Search results for: full Heusler

Authors: Robby Dwiko Juliardi, Queena K. Qian

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Economic, environmental, and human considerations, as sustainable building design principles, are to be balanced and integrated into building design strategy. Building codes often suggest the efficient and sustainable building products, such as energy-efficient fixtures. However, building departments sometimes fail to manage the full range of requirements in the building assessment, such as siting, neighborhood proximity, and public facility, etc. Hence, it shows roadmap develops the future, an extended look at the future of a chosen field of inquiry composed from the collective knowledge and imagination of the brightest drivers of change in that field. This paper is taken from the best practice of green building implementation in a few countries of Asia (China, Malaysia, and India). Sustainable development will be presented on developing the roadmap of sustainability development of a country. Findings on the similarities and dissimilarities of those countries will show: (1) A general knowledge development on the sustainable green roadmap in Asia, (2) What are the components of developing the roadmap, and (3) What affects the government regulation in a political ecology.

Keywords: developing roadmap, green building, political ecology, sustainable development

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Authors: Niaz Gharavi, Hexin Zhang, Yanjun Xie

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The timber beam end effect in the torsion test is evaluated using binocular stereo vision system. It is recommended by BS EN 408:2010+A1:2012 to exclude a distance of two to three times of cross-sectional thickness (b) from ends to avoid the end effect; whereas, this study indicates that this distance is not sufficiently far enough to remove this effect in slender cross-sections. The shear modulus of six timber beams with different aspect ratios is determined at the various angles and cross-sections. The result of this experiment shows that the end affected span of each specimen varies depending on their aspect ratios. It is concluded that by increasing the aspect ratio this span will increase. However, by increasing the distance from the ends to the values greater than 6b, the shear modulus trend becomes constant and end effect will be negligible. Moreover, it is concluded that end affected span is preferred to be depth-dependent rather than thickness-dependant.

Keywords: end clamp effect, full-size timber test, shear properties, torsion test, wood engineering

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Authors: Fengmei Li, Li Xu, Guoliang Xia

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Whey acidic proteins (WAP) domain-containing proteins in crustacean are involved in innate immune response against microbial invasion. In the present study, a novel double WAP domain (DWD)-containing protein gene 3 was identified from Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis (designated EsDWD3) by expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis and PCR techniques. The full-length cDNA of EsDWD3 was of 1223 bp, consisting of a 5′-terminal untranslated region (UTR) of 74 bp, a 3′ UTR of 727 bp with a polyadenylation signal sequence AATAAA and a polyA tail, and an open reading frame (ORF) of 423 bp. The ORF encoded a polypeptide of 140 amino acids with a signal peptide of 22 amino acids. The deduced protein sequence EsDWD3 showed 96.4 % amino acid similar to other reported EsDWD1 from E. sinensis, and phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that EsDWD3 had closer relationships with the reported two double WAP domain-containing proteins of E. sinensis species.

Keywords: Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis, cloning, double WAP domain-containing protein

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Authors: Jalpit B. Prajapati, Ketankumar G. Patel

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Palm oil may be employed in diesel engine as an alternative fuel. Biofuel has so far been backed by government policies in the quest for low carbon fuel in the near future and promises to ensure energy security through partially replacing fossil fuels. This paper presents an experimental investigation of performance and emission characteristics by using palm oil in diesel engine. The properties of palm oil can be compared favorably with the characteristics required for internal combustion engine fuels especially diesel engine. Experiments will be performed for fixed compression ratio i.e. 18 using biodiesel-diesel blends i.e. B0, B10, B20, B30, B40, B50 with load variation from no load to full load and compared with base cases i.e. engine using diesel as a fuel. The parameters studied in performance characteristics are brake power, brake specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency, in emission characteristics are carbon monoxide, unburnt hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide. After experimental results B20 (20% palm oil and 80% diesel) is best in performance, but NOx formation is little higher in B20.

Keywords: palm biodiesel, performance, emission, diesel-biodiesel blend

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Authors: A.Zitouni, S.Bentata, B.Bouadjemi, T.Lantri, W. Benstaali, Z.Aziz, S.Cherid, A. Sefir

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Structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of Co and Mn-doped CdTe have been studied by employing the full potential linear augmented plane waves (FP-LAPW) method within the spin-polarized density functional theory (DFT). The electronic exchange-correlation energy is described by generalized gradient approximation (GGA) as exchange–correlation (XC) potential. We have calculated the lattice parameters, bulk modulii and the first pressure derivatives of the bulk modulii, spin-polarized band structures, and total and local densities of states. The value of calculated magnetic moment per Co and Mn impurity atoms is found to be 2.21 µB for CdCoTe and 3.20 µB for CdMnTe. The calculated densities of states presented in this study identify the half-metallic of Co and Mn-doped CdTe.

Keywords: electronic structure, density functional theory, band structures, half-metallic, magnetic moment

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Authors: B. Lee, B. H. Choi

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The loss of safety for reservoirs brought about by climate change and facility aging leads to reservoir failures, which results in the loss of lives and property damage in downstream areas. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a reservoir failure alert system for downstream residents to detect the early signs of failure (with sensors) in real-time and perform safety management to prevent and minimize possible damage. 10 case studies were carried out to verify the water level management criteria of four levels (attention, caution, alert, serious). Peak changes in water level data were analysed. The results showed that ‘Caution’ and ‘Alert’ were closed to 33% and 66% of difference in level between flood water level and full water level. Therefore, it is adequate to use initial water level management criteria of reservoir failure alert system for the first year. Acknowledgment: This research was supported by a grant (2017-MPSS31-002) from 'Supporting Technology Development Program for Disaster Management' funded by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety(MOIS)

Keywords: alert system, management criteria, reservoir failure, sensor

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Authors: L. M. Chinh

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Vam Cong Bridge beside Can Tho Bridge is the next cable-stayed bridge spanning the Hau River, connecting Lap Vo district with Thot Not district. After construction by the end of 2018, the Vam Cong Bridge with Cao Lanh Bridge will help to improve the road network in this region of Mekong Delta. For this bridge, the SHM system also had designed for two stages – construction stage and exploitation stage. At the moment over 65% of the bridge construction had completed, and the bridge will be completed at the end of 2018. During the construction stage, the SHM system had been install to monitor behaviors of the bridge. Based on the study of the design documentation of the SHM system of the Vam Cong Bridge and site visit during construction work, many designs and installation errors have been detected. In this paper author thoroughly analyzed the pros and cons of this SHM system, simultaneously make conclusions and recommendations for this system. Specially concentrated on the possibility of implementing the acoustic emission method (AE) into this SHM system, which is an alternative to the further development of the system, enabling a full and cost-effective solution for the bridge management, which is of utmost importance for the service life and safe operation of the bridge.

Keywords: SHM system, design and installation, Vam Cong bridge, construction stage, acoustic emission method (AE)

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Authors: Bouba Oumarou Aboubakar, HongXia Li, Sardar Annes Farooq

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The Belt and Road Initiative’s success strongly depends on the safety of all the million workers on construction projects sites. As the new BRI is directed toward Africa and meets a completely different culture from the Chinese project managers, maintaining low risk for workers risks shall be closely related to cultural sharing and mutual understanding. This is why this work introduces a cultural-wise safety management framework for Chinese Construction projects in Africa. The theoretical contribution of this paper is an improved risk assessment framework that integrates language, culture and difficulty of controlling risk factors into one approach. Practically, this study provides not only a useful tool for project safety management practitioners but the full understanding of all risks that may arise in the BRI projects in Africa.

Keywords: cultural-wise, safety culture, risk assessment, Chinese construction, BRI projects, Africa

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Authors: M. Taouzari, A. Sardi, J. El Aoufi, Ahmed Mouhsen

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The purpose of this work is to design a reader antenna fed by 90° hybrid coupler that would ensure a tag which is detected regardless of its orientation for the radio frequency identification system covering the UHF and ISM bands frequencies. Based on this idea, the proposed work is dividing in two parts, first part is about study and design hybrid coupler using the resonators planar called T-and Pi networks operating in commercial bands. In the second part, the proposed antenna fed by the hybrid coupler is designed on FR4 substrate with dielectric permittivity 4.4, thickness dielectric 1.6mm and loss tangent 0.025. The T-slot is inserted in patch of the proposed antenna fed by the hybrid coupler is first designed, optimized and simulated using electromagnetic simulator ADS and then simulated in a full wave simulation software CST Microwave Studio. The simulated antenna by the both softwares achieves the expected performances in terms of matching, pattern radiation, phase shifting, gain and size.

Keywords: dual band antenna, RFID, hybrid coupler, polarization, radiation pattern

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Authors: Heny Hartono, Cecilia Titiek Murniati

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The pandemic has given teachers and students no other choice but having full online learning. In such an emergency situation as the time of the covid-19 pandemic, the application of LMS (Learner Management System) in higher education is the most reasonable solution for students and teachers. In fact, the online learning requires all elements of a higher education systems, including the human resources, infrastructure, and supporting systems such as the application, server, and stable internet connection. The readiness of the higher education institution in preparing the online system may secure those who are involved in the online learning process. It may also result in students’ self-efficacy in online learning. This research aimed to investigate how students perceive their self-efficacy in online English learning, especially in speaking classes which is considered as a productive language skill. This research collects qualitative data with narrative inquiry involving 25 students of speaking classes as the respondents. The results of this study show that students perceive their self-efficacy in speaking online classes as not very high.

Keywords: self-efficacy, online learning, speaking class, college students, e-learning

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Authors: Liana Lortkipanidze, Nino Amirezashvili, Nino Javashvili

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The purpose of the grammatical dictionary is to provide information on the morphological and syntactic characteristics of the basic word in the dictionary entry. The electronic grammatical dictionaries are used as a tool of automated morphological analysis for texts processing. The Georgian Grammatical Dictionary should contain grammatical information for each word: part of speech, type of declension/conjugation, grammatical forms of the word (paradigm), alternative variants of basic word/lemma. In this paper, we present the system for compiling the Georgian Grammatical Dictionary automatically. We propose dictionary-based methods for extending grammatical lexicons. The input lexicon contains only a few number of words with identical grammatical features. The extension is based on similarity measures between features of words; more precisely, we add words to the extended lexicons, which are similar to those, which are already in the grammatical dictionary. Our dictionaries are corpora-based, and for the compiling, we introduce the method for lemmatization of unknown words, i.e., words of which neither full form nor lemma is in the grammatical dictionary.

Keywords: acquisition of lexicon, Georgian grammatical dictionary, lemmatization rules, morphological processor

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Authors: Nael Y. Zabel, Maged E. Georgy, Moheeb E. Ibrahim

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A knowledge-based expert system with the acronym RASPE is developed as an application tool to help decision makers in construction companies make informed decisions about managing risks in pipeline construction projects. Choosing to use expert systems from all available artificial intelligence techniques is due to the fact that an expert system is more suited to representing a domain’s knowledge and the reasoning behind domain-specific decisions. The knowledge-based expert system can capture the knowledge in the form of conditional rules which represent various project scenarios and potential risk mitigation/response actions. The built knowledge in RASPE is utilized through the underlying inference engine that allows the firing of rules relevant to a project scenario into consideration. This paper provides an overview of the knowledge acquisition process and goes about describing the knowledge structure which is divided up into four major modules. The paper shows one module in full detail for illustration purposes and concludes with insightful remarks.

Keywords: expert system, knowledge management, pipeline projects, risk mismanagement

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Authors: Irsha Dhotre

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Cymbopogon citratus is generally known as Indian Lemongrass and is widely applicable in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, dairy puddings, and food industries. To enhance the quality of extraction, microwave-oven-aided hydro distillation processes were implemented. The basic parameter which influences the rate of extraction is considered, such as the temperature of extraction, the time required for extraction, and microwave-oven power applied. Locally available CKP 25 Cymbopogon citratus was used for the extraction of essential oil. Optimization of Extractions Parameters and full factorial Box–Behnken design (BBD) evaluated by using Design expert 13 software. The regression model revealed that the optimum parameters required for extractions are a temperature of 35℃, a time of extraction of 130 minutes, and microwave-oven power of 700 W. The extraction efficiency of yield is 4.76%. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) analysis confirmed the significant components present in the extraction of lemongrass oil.

Keywords: Box–Behnken design, Cymbopogon citratus, hydro distillation, microwave-oven, response surface methodology

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Authors: Okoro Ngozi Priscilla

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Education is the bedrock of development in every nation of the world, and it is very useful in ensuring quality of life for every individual and a better world for the people. Education, therefore, is the basic instrument of economic growth and technological advancement in any society. It is in recognition of this fact that the Nigerian government commits immense resources to ensuring that its citizens acquire education and also policies are being made to ensure the accessibility of education, qualitative higher education is highly recognized as a vital driving force for the socio-economic growth and technological development of nations yet the problem of access to University education in the country persists and therefore brought about the introduction of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) which has as its main objective, the attainment of mass literacy and providing opportunities for those who could not gain admission through designated entrance examination agencies as well as those who could not afford to leave their job to attend a full-time educational programme. Open and distance learning seeks to improve skilled manpower and also improve the skills for those already at work.

Keywords: accessibility, open and distant learning programme, fulltime educational programme, distance learning

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Authors: Behnaz Sohani, Ifeoluwa Joshua Adigun, Amir Rahmani, Khaled Goher

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This paper provides initial results on the efficacy of the designed ergonomic-oriented neck support to mitigate and alleviate tension neck syndrome musculoskeletal disorder. This is done using both simulations and measurements. Tension Neck Syndrome Musculoskeletal Disorder (TNS MSD) causes discomfort in the muscles around the neck and shoulder. TNS MSD is one of the leading causes of early retirement. This research focuses on the design of an adaptive neck supporter by integrating a soft actuator massager to help deliver a soothing massage. The massager and adaptive neck supporter prototype were validated by finite element analysis prior to fabrication to envisage the feasibility of the design concept. Then a prototype for the massager was fabricated and tested for concept validation. Future work will be focused on fabricating the full-scale prototype and upgrading and optimizing the design concept for the adaptive neck supporter.

Keywords: adaptive neck supporter, tension neck syndrome, musculoskeletal disorder, soft actuator massager, soft robotics

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Authors: Ahmed Elsayed Ahmed, Ashraf Hafez, A. N. Ouda, Hossam Eldin Hussein Ahmed, Hala Mohamed ABD-Elkader

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Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are playing increasingly prominent roles in defense programs and defense strategies around the world. Technology advancements have enabled the development of it to do many excellent jobs as reconnaissance, surveillance, battle fighters, and communications relays. Simulating a small unmanned aerial vehicle (SUAV) dynamics and analyzing its behavior at the preflight stage is too important and more efficient. The first step in the UAV design is the mathematical modeling of the nonlinear equations of motion. In this paper, a survey with a standard method to obtain the full non-linear equations of motion is utilized,and then the linearization of the equations according to a steady state flight condition (trimming) is derived. This modeling technique is applied to an Ultrastick-25e fixed wing UAV to obtain the valued linear longitudinal and lateral models. At the end, the model is checked by matching between the behavior of the states of the non-linear UAV and the resulted linear model with doublet at the control surfaces.

Keywords: UAV, equations of motion, modeling, linearization

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Authors: Xiuying Wang, Changliang Li, Bo Xu

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A fixed-length feature vector is required for many machine learning algorithms in NLP field. Word embeddings have been very successful at learning lexical information. However, they cannot capture the compositional meaning of sentences, which prevents them from a deeper understanding of language. In this paper, we introduce a novel hierarchical tree long short-term memory (HTLSTM) model that learns vector representations for sentences of arbitrary syntactic type and length. We propose to split one sentence into three hierarchies: short phrase, long phrase and full sentence level. The HTLSTM model gives our algorithm the potential to fully consider the hierarchical information and long-term dependencies of language. We design the experiments on both English and Chinese corpus to evaluate our model on sentiment analysis task. And the results show that our model outperforms several existing state of the art approaches significantly.

Keywords: deep learning, hierarchical tree long short-term memory, sentence representation, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Dhanuj M. Gandikota

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Sensor-derived three-dimensional (3D) point clouds of trees are invaluable in remote sensing analysis for the accurate measurement of key structural metrics, bio-inventory values, spatial planning/visualization, and ecological modeling. Machine learning (ML) holds the potential in addressing the restrictive tradeoffs in cost, spatial coverage, resolution, and information gain that exist in current point cloud sensing methods. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) remains the highest fidelity source of both canopy and below-canopy structural features, but usage is limited in both coverage and cost, requiring manual deployment to map out large, forested areas. While aerial laser scanning (ALS) remains a reliable avenue of LIDAR active remote sensing, ALS is also cost-restrictive in deployment methods. Space-borne photogrammetry from high-resolution satellite constellations is an avenue of passive remote sensing with promising viability in research for the accurate construction of vegetation 3-D point clouds. It provides both the lowest comparative cost and the largest spatial coverage across remote sensing methods. However, both space-borne photogrammetry and ALS demonstrate technical limitations in the capture of valuable below-canopy point cloud data. Looking to minimize these tradeoffs, we explored a class of powerful ML algorithms called Deep Learning (DL) that show promise in recent research on 3-D point cloud reconstruction and interpolation. Our research details the efficacy of applying these DL techniques to reconstruct accurate below-canopy point clouds from space-borne and aerial remote sensing through learned patterns of tree species fractal symmetry properties and the supplementation of locally sourced bio-inventory metrics. From our dataset, consisting of tree point clouds obtained from TLS, we deconstructed the point clouds of each tree into those that would be obtained through ALS and satellite photogrammetry of varying resolutions. We fed this ALS/satellite point cloud dataset, along with the simulated local bio-inventory metrics, into the DL point cloud reconstruction architectures to generate the full 3-D tree point clouds (the truth values are denoted by the full TLS tree point clouds containing the below-canopy information). Point cloud reconstruction accuracy was validated both through the measurement of error from the original TLS point clouds as well as the error of extraction of key structural metrics, such as crown base height, diameter above root crown, and leaf/wood volume. The results of this research additionally demonstrate the supplemental performance gain of using minimum locally sourced bio-inventory metric information as an input in ML systems to reach specified accuracy thresholds of tree point cloud reconstruction. This research provides insight into methods for the rapid, cost-effective, and accurate construction of below-canopy tree 3-D point clouds, as well as the supported potential of ML and DL to learn complex, unmodeled patterns of fractal tree growth symmetry.

Keywords: deep learning, machine learning, satellite, photogrammetry, aerial laser scanning, terrestrial laser scanning, point cloud, fractal symmetry

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Authors: Keivan Saeb, Azade Kakouei, Razieh Jafari Hajati, Khalil Pourshamsian, Babak Babakhani

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Urtica Diocia L. from the Urticaceae family is a plant of herbal value and of a noticeable distribution in the north of Iran. The growth of different plants in various natural environments and ecosystems seems to be affected by factors such as the height (from sea surface).To investigate the effect of height on Urtica Diocia L. medicine compounds in its natural environment, three areas with the height of zero, 800 and 1800m were selected.The samples were randomly gathered three times and were dried; also, their compounds was extracted using the Clivenger with the water-distilling method. To determine the medicine compounds, the GC-MS as well as the GC machines were used. The analysis of variance was done in the form of the random-full-block design. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the percent of EOs in the selected heights; however, such difference was not significant within each height. From among the eight flavors of the study, the phytol compound was more in terms of percentage. By increasing the height the percent of EOs would decrease. lower heights could be considered most appropriate for producing the studied effective materials despite of the moistened climate and soil there.

Keywords: Urtica diocia L., height, EOs, medicine

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Authors: Rundong Li, Peng Wu, Junfeng Zhang, Zhipeng Ren, Chen Yang, Jiahui Gan, Lu Feng, Haibo Tong, Xuemei Xiao, Yuying Chen

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The research of Beidou-3 satellite navigation is on the rise, but in actual work, it is inevitable that satellite data is insecure, research and development is inefficient, and there is no ability to deal with failures in advance. Digital twin technology has obvious advantages in the simulation of life cycle models of aerospace satellite navigation products. In order to meet the increasing demand, this paper builds a Beidou-3 satellite navigation digital twin platform (BDSDTP). The basic establishment of BDSDTP was completed by establishing a digital twin double, Beidou-3 comprehensive digital twin design, predictive maintenance (PdM) mathematical model, and visual interaction design. Finally, this paper provides a time application case of the platform, which provides a reference for the application of BDSDTP in various fields of navigation and provides obvious help for extending the full cycle life of Beidou-3 satellite navigation.

Keywords: BDS-3, digital twin, visualization, PdM

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Authors: Sylvana A. Vega, Cesar E. Huilinir, Carlos J. Gonzalez

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Co-digestion in anaerobic biodigesters is a technology improving hydrolysis by increasing methane generation. In the present study, the dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is numerically analyzed using Ansys Fluent software for agitation in a full-scale Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor (CSTR) biodigester during the co-digestion process. For this, a rheological study of the substrate is carried out, establishing rotation speeds of the stirrers depending on the microbial activity and energy ranges. The substrate is organic waste from industrial sources of sanitary water, butcher, fishmonger, and dairy. Once the rheological behavior curves have been obtained, it is obtained that it is a non-Newtonian fluid of the pseudoplastic type, with a solids rate of 12%. In the simulation, the rheological results of the fluid are considered, and the full-scale CSTR biodigester is modeled. It was coupling the second-order continuity differential equations, the three-dimensional Navier Stokes, the power-law model for non-Newtonian fluids, and three turbulence models: k-ε RNG, k-ε Realizable, and RMS (Reynolds Stress Model), for a 45° tilt vane impeller. It is simulated for three minutes since it is desired to study an intermittent mixture with a saving benefit of energy consumed. The results show that the absolute errors of the power number associated with the k-ε RNG, k-ε Realizable, and RMS models were 7.62%, 1.85%, and 5.05%, respectively, the numbers of power obtained from the analytical-experimental equation of Nagata. The results of the generalized Reynolds number show that the fluid dynamics have a transition-turbulent flow regime. Concerning the Froude number, the result indicates there is no need to implement baffles in the biodigester design, and the power number provides a steady trend close to 1.5. It is observed that the levels of design speeds within the biodigester are approximately 0.1 m/s, which are speeds suitable for the microbial community, where they can coexist and feed on the substrate in co-digestion. It is concluded that the model that more accurately predicts the behavior of fluid dynamics within the reactor is the k-ε Realizable model. The flow paths obtained are consistent with what is stated in the referenced literature, where the 45° inclination PBT impeller is the right type of agitator to keep particles in suspension and, in turn, increase the dispersion of gas in the liquid phase. If a 24/7 complete mix is considered under stirred agitation, with a plant factor of 80%, 51,840 kWh/year are estimated. On the contrary, if intermittent agitations of 3 min every 15 min are used under the same design conditions, reduce almost 80% of energy costs. It is a feasible solution to predict the energy expenditure of an anaerobic biodigester CSTR. It is recommended to use high mixing intensities, at the beginning and end of the joint phase acetogenesis/methanogenesis. This high intensity of mixing, in the beginning, produces the activation of the bacteria, and once reaching the end of the Hydraulic Retention Time period, it produces another increase in the mixing agitations, favoring the final dispersion of the biogas that may be trapped in the biodigester bottom.

Keywords: anaerobic co-digestion, computational fluid dynamics, CFD, net power, organic waste

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Authors: Dongfang Qiu, Yilin Lu

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The measurement of enterprise-university-research cooperative efficiency has important meanings in improving the cooperative efficiency, strengthening the effective integration of regional resource, enhancing the ability of regional innovation and promoting the development of regional economy. The paper constructs the DEA method and DEA-Malmquist productivity index method to research the cooperation efficiency of Hubei by making comparisons with other provinces in China. The study found out the index of technology efficiency is 0.52 and the enterprise-university- research cooperative efficiency is Non-DEA efficient. To realize the DEA efficiency of Hubei province, the amount of 1652.596 R&D employees and 638.368 R&D employees’ full time equivalence should be reduced or 137.89 billion yuan of new products’ sales income be increased. Finally, it puts forward policy recommendations on existing problems to strengthen the standings of the cooperation, realize the effective application of the research results, and improve the level of management of enterprise-university-research cooperation efficiency.

Keywords: cooperation ability, DEA method, enterprise-university-research cooperation, Malmquist efficiency index

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Authors: Elle Nielsen

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Festival time on the island of St. Croix is an annual celebration of a melting pot of rich culture and heritage. All your senses are amplified by the colorful bodies that paint the streets with swaying hips commemorating the ancestors who didn’t have the voice to express themselves, let alone the bodily authority through movement. Within this atmosphere of jubilee, you will become a witness to how the melodies of Calypso and Soca music take full control of the body. As a result, the waist and hips in a trance follow the polyrhythmic patterns birthing the shunned movement practices of whining and wukkin up. Spectators on the sidelines of the festival events will either frown upon this spectacle of the whining bodies or gaze in awe at the performative history in a public space. The historical value of the Caribbean Carnival is being defaced by the transnational spectatorship using body politics to push more of a Eurocentric-influenced atmosphere. The themes within this investigation are the stereotypes of over-sexualization and resistance to assimilation to how black female bodies are being viewed in Carnival.

Keywords: women equity, West Indian movement vocabulary, critical dance studies, humanitarianism in dance academia

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Authors: Abdelazeem Algammal, Reham Abouelmaatti, Xiaokun Li, Jisheng Ma, Eman Abdelnaby, Wael Elfeil

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Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are the best understood of the innate immune receptors that detect infections in vertebrates. However, the fish TLRs also exhibit very distinct features and a large diversity, which is likely derived from their diverse evolutionary history and the distinct environments that they occupy. Little is known about the fish immune system structure. Our work was aimed to identify and clone the Nile tilapiaTLR-3 as a model of freshwater fish species; we cloned the full-length cDNA sequence of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) TLR-3 and according to our knowledge, it is the first report illustrating tilapia TLR-3. The complete cDNA sequence of Nile tilapia TLR-3 was 2736 pair base and it encodes a polypeptide of 912 amino acids. Analysis of the deduced amino acid sequence indicated that Nile tilapia TLR-3 has typical structural features and main components of proteins belonging to the TLR family. Our results illustrate a complete and functional Nile tilapia TLR-3 and it is considered an ortholog of the other vertebrate’s receptor.

Keywords: Nile tilapia, TLR-3, cloning, gene expression

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Authors: Baha Vural Kök, Mehmet Yilmaz, Mustafa Akpolat, Cihat Sav

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Various types of additives are used frequently in order to improve the rheological and mechanical properties of bituminous mixtures. Small devices instead of full scale machines are used for bitumen modification in the laboratory. These laboratory scale devices vary in terms of their properties such as mixing rate, mixing blade and the amount of binder. In this study, the effect of mixing rate and time during the bitumen modification processes on conventional and rheological properties of pure and crumb rubber modified binder were investigated. Penetration, softening point, rotational viscosity (RV) and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) tests were applied to pure and CR modified bitumen. It was concluded that the penetration and softening point test did not show the efficiency of CR obtained by different mixing conditions. Besides, oxidation that occurred during the preparation processes plays a great part in the improvement effects of the modified binder.

Keywords: bitumen, crumb rubber, modification, rheological properties

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Authors: Bai-Chen Xie, Xian-Peng Chen

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China has become the world's largest energy producer and consumer, and its development of renewable energy is of great significance to global energy governance and the fight against climate change. The rapid growth of solar power in China could help achieve its ambitious carbon peak and carbon neutrality targets early. However, the non-technical costs of solar power in China are much higher than at international levels, meaning that inefficiencies are rooted in poor management and improper policy design and that efficiency distortions have become a serious challenge to the sustainable development of the renewable energy industry. Unlike fossil energy generation technologies, the output of solar power is closely related to the volatile solar resource, and the spatial unevenness of solar resource distribution leads to potential efficiency spatial distribution differences. It is necessary to develop an efficiency evaluation method that considers the volatility of solar resources and explores the mechanism of the influence of natural geography and social environment on the spatially varying characteristics of efficiency distribution to uncover the root causes of managing inefficiencies. The study sets solar resources as stochastic inputs, introduces a chance-constrained data envelopment analysis model combined with the directional distance function, and measures the solar resource utilization efficiency of 222 solar power plants in representative photovoltaic bases in northwestern China. By the meta-frontier analysis, we measured the characteristics of different power plant clusters and compared the differences among groups, discussed the mechanism of environmental factors influencing inefficiencies, and performed statistical tests through the system generalized method of moments. Rational localization of power plants is a systematic project that requires careful consideration of the full utilization of solar resources, low transmission costs, and power consumption guarantee. Suitable temperature, precipitation, and wind speed can improve the working performance of photovoltaic modules, reasonable terrain inclination can reduce land cost, and the proximity to cities strongly guarantees the consumption of electricity. The density of electricity demand and high-tech industries is more important than resource abundance because they trigger the clustering of power plants to result in a good demonstration and competitive effect. To ensure renewable energy consumption, increased support for rural grids and encouraging direct trading between generators and neighboring users will provide solutions. The study will provide proposals for improving the full life-cycle operational activities of solar power plants in China to reduce high non-technical costs and improve competitiveness against fossil energy sources.

Keywords: solar power plants, environmental factors, data envelopment analysis, efficiency evaluation

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Authors: Ahmed Al-Saadi, Ali Hassanpour, Tariq Mahmud

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The main objective of this study is to investigate ways to reduce the aerodynamic drag coefficient and to increase the stability of the full-size Sport Utility Vehicle using three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation. The baseline model in the simulation was the Land Rover Discovery 4. Many aerodynamic devices and external design modifications were used in this study. These reduction aerodynamic techniques were tested individually or in combination to get the best design. All new models have the same capacity and comfort of the baseline model. Uniform freestream velocity of the air at inlet ranging from 28 m/s to 40 m/s was used. ANSYS Fluent software (version 16.0) was used to simulate all models. The drag coefficient obtained from the ANSYS Fluent for the baseline model was validated with experimental data. It is found that the use of modern aerodynamic add-on devices and modifications has a significant effect in reducing the aerodynamic drag coefficient.

Keywords: aerodynamics, RANS, sport utility vehicle, turbulent flow

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Authors: Elham Rouhollahi, Soheil Zorofchian Moghadamtousi, Salma Baig, Mahmood Ameen Abdulla, Zahurin Mohamed

Abstract:

This study was designed to assess cutaneous wound healing potential of hexane extract of Curcuma purpurascens rhizomes (HECP). Twenty-four rats were divided into 4 groups: 1. Negative, 2. Low dose, 3. High dose and 4. Treatment, with 6 rats in each group. Full-thickness incisions with a diameter of 2 cm were made on the back of each rat. Rats were topically treated two times a day for 15 days. Group 1-4 were treated with sterile distilled water, 5% and 10% of extract and intrasite gel, respectively. Masson's trichrome and hematoxylin staining techniques are employed for histological analysis revealed strong wound healing potential closer to that of conventional drug intrasite gel. HECP significantly decreased wound area and an increase in hydroxyproline, cellular proliferation, the number of blood vessels and the level of collagen synthesis was observed. Thus, it could be concluded that HECP possesses strong wound healing potential.

Keywords: Curcuma purpurascens, wound healing, histopathology, hematoxylin staining

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Authors: Ammar Neshati, Elham Hamidi Shishavan

Abstract:

Background and Aim: Enamel wear is among the main disadvantages of ceramic restorations. Recently, use of full zirconia crowns without dental porcelain has been suggested. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of feldspathic porcelain and zirconia on the wear of natural teeth. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 22 zirconia specimens were fabricated; out of which, 11 specimens were polished and used as zirconia specimens while the remaining 11 were used to fabricate porcelain specimens. A total of 22 natural human teeth were also collected. The natural teeth were photographed by a stereomicroscope in a fixed position and the distance from the cusp tip to a reference point was measured. Next, 11 teeth opposed zirconia and the remaining 11 opposed porcelain specimens in a chewing simulator and subjected to 120,000 masticatory cycles. The teeth were photographed again and the greatest difference between the before and after values was recorded. Results: The mean (± standard deviation) wear rate was 153.8±95.68 and 306.3±127.74, in the zirconia and porcelain groups, respectively; and the two groups had a statistically significant difference in this respect (P=0.007). Conclusion: The mean wear was significantly lower in teeth opposing zirconia than in those opposing feldspathic porcelain.

Keywords: natural tooth wear, feldspathic porcelain, zirconia, effect

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Authors: Karen Koellner, Nanette Seago, Jennifer Jacobs, Helen Garnier

Abstract:

Although studies of teacher professional development (PD) are prevalent, surprisingly most have only produced incremental shifts in teachers’ learning and their impact on students. There is a critical need to understand what teachers take up and use in their classroom practice after attending PD and why we often do not see greater changes in learning and practice. This paper is based on a mixed methods efficacy study of the Learning and Teaching Geometry (LTG) video-based mathematics professional development materials. The extent to which the materials produce a beneficial impact on teachers’ mathematics knowledge, classroom practices, and their students’ knowledge in the domain of geometry through a group-randomized experimental design are considered. Included is a close-up examination of a small group of teachers to better understand their interpretations of the workshops and their classroom uptake. The participants included 103 secondary mathematics teachers serving grades 6-12 from two US states in different regions. Randomization was conducted at the school level, with 23 schools and 49 teachers assigned to the treatment group and 18 schools and 54 teachers assigned to the comparison group. The case study examination included twelve treatment teachers. PD workshops for treatment teachers began in Summer 2016. Nine full days of professional development were offered to teachers, beginning with the one-week institute (Summer 2016) and four days of PD throughout the academic year. The same facilitator-led all of the workshops, after completing a facilitator preparation process that included a multi-faceted assessment of fidelity. The overall impact of the LTG PD program was assessed from multiple sources: two teacher content assessments, two PD embedded assessments, pre-post-post videotaped classroom observations, and student assessments. Additional data were collected from the case study teachers including additional videotaped classroom observations and interviews. Repeated measures ANOVA analyses were used to detect patterns of change in the treatment teachers’ content knowledge before and after completion of the LTG PD, relative to the comparison group. No significant effects were found across the two groups of teachers on the two teacher content assessments. Teachers were rated on the quality of their mathematics instruction captured in videotaped classroom observations using the Math in Common Observation Protocol. On average, teachers who attended the LTG PD intervention improved their ability to engage students in mathematical reasoning and to provide accurate, coherent, and well-justified mathematical content. In addition, the LTG PD intervention and instruction that engaged students in mathematical practices both positively and significantly predicted greater student knowledge gains. Teacher knowledge was not a significant predictor. Twelve treatment teachers self-selected to serve as case study teachers to provide additional videotapes in which they felt they were using something from the PD they learned and experienced. Project staff analyzed the videos, compared them to previous videos and interviewed the teachers regarding their uptake of the PD related to content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and resources used. The full paper will include the case study of Ana to illustrate the factors involved in what teachers take up and use from participating in the LTG PD.

Keywords: geometry, mathematics professional development, pedagogical content knowledge, teacher learning

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