Search results for: Christian Kind

Authors: Sampriti Panda

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Earning one’s own livelihood is the most basic and inseparable activity for survival and existence of humankind. In any kind of situation and in every type of geographical terrain, human does adopt various strategies and ways of earning their own livelihood. Since time immemorial, anthropocentrism has been the saga of livelihood where environment is out casted and exploited to any limit so that mankind can survive. With the passage of time, humans regained their consciousness and realized that the time has arrived now to shift to sustainable livelihood and stop being self centered. This paper tries to focus on the very central issue and the hotpot of discussion in the present era which revolves around sustainable livelihood. The aim of the paper is to find out how the tribal communities which are primarily forest based are the best example of sustainable livelihood since their existence. The paper also tries to throw light on the burning issue of the so-called term ‘development’ affecting the traditional ways of livelihood opted by the forest based tribal communities. The data presented in the paper are primary and have been collected using various techniques and methodology like observation, interviews, life histories, case studies and other techniques used in a self conducted fieldwork among the Juangs, who are one of the PVTGs of Odisha.

Keywords: forest, livelihood, sustainability, tribe

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Authors: Daniel O'Shea, Mario M. Attard, David C. Kellermann

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In this paper, we propose a hyperelastic strain energy function that maps isotopic hyperelastic constitutive laws for the use of orthotropic materials without the use of structural tensors or any kind of fiber vector, or the use of standard invariants. In particular, we focus on neo-Hookean class of models and represent them using an invariant-free formulation. To achieve this, we revise the invariant-free formulation of isotropic hyperelasticity. The formulation uses quadruple contractions between fourth-order tensors, rather than scalar products of scalar invariants. We also propose a new decomposition of the orthotropic Hookean stiffness tensor into two fourth-order Lamé tensors that collapse down to the classic Lamé parameters for isotropic continua. The resulting orthotropic hyperelastic model naturally maintains all of the advanced properties of the isotropic counterparts, and similarly collapse back down to their isotropic form by nothing more than equality of parameters in all directions (isotropy). Comparisons are made with large strain experimental results for transversely isotropic rubber type materials under tension.

Keywords: finite strain, hyperelastic, invariants, orthotropic

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Authors: Jennifer Hunter, Francisco Ramirez, Neil A. Nedley, Thania Solorio, Christian Freed, Erica Kinjo

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People who have autoimmune disease are often at an increased risk for psychological disorders such as anxiety. Untreated psychological conditions can affect the development of disease and can affect one’s general quality of life. In this study, it was hypothesized that an educational community-based intervention would be useful in decreasing the anxiety levels of participants with autoimmune disease. Programs, 2-hours long each, were held weekly over a period of eight weeks. During every meeting, a 45-minute DVD presentation by a skilled physician was shown, a small group discussion was guided by trained facilitators, and weekly practical assignments were given to each participant. The focus of the program was to educate participants about healthy lifestyle behaviors such as exercise, nutrition, sleep hygiene, helpful thought patterns etc., and to provide a group environment in which each participant was supported. Participants were assessed pre-post program for anxiety using the Depression and Anxiety Assessment Test (registration TX 7-398-022), a validated mental health test based on DSM-5 criteria and demographics. Anxiety scores were classified according to the DSM-5 criteria into 4 categories: none (0-6), mild (7-10), moderate (11-19) or severe (20 or more). Out of the participants who participated in programs conducted in the manner explained above (n=431), the average age was 54.9 (SD 16.6) and 81.9% were female. At baseline, the mean group anxiety level was 9.4 (SD 5.4). Within the baseline group, anxiety levels were as follows: none (21.1%), mild (22.0%), moderate (27.1%) and severe (29.7%). After the program, mean group anxiety decreased to 4.7 (SD 4.0). Post-program anxiety levels were as follows: none (54.8%), mild (27.1%), moderate (12.5%), severe (5.6%). The decrease in overall anxiety levels was significant t(431)=19.3 p<.001, 95% CI [0.815, 1.041]. It was concluded that the eight-week intensive was beneficial in decreasing the anxiety levels of participants. A long-term follow-up study would be beneficial in determining how lasting such improvements are especially since autoimmune diseases are often chronic. Additionally, future studies that utilize a control group would aid in establishing whether the improvements seen are due to the use of this specific lifestyle-educational program.

Keywords: anxiety, auto-immune disease, community-based educational program, lifestyle

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Authors: Ewa Bednorz, Marek Polrolniczak, Bartosz Czernecki, Arkadiusz Marek Tomczyk

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This study is meant as a contribution to the research of the upwelling phenomenon, which is one of the most pronounced examples of the sea-atmosphere coupling. The aim is to confirm the atmospheric forcing of the sea waters circulation and sea surface temperature along the variously oriented Baltic Sea coasts and to find out macroscale and regional circulation patterns triggering upwelling along different sections of this relatively small and semi-closed sea basin. The mean daily sea surface temperature data from the summer seasons (June–August) of the years 1982–2017 made the basis for the detection of upwelling cases. For the atmospheric part of the analysis, monthly indices of the Northern Hemisphere macroscale circulation patterns were used. Besides, in order to identify the local direction of airflow, the daily zonal and meridional regional circulation indices were constructed and introduced to the analysis. Finally, daily regional circulation patterns over the Baltic Sea region were distinguished by applying the principal component analysis to the gridded mean daily sea level pressure data. Within the Baltic Sea, upwelling is the most frequent along the zonally oriented northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, southern coasts of Sweden, and along the middle part of the western Gulf of Bothnia coast. Among the macroscale circulation patterns, the Scandinavian type (SCAND), with a primary circulation center located over Scandinavia, has the strongest impact on the horizontal flow of surface sea waters in the Baltic Sea, which triggers upwelling. An anticyclone center over Scandinavia in the positive phase of SCAND enhances the eastern airflow, which increases upwelling frequency along southeastern Baltic coasts. It was proved in the study that the zonal circulation has a stronger impact on upwelling occurrence than the meridional one, and it could increase/decrease a chance of upwelling formation by more than 70% in some coastal sections. Positive and negative phases of six distinguished regional daily circulation patterns made 12 different synoptic situations which were analyzed in the terms of their influence on the upwelling formation. Each of them revealed some impact on the frequency of upwelling in some coastal section of the Baltic Sea; however, two kinds of synoptic situations seemed to have the strongest influence, namely, the first kind representing pressure patterns enhancing the zonal flow and the second kind representing synoptic patterns with a cyclone/anticyclone centers over southern Scandinavia. Upwelling occurrence appeared to be particularly strongly reliant on the atmospheric conditions in some specific coastal sections, namely: the Gulf of Finland, the south eastern Baltic coasts (Polish and Latvian-Lithuanian section), and the western part of the Gulf of Bothnia. Concluding, it can be stated that atmospheric conditions strongly control the occurrence of upwelling within the Baltic Sea basin. Both local and macroscale circulation patterns expressed by the location of the pressure centers influence the frequency of this phenomenon; however, the impact strength varies, depending on the coastal region. Acknowledgment: This research was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland, grant number 2016/21/B/ST10/01440.

Keywords: Baltic Sea, circulation patterns, coastal upwelling, synoptic conditions

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Authors: M. Heysem Arslan, Ikilem Gocek, U. Kivanc Sahin

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Natural dyestuff, extracted from Juglans Regia L., a kind of walnut, was used to dye 100% cotton gabardine fabric. The main goal of this study was to enhance dyeing process of cotton fabric with Juglans Regia L. dyestuff in terms of color fastness values by designing and developing a mordant application process. Within the context of this study, different mordants such as tannic acid, gallic acid, ascorbic acid, potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate, calcium carbonate, iron (II) sulphate heptahydrate, aluminum potassium sulphate dodecahydrate and their combinations were applied in the mordanting processes. Spectrophotometric analysis, color fastness to washing and color fastness to light tests were carried out on the fabric samples. In this study, it was shown that by using the right combination of mordants with a proper application process, it is possible to improve color fastness values of cotton fabric samples dyed with natural dyestuff.

Keywords: extraction, Juglans Regia L., mordanting process, natural dyestuff

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Authors: Nima Farshidfar, Navid Daryasafar

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In this paper, the seismic stability of reinforced soil slopes is studied using pseudo-dynamic analysis. Equilibrium equations that are applicable to the every kind of failure surface are written using Horizontal Slices Method. In written equations, the balance of the vertical and horizontal forces and moment equilibrium is fully satisfied. Failure surface is assumed to be log-spiral, and non-linear equilibrium equations obtained for the system are solved using Newton-Raphson Method. Earthquake effects are applied as horizontal and vertical pseudo-static coefficients to the problem. To solve this problem, a code was developed in MATLAB, and the critical failure surface is calculated using genetic algorithm. At the end, comparing the results obtained in this paper, effects of various parameters and the effect of using pseudo - dynamic analysis in seismic forces modeling is presented.

Keywords: soil slopes, pseudo-dynamic, genetic algorithm, optimization, limit equilibrium method, log-spiral failure surface

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Authors: Sezin Ekşioğlu

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Multilabel classification has a huge importance for several applications, it is also a challenging research topic. It is a kind of supervised learning that contains binary targets. The distance between multilabel and binary classification is having more than one class in multilabel classification problems. Features can belong to one class or many classes. There exists a wide range of applications for multi label prediction such as image labeling, text categorization, gene functionality. Even though features are classified in many classes, they may not always be properly classified. There are many ensemble methods for the classification. However, most of the researchers have been concerned about better multilabel methods. Especially little ones focus on both efficiency of classifiers and pairwise relationships at the same time in order to implement better multilabel classification. In this paper, we worked on modified ensemble methods by getting benefit from k-Nearest Neighbors and neural network structure to address issues within a beneficial way and to get better impacts from the multilabel classification. Publicly available datasets (yeast, emotion, scene and birds) are performed to demonstrate the developed algorithm efficiency and the technique is measured by accuracy, F1 score and hamming loss metrics. Our algorithm boosts benchmarks for each datasets with different metrics.

Keywords: multilabel, classification, neural network, KNN

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Authors: Francesco Nespoli

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After having posed a theoretical framework combining framing theory and new rhetoric, the paper analyze the shift in communication both adopted by UAW and FCA during the negotiations in fall 2015. The paper argues that mistakes and adjustments played a determinant role respectively in the rejection of the first tentative agreement and in the ratification of the contract. The purpose of the paper is to set a new theoretical framework for the analysis of communication in industrial relations, by describing a narrative construction of reality from the perspective of the new rhetoric. The paper thus analyze all public text, speeches, tweets and Facebook posts by the union reading them as part of the narrative set by the organization condensed by the slogan 'it’s our time'. That narrative tried to gain consensus from the members matching the expectations due to the industry recovery after more than five years of workers' sacrifices. In doing so, the analysis points out a shift in the communication strategy of the union after the first rejection of a tentative agreement in 15 years. The findings suggest that, from the communication point of view, consultation in industrial relations can be conceived as a particular kind of political communication where identification with the audience through deliberate narrative may not be effective if it is not preceded by a listening campaign.

Keywords: communication, consultation, automotive, FCA

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Authors: Kazi Rafikoddin

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Conditionality refers to a precondition for getting external funds from IMF or WB by giving consent for implementation of the program of economic or political reforms especially relating to open economies. These are put forth under the label of structural adjustment. It is a kind of challenge on the part of borrowing government to exercise balance between the domestic obligations and the expectations of external funding agencies. Countries have to take loans under certain criteria and regulations because better loans are often not readily available. Therefore taking loans and renewing them to pay the same with new interest rates and conditions makes the governments entangled in the circle of debt. They are forced to compete with well-established multinational companies. If their access to industrialized countries' markets is impaired through protectionism, the developed world will be condemning the indebted nations to perpetual financial crisis. On the other hand, the ability to sell their goods free in the world market is reduced through the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes. Although there are examples of positive effects on certain economies like India, some Third World, and poor countries have experienced the ire of these remedies. This paper tries to find out the effects of SAPs on some borrowing countries.

Keywords: IMF, world bank, conditionalities, SAPs, Third World Countries

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Authors: Hamnah Nisar

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As food is something which is particularly important for survival, in fact, it improves the quality of life and promotes health. Quality food is a key to a healthy life. Consumption of food depends on the knowledge we have regarding the nutrients it contains. Moreover, the awareness and knowledge about something is an initial stage for its improvement. We cannot work on anything unless we have knowledge about it. The pros and cons, effects, causes, dos, and don'ts, especially for an important things like food, are a necessity to learn. That is why my research would be all about analyzing what difference awareness makes on people and how making people more aware about a certain thing can help them improve their lifestyles and bring a positive change for them. The research would be done through questionnaires and interviews among two classes, one would be the upper class and the other would-be lower class. Because the upper class can easily access learning facilities and can know about the new things than the lower class. The questions would be related to what kind of food do they consume, what health issues they face, or what health issues are common among their regions. The results of the research would be helpful to know firstly the effects of awareness and education regarding food on health, how a basic thing like knowledge can have a significant effect on health and can be the cause of several diseases.

Keywords: nutrition, awareness, quality food, knowledge

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Authors: A. Hassoune, M. Khafallah, A. Mesbahi, T. Bouragba

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This work presents an improved strategy of control for charging a lithium-ion battery in an electric vehicle charging station using two charger topologies i.e. single ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC) and forward converter. In terms of rapidity and accuracy, the power system consists of a topology/control diagram that would overcome the performance constraints, for instance the power instability, the battery overloading and how the energy conversion blocks would react efficiently to any kind of perturbations. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed topologies operated with a power management algorithm based on voltage/peak current mode controls. In order to provide credible findings, a low power prototype is developed to test the control strategy via experimental evaluations of the converter topology and its controls.

Keywords: battery storage buffer, charging station, electric vehicle, experimental analysis, management algorithm, switches control

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Authors: A. Jerves, H. Ling, J. Gabaldon, M. Usoltceva, C. Couste, A. Agarwal, R. Hurley, J. Andrade

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This work introduces a simple device designed to perform in-situ direct shear and sinkage tests on granular materials as sand, clays, or regolith. It consists of a box nested within a larger box. Both have open bottoms, allowing them to be lowered into the material. Afterwards, two rotating plates on opposite sides of the outer box will rotate outwards in order to clear regolith on either side, providing room for the inner box to move relative to the plates and perform a shear test without the resistance of the surrounding soil. From this test, Coulomb parameters, including cohesion and internal friction angle, as well as, Bekker parameters can be inerred. This device has been designed for a laboratory setting, but with few modications, could be put on the underside of a rover for use in a remote location. The goal behind this work is to ultimately create a compact, but accurate measuring tool to put onto a rover or any kind of exploratory vehicle to test for regolith properties of celestial bodies.

Keywords: simple shear, friction angle, Bekker parameters, device, regolith

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Authors: Dominic McGann

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Applying Kuhn’s model of paradigm shifts in science to cases of doctrinal change in religion has been a common area of study in recent years. Few authors, however, have sought an explanation for the ease with which this model of theory change in science can be applied to cases of religious change. In order to provide such an explanation of this analytic phenomenon, this paper aims to answer one central question: Why is it that a theory that was intended to be used in an analysis of the history of science can be applied to something as disparate as the doctrinal history of religion with little to no modification? By way of answering this question, this paper begins with an explanation of Kuhn’s model and its applications in the field of religious studies. Following this, Massa’s recently proposed explanation for this phenomenon, and its notable flaws will be explained by way of framing the central proposal of this article, that the operative parts of scientific and religious changes function on the same fundamental concept of changes in understanding. Focusing its argument on this key concept, this paper seeks to illustrate its operation in cases of religious conversion and in Kuhn’s notion of the incommensurability of different scientific paradigms. The conjecture of this paper is that just as a Pagan-turned-Christian ceases to hear Thor’s hammer when they hear a clap of thunder, so too does a Ptolemaic-turned-Copernican-astronomer cease to see the Sun orbiting the Earth when they view a sunrise. In both cases, the agent in question has undergone a similar change in universal understanding, which provides us with a fundamental connection between changes in religion and changes in science. Following an exploration of this connection, this paper will consider the implications that such a connection has for the concept of the division between religion and science. This will, in turn, lead to the conclusion that religion and science are more alike than they are opposed with regards to the fundamental notion of understanding, thereby providing an answer to our central question. The major finding of this paper is that Kuhn’s model can be applied to religious cases so easily because changes in science and changes in religion operate on the same type of change in understanding. Therefore, in summary, science and religion share a crucial similarity and are not as disparate as they first appear.

Keywords: Thomas Kuhn, science and religion, paradigm shifts, incommensurability, insight and understanding, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion

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Authors: Kinda AlSamara

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The nineteenth century was characterized by major educational reforms in the Arab World. One of the unintended outcomes of colonization in Arab countries was the initiation of women liberation as well as the introduction of modern education and its application in sensitizing people on the rights of women and their liberation. The reforms were often attributed to various undercurrents that took place at different levels within the Ottoman Empire, and particularly the arrival and influence of the Christian missionaries were supported by the American and European governments. These trends were also significantly attributed to the increase in the presence of Europeans in the region, as well as the introduction of secular ideas and approaches related to the meaning of modernity. Using literary analysis as a method, this paper examines the role of an important male figure like the political activist and writer Qāsim Amīn and the religious reformer Muḥammad ʻAbduh in starting this discourse and shows their impact on the emancipation of women movement (Taḥrīr), and how later women led the movement with their published work. This paper explores Arab Salons and the initiation of women’s literary circles. Women from wealthy families in Egypt and Syria who had studied in Europe or interacted with European counterparts began these circles. These salons acted as central locations where people could meet and hold discussions on political, social, and literary trends as they happened each day. The paper concludes with a discussion of current debates between the Islamist and the secularist branches of the movement today. While the Islamists believe that adhering to the core of Islam with some of its contested position on women is a modern ideology of liberation that fits the current culture of modern time Egypt; the secularists argue that the influence that Islam has on the women’s liberation movement in Egypt has been a threat to the natural success and progress of the movement, which was initiated in the early nineteenth century independent of the more recent trends towards religiosity in the country.

Keywords: educational model, crisis of terminologies, Arab awakening, nineteenth century

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Authors: Emmanuel Carlos De Mata Castrejón

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Music education has shown to be connected to many areas of sciences and arts, it has also been associated with several facets of human life. The many aspects around the study of music and education, make very difficult for the music educator to find a way through, even though there are lots of methods of teaching music to young children, they are different between one another and so are the students. For the music to help improve children’s development, it is necessary for the children to explore their musicality as they explore their creativity; it must be a challenging, playful, and enjoyable activity. The purpose of this investigation is to focus the music education not in the music, nor the teaching, but the children to be guided through their own musicality. The first approach to this kind of music education comes from the Active learning methods during the nineteenth century, most of which are still used around the world, sometimes with modifications to fit a certain place or type of students. This approach on children’s musicality requires some knowledge of music, pedagogy, and developmental psychology at least, but more important than the theory or the method used for music education, the focus should be on developing the student’s musicality, considering the complexity of this concept. To get this, it is needed, indeed, far more research in the topic, so this is a call for collaborative research and for interdisciplinary teams to emerge. This is a review of authors and methods in music education trying to trace a line pointing to transdisciplinary work and pursuing the development of children’s musicality.

Keywords: children, methods, music education, musicality

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Authors: Soheil Tavakolpour

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Enhance Oil Recovery (EOR) can be considered as an undeniable action in reservoirs life period. Different kind of EOR methods are available, but suitable EOR method depends on reservoir properties, like rock and fluid properties. In this paper, we nominated fifth SPE’s Comparative Solution Projects (CSP) for testing different scenarios. We used seven EOR scenarios for this reservoir and we simulated it for 10 years after 2 years production without any injection. The first scenario is waterflooding for whole of the 10 years period. The second scenario is gas injection for ten years. The third scenario is Water-Alternation-Gas (WAG). In the next scenario, water injected for 4 years before starting WAG injection for the next 6 years. In the fifth scenario, water injected after 6 years WAG injection for 4 years. For sixth and last scenarios, all the things are similar to fourth and fifth scenarios, but gas injected instead of water. Results show that fourth scenario was the most efficient method for 10 years EOR, but it resulted very high water production. Fifth scenario was efficient too, with little water production in comparison to the fourth scenario. Gas injection was not economically attractive. In addition to high gas production, it produced less oil in comparison to other scenarios.

Keywords: WAG, SPE’s comparative solution projects, numerical simulation, EOR scenarios

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Authors: A. Şahinoğlu, R. Gürbüz, A. Güllü, M. Karhan

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This study in production machines, it is aimed that machine will automatically perceive cutting data and alter cutting parameters. The two most important parameters have to be checked in machine control unit are progress feed rate and speeds. These parameters are aimed to be controlled by sounds of machine. Optimum sound’s features introduced to computer. During process, real time data is received and converted by Matlab software. Data is converted into numerical values. According to them progress and speeds decreases/increases at a certain rate and thus optimum sound is acquired. Cutting process is made in respect of optimum cutting parameters. During chip remove progress, features of cutting tools, kind of cut material, cutting parameters and used machine; affects on various parameters. Instead of required parameters need to be measured such as temperature, vibration, and tool wear that emerged during cutting process; detailed analysis of the sound emerged during cutting process will provide detection of various data that included in the cutting process by the much more easy and economic way. The relation between cutting parameters and sound is being identified.

Keywords: cutting process, sound processing, intelligent late, sound analysis

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Authors: Theresa Steiner, Markus Pajones, Christian Haider

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Traffic is being induced by companies due to their economic behavior. Basically, two different types of traffic occur at company sites: freight traffic and commuting traffic. Due to the fact that these traffic types are connected to each other in different kinds, an integrated approach to manage them is useful. Mobility management is a proved method for companies, to handle the traffic processes caused by their business activities. According to recent trend analysis in Austria, the freight traffic as well as the individual traffic, as part of the commuting traffic, will continue to increase. More traffic jams, as well as negative environmental impacts, are expected impacts for the future. Mobility management is a tool to control the traffic behavior with the scope to reduce emissions and other negative effects which are caused by traffic. Until now, mobility management is mainly used for optimizing commuting traffic without taking the freight logistics processes into consideration. However, the method of mobility management can be used to improve the freight traffic area of a company as well. The focus of this paper will be particularly laid on analyzing to what extent companies are already using mobility management to influence not only the commuting traffic they produce but also their processes of freight logistics. A further objective is to acquire knowledge about the motivating factors which persuade companies to introduce and apply mobility management. Additionally, advantages and disadvantages of this tool will be defined as well as limitations and factors of success, with a special focus on freight logistics, will be depicted. The first step of this paper is to conduct a literature review on the issue of mobility management with a special focus on freight logistics processes. To compare the theoretical findings with the practice, interviews, following a structured interview guidline, with mobility managers of different companies in Upper Austria will be undertaken. A qualitative analysis of these surveys will in a first step show the motivation behind using mobility management to improve traffic processes and how far this approach is already being used to especially influence the freight traffic of the companies. An evaluation to what extent the method of mobility management is already being approached at Upper Austrian companies to regulate freight logistics processes will be one outcome of this publication. Furthermore, the results of the theoretical and practical analysis will reveal not only the possibilities but also the limitations of using mobility management to influence the processes of freight logistics.

Keywords: freight logistics processes, freight traffic, mobility management, passenger traffic

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Authors: José Luis Carrillo-Medina, Roberto Latorre

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Experimental evidence has revealed that different living neural systems can sign their output signals with some specific neural signature. Although experimental and modeling results suggest that neural signatures can have an important role in the activity of neural networks in order to identify the source of the information or to contextualize a message, the functional meaning of these neural fingerprints is still unclear. The existence of cellular mechanisms to identify the origin of individual neural signals can be a powerful information processing strategy for the nervous system. We have recently built different models to study the ability of a neural network to process information based on the emission and recognition of specific neural fingerprints. In this paper we further analyze the features that can influence on the information processing ability of this kind of networks. In particular, we focus on the role that the duration of a refractory period in each neuron after emitting a signed message can play in the network collective dynamics.

Keywords: neural signature, neural fingerprint, processing based on signal identification, self-organizing neural network

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Authors: Vahid Khadjeh Anvary, Hamideh Karimi Yazdi

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Generally, the tool of comparison between performance of each stage in the life of a project, is the number of project progress during that period, which in most cases is only determined as one-dimensional with referring to one of three factors (physical, time, and financial). In many projects in developing countries there are controversies on accuracy and the way of analyzing progress report of projects that hinders getting definitive and engineering conclusions on the status of project.Identifying weakness points of this kind of one-dimensional look on project and determining a reliable and engineering approach for multi-dimensional decoding information receivable from project is of great importance in project management.This can be a tool to help identification of hidden diseases of project before appearing irreversible symptoms that are usually delays or increased costs of execution. The method used in this paper is defining and evaluating a hypothetical project as an example analyzing different scenarios and numerical comparison of them along with related graphs and tables. Finally, by analyzing different possible scenarios in the project, possibility or impossibility of predicting their occurrence is examine through the evidence.

Keywords: physical progress, time progress, financial progress, delays, critical path

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Authors: Charles Kwaku Oppong

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The research linked urban expansion resulting from urbanization with changing morphology processes happening in peri-urban communities. Two villages of Kumasi City peri-urban were used as a case study. Appropriate analytical framework and methodology (literature review and empirical evidence) were employed to ensure that all pertinent issues of peri-urban interface are brought to light. It was discovered from the study that since peri-urban livelihood is linked with assets base; it has been found that stock of asset, as well as transformation processes, were major factors in the shaping of livelihoods strategies. For that reason, success or failure of household livelihoods was seen to relate to the kind of livelihood strategy employed. With efforts to mitigate for livelihoods failure due to peri-urban development, households' recourse to remittances, land disposal, and other means as an alternative livelihood approach. The study calls for local government policy interventions in regulating peri-urban transformation process and providing safety nets for the vulnerable.

Keywords: urban expansion, peri-urban interface, livelihoods, asset

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Authors: Bibiana Betancur-Corredor, Juan Carlos Loaiza, Manfred Denich, Christian Borgemeister

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Alluvial gold mining generates a vast amount of deposits that cover the natural soil and negatively impacts riverbeds and valleys, causing loss of livelihood opportunities for farmers of these regions. In Colombia, more than 79,000 ha are affected by alluvial gold mining, therefore developing strategies to return this land to productivity is of crucial importance for the country. A novel restoration strategy has been created by a mining company, where the land is restored through the establishment of agroforestry systems, in which agricultural crops and livestock are combined to complement reforestation in the area. The purpose of this study is to capture the knowledge of farmers who perform agroforestry in areas with deposits created by alluvial gold mining activities. Semi structured interviews were conducted with farmers with regard to the following: indicators of soil fertility, management practices, soil heterogeneity, pest outbreaks and weeds. In order to compare the perceptions of soil fertility of farmers with physicochemical properties of soils, the farmers were asked to identify spots within their farms that have exhibited good and poor yields. Soil samples were collected in order to correlate farmer’s perceptions with soil physicochemical properties. The findings suggest that the main challenge that farmers face is the identification of fertile soil for crop establishment. They identify the fertile soil through visually analyzing soil color and compaction as well as the use of spontaneous growth of specific plants as indicator of soil fertility. For less fertile areas, nitrogen fixing plants are used as green manure to restore soil fertility for crop establishment. The findings of this study imply that if gold mining is followed by reclamation practices that involve the successful establishment of productive farmlands, agricultural productivity of these lands might improve, increasing food security of the affected communities.

Keywords: agroforestry, knowledge, mining, restoration

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Authors: S. Gholamrezaei, M. Mehrabizade Honarmand, Y. Zargar

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Introduction: This research was designed to assess the effect of group Interpersonal Psychotherapy on eating disorder symptom and fear of negative evaluation of Lorestan University female students. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 641 female students were randomly selected from various faculties of Lorestan University. Eating disorders symptoms and fear of negative evaluation were assessed by the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26), and Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale, Leary (FNES-B). Data were analyzed by SPSS software (multivariate analyze tests were used). Results: Interpersonal Psychotherapy can improve the eating disorder symptoms and reduce the fear of negative evaluation in girl students of group control in compare with control group. Conclusion: Interpersonal psychotherapy can be effective for eating disorder symptoms, and fear of negative evaluation among female students. Thus, it is suggested that this kind of psychotherapy was used for other psychological disease.

Keywords: interpersonal psychotherapy, eating disorder, fear of negative evaluation, students

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Authors: N. Khomarloo, F. Mousazadegan, M. Latifi, N. Hemmatinejad

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Recently, the utilization of reusable surgical gowns in order to decrease costs, environmental protection and enhance surgeon’s comfort is considered. One of the concerns in applying this kind of medical protective clothing is reduction of their resistance to bacterial penetration especially in wet state, after repeated laundering and sterilizing process. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the laundering and sterilizing process on the reusable surgical gown’s resistance against bacterial wet penetration. To this end, penetration of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria in wet state after 70 washing and sterilizing cycles was evaluated on the two single-layer and three-layer reusable gowns. The outcomes reveal that up to 20 laundering and sterilizing cycles, protective property of samples improves due to fabric shrinkage, after that because of the fabric’s construction opening, the bacterial penetration increase. However, the three-layer gown presents higher protective performance comparing to the single-layer one.

Keywords: laundry, porosity, reusable surgical gown, sterilization, wet bacterial penetration

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Authors: Daan F. Oostveen

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‘Religion’ as a term is not native to the Global East. The concept ‘religion’ is both understood in its meaning of ‘religious traditions’, commonly referring to the ‘World Religions’ and in its adjective meaning ‘the religious’ or ‘religiosity’ as a separate domain of human culture, commonly contrasted to the secular. Though neither of these understandings are native to the historical worldviews of East Asia, their development in modern Western scholarship has had an enormous impact on the self-understanding of cultural diversity in the Global East as well. One example is the identification and therefore elevation to the status of World Religion of ‘Buddhism’ which connected formerly dispersed religious practices throughout the Global East and subsumed them under this powerful label. On the other hand, we see how popular religiosity, shamanism and hybrid cultural expressions have become excluded from genuine religion; this had an immense impact on the sense of legitimacy of these practices, which became sometimes labeled as superstition are rejected as magic. Our theoretical frameworks on religion in the Global East do not always consider the complex power dynamics between religious actors, both elites and lay expressions of religion in everyday life, governments and religious studies scholars. In order to get a clear image of how religiosity functions in the context of the Global East, we have to take into account these power dynamics. What is important in particular is the issue of religious identity or absence of religious identity. The self-understanding of religious actors in the Global East is often very different from what scholars of religion observe. Religious practice, from an etic perspective, is often unrelated to religious identification from an emic perspective. But we also witness the rise of Christian churches in the Global East, in which religious identity and belonging does play a pivotal role. Finally, religion in the Global East has since the beginning of the 20th Century been conceptualized as the ‘other’ or republicanism or Marxist-Maoist ideology. It is important not to deny the key role of colonial thinking in the process of religion formation in the Global East. In this paper, it is argued that religious realities constituted emerging as a result from our theory of religion, and that these religious realities in turn inform our theory. Therefore, the relationship between phenomenology of religion and theory of religion can never be disentangled. In fact, we have to acknowledge that our conceptualizations of religious diversity are always already influenced by our valuation of those cultural expressions that we have come to call ‘religious’.

Keywords: global east, religion, religious belonging, secularity

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Authors: Muhammad Awais Afzal, Lorena Tuchscherr De Hauschopp, Christian Hübner

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Introduction: Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved lysosome-dependent degradation pathway, which can be induced by extrinsic and intrinsic stressors in living systems to adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions. In the context of inflammatory stress, autophagy contributes to the elimination of invading pathogens, the regulation of innate and adaptive immune mechanisms, and regulation of inflammasome activity as well as tissue damage repair. Lysosomes can be recycled from autolysosomes by the process of autophagic lysosome reformation (ALR), which depends on the presence of several proteins including Spatacsin. Thus ALR contributes to the replenishment of lysosomes that are available for fusion with autophagosomes in situations of increased autophagic turnover, e.g., during bacterial infections, inflammatory stress or sepsis. Objectives: We aimed to assess whether ALR plays a role for cell survival in an in-vitro bacterial infection model. Methods: Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) were isolated from wild-type mice and Spatacsin (Spg11-/-) knockout mice. Wild-type MEFs and Spg11-/- MEFs were infected with Staphylococcus aureus (multiplication of infection (MOI) used was 10). After 8 and 16 hours of infection, cell viability was assessed on BD flow cytometer through propidium iodide intake. Bacterial intake by cells was also calculated by plating cell lysates on blood agar plates. Results: in-vitro infection of MEFs with Staphylococcus aureus showed a marked decrease of cell viability in ALR deficient Spatacsin knockout (Spg11-/-) MEFs after 16 hours of infection as compared to wild-type MEFs (n=3 independent experiments; p < 0.0001) although no difference was observed for bacterial intake by both genotypes. Conclusion: Suggesting that ALR is important for the defense of invading pathogens e.g. S. aureus, we observed a marked increase of cell death in an in-vitro infection model in cells with compromised ALR.

Keywords: autophagy, autophagic lysosome reformation, bacterial infections, Staphylococcus aureus

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Authors: Harun Ozdemirci

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

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

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Authors: Lucija Pustahija, Christine Bandl, Wolfgang Kern, Christian Mitterer

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Concerning today´s ecological demands, producing reliable materials from sustainable resources is a continuously developing topic. Such an example is the production of carbon materials via pyrolysis of natural gases or biomass. The amazing properties of pyrolytic carbon are utilized in various fields, where in particular the application in building industry is a promising way towards the utilization of pyrolytic carbon and composites based on pyrolytic carbon. For many applications, surface modification of carbon is an important step in tailoring its properties. Therefore, in this paper, an investigation of different oxidation methods was performed to prepare the carbon surface before functionalizing it with organosilanes, which act as coupling agents for epoxy and polyurethane resins. Made in such a way, a building material based on carbon composites could be used as a lightweight, durable material that can be applied where water or air filtration / purification is needed. In this work, both wet and dry oxidation were investigated. Wet oxidation was first performed in solutions of nitric acid (at 120 °C and 150 °C) followed by oxidation in hydrogen peroxide (80 °C) for 3 and 6 h. Moreover, a hydrothermal method (under oxygen gas) in autoclaves was investigated. Dry oxidation was performed under plasma and corona discharges, using different power values to elaborate optimum conditions. Selected samples were then (in preliminary experiments) subjected to a silanization of the surface with amino and glycidoxy organosilanes. The functionalized surfaces were examined by X-ray photon spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectroscopy, and by scanning electron microscopy. The results of wet and dry oxidation methods indicated that the creation of functionalities was influenced by temperature, the concentration of the reagents (and gases) and the duration of the treatment. Sequential oxidation in aq. HNO₃ and H₂O₂ results in a higher content of oxygen functionalities at lower concentrations of oxidizing agents, when compared to oxidizing the carbon with concentrated nitric acid. Plasma oxidation results in non-permanent functionalization on the carbon surface, by which it´s necessary to find adequate parameters of oxidation treatments that could enable longer stability of functionalities. Results of the functionalization of the carbon surfaces with organosilanes will be presented as well.

Keywords: building materials, dry oxidation, organosilanes, pyrolytic carbon, resins, surface functionalization, wet oxidation

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Authors: Abdullah Eqal Al Mazrooei

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In this paper, a nonlinear dynamical system is presented. This system is a bilinear class. The bilinear systems are very important kind of nonlinear systems because they have many applications in real life. They are used in biology, chemistry, manufacturing, engineering, and economics where linear models are ineffective or inadequate. They have also been recently used to analyze and forecast weather conditions. Bilinear systems have three advantages: First, they define many problems which have a great applied importance. Second, they give us approximations to nonlinear systems. Thirdly, they have a rich geometric and algebraic structures, which promises to be a fruitful field of research for scientists and applications. The type of nonlinearity that is treated and analyzed consists of bilinear interaction between the states vectors and the system input. By using some properties of the tensor product, these systems can be transformed to linear systems. But, here we discuss the nonlinearity when the state vector is multiplied by itself. So, this model will be able to handle evolutions according to the Lotka-Volterra models or the Lorenz weather models, thus enabling a wider and more flexible application of such models. Here we apply by using an estimator to estimate temperatures. The results prove the efficiency of the proposed system.

Keywords: Lorenz models, nonlinear systems, nonlinear estimator, state-space model

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Authors: Farid Arya, Trevor Hyde

Abstract:

The development of vacuum glazing represents a significant advancement in the area of low heat loss glazing systems with the potential to substantially reduce building heating and cooling loads. Vacuum glazing consists of two or more glass panes hermetically sealed together around the edge with a vacuum gap between the panes. To avoid the glass panes from collapsing and touching each other under the influence of atmospheric pressure an array of support pillars is provided between the glass panes. A high level of thermal insulation is achieved by evacuating the spaces between the glass panes to a very low pressure which greatly reduces conduction and convection within the space; therefore heat transfer through this kind of glazing is significantly lower when compared with conventional insulating glazing. However, vacuum glazing is subject to inherent stresses due to atmospheric pressure and temperature differentials which can lead to fracture of the glass panes and failure of the edge seal. A flexible edge seal has been proposed to minimise the impact of these issues. In this paper, vacuum glazing system with rigid and flexible edge seals is theoretically studied and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.

Keywords: flexible edge seal, stress, support pillar, vacuum glazing

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