Search results for: 1.5 degree Celsius temperature goal

Authors: Agustinus Bandur, Dyah Budiastuti

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With the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) in globalisation era, higher education (HE) internationalisation has become a worldwide phenomenon. However, even though various studies have been widely published in existing literature, the settings of these studies were taken places in developed countries. Accordingly, the major purpose of this article is to explore the current trends of higher education internationalisation programs with particular reference to identify the benefits and challenges confronted by participating staff and students. For these purposes, ethnographic qualitative study with the usage of NVivo 11 software was applied in coding, analyzing, and visualization of non-numeric data gathered from interviews, videos, web contents, social media, and relevant documents. Purposive sampling technique was applied in this study with a total of ten high-ranked accredited government and private universities in Indonesia. On the basis of thematic and cross-case analyses, this study indicates that while Australia has led other countries in dual-degree programs, partner universities from Japan and Korea have the most frequent collaboration on student exchange programs. Meanwhile, most visiting scholars who have collaborated with the universities in this study came from the US, the UK, Japan, Australia, Netherlands, and China. Other European countries such as Germany, French, and Norway have also conducted joint research with Indonesian universities involved in this study. This study suggests that further supports of government policy and grants are required to overcome the challenges as well as strategic leadership and management roles to achieve high impacts of such programs on higher education quality.

Keywords: higher education, internationalisation, challenges, Indonesia

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Authors: Alvaro Javier Ortega

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A large number of companies face the challenge of matching highly-skilled professionals to high-end positions by human resource deployment professionals. However, when the professional list and tasks to be matched are larger than a few dozens, this process result is far from optimal and takes a long time to be made. Therefore, an automated assignment algorithm for this workforce management problem is needed. The majority of companies are divided into several sectors or departments, where trained employees with different experience levels deal with a large number of tasks daily. Also, the execution order of all tasks is of mater consequence, due to some of these tasks just can be run it if the result of another task is provided. Thus, a wrong execution order leads to large waiting times between consecutive tasks. The desired goal is, therefore, creating accurate matches and a near-optimal execution order that maximizes the number of tasks performed and minimizes the idle time of the expensive skilled employees. The problem described before can be model as a mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) as it will be shown in detail through this paper. A large number of MINLP algorithms have been proposed in the literature. Here, genetic algorithm solutions are considered and a comparison between two different mutation approaches is presented. The simulated results considering different complexity levels of assignment decisions show the appropriateness of the proposed model.

Keywords: employees, genetic algorithm, industry management, workforce

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Authors: Parker Townes, Prabdeep Panesar, Chunlin Liu, Soo Youn Lee, Dan Devoe, Paul D. Arnold, Jennifer Crosbie, Russell Schachar

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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impairing childhood neurodevelopmental disorders with problems in executive functions. Executive functions are higher-level mental processes essential for daily functioning and goal attainment. There is genetic and neural overlap between ADHD and ASD. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate if pediatric ASD and ADHD have distinct executive function profiles. This review was completed following Cochrane guidelines. Fifty-eight articles were identified through database searching, followed by a blinded screening in duplicate. A meta-analysis was performed for all task performance metrics evaluated by at least two articles. Forty-five metrics from 24 individual tasks underwent analysis. No differences were found between youth with ASD and ADHD in any domain under direct comparison. However, individuals with ASD and ADHD exhibited deficient attention, flexibility, visuospatial abilities, working memory, processing speed, and response inhibition compared to controls. No deficits in planning were noted in either disorder. Only 11 studies included a group with comorbid ASD+ADHD, making it difficult to determine whether common executive function deficits are a function of comorbidity. Further research is needed to determine if comorbidity accounts for the apparent commonality in executive function between ASD and ADHD.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, neurocognition, executive function, youth

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Authors: J. C. Cheng, Y. L. Tsay, Z. D. Chan, C. H. Yang

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In this study the physical system under consideration is a three-dimensional (3-D) cabinet with arrays of block heat sources mounted on one of the walls of the cabinet. The block heat sources dissipate heat to the cabinet surrounding through the conjugate conduction and natural convection. The results illustrate that the difference in hot spot temperatures of the system (θH) for the situations with and without consideration of thermal interaction is higher for smaller Rayleigh number (Ra), and can be up to 94.73% as Ra=10^5. In addition, the heat transfer characteristics depends strongly on the dimensionless heat conductivity of cabinet wall (Kwf), heat conductivity of block (Kpf) and length of cabinet (Ax). The maximum reduction in θH is 70.01% when Kwf varies from 10 to 1000, and it is 30.07% for Ax from 0.5 to 1. While the hot spot temperature of system is not sensitive to the cabinet angle (Φ).

Keywords: block heat sources, 3-D cabinet, thermal interaction, heat transfer

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Authors: Rouabah Zahra, Tlidjane Madjid, Belkacem Lilia, Hafid Nadia, Mallem Mouna

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The goal of the current study was to evaluate the gross and histopathological changes caused by the presence of non-biodegradable foreign bodies (plastic bags) in the rumen-reticulum of cattle. To identify this problem, we conducted this study at a slaughterhouse on a total of 212 cattle without any previous selection. After slaughter and draining of the rumen, foreign bodies and macroscopic lesions were investigated, and rumen samples were taken for histopathological examination. Gross examination of the rumen-reticulum with non-biodegradable foreign bodies revealed congestion, hemorrhage, stunting, sagging, atrophy, and thinning of the papillae had been observed. Areas of erosion and ulceration were also observed in the rumen-reticulum of all cattle harboring a large quantity of plastic bags. Ulcerations and nodular formations were also present. The rumen-reticulum wall was thinner than normal and had a light-mottled wall and compressed papillae. The histopathological examination revealed a wide variety of lesions. We observed especially lesions of fragmentary or segmental ruptures, destruction, necrosis, degeneration and focal hyperplasia of the keratinized epithelium. The papillae are shortened, enlarged, atrophied, folded, and compressed. The length of the taste buds was reduced. These observed histopathological changes can be attributed to mechanical irritation induced by plastic bags or released chemicals by these non-biodegradable foreign bodies.

Keywords: cattle, non-biodegradable foreign bodies, lesions, rumen

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Authors: Selamawit Dires, Solomon Tesfamariam, Thomas Tannert

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Modern earthquake engineering and design encompass performance-based design philosophy. The main objective in performance-based design is to achieve a system performing precisely to meet the design objectives so to reduce unintended seismic risks and associated losses. Energy-based earthquake-resistant design is one of the design methodologies that can be implemented in performance-based earthquake engineering. In energy-based design, the seismic demand is usually described as the ratio of the hysteretic to input energy. Once the hysteretic energy is known as a percentage of the input energy, it is distributed among energy-dissipating components of a structure. The hysteretic to input energy ratio is highly dependent on the inherent damping of a structural system. In numerical analysis, damping can be modeled as stiffness-proportional, mass-proportional, or a linear combination of stiffness and mass. In this study, the effect of mathematical modeling of damping on the estimation of seismic energy demands is investigated by considering elastic-perfectly-plastic single-degree-of-freedom systems representing short to long period structures. Furthermore, the seismicity of Vancouver, Canada, is used in the nonlinear time history analysis. According to the preliminary results, the input energy demand is not sensitive to the type of damping models deployed. Hence, consistent results are achieved regardless of the damping models utilized in the numerical analyses. On the other hand, the hysteretic to input energy ratios vary significantly for the different damping models.

Keywords: damping, energy-based seismic design, hysteretic energy, input energy

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Authors: Vatasta Koul, Ayush Gupta, Vaibhav Sharma, Rajesh Yadav

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Today we are unmarking the secrets of the universe by exploring different stars and planets and most of the space exploration is done by unmanned space robots. In addition to our planet Earth, there are pieces of evidence that show other astronomical objects in our solar system such as Venus, Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan and Uranus support the flight of fixed wing air vehicles. In this paper, we take forward the concept of presence of large rounded tubercles along the leading edge of a wing and use it as a passive flow control device that will help in improving its aerodynamic performance and maneuverability. Furthermore, in this research, aerodynamic measurements and performance analysis of wavy leading tubercles on the fixed wings at 5-degree angle of attack are carried out after determination of the flow conditions on the selected planetary bodies. Wavelength and amplitude for the sinusoidal modifications on the leading edge are analyzed and simulations are carried out for three-dimensional NACA 0012 airfoil maintaining unity AR (Aspect Ratio). Tubercles have consistently demonstrated the ability to delay and decrease the severity of stall as per the studies were done in the Earth’s atmosphere. Implementing the same design on the leading edges of Micro-Air Vehicles (MAVs) and UAVs could make these aircrafts more stable over a greater range of angles of attack in different planetary environments of our solar system.

Keywords: amplitude, NACA0012, tubercles, unmanned space robots

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Authors: Paolo Fantozzi, Luigi Laura, Umberto Nanni

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The problem of Entity relation discovery in structured data, a well covered topic in literature, consists in searching within unstructured sources (typically, text) in order to find connections among entities. These can be a whole dictionary, or a specific collection of named items. In many cases machine learning and/or text mining techniques are used for this goal. These approaches might be unfeasible in computationally challenging problems, such as processing massive data streams. A faster approach consists in collecting the cooccurrences of any two words (entities) in order to create a graph of relations - a cooccurrence graph. Indeed each cooccurrence highlights some grade of semantic correlation between the words because it is more common to have related words close each other than having them in the opposite sides of the text. Some authors have used sliding windows for such problem: they count all the occurrences within a sliding windows running over the whole text. In this paper we generalise such technique, coming up to a Weighted-Distance Sliding Window, where each occurrence of two named items within the window is accounted with a weight depending on the distance between items: a closer distance implies a stronger evidence of a relationship. We develop an experiment in order to support this intuition, by applying this technique to a data set consisting in the text of the Bible, split into verses.

Keywords: cooccurrence graph, entity relation graph, unstructured text, weighted distance

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Authors: Ida Ngurah

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Indonesia is one of the most prone disaster countries, which has earthquake, tsunami or high wave, flood and landslide as well as volcano eruption and drought. Disaster risk reduction has been developing extensively and comprehensively, particularly after tsunami hit in 2004. Yet, saving people live including children and youth from disaster risk is still far from succeed. Poor management of environment, poor development of policy and high level of corruption has become challenges for Indonesia to save its people from disaster impact. Indonesia is struggling to ensure its future best investment, children and youth to have better protection when disaster strike in school hours and have basic knowledge on disaster risk reduction. The program of safe school is being initiated and developed by Plan Indonesia since 2010, yet this effort still needs to be elaborated. This paper is reviewing sporadic safe school programs that have been implemented or currently being implemented Plan Indonesia in few areas of Indonesia, including both rural and urban setting. Methods used are in-depth interview with dedicated person for the program from Plan Indonesia and its implementing patners and analysis of project documents. The review includes program’s goal and objectives, implementation activity, result and achievement as well as its monitoring and evaluation scheme. Moreover, paper will be showing challenges, lesson learned and best practices of the program. Eventually, paper will come up with recommendation for strategy for better implementation of safe school program in Indonesia.

Keywords: disaster impact, safe school, programs, children, youth

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Authors: Sabina Ampon-Wireko

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Purpose: The study explores the influence of the organizational climate of silence on job performance through the mediating effects of work engagement (WE). Further, the degree to which supervisor support (SS) and work engagement moderate job performance are examined. Method: Using a questionnaire, the study collected 565 valid responses from frontline nurses in Ghana. The hierarchical regression technique was employed in estimating the relationship between the variables. Findings: The results showed a significant negative influence of top managers' and supervisors' attitudes to silence on both contextual and task performance. Communication opportunities, however, revealed positive and significant effects on contextual and task performance. Work engagement had no role in mediating top managers' and supervisors’ attitudes toward silence, communication opportunities, and task performance. Supervisor support acted as a moderating factor in the relationship between job engagement and task performance. In contrast, despite the direct positive relationship between supervisor support and contextual performance, it failed to moderate the relationship between work engagement and contextual performance. Practical implications: The study's findings demonstrate the need for health managers and supervisors to become more conscious of silence. The findings offer diverse recommendations for encouraging the sharing of relevant ideas, facts, and opinions within the health sector.

Keywords: organizational climate of silence, job performance, work engagement, supervisor support, frontline nurses

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Authors: Jina K., Kittinan C. Athitaya J., Weerapat B., Amornrat T., Waraphan N.

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Working in the exploration and production of petroleum exposed workers to various health risks, including but not limited to physical and chemical risks. Although lots of barriers have been put in place, e.g., hazard monitoring in the workplace, appropriate training on health hazards, proper personal protective equipment (PPE), the health hazard may harm the workers if the barriers are not effectively implemented. To prove the effectiveness of these barriers, it is necessary to monitor exposure by putting in place the medical surveillance program via biological monitoring of chemical hazards and physical check-ups for physical hazards. Medical surveillance management is the systematic assessment and monitoring of employees exposed or potentially exposed to occupational hazards with the goal of reducing and ultimately preventing occupational illness and injury. The paper aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of medical surveillance management in mitigating health risks associated with physical and chemical hazards in the petroleum industry by focusing on implementing programs for biological monitoring and physical examinations, including defining procedures for biological monitoring, urine sample collection, physical examinations, and result management on offshore petroleum platforms. The implementation of medical surveillance management has proven effective in monitoring worker exposure to physical and chemical hazards, leading to reduced medical expenses and the risk associated with work-related diseases significantly.

Keywords: medical surveillance, petroleum industry, occupational hazards, medical surveillance process

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Authors: Anjana Jain, S. Jayanth Kumar

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Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is a well-known material for remarkable mechanical properties, resistance to chemicals and superior ferroelectric performances. This endows PVDF the potential for application in supercapacitor devices. The dielectric properties of PVDF, however, are not very high. To improve the dielectric properties of Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), Piezoelectric polymer nanocomposites are prepared without affecting the other useful properties of PVDF. Polyaniline (PANI) was chosen as a filler material to prepare the nanocomposites. PVDF-PANI nanocomposite films were prepared using solvent cast method with different volume fractions of PANI varying from 0.04% to 0.048% of PANI content. The films are characterized for structural, mechanical, and surface morphological properties using X-ray diffraction, differential scanning calorimeter, Raman spectra, Infrared spectra, tensile testing, and scanning electron microscopy. The X-ray diffraction analysis shows that, prepared films were in β-phase. The DSC scans indicated that the degree of crystallinity in PVDF-PANI is improved. Raman and Infrared spectrum further confirm the presence of β-phase of PVDF-PANI film. Tensile properties of PVDF-PANI films were in good agreement with those reported in literature. The surface feature shows that PANI is uniformly distributed in PVDF and also results in disappearance of spherulites. The influence of volume fraction of PANI in PVDF on dielectric properties was analyzed. The results showed that the dielectric permittivity of PVDF-PANI (120) was much higher than that of PVDF (12). The sensitivity of these films was studied on application of a pressure and a constant output voltage was obtained.

Keywords: dielectric Properties, PANI, PVDF, smart materials

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Authors: Teera Intararuang

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The purpose of this research is to study on the challenge and opportunity for waterway route management for promoting cultural tourism in Angsila District, Chonburi Province. To accomplish the goals and objectives, qualitative research will be applied. The research instruments used are observation, basic interviews, in-depth interviews, and interview key local performance. The study also uses both primary data and secondary data. From research result, it is revealed that all respondents had appreciated and strongly agree to promote their waterway route tourism as an intend for further increase for their income. However, it has some challenges to success this project due to natural obstacles such as water level, seasons and high temperature. Moreover, they lack financial support from government sectors also.

Keywords: Angsila community, waterway tourism route, cultural tourism, way of life

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Authors: Armin Solemanifar, Arthur Wilkinson, Kinjalkumar Patel

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Carbon fibre (CF) - polymer laminate composites have very low densities (approximately 40% lower than aluminium), high strength and high stiffness but in terms of toughness properties they often require modifications. For example, adding rubbers or thermoplastics toughening agents are common ways of improving the interlaminar fracture toughness of initially brittle thermoset composite matrices. The main aim of this project was to toughen CF-epoxy resin laminate composites using hybrid CF-fabrics incorporating Innegra™ a commercial highly-oriented polypropylene (PP) fibre, in which more than 90% of its crystal orientation is parallel to the fibre axis. In this study, the damage tolerance of hybrid (carbon-Innegra, CI) composites was investigated. Laminate composites were produced by resin-infusion using: pure CF fabric; fabrics with different ratios of commingled CI, and two different types of pure Innegra fabrics (Innegra 1 and Innegra 2). Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) was used to measure the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the composite matrix and values of flexural storage modulus versus temperature. Mechanical testing included drop-weight impact, compression-after-impact (CAI), and interlaminar (short-beam) shear strength (ILSS). Ultrasonic C-Scan imaging was used to determine the impact damage area and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to observe the fracture mechanisms that occur during failure of the composites. For all composites, 8 layers of fabrics were used with a quasi-isotropic sequence of [-45°, 0°, +45°, 90°]s. DMTA showed the Tg of all composites to be approximately same (123 ±3°C) and that flexural storage modulus (before the onset of Tg) was the highest for the pure CF composite while the lowest were for the Innegra 1 and 2 composites. Short-beam shear strength of the commingled composites was higher than other composites, while for Innegra 1 and 2 composites only inelastic deformation failure was observed during the short-beam test. During impact, the Innegra 1 composite withstood up to 40 J without any perforation while for the CF perforation occurred at 10 J. The rate of reduction in compression strength upon increasing the impact energy was lowest for the Innegra 1 and 2 composites, while CF showed the highest rate. On the other hand, the compressive strength of the CF composite was highest of all the composites at all impacted energy levels. The predominant failure modes for Innegra composites observed in cross-sections of fractured specimens were fibre pull-out, micro-buckling, and fibre plastic deformation; while fibre breakage and matrix delamination were a major failure observed in the commingled composites due to the more brittle behaviour of CF. Thus, Innegra fibres toughened the CF composites but only at the expense of reducing compressive strength.

Keywords: hybrid composite, thermoplastic fibre, compression strength, damage tolerance

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Authors: Serena Clark, Katriona O'Sullivan, Kevin Marshall, Mac MacLachlan

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This paper explores the United Nation's sustainable development goals (SDGs) alongside digital poverty and proposes that digital poverty should be a new SDG. The SDGs concentrate on 17 key areas, including economic growth, reducing inequalities, climate action, ending poverty, gender equality, and quality education. Many of the plans to fulfill these goals involve the creation and adaptation of new technologies. As we have seen with COVID-19, access to these technologies has determined communities and societies' ability to respond to these challenges in both developed and developing nations. For example, the transition to online education due to the lockdowns had a detrimental effect on children who did not have access to technology to provide continuity in their educational development. Digitalization and emerging technologies, especially information and communication technologies (ICTs), can help address each goal. Digital poverty and exclusion exacerbate the gap between rich and poor within our societies and internationally, and COVID-19 has further highlighted these issues. Closing this gap can support achieving the SDGs. If access to digital technologies measure society's response and resilience in addressing the challenges the SDGs seek to resolve, should reducing digital poverty be an SDG of its own? This paper will explore this question, arguing that digital poverty should be an independent SDG working alongside and supporting the achievement of the other 17 SDGs.

Keywords: digital poverty, digital exclusion, United Nations sustainable development goals, information and communication technologies

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Authors: Diana A. Pazmino, Lynne vanHerwerden, Colin A. Simpfendorfer, Claudia Junge, Stephen C. Donnellan, Mauricio Hoyos-Padilla, Clinton A. J. Duffy, Charlie Huveneers, Bronwyn Gillanders, Paul A. Butcher, Gregory E. Maes

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With just a handful of documented cases of hybridisation in cartilaginous fishes, shark hybridisation remains poorly investigated. Small amounts of admixture have been detected between Galapagos (Carcharhinus galapagensis) and dusky (Carcharhinus obscurus) sharks previously, generating a hypothesis of ongoing hybridisation. We sampled a large number of individuals from areas where both species co-occur (contact zones) across the Pacific Ocean and used both mitochondrial and nuclear-encoded SNPs to examine genetic admixture and introgression between the two species. Using empirical, analytical approaches and simulations, we first developed a set of 1,873 highly informative and reliable diagnostic SNPs for these two species to evaluate the degree of admixture between them. Overall, results indicate a high discriminatory power of nuclear SNPs (FST=0.47, p < 0.05) between the two species, unlike mitochondrial DNA (ΦST = 0.00 p > 0.05), which failed to differentiate between these species. We identified four hybrid individuals (~1%) and detected bi-directional introgression between C. galapagensis and C. obscurus in the Gulf of California along the eastern Pacific coast of the Americas. We emphasize the importance of including a combination of mtDNA and diagnostic nuclear markers to properly assess species identification, detect patterns of hybridisation, and better inform management and conservation of these sharks, especially given the morphological similarities within the genus Carcharhinus.

Keywords: elasmobranchs, single nucleotide polymorphisms, hybridisation, introgression, misidentification

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Authors: M. Peña Aguilar Juan, Ríos Hernández Ezequiel, R. Valencia Luis

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For certification, certain goods of public interest, such as medicines and food, it is required the preparation and delivery of a dossier. For its elaboration, legal and administrative knowledge must be taken, as well as organization of the documents of the process, and an order that allows the file verification. Therefore, a virtual platform was developed to support the process of management and elaboration of the dossier, providing accessibility to the information and interfaces that allow the user to know the status of projects. The development of dossier system on the cloud allows the inclusion of the technical requirements for the software management, including the validation and the manufacturing in the field industry. The platform guides and facilitates the dossier elaboration (report, file or history), considering Mexican legislation and regulations, it also has auxiliary tools for its management. This technological alternative provides organization support for documents and accessibility to the information required to specify the successful development of a dossier. The platform divides into the following modules: System control, catalog, dossier and enterprise management. The modules are designed per the structure required in a dossier in those areas. However, the structure allows for flexibility, as its goal is to become a tool that facilitates and does not obstruct processes. The architecture and development of the software allows flexibility for future work expansion to other fields, this would imply feeding the system with new regulations.

Keywords: electronic dossier, cloud management software, pharmaceutical industry, sanitary registration

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Authors: Mustapha Mahmoud, Fouzia Toumi Benali, Mohamed Benyahia, Sofiane Bouazza

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This work focuses on the influences of biological and chemical parameters on the phenolic compounds such as flavonoids and tannins in different medicinal plants in western Algeria (Papaver rhoeas, Daphnegnidium, Lavandula multifida, Lavandula dentata, Lavandula stoicha, ...). Thus we look the difference between species of the same genus, difference between the different organs of the same species, the influence of environment all temperature influences, time, percentage of solvent on the extraction. Quantification of the phenolic compounds was performed by spectrophotometric method then treated with statistics tools such as variance analysis, multivariant analyzes, response surface methodology). The results show that the polyphenols are influenced by the parameters mentioned.

Keywords: polyphenols, influences, medicinal plants, west Algeria

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Authors: Andra Blumberga, Armands Gravelsins, Haralds Vigants, Dagnija Blumberga

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The paper discovers biotechonomy development analysis by use of system dynamics modelling. The research is connected with investigations of biomass application for production of bioproducts with higher added value. The most popular bioresource is wood, and therefore, the main question today is about future development and eco-design of products. The paper emphasizes and evaluates energy sector which is open for use of wood logs, wood chips, wood pellets and so on. The main aim for this research study was to build a framework to analyse development perspectives for wood pellet production. To reach the goal, a system dynamics model of energy wood supplies, processing, and consumption is built. Production capacity, energy consumption, changes in energy and technology efficiency, required labour source, prices of wood, energy and labour are taken into account. Validation and verification tests with available data and information have been carried out and indicate that the model constitutes the dynamic hypothesis. It is found that the more is invested into pellets production, the higher the specific profit per production unit compared to wood logs and wood chips. As a result, wood chips production is decreasing dramatically and is replaced by wood pellets. The limiting factor for pellet industry growth is availability of wood sources. This is governed by felling limit set by the government based on sustainable forestry principles.

Keywords: bioenergy, biotechonomy, system dynamics modelling, wood pellets

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Authors: Cam-Duc Au, Philippe Krahnhof, Lars Klingenberger

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German banks are experiencing harsh times due to rising costs and declining profits. On the one hand, acquisition costs for new customers are increasing because of the rise of innovative FinTechs, which entered the market with one specific goal: disrupting the whole financial services industry by occupying parts of the value chain. On the other hand, the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an overall low level of interest rates, cause the traditional source of bank income to still drain. Consequently, traditional banks must rethink their strategies or their identity, so to speak, because they go beyond their traditional offering of products and services. Having said that, banks may create new sources of income to stabilize their economic situation and replenish profits. The given paper aims to research the opportunities of establishing an ecosystem model. In doing so, the paper contributes to the current literature debate and provide reference points for traditional banks to start. Firstly, a systematic literature review introduces a selection of research works the author regards as significant. In the following step, quantitative data from an online survey with bank clients are analysed by means of descriptive statistics to show the perspective of Germans with regards to an ecosystem offering. The final research findings indicate that the surveyed retail banking clients express interest in the new offer, whereas non-financial products and services are of lower interest than their financial pendants.

Keywords: banking, ecosystem, disruptive innovation, digital offering, open-banking-strategy, financial services industry

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Authors: Mohammad Rawashdeh, Mark McEntee, Maha Zaitoun, Mostafa Abdelrahman, Patrick Brennan, Haytham Alewaidat, Sarah Lewis, Charbel Saade

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Despite the tremendous advancements that have been generated by Computed Tomography (CT) in the field of diagnosis, concerns have been raised about the potential cancer induction risk from CT because of the exponentially increased use of it in medicine. This study aims at investigating the application and knowledge of practicing radiographers in Jordan about CT radiation. In order to collect the primary data of this study, a questionnaire was designed and distributed by social media using a snow-balling sampling method. The respondents (n=54) have answered 36 questions including the questions about their demographic information, knowledge about Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs), CT exposure and adaptation of pediatric patients exposure. The educational level of the respondents was either at a diploma degree (35.2%) or bachelor (64.8%). The results of this study have indicated a good level of general knowledge between radiographers about the relationship between image quality, exposure parameters, and patient dose. The level of knowledge related to DRL was poor where less than 7.4 percent of the sample members were able to give specific values for a number of common anatomical fields, including abdomen, brain, and chest. Overall, Jordanian radiographers need to gain more knowledge about the expected levels of the dose when applying good practice. Additional education on DRL or DRL inclusion in educational programs is highlighted.

Keywords: computed tomography, CT scan, DRLs, exposure parameters, image quality, radiation dose

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Authors: Christakis Damianou, Christos Christofi, Nicos Mylonas

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The aim of this paper was to conduct a feasibility study using a flat rectangular (3x10 mm2) MRI compatible transducer operating at 5 MHz for destroying atherosclerotic plaque using the thermal effects of ultrasound in in vitro models. A parametric study was performed where the time needed to ablate the plaque was studied as a function of Spatial Average Temporal Average (SATA) intensity, and pulse duration. The time needed to ablate plaque is directly related to intensity, and pulse duration. The temperature measured close to the artery is above safe limits and therefore thermal ultrasound does not have a place in removing plaques in arteries.

Keywords: ultrasound, atherosclerotic, plaque, pulse

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Authors: Shyh-Ming Chern, Kai-Ting Hsieh

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Organic solvents find various applications in many industrial sectors and laboratories as dilution solvents, dispersion solvents, cleaners and even lubricants. Millions of tons of Spent Organic Solvents (SOS) are generated each year worldwide, prompting the need for more efficient, cleaner and safer methods for the treatment and resource recovery of SOS. As a result, acetone, selected as a model compound for SOS, was gasified in supercritical water to assess the feasibility of resource recovery of SOS by means of supercritical water processes. Experiments were conducted with an autoclave reactor. Gaseous product is mainly consists of H2, CO, CO2 and CH4. The effects of three major operating parameters, the reaction temperature, from 673 to 773K, the dosage of oxidizing agent, from 0.3 to 0.5 stoichiometric oxygen, and the concentration of acetone in the feed, 0.1 and 0.2M, on the product gas composition, yield and heating value were evaluated with the water density fixed at about 0.188g/ml.

Keywords: acetone, gasification, SCW, supercritical water

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Authors: Carlos Ferreira, Paulo Freitas, Valentim Freitas

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Creative industries’ workers are becoming more prominent as countries move towards intellectual-based economies. Consequently, the nature and essence of the workplace needs to be reconfigured so that creativity and productivity can be better promoted at these spaces. Using a multidisciplinary approach and a user-centered methodology, combining product design, electronic engineering, software and human-computer interaction, we have designed and developed a new seat that uses embedded sensors and actuators to increase the overall well-being of its users, their productivity and their creativity. Our contribution focuses on the parameters that most affect the user’s work on these kinds of spaces, which are, according to our study, noise and temperature. We describe the design process for a new interactive seat targeted at improving workspace productivity.

Keywords: human-computer interaction, usability, user interface, creativity, ergonomics

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Authors: M. Bouzid, A. Djadi, C. Aribi, A. Irekti, B. Bezzazi, F. Halouene

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The nature of materials structuring our health institutions promote the development of germs. The sustainability of nosocomial infections remains significant (12% and 15%). One of the major factors is the portland cement which is brittle and porous. As part of a national plan to fight nosocomial infections, led by the University Hospital of Blida, we opted for a composite coating, application by multilayer model, composed of epoxy-polyester resin as a binder and calcium carbonate as mineral fillers. The application of composite materials reinforce the wall coating of hospital units and eliminates the hospital infectious areas. The resistance to impact, chemicals, raising temperature and to a biologically active environment gives satisfactory results.

Keywords: nosocomial infection, microbial load, composite materials, portland cement

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Authors: Majid Farsadrouh Rashti, Amir Shafiee Kisomi, Parisa Jahani

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The direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) are contemplated as a promising energy source because, In addition to being used in portable electronic devices, it is also used for electric vehicles. The synthesis of bimetallic nanostructures due to their novel optical, catalytic and electronic characteristic which is precisely in contrast to their monometallic counterparts is attracting extensive attention. Galvanic replacement (sometimes is named to as cementation or immersion plating) is an uncomplicated and effective technique for making nanostructures (such as core-shell) of different metals, semiconductors, and their application in DEFCs. The replacement of galvanic does not need any external power supply compared to electrodeposition. In addition, it is different from electroless deposition because there is no need for a reducing agent to replace galvanizing. In this paper, a fast method for the palladium (Pd) wire nanostructures synthesis with the great surface area through galvanic replacement reaction utilizing copper nanowires (CuNWS) as a template by the assistance of ultrasound under room temperature condition is proposed. To evaluate the morphology and composition of Pd@ Copper nanowires/MultiWalled Carbon nanotubes-Chitosan, emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were applied. In order to measure the phase structure of the electrocatalysts were performed via room temperature X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) applying an X-ray diffractometer. Various electrochemical techniques including chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry were utilized for the electrocatalytic activity of ethanol electrooxidation and durability in basic solution. Pd@ Copper nanowires/MultiWalled Carbon nanotubes-Chitosan catalyst demonstrated substantially enhanced performance and long-term stability for ethanol electrooxidation in the basic solution in comparison to commercial Pd/C that demonstrated the potential in utilizing Pd@ Copper nanowires/MultiWalled Carbon nanotubes-Chitosan as efficient catalysts towards ethanol oxidation. Noticeably, the Pd@ Copper nanowires/MultiWalled Carbon nanotubes-Chitosan presented excellent catalytic activities with a peak current density of 320.73 mAcm² which was 9.5 times more than in comparison to Pd/C (34.2133 mAcm²). Additionally, activation energy thermodynamic and kinetic evaluations revealed that the Pd@ Copper nanowires/MultiWalled Carbon nanotubes-Chitosan catalyst has lower compared to Pd/C which leads to a lower energy barrier and an excellent charge transfer rate towards ethanol oxidation.

Keywords: core-shell structure, electrocatalyst, ethanol oxidation, galvanic replacement reaction

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Authors: Saurabh Sharma, Yong Sun, Bruce Vernham

Abstract:

Accurate prediction of NOx emission is a continuous challenge in the field of diesel engine-out emission modeling. Performing experiments for each conditions and scenario cost significant amount of money and man hours, therefore model-based development strategy has been implemented in order to solve that issue. NOx formation is highly dependent on the burn gas temperature and the O₂ concentration inside the cylinder. The current empirical models are developed by calibrating the parameters representing the engine operating conditions with respect to the measured NOx. This makes the prediction of purely empirical models limited to the region where it has been calibrated. An alternative solution to that is presented in this paper, which focus on the utilization of in-cylinder combustion parameters to form a predictive semi-empirical NOx model. The result of this work is shown by developing a fast and predictive NOx model by using the physical parameters and empirical correlation. The model is developed based on the steady state data collected at entire operating region of the engine and the predictive combustion model, which is developed in Gamma Technology (GT)-Power by using Direct Injected (DI)-Pulse combustion object. In this approach, temperature in both burned and unburnt zone is considered during the combustion period i.e. from Intake Valve Closing (IVC) to Exhaust Valve Opening (EVO). Also, the oxygen concentration consumed in burnt zone and trapped fuel mass is also considered while developing the reported model.  Several statistical methods are used to construct the model, including individual machine learning methods and ensemble machine learning methods. A detailed validation of the model on multiple diesel engines is reported in this work. Substantial numbers of cases are tested for different engine configurations over a large span of speed and load points. Different sweeps of operating conditions such as Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR), injection timing and Variable Valve Timing (VVT) are also considered for the validation. Model shows a very good predictability and robustness at both sea level and altitude condition with different ambient conditions. The various advantages such as high accuracy and robustness at different operating conditions, low computational time and lower number of data points requires for the calibration establishes the platform where the model-based approach can be used for the engine calibration and development process. Moreover, the focus of this work is towards establishing a framework for the future model development for other various targets such as soot, Combustion Noise Level (CNL), NO₂/NOx ratio etc.

Keywords: diesel engine, machine learning, NOₓ emission, semi-empirical

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Authors: Faheema Khan

Abstract:

In order to investigate the influence of genetic background on salt tolerance in Soybean (Glycine max) ten soybean genotypes released/notified in India were selected. (Pusa-20, Pusa-40, Pusa-37, Pusa-16, Pusa-24, Pusa-22, BRAGG, PK-416, PK-1042, and DS-9712). The 10-day-old seedlings were subjected to 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, and 150 mM NaCl for 15 days. Plant growth, leaf osmotic adjustment, and RAPD analysis were studied. In comparison to control plants, the plant growth in all genotypes was decreased by salt stress, respectively. Salt stress decreased leaf osmotic potential in all genotypes however the maximum reduction was observed in genotype Pusa-24 followed by PK-416 and Pusa-20. The difference in osmotic adjustment between all the genotypes was correlated with the concentrations of ion examined such as Na+ and the leaf proline concentration. These results suggest that the genotypic variation for salt tolerance can be partially accounted for by plant physiological measures. The genetic polymorphisms between soybean genotypes differing in response to salt stress were characterized using 25 RAPD primers. These primers generated a total of 1640 amplification products, among which 1615 were found to be polymorphic. A very high degree of polymorphism (98.30%) was observed. UPGMA cluster analysis of genetic similarity indices grouped all the genotypes into two major clusters. Intra-clustering within the two clusters precisely grouped the 10 genotypes in sub-cluster as expected from their physiological findings. Our results show that RAPD technique is a sensitive, precise and efficient tool for genomic analysis in soybean genotypes.

Keywords: glycine max, NaCl, RAPD, proteomics

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Authors: M. Unaldi, R. Kus

Abstract:

Brake pads are important parts of the braking system and they are made of different materials. Use of asbestos fibre can cause health risks. The goal of this study is to determine the effect of ecological brake pad samples which are produced under different compaction pressure values and mixture ratios by using miscanthus as reinforcement component on the density, hardness, wear rate and compression strength properties, and friction coefficients changes of ecological brake pad samples. Miscanthus powder, cashew powder, alumina powder, phenolic resin powder, and calcite powder mixtures were used to produce ecological brake pad samples. The physical properties of the brake pad samples produced under different mixture ratios and compaction pressures values were determined to assign their effects on them by using Taguchi experimental design. Mixture ratios and compaction pressures values were chosen as the factors with three-levels. Experiments are conducted to L₉(3⁴) Taguchi orthogonal array design. The results showed that hardness value is very much affected both compaction pressure values and mixture ratios than the other physical properties. When reinforcing component ratio within the mixture and compaction pressure value is increased, hardness and compression strength values of the all samples are also increased. All test results taking into account, the ideal compaction value for used components and mixture ratios were determined as 200 MPa.

Keywords: brake pad, eco-friendly materials, hardness, Miscanthus, Taguchi method

Procedia PDF Downloads 323

Authors: Anna Lytvynova

Abstract:

This essay presents labour as a performatively national phenomenon from a cultural perspective. Considering Engels’ proposition of labour as the epicentre of development of social structures and communities, it theorizes the formation and sustainment of group identities through labour identities. Taking labour in the cultural sector as the starting point case study, the essay further enunciates such labour and labour identity as a form of engaged citizenship. In doing so, this piece hopes to arrive at a potential contemporary understanding of labour as having a central and dynamic role in cultural organization and citizenship. A parallel goal is to de-link sociological models of cultural labor from narratives of art and culture as something that stands separate from the 'real world' and the economy and exists in precarity. Combining discourse from cultural sociology, performance studies, and economics and grounding it in historical archive, the essay makes a primarily discursive theoretical contribution. Taking North American theatre organizations as the exemplifying starting point, this project positions cultural workers not solely as workers in a professional industry but as active citizen-subjects who are deeply involved in their society’s democratic processes. The resulting discourse can be used to shape more effective labour policies, as well as help art and cultural organizations find more effective organizational structures to engage the arts in the economic, political, and social spheres.

Keywords: arts labour, cultural sociology, national identity, performativity

Procedia PDF Downloads 124