these buildings, ignoring the impact of the environment on the subjective feelings of building users. Only in Zhejiang province, the infiltration of cold air in winter frequently occurs at the entrance of sizeable commercial complex buildings that have been in operation, which will affect the environmental comfort of the building lobby and internal public spaces. At present, to reduce these adverse effects, it is usually adopted to add active equipment, such as setting air curtains to block air exchange or adding heating air conditioners. From the perspective of energy consumption, the infiltration of cold air into the entrance will increase the heat consumption of indoor heating equipment, which will indirectly cause considerable economic losses during the whole winter heating stage. Therefore, it is of considerable significance to explore the suitable entrance forms for improving the environmental comfort of commercial buildings and saving energy. In this paper, a commercial complex with apparent cold air infiltration problem in Hangzhou is selected as the research object to establish a model. The environmental parameters of the building entrance, including temperature, wind speed, and infiltration air volume, are obtained by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation, from which the heat consumption caused by the natural air infiltration in the winter and its potential economic loss is estimated as the objective metric. This study finally obtains the optimization direction of the building entrance form of the commercial complex by comparing the simulation results of other local commercial complex projects with different entrance forms. The conclusions will guide the entrance design of the same type of commercial complex in this area.

Keywords: air infiltration, commercial complex, heat consumption, CFD simulation

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Authors: Bikram Jung Kunwar

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Forests have central roles in climate change. The conservation of forests sequestrates the carbon from the atmosphere and also regulates the carbon cycle. However, knowingly and unknowingly the world’s forests were deforested and degraded annually at the rate of 0.18% and emitted the carbon to the atmosphere. The IPCC reports claimed that the deforestation and forest degradation accounts 1/5th of total carbon emission, which is second position after fossil fuels. Since 1.6 billion people depend on varying degree on forests for their daily livelihood, not all deforestation are undesirable. Therefore, to conserve the forests and find the livelihood opportunities for forest surrounding people is prerequisites to address the climate change problems especially in developing countries, and also a growing concern to the forestry sector researchers, planners and policy makers. The study examines the role of community based forest management in carbon mitigation and adaptation taking the examples of Nepal’s community forestry program. In the program, the government hands over a part of national forests to the local communities with sole forest management authorities. However, the government itself retained the ownership rights of forestland. Local communities organized through a local institution called Community Forest User Group (CFUG) managed the forests. They also formed an operational plan with technical prescriptions and a constitution with forest management rules and regulations. The implementation results showed that the CFUGs are not only found effective to organize the local people and construct a local institution to forest conservation and management activities, but also they are able to collect a community fund from the sale of forest products and carried out various community development activities. These development activities have decisive roles to improve the livelihood of forest surrounding people and eventually to address the climate change problems.

Keywords: climate change, community forestry, local institution, Nepal

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Authors: Anshika Kankane, Dongshik Kang

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Marine debris has a significant influence on coastal environments, damaging biodiversity, and causing loss and damage to marine and ocean sector. A functional cost-effective and automatic approach has been used to look up at this problem. Computer vision combined with a deep learning-based model is being proposed to identify and categorize marine debris of seven kinds on different beach locations of Japan. This research compares state-of-the-art deep learning models with a suggested model architecture that is utilized as a feature extractor for debris categorization. The model is being proposed to detect seven categories of litter using a manually constructed debris dataset, with the help of Mask R-CNN for instance segmentation and a shape matching network called HOGShape, which can then be cleaned on time by clean-up organizations using warning notifications of the system. The manually constructed dataset for this system is created by annotating the images taken by fixed KaKaXi camera using CVAT annotation tool with seven kinds of category labels. A pre-trained HOG feature extractor on LIBSVM is being used along with multiple templates matching on HOG maps of images and HOG maps of templates to improve the predicted masked images obtained via Mask R-CNN training. This system intends to timely alert the cleanup organizations with the warning notifications using live recorded beach debris data. The suggested network results in the improvement of misclassified debris masks of debris objects with different illuminations, shapes, viewpoints and litter with occlusions which have vague visibility.

Keywords: computer vision, debris, deep learning, fixed live camera images, histogram of gradients feature extractor, instance segmentation, manually annotated dataset, multiple template matching

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Authors: Xiaoqin Wang, Li Yin

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Background and purpose: In many practices, one estimates causal effects arising from a complex stochastic process, where a sequence of treatments are assigned to influence a certain outcome of interest, and there exist time-dependent covariates between treatments. When covariates are plentiful and/or continuous, statistical modeling is needed to reduce the huge dimensionality of the problem and allow for the estimation of causal effects. Recently, Wang and Yin (Annals of statistics, 2020) derived a new general formula, which expresses these causal effects in terms of the point effects of treatments in single-point causal inference. As a result, it is possible to conduct the modeling via point effects. The purpose of the work is to study the modeling of these causal effects via point effects. Challenges and solutions: The time-dependent covariates often have influences from earlier treatments as well as on subsequent treatments. Consequently, the standard parameters – i.e., the mean of the outcome given all treatments and covariates-- are essentially all different (null paradox). Furthermore, the dimension of the parameters is huge (curse of dimensionality). Therefore, it can be difficult to conduct the modeling in terms of standard parameters. Instead of standard parameters, we have use point effects of treatments to develop likelihood-based parametric approach to the modeling of these causal effects and are able to model the causal effects of a sequence of treatments by modeling a small number of point effects of individual treatment Achievements: We are able to conduct the modeling of the causal effects from a sequence of treatments in the familiar framework of single-point causal inference. The simulation shows that our method achieves not only an unbiased estimate for the causal effect but also the nominal level of type I error and a low level of type II error for the hypothesis testing. We have applied this method to a longitudinal study of COVID-19 mortality among Scandinavian countries and found that the Swedish approach performed far worse than the other countries' approach for COVID-19 mortality and the poor performance was largely due to its early measure during the initial period of the pandemic.

Keywords: causal effect, point effect, statistical modelling, sequential causal inference

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Authors: Nikhil A. Gavhane, Sachin Shah, Ishant S. Mahajan, Pawan D. Bahekar

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Introduction: Millions of people are affected with dengue fever every year, which drives up healthcare expenses in many low-income countries. Organ failure and other serious symptoms may result. Another worldwide public health problem is sickle cell anaemia, which is most prevalent in Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe. Dengue epidemics have reportedly occurred in locations with a high frequency of sickle cell disease, compounding the health problems in these areas. Aims and Objectives: This study examines dengue infection in sickle cell disease-afflicted pre-schoolers. Method:This Retrospective cohort study examined paediatric patients. Young people with sickle cell disease (SCD), dengue infection, and a control group without SCD or dengue were studied. Data on demographics, SCD consequences, medical treatments, and laboratory findings were gathered to analyse the influence of SCD on dengue severity and clinical outcomes, classified as severe or non-severe by the 2009 WHO classification. Using fever or admission symptoms, the research estimated acute illness duration. Result: Table 1 compares haemoglobin genotype-based dengue episode features in SS, SC, and controls. Table 2 shows that severe dengue cases are older, have longer admission delays, and have particular symptoms. Table 3's multivariate analysis indicates SS genotype's high connection with severe dengue, multiorgan failure, and acute pulmonary problems. Table 4 relates severe dengue to greater white blood cell counts, anaemia, liver enzymes, and reduced lactate dehydrogenase. Conclusion: This study is valuable but confined to hospitalised dengue patients with sickle cell illness. Small cohorts limit comparisons. Further study is needed since findings contradict predictions.

Keywords: dengue, chills, headache, severe myalgia, vomiting, nausea, prostration

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Authors: O’Day Luke

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Purpose: To validate virtual non-contrast reconstructions generated from dual-layer spectral computed tomography (DL-CT) data as an alternative for the acquisition of a dedicated true non-contrast dataset during multiphase contrast studies. Material and methods: Thirty-three patients underwent a routine multiphase clinical CT examination, using Dual-Layer Spectral CT, from March to August 2021. True non-contrast (TNC) and virtual non-contrast (VNC) datasets, generated from both portal venous and arterial phase imaging were evaluated. For every patient in both true and virtual non-contrast datasets, a region-of-interest (ROI) was defined in aorta, liver, fluid (i.e. gallbladder, urinary bladder), kidney, muscle, fat and spongious bone, resulting in 693 ROIs. Differences in attenuation for VNC and TNV images were compared, both separately and combined. Consistency between VNC reconstructions obtained from the arterial and portal venous phase was evaluated. Results: Comparison of CT density (HU) on the VNC and TNC images showed a high correlation. The mean difference between TNC and VNC images (excluding bone results) was 5.5 ± 9.1 HU and > 90% of all comparisons showed a difference of less than 15 HU. For all tissues but spongious bone, the mean absolute difference between TNC and VNC images was below 10 HU. VNC images derived from the arterial and the portal venous phase showed a good correlation in most tissue types. The aortic attenuation was somewhat dependent however on which dataset was used for reconstruction. Bone evaluation with VNC datasets continues to be a problem, as spectral CT algorithms are currently poor in differentiating bone and iodine. Conclusion: Given the increasing availability of DL-CT and proven accuracy of virtual non-contrast processing, VNC is a promising tool for generating additional data during routine contrast-enhanced studies. This study shows the utility of virtual non-contrast scans as an alternative for true non-contrast studies during multiphase CT, with potential for dose reduction, without loss of diagnostic information.

Keywords: dual-layer spectral computed tomography, virtual non-contrast, true non-contrast, clinical comparison

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Authors: Ali Ayatic, Emad Mozaffari, Bahareh Tanhaei, Maryam Khajenoori, Saeedeh Movaghar Khoshkho, Ali Ayati

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The abuse of antibiotics, such as tetracycline (TC), is a great global threat to people and the use of topical antibiotics is a promising tact that can help to solve this problem. Antibiotic therapy is often appropriate and necessary for acute wound infections, while topical tetracycline can be highly efficient in improving the wound healing process in diabetics. Due to the advantages of drug-loaded hydrogels as wound dressing, such as ease of handling, high moisture resistance, excellent biocompatibility, and the ability to activate immune cells to speed wound healing, it was found as an ideal wound treatment. In this work, the tetracycline-loaded hydrogels combining agar (AG) and κ-carrageenan (k-CAR) as polymer materials were prepared, in which span60 surfactant was introduced inside as a drug carrier. The Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopes (FESEM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques were employed to provide detailed information on the morphology, composition, and structure of fabricated drug-loaded hydrogels and their mechanical properties, and hydrogel permeability to water vapor was investigated as well. Two types of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria were used to explore the antibacterial properties of prepared tetracycline-contained hydrogels. Their swelling and drug release behavior was studied using the changing factors such as the ratio of polysaccharides (MAG/MCAR), the span60 surfactant concentration, potassium chloride (KCl) concentration and different release media (deionized water (DW), phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and simulated wound fluid (SWF)) at different times. Finally, the kinetic behavior of hydrogel swelling was studied. Also, the experimental data of TC release to DW, PBS, and SWF using various mathematical models such as Higuchi, Korsmeyer-Peppas, zero-order, and first-order in the linear and nonlinear modes were evaluated.

Keywords: drug release, hydrogel, tetracycline, wound healing

Procedia PDF Downloads 78

Authors: Muhammad Nouman, Fahad Tiwana, Muhammad Irfan, Mohsin Tiwana

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Traffic congestion has been increasing significantly in major metropolitan areas as a result of increased motorization, urbanization, population growth and changes in the urban density. Traffic congestion compromises efficiency of transport infrastructure and causes multiple traffic concerns; including but not limited to increase of travel time, safety hazards, air pollution, and fuel consumption. Traffic management has become a serious challenge for federal and provincial governments, as well as exasperated commuters. Effective, flexible, efficient and user-friendly traffic information/database management systems characterize traffic conditions by making use of traffic counts for storage, processing, and visualization. While, the emerging data collection technologies continue to proliferate, its accuracy can be guaranteed through the comparison of observed data with the manual handheld counters. This paper presents the design of tablet based manual traffic counting application and framework for development of traffic database management system for Pakistan. The database management system comprises of three components including traffic counting android application; establishing online database and its visualization using Google maps. Oracle relational database was chosen to develop the data structure whereas structured query language (SQL) was adopted to program the system architecture. The GIS application links the data from the database and projects it onto a dynamic map for traffic conditions visualization. The traffic counting device and example of a database application in the real-world problem provided a creative outlet to visualize the uses and advantages of a database management system in real time. Also, traffic data counts by means of handheld tablet/ mobile application can be used for transportation planning and forecasting.

Keywords: manual count, emerging data sources, traffic information quality, traffic surveillance, traffic counting device, android; data visualization, traffic management

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Ouassila Bekkal Brikci Benhabib, Zahia Boucherit Otmani, Kebir Boucherit, A. Seghir

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The establishment of intravenous catheters in hospitalized patient is an act common in many clinical situations. These therapeutic tools, from their insertion in the body, represent gateways including fungal germs prone. The latter can generate the growth of biofilms, which can be the cause of fungal infection. Faced with this problem, we conducted a study at the University Hospital of Tlemcen in the neurosurgery unit and aims to isolate and identify Candida yeasts from intravenous catheters. Then test their ability to form biofilms. Materials and methods: 256 patient hospitalized in surgery of the hospital in west Algeria were submitted to this study. All samples were taken from peripheral venous catheters implanted for 72 hours or more days. A total of 31 isolates of Candida species were isolated. MIC and SMIC are determined at 80% inhibition by the test XTT tetrazolium measured at 490 nm. The final concentrations of antifungal agent being between 0.03 and 16 mg / ml for amphotericin B and from 0.015 to 8 mg / mL caspofungin. Results: 31 Candida species isolates from catheters including 14 Candida albicans and 17 Candida non albicans . 21 strains of all the isolates were able to form biofilms. In their form of Planktonic cells, all isolates are 100% susceptible to antifungal agents tested. However, in their state of biofilms, more isolates have become tolerant to the tested antifungals. Conclusion: Candida yeasts isolated from intravascular catheters are considered an important virulence factor in the pathogenesis of infections. Their involvement in catheter-related infections can be disastrous for their potential to generate biofilms. They survive high concentrations of antifungal where treatment failure. Pending the development of a therapeutic approach antibiofilm related to catheters, their mastery is going through: -The risk of infection prevention based on the training and awareness of medical staff, -Strict hygiene and maximum asepsis, and -The choice of material limiting microbial colonization.

Keywords: candida, biofilm, hospital, infection, amphotericin B, caspofungin

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Authors: Xiangjun Li, Huaiyuan Tian, Wujie Zhang, Dianhua Liu

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Polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODE_n) as clean diesel additive can improve the combustion efficiency and quality of diesel fuel and alleviate the problem of atmospheric pollution. Considering synthetic routes, PODE production from methanol and formaldehyde is regarded as the most economical and promising synthetic route. However, methanol used for synthesizing PODE can produce water, which causes the loss of active center of catalyst and hydrolysis of PODE_n in the production process. Macroporous strong acidic cation exchange resin catalyst was prepared, which has comparative advantages over other common solid acid catalysts in terms of stability and catalytic efficiency for synthesizing PODE. Catalytic reactions were carried out under 353 K, 1 MPa and 3mL·g_cat^-1·h^-1 in a fixed bed reactor. Methanol conversion and PODE_3-6 selectivity reached 49.91% and 23.43%, respectively. Catalyst lifetime evaluation showed that resin catalyst retained its catalytic activity for 20 days without significant changes and catalytic activity of completely deactivated resin catalyst can basically return to previous level by simple acid regeneration. The acid exchange capacities of original and deactivated catalyst were 2.5191 and 0.0979 mmol·g^-1, respectively, while regenerated catalyst reached 2.0430 mmol·g^-1, indicating that the main reason for resin catalyst deactivation is that Brønsted acid sites of original resin catalyst were temporarily replaced by non-hydrogen ion cations. A separation process consisting of extraction and distillation for PODE_3-6 product was designed for separation of water and unreacted formaldehyde from reactive mixture and purification of PODE_3-6, respectively. The concentration of PODE_3-6 in final product can reach up to 97%. These results indicate that the scale-up production of PODE_3-6 from methanol and formaldehyde solution is feasible.

Keywords: inactivation, polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers, separation process, sulfonic cation exchange resin

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Authors: Jabulani Gilford Kheswa, Sinovuyo Takatshana

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Literature documented that the combination of permissive attitudes, sexual experimentation and lack of accurate information from parents to educate male adolescents, poses a threat to the sexual health of adolescent males and exposes them to risky sexual behaviours. Grounded in problem behaviour theory as a theoretical framework for this study in understanding health-related behaviours of adolescent males, the weaker one’s perceived self-efficacy, the more social and affective factors increase the likelihood of risky sexual behaviour, such as alcohol abuse and intimate partner violence. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between alcohol use and sexual behaviour among 176 purposively selected Xhosa- speaking adolescent males, from one school in the Nkonkobe Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. These learners were in grade ten, eleven and twelve with an age range from a low of 14 to a high of 25 years. The mean age was 18.06 years while the standard deviation was .144. To be ethically bound, the researchers sought permission from the school principal to distribute self-administered questionnaires and assured the participants of confidentiality and anonymity. A survey was conducted by means of self-administered questionnaires. A cross-sectional study was carried out within the quantitative paradigm using the SPSS version 18 and the Chronbach’s alpha of 0.79 were found for alcohol and sexual behaviour of adolescent males. Findings showed that 59.6% (N=105) of the learners indicated that their caregivers talk about safe sex practice as compared to only 40.4% (N=71) who indicated that their caregivers do not talk to them about safe sex practice. A statistically significant association between alcohol and negotiation of safe sex at p-value of 0.05 (chi-square of 34.529, degree of freedom of 16) was reported. In conclusion, as young people in South Africa become sexually active at an early age, schools should initiate psycho-educational programmes to equip adolescents against risk- behaviours (such as HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, crime).

Keywords: adolescent males, alcohol, parents, sex

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Authors: Erika Takidah, Salina Kassim

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Digital transformation has accelerated in the new millennium. It is reshaping the financial services industry from a traditional system to financial technology. Moreover, the number of financial inclusion rates in Indonesia is less than 60%. An innovative model needed to elucidate this national problem. On the other hand, the Islamic financial service industry and financial technology grow fast as a new aspire in economic development. An Islamic bank, takaful, Islamic microfinance, Islamic financial technology and Islamic social finance institution could collaborate to intensify the financial inclusion number in Indonesia. The primary motive of this paper is to examine the strategy of collaboration-based Islamic financial services to enhance financial inclusion in Indonesia, particularly facing the digital era. The fundamental findings for the main problems are the foundations and key ecosystems aspect involved in the development of collaboration-based Islamic financial services. By using the Interpretive Structural Model (ISM) approach, the core problems faced in the development of the models have lacked policy instruments guarding the collaboration-based Islamic financial services with fintech work process and availability of human resources for fintech. The core strategies or foundations that are needed in the framework of collaboration-based Islamic financial services are the ability to manage and analyze data in the big data era. For the aspects of the Ecosystem or actors involved in the development of this model, the important actor is government or regulator, educational institutions, and also existing industries (Islamic financial services). The outcome of the study designates that strategy collaboration of Islamic financial services institution supported by robust technology, a legal and regulatory commitment of the regulators and policymakers of the Islamic financial institutions, extensive public awareness of financial inclusion in Indonesia. The study limited itself to realize financial inclusion, particularly in Islamic finance development in Indonesia. The study will have an inference for the concerned professional bodies, regulators, policymakers, stakeholders, and practitioners of Islamic financial service institutions.

Keywords: collaboration, financial inclusion, Islamic financial services, Islamic fintech

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Authors: Farzaneh Tahmoorian, Bijan Samali, John Yeaman

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Road networks are expanding all over the world during the past few decades to meet the increasing freight volumes created by the population growth and industrial development. At the same time, the rate of generation of solid wastes in the society is increasing with the population growth, technological development, and changes in the lifestyle of people. Thus, the management of solid wastes has become an acute problem. Accordingly, there is a need for greater efficiency in the construction and maintenance of road networks, in reducing the overall cost, especially the utilization of natural materials such as aggregates. An efficient means to reduce construction and maintenance costs of road networks is to replace natural (virgin) materials by secondary, recycled materials. Recycling will also help to reduce pressure on landfills and demand for extraction of natural virgin materials thus ensuring sustainability. Application of solid wastes in asphalt layer reduces not only environmental issues associated with waste disposal but also the demand for virgin materials which will subsequently result in sustainability. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the feasibility of the application of some of the waste materials such as glass, construction and demolition wastes, etc. as alternative materials in pavement construction, particularly flexible pavements. To this end, various combination of different waste materials in certain percentages is considered in designing the asphalt mixture. One of the goals of this research is to determine the optimum percentage of all these materials in the mixture. This is done through a series of tests to evaluate the volumetric properties and resilient modulus of the mixture. The information and data collected from these tests are used to select the adequate samples for further assessment through advanced tests such as triaxial dynamic test and fatigue test, in order to investigate the asphalt mixture resistance to permanent deformation and also cracking. This paper presents the results of these investigations on the application of waste materials in asphalt mixture for production of a sustainable asphalt mix.

Keywords: asphalt, glass, pavement, recycled aggregate, sustainability

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Authors: Stefanache Stefania, Ioana R. Podina

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Background: Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are revolutionizing education and healthcare by offering cost-effective, adaptable, and portable solutions. Research on the Uncanny Valley effect (UVE) involves various embodied agents, including ECAs. Achieving the optimal level of anthropomorphism, no consensus on how to overcome the uncanniness problem. Objectives: This systematic review aims to identify the user characteristics, agent features, and context factors that influence the UVE. Additionally, this review provides recommendations for creating effective ECAs and conducting proper experimental studies. Methods: We conducted a systematic review following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. We included quantitative, peer-reviewed studies that examined human-ECA interaction. We identified 17,122 relevant records from ACM Digital Library, IEE Explore, Scopus, ProQuest, and Web of Science. The quality of the predictors, mediators, and moderators adheres to the guidelines set by prior systematic reviews. Results: Based on the included studies, it can be concluded that females and younger people perceive the ECA as more attractive. However, inconsistent findings exist in the literature. ECAs characterized by extraversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness are considered more attractive. Facial expressions also play a role in the UVE, with some studies indicating that ECAs with more facial expressions are considered more attractive, although this effect is not consistent across all studies. Few studies have explored contextual factors, but they are nonetheless crucial. The interaction scenario and exposure time are important circumstances in human-ECA interaction. Conclusions: The findings highlight a growing interest in ECAs, which have seen significant developments in recent years. Given this evolving landscape, investigating the risk of the UVE can be a promising line of research.

Keywords: human-computer interaction, uncanny valley effect, embodied conversational agent, systematic review

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Authors: Thomas Nally, Jane Ireland, Roxanne Khan, Philip Birch

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Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), a significant societal problem, affects individuals worldwide. However, the strategies victims use to keep safe are under-researched. IPV is significantly under-reported, and services often are not able to be accessed by all victims. Thus they are likely to use their own strategies to manage their victimization before being able to seek support. Two studies were completed to understand these strategies. A systematic review of the literature and study completed with professionals who work with victims was undertaken to understand this area. In study one, a systematic review of the literature (n=61 papers), were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. The results indicated that victims use a large array of behaviors to increase their sense of safety and coping with emotions but also experience significant barriers to help-seeking. In study 2, sixty-nine professionals completed a measure exploring the likelihood and effectiveness of various victim strategies regarding increasing their sense of safety. Strategies included in the measure were obtained from those identified in study 1. Findings indicated that professionals perceived victims of IPV to be more likely to employ safety strategies and coping behaviors that may be ineffective but not help-seeking behaviors. Further, the responses were analyzed using Cluster Analysis. Safety strategies resulted in five clusters; perpetrator-directed strategies, prevention strategies, cognitive reappraisal, safety planning and avoidance strategies. Help-Seeking resulted in six clusters; information or practical support, abuse-related support, emotional support, secondary support and informal support. Finally, coping resulted in four clusters; emotional coping, self-directed coping, thought recording/change and cognitive coping. Both studies indicate that victims may use a variety of strategies to manage their safety besides seeking help. Professionals working with victims, using a strength-based approach, should understand what is used and is effective for victims who are unable to leave the relationships or access external support.

Keywords: intimate partner violence, help-seeking, professional support, victims, victim coping, victim safety

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Authors: Ballari Bagchi

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The dynamism ingrained in the process of urban-rural integration is manifested in the emergence of rurban settlements, referring to areas that combine the characteristics of agricultural activities found in rural zones with those of suburban living areas and industrialised zones. The concept of rurbanisation refers to the idea of introducing urban conveniences and opportunities, to rural areas in an attempt to stem rural urban migration. In the backdrop of the worldwide problem of disharmonised urban-rural dependence and the associated problems in urban and rural areas, the present study seeks to explore the potentialities of few settlements having a blend of rural and urban characteristics in the urban field of Koch Bihar. The prime concern of the present paper is three-fold: (i) to identify the rurban centres, (ii) to analyse the spatial integration of these identified centres with the rural areas situated in the urban periphery, and (iii) to suggest the necessities to be introduced in these settlements. The methodology applied here includes rurban index, gravity model, and functional classification of rurban centres, correlation and regression analysis and cartographic representation of data collected through primary and secondary sources. The investigation has identified a number of settlements potentially viable to be termed as rurban centres which may render services to the other less equipped rural areas in all aspects of life and thereby would lessen the burden on Koch Bihar urban centre. The levels of infrastructure of these settlements should be such that it might even attract the urban population in a reverse direction. The villages belonging to the lower rung of these service settlements would require metalled road connection with these intermediate settlements in addition to their connection with the core town. That is to say, a proper policy needs to be adopted in this regard to furnish these settlements with required infrastructures for serving their own population as well as the population of other villages. As a consequence of that, the idea of a well-coordinated settlement hierarchy may emerge in future.

Keywords: Hinterland, rurban, settlement hierarchy, urban-rural integration

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Authors: Diogo Pereira, Maria Moura, Joana Campos, João Nunes

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As the Ukraine war highlights the European Economic Area’s vulnerability and external dependence on feed and food, agriculture gains significant importance. Transformative change is necessary to reach a sustainable and resilient agricultural sector. Agriculture is an important drive for bioeconomy and the equilibrium and survival of society and rural fires resilience. The pressure of (1) water stress, (2) nutrient cycle, and (3) social demographic evolution towards 70% of the population in Urban systems and the aging of the rural population, combined with climate change, exacerbates the problem and paradigm of rural and wildfires, especially in Portugal. The Portuguese territory is characterized by (1) 28% of marginal land, (2) the soil quality of 70% of the territory not being appropriate for agricultural activity, (3) a micro smallholding, with less than 1 ha per proprietor, with mainly familiar and traditional agriculture in the North and Centre regions, and (4) having the most vulnerable areas for rural fires in these same regions. The most important difference between the South, North and Centre of Portugal, referring to rural and wildfires, is the agricultural activity, which has a higher level in the South. In Portugal, rural and wildfires represent an average annual economic loss of around 800 to 1000 million euros. The WinBio model is an agrienvironmental metabolism design, with the capacity to create a new agri-food metabolism through Agricultural Organized Areas, a privatepublic partnership. This partnership seeks to grow agricultural activity in regions with (1) abandoned territory, (2) micro smallholding, (3) water and nutrient management necessities, and (4) low agri-food literacy. It also aims to support planning and monitoring of resource use efficiency and sustainability of territories, using agriculture as a barrier for rural and wildfires in order to protect rural population.

Keywords: agricultural organized areas, residues, climate change, drought, nutrients, rural and wild fires

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Authors: M. Meddi, A. Boufekane

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The Mitidja coastal groundwater which extends over an area of 1450 km2 is a strategic resource in the Algiers region. The high dependence of the regional economy on the use of this groundwater forces us to have recourse to its artificial recharge from the Wadi El Harrach in its upstream part. This system of artificial recharge has shown its effectiveness in the development of water resource mentioned in the succeeding works in several regions of the world. The objective of this study is to: Increase the reserves of water inputs by infiltration, raise the water level and its good quality in wells and boreholes, reduce losses to the sea, and address seawater intrusion by maintaining balance in the freshwater-saltwater interface in the downstream part of the groundwater basin. After analyzing the situation, it was noticed that a qualitative monitoring of the Wadi water for the groundwater recharge has to be done. For this purpose, we proceeded during three successive years (2010, 2011, and 2012) to the monthly sampling of water in the upstream part of the Wadi El Harrach for chemical analysis. The variation of the sediment transport concentration will be also measured. This monitoring aims to characterize the water quality and avoid clogging in the proposed recharge area. The results of these analyses showed the good chemical quality according to the analyses we performed in the laboratory during the three years, but they are too loaded with suspended matters. We noticed that these fine particles come from the grinding of limestone of sandpit located upstream of the area of the proposed recharge system. This problem can be solved by a water supply upstream of sandpit. For the recharge, we propose the method of using two wells for dual use, which means that it can be used for water supply and extraction. This solution is inexpensive in our case and could easily be used as wells are already drilled in the upstream part. This solution increases over time the piezometric level and also reduce groundwater contamination by saltwater in the downstream part.

Keywords: water quality, artificial groundwater recharge, Mitidja, North Algeria

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Authors: Mst. Nilufa Sultana, Shatirah Akib, Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf, Mohamed Roseli Zainal Abidin

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Most people today are aware that global Climate change, is not just a scientific theory but also a fact with worldwide consequences. Global climate change is due to rapid urbanization, industrialization, high population growth and current vulnerability of the climatic condition. Water is becoming scarce as a result of global climate change. To mitigate the problem arising due to global climate change and its drought effect, harvesting rainwater from green roofs, an environmentally-friendly and versatile technology, is becoming one of the best assessment criteria and gaining attention in Malaysia. This paper addresses the sustainability of green roofs and examines the quality of water harvested from green roofs in comparison to rainwater. The factors that affect the quality of such water, taking into account, for example, roofing materials, climatic conditions, the frequency of rainfall frequency and the first flush. A green roof was installed on the Humid Tropic Centre (HTC) is a place of the study on monitoring program for urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia (MSMA), Eco-Hydrological Project in Kualalumpur, and the rainwater was harvested and evaluated on the basis of four parameters i.e., conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH and temperature. These parameters were found to fall between Class I and Class III of the Interim National Water Quality Standards (INWQS) and the Water Quality Index (WQI). Some preliminary treatment such as disinfection and filtration could likely to improve the value of these parameters to class I. This review paper clearly indicates that there is a need for more research to address other microbiological and chemical quality parameters to ensure that the harvested water is suitable for use potable water for domestic purposes. The change in all physical, chemical and microbiological parameters with respect to storage time will be a major focus of future studies in this field.

Keywords: Green roofs, INWQS, MSMA-SME, rainwater harvesting, water treatment, water quality parameter, WQI

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Authors: Keunhong Chae, Seokho Yoon

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Recently, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) such as Galileo and GPS is employing more satellites to provide a higher degree of accuracy for the location service, thus calling for a more efficient signaling scheme among the satellites used in the overall GNSS network. In that the network throughput is improved, the spatial diversity can be one of the efficient signaling schemes; however, it requires multiple antenna that could cause a significant increase in the complexity of the GNSS. Thus, a diversity scheme called the cooperative signaling was proposed, where the virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) signaling is realized with using only a single antenna in the transmit satellite of interest and with modeling the neighboring satellites as relay nodes. The main drawback of the cooperative signaling is that the relay nodes receive the transmitted signal at different time instants, i.e., they operate in an asynchronous way, and thus, the overall performance of the GNSS network could degrade severely. To tackle the problem, several modified cooperative signaling schemes were proposed; however, all of them are difficult to implement due to a signal decoding at the relay nodes. Although the implementation at the relay nodes could be simpler to some degree by employing the time-reversal and conjugation operations instead of the signal decoding, it would be more efficient if we could implement the operations of the relay nodes at the source node having more resources than the relay nodes. So, in this paper, we propose a novel cooperative signaling scheme, where the data signals are combined in a unique way at the source node, thus obviating the need of the complex operations such as signal decoding, time-reversal and conjugation at the relay nodes. The numerical results confirm that the proposed scheme provides the same performance in the cooperative diversity and the bit error rate (BER) as the conventional scheme, while reducing the complexity at the relay nodes significantly. Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the National GNSS Research Center program of Defense Acquisition Program Administration and Agency for Defense Development.

Keywords: global navigation satellite network, cooperative signaling, data combining, nodes

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Authors: L. A. Ostrovsky, Yu. A. Stepanyants

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Effect of Earth rotation on nonlinear waves is a practically important and theoretically challenging problem of fluid mechanics and geophysics. Whereas the large-scale, geostrophic processes such as Rossby waves are a classical object of oceanic and atmospheric physics, rotation effects on mesoscale waves are not well studied. In particular, the Coriolis force can radically modify the behavior of nonlinear internal gravity waves in the ocean having spatial scales of 1-10 kilometers and time durations of few hours. In the last decade, such a non-trivial behavior was observed more than once. Similar effects are possible for magnetic sound in the ionosphere. Here we outline the main physical peculiarities in the behavior of nonlinear internal waves due to the rotation effect and present some results of our recent studies. The consideration is based on the fourth-order equation derived by one of the authors as a rotation-modified Korteweg–de Vries (rKdV) equation which includes two types of dispersion: one is responsible for the finiteness of depth as in the classical KdV equation; another is due to the Coriolis effect. This equation is, in general, non-integrable; moreover, under the conditions typical of oceanic waves (positive dispersion parameter), it does not allow solitary solutions at all. In the opposite case (negative dispersion) which is possible for, e.g., magnetic sound, solitary solutions do exist and can form complex bound states (multisoliton). Another non-trivial properties of nonlinear internal waves with rotation include, to name a few, the ‘terminal’ damping of the initial KdV soliton disappearing in a finite time due to radiation losses caused by Earth’s rotation, and eventual transformation of a KdV soliton into a wave packet (an envelope soliton). The new results to be discussed refer to the interaction of a soliton with a long background wave. It is shown, in particular, that in this case internal solitons can exist since the radiation losses are compensated by energy pumping from the background wave. Finally, the relevant oceanic observations of rotation effect on internal waves are briefly described.

Keywords: Earth rotation, internal waves, nonlinear waves, solitons

Procedia PDF Downloads 669

Authors: Anderson S. Fonseca, Italo F. S. Da Silva, Robert D. A. Santos, Mayara G. Da Silva, Pedro H. C. Vieira, Antonio M. S. Sobrinho, Victor H. B. Lemos, Petterson S. Diniz, Anselmo C. Paiva, Eliana M. G. Monteiro

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In Brazil, the National Electric Energy Agency (ANEEL) establishes that electrical energy companies are responsible for measuring and billing their customers. Among these regulations, it’s defined that a company must bill your customers within 27-33 days. If a relocation or a change of period is required, the consumer must be notified in writing, in advance of a billing period. To make it easier to organize a workday’s measurements, these companies create a reading plan. These plans consist of grouping customers into reading groups, which are visited by an employee responsible for measuring consumption and billing. The creation process of a plan efficiently and optimally is a capacitated clustering problem with constraints related to homogeneity and compactness, that is, the employee’s working load and the geographical position of the consuming unit. This process is a work done manually by several experts who have experience in the geographic formation of the region, which takes a large number of days to complete the final planning, and because it’s human activity, there is no guarantee of finding the best optimization for planning. In this paper, the GBKMeans method presents a technique based on K-Means and genetic algorithms for creating a capacitated cluster that respects the constraints established in an efficient and balanced manner, that minimizes the cost of relocating consumer units and the time required for final planning creation. The results obtained by the presented method are compared with the current planning of a real city, showing an improvement of 54.71% in the standard deviation of working load and 11.97% in the compactness of the groups.

Keywords: capacitated clustering, k-means, genetic algorithm, districting problems

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Authors: Isabel Carrero, Raquel Redondo, Carmen Valor

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An unclosed issue in sustainable consumption (SC) literature is the relationship between SC and well-being. This paper seeks to address three limitations in past research. First, well-being has been measured as a single-faceted construct. However, other authors have defended the need to broaden the well-being construct since it goes beyond the emotional experiences and life satisfaction. By examining the relationship between SC and the multifaceted construct of psychological well-being, past contradictory results may be reconciled. To illustrate, past studies have shown that sustainable consumers experience negative emotions when they become aware of the harm that human beings inflict on the planet but they realize they have limited power to solving the problem or when they find limited alternatives or useful information to make sustainable decisions. Thus, these experiences may negatively affect the dimension of well-being 'environmental mastery'. However, as past studies have demonstrated that sustainable consumers feel meaningful, their assessment of the dimension 'purpose in life' would be positive. Thus, we need to understand how SC impinge on the different facets of psychological well-being, in order to better understand the relationship between SC and well-being. Another limitation of past research is that most studies failed to distinguish among different pro-environmental actions under SC (i.e., boycotting, buycotting) among others. For instance, activists have been found to experience higher levels of well-being and sense of meaning than less committed sustainable consumers but also burnt-out and social rejection, which should affect negatively the dimension of 'positive relations'. Finally, the influence of gender has been overlooked in the literature of SC and well-being when it has been identified consistently as a moderator variable in SC. Therefore, this study aims to (1) investigate the effect of SC on the six facets of psychological well-being, (2) distinguish between conventional SC behaviors vs. activism to examine whether these behaviors influence psychological well-being differently (3) and test gender as a moderator variable. It does so by surveying 861 individuals. This paper contributes to existing literature by showing that the relationship between well-being and SC is more intricate than it has been presented in previous literature, as it depends on the facet, the type of behavior carried out and gender.

Keywords: activism, gender, psychological well-being, structural equation modelling, sustainable consumption

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Authors: Ilyes Athimni, Mouna Bouzazi, Mongi Boulehmi, Ahmed Ferchichi

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The principles of good governance, universal values, and digitization are among the tools to fight corruption and improve the quality of service delivery. In recent years, these tools have become one of the most controversial topics in the field of education and a concern of many international organizations and institutions against the problem of corruption. Corruption in the education sector, particularly in higher education, has negative impacts on the quality of education systems and on the quality of administrative or educational services. Currently, the health crisis due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic reveals the difficulties encountered by education systems in most countries of the world. Due to the poor governance of these systems, many educational institutions were unable to continue working remotely. To respond to these problems encountered by most education systems in many countries of the world, our initiative is to propose a methodology to reinvent education systems based on global values and digital technologies. This methodology includes a work strategy for educational institutions, whether in the provision of administrative services or in the teaching method, based on information and communication technologies (ICTs), intelligence artificial, and intelligent agents. In addition, we will propose a supervisory law that will be implemented and monitored by intelligent agents to improve accountability, transparency, and accountability in educational institutions. On the other hand, we will implement and evaluate a field experience by applying the proposed methodology in the operation of an educational institution and comparing it to the traditional methodology through the results of teaching an educational program. With these specifications, we can reinvent quality education systems. We also expect the results of our proposal to play an important role at local, regional, and international levels in motivating governments of countries around the world to change their university governance policies.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, corruption in education, distance learning, education systems, ICTs, intelligent agents, good governance

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Authors: Adamu Muhammed Tukur

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Pulp and paper industry is one of the fastest growing industries due to an increased demand in paper products. For it to satisfy this ever increasing demand, it adopts new technological innovations some of which are proved to affect our environment negatively. Global consumption of paper has increased by 400% in the last four decades and this suggests that more research is required to assess the impact of industrial effluents to our environment and public health. Paper products are generally biodegradable, however, the processes involved in its production which involve the use of mainly bleaching agents and other non-biodegradable substances pose serious problem to the environment. There are more than 250 chemicals released in paper mill waste and some are xenobiotics. Different methods such as physical and chemical methods can be adopted for the remediation of the effluents but are proved to be costly and not safe to the environment. On the other hand, biological method is shown to be less costly and environmentally friendly. Microorganisms and their enzymes have shown a promising future for bioremediation of effluents related to paper mill. Many studies prove that one of the major pollutants in the paper mill effluent is phenol especially its chlorinated derivatives. Pentachlorophenol is extremely hazardous to living cells and therefore need to be removed from the environment. Microorganisms including bacteria and fungi have the potential to degrade phenolic compounds e.g. Bacillus stearothermiphilus, Pseudomonas putida, Coricus versicolor, Sphingomonas chlorophenolica, Fusarium sp, Bacillus subtilis and P. aeroginosa. Enzymes used for the degradation include phenol hydrooxylase, polyphenoloxylase, laccase, peroxidase among others. Lignin is another important pollutant and is resistant to microbial degradation but it has been proved that certain bacteria and fungi like can degrade it. Among the fungi white-rot fungi like Fomes lividus and Trametes vesicolor are the most important bioremediators. This review focused on use of microorganism to reduce or eradicate pollutants released from the paper industry. It can serve as a review for further research to be conducted especially in the field of Biotechnology.

Keywords: bioremediation, pulp and paper, pentachlorophenol, environment

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Authors: Tichaona Nharingo, Hope Tauya, Mambo Moyo

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Wood ash has been demonstrated to have favourable adsorption capacity for heavy metal ions but suffers the application problem of difficult to separate/isolate from the batch adsorption systems. Fabrication of wood ash beads using multifunctional group and non-toxic carbohydrate, alginate, may improve the applicability of wood ash in environmental pollutant remediation. In this work, alginate-wood ash beads (AWAB) were fabricated and applied to the removal of cadmium ions from aqueous systems. The beads were characterized by FTIR, TGA/DSC, SEM-EDX and their pHZPC before and after the adsorption of Cd(II) ions. Important adsorption parameters i.e. pH, AWAB dosage, contact time and ionic strength were optimized and the effect of initial concentration of Cd(II) ions to the adsorption process was established. Adsorption kinetics, adsorption isotherms, adsorption mechanism and application of AWAB to real water samples spiked with Cd(II) ions were ascertained. The composite adsorbent was characterized by a heterogeneous macro pore surface comprising of metal oxides, multiple hydroxyl groups and carbonyl groups that were involved in electrostatic interaction and Lewis acid-base interactions with the Cd(II) ions. The pseudo second order and the Freundlich isotherm models best fitted the adsorption kinetics and isotherm data respectively suggesting chemical sorption process and surface heterogeneity. The presence of Pb(II) ions inhibited the adsorption of Cd(II) ions (reduced by 40 %) attributed to the competition for the adsorption sites. The Cd(II) loaded beads could be regenerated using 0.1 M HCl and could be applied to four sorption-desorption cycles without significant loss in its initial adsorption capacity. The high maximum adsorption capacity, stability, selectivity and reusability of AWAB make the adsorbent ideal for application in the removal of Cd(II) ions from real water samples. Column type adsorption experiments need to be explored to establish the potential of the adsorbent in removing Cd(II) ions using continuous flow systems.

Keywords: adsorption, Cd(II) ions, regeneration, wastewater, wood ash-alginate beads

Procedia PDF Downloads 241