Search results for: technology identification

Authors: Aminu Fagge Muhammad

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The digital economy is fast becoming the most innovative and widest reaching economy in the world, especially in developing countries. The paper aimed at examining role of digital economy in the emerging countries like Nigeria. The methodology used in the study is Business Model Perspective: lying between the process and structural perspectives, bring in the idea of the new business models that are being enabled e.g. e-business or e-commerce. The paper concluded that, the policy objectives and measures, and processes and structures necessary to enhance digital economy growth and its contribution to socio-economic development. The finding reveals that, digital infrastructure is in part incomplete, costly and poorly-performing in emerging economies like Nigeria. The wider digital ecosystem suffers a shortfall in human capabilities, weak financing, and poor governance. It is also found that, Growth in the digital economy is exacerbating digital exclusion, inequality, adverse incorporation and other digital harms. It is recommended that, government in partnership with private sector should build strong local infrastructure to enable broadband availability and accessibility and to create an enabling environment for strong competition in the telecom and technology ecosystem.

Keywords: Digital Economy, Emerging Countries, Business Model , Nigeria

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Authors: Enas R. Shouman

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Economic development with population growth is leading to a continuous increase in energy demand. At the same time, growing global concern for the environment is driving to decrease the use of conventional energy sources and to increase the use of renewable energy sources. The objective of this study is to present the market trends of solar energy photovoltaic technology over the world and to represent economics methods for PV financial analyzes on the basis of expectations for the expansion of PV in many applications. In the course of this study, detailed information about the current PV market was gathered and analyzed to find factors influencing the penetration of PV energy. The paper methodology depended on five relevant economic financial analysis methods that are often used for investment decisions maker. These methods are payback analysis, net benefit analysis, saving-to-investment ratio, adjusted internal rate of return, and life-cycle cost. The results of this study may be considered as a marketing guide that helps diffusion of using PV Energy. The study showed that PV cost is economically reliable. The consumers will pay higher purchase prices for PV system installation but will get lower electricity bill.

Keywords: photovoltaic, financial methods, solar energy, economics, PV panel

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Authors: Darshana Thomas, Edward Wilkie, James Irvine

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The Internet of things (IoT) is currently a highly researched topic, especially within the context of the smart home. These are small sensors that are capable of gathering data and transmitting it to a server. The majority of smart home products use protocols such as ZigBee or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). As these small sensors are increasing in number, the need to implement these with much more capable and ubiquitous transmission technology is necessary. The high power consumption is the reason that holds these small sensors back from using other protocols such as the most ubiquitous form of communication, WiFi. Comparing the power consumption of existing transmission technologies to one with WiFi inbuilt, would provide a better understanding for choosing between these technologies. We have developed a small IoT device with WiFi capability and proven that it is much more efficient than the first protocol, 433 MHz. We extend our work in this paper and compare WiFi power consumption with the other most widely used protocol BLE. The experimental results in this paper would conclude whether the developed prototype is capable in terms of power consumption to replace the existing protocol BLE with WiFi.

Keywords: bluetooth, internet of things (IoT), power consumption, WiFi

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Authors: Silvia Lorenzo, Hongmian Gong

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With the influx of research assessing the economic impact of the global financial crisis of 2007-8, a spatial analysis based on empirical data is needed to better understand the spatial significance of the financial crisis in New York, a key international financial center also considered the origin of the crisis. Using spatial statistics, the existence of financial clusters specializing in credit and securities throughout the New York metropolitan area are identified for 2000 and 2010, the time period before and after the height of the global financial crisis. Geographically Weighted Regressions are then used to examine processes underlying the formation and movement of financial geographies across state, county and ZIP codes of the New York metropolitan area throughout the 2000s with specific attention to tax regimes, employment, household income, technology, and transportation hubs. This analysis provides useful inputs for financial risk management and public policy initiatives aimed at addressing regional economic sustainability across state boundaries, while also developing the groundwork for further research on a spatial analysis of the global financial crisis.

Keywords: financial clusters, New York, global financial crisis, geographically weighted regression

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Authors: Noorhaslinda Kulub Abd. Rashid, Zuraini Anang, Bayu Taufiq Possumah, Suriyani Muhamad, Fauziah Abu Hasan, Hairunnizam Wahid

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Reality of Malaysian lives today, especially the households, are not exempted from using a variety of good products and services that are particularly materialistic. In fact, the pace and sophistication of the technology is seen as a major catalyst to the pattern of community life. In facing the challenges of the current economy, the key role to be played by household is managing the pattern of expenditure, income and loan debts regularly and blessed by Allah. Unfortunately, the world today is witnessing the average household could owe solely to meet their needs with existing spending limits. This study aims to measure the ‘Religious Index of Household Expenditure’ (IKM) and analyze how far the religious influence to the pattern of household expenditure based on the 441 Muslim households. The results showed only a 5-item spending, food, housing, transportation, education, and recreation and entertainment that has a significant relationship with IKM. Therefore, Islamic consumer education is a must to establish sustainable consumptions in order to speed up the internalization of sustainable lifestyle among Malaysians.

Keywords: ‘Religious Index of Household Expenditure’ (IKM), income, sustainable consumptions, household expenditure

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Authors: Malla Vijayeta, Y. Vijaya Kumar, N. Ramakrishna Raju, K. Satyanarayana

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Global AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) industry has been coined as one of the most resistive domains in embracing technology. Although this digital era has been inundated with software tools like CAD, STADD, CANDY, Microsoft Project, Primavera etc. the key stakeholders have been working in siloes and processes remain fragmented. Unlike the yesteryears’ simpler project delivery methods, the current projects are of fast-track, complex, risky, multidisciplinary, stakeholder’s influential, statutorily regulative etc. pose extensive bottlenecks in preventing timely completion of projects. At this juncture, a paradigm shift surfaced in construction industry, and Building Information Modeling, aka BIM, has been a panacea to bolster the multidisciplinary teams’ cooperative and collaborative work leading to productive, sustainable and leaner project outcome. Building information modeling has been integrative, stakeholder engaging and centralized approach in providing a common platform of communication. A common misconception that BIM can be used for building/high rise projects in Indian Construction Industry, while this paper discusses of the implementation of BIM processes/methodologies in water and waste water industry. It elucidates about BIM 4D planning and constructability reviews of a Sewage Treatment Plant in India. Conventional construction planning and logistics management involves a blend of experience coupled with imagination. Even though the excerpts or judgments or lessons learnt gained from veterans might be predictive and helpful, but the uncertainty factor persists. This paper shall delve about the case study of real time implementation of BIM 4D planning protocols for one of the Sewage Treatment Plant of Dravyavati River Rejuvenation Project in India and develops a Time Liner to identify logistics planning and clash detection. With this BIM processes, we shall find that there will be significant reduction of duplication of tasks and reworks. Also another benefit achieved will be better visualization and workarounds during conception stage and enables for early involvement of the stakeholders in the Project Life cycle of Sewage Treatment Plant construction. Moreover, we have also taken an opinion poll of the benefits accrued utilizing BIM processes versus traditional paper based communication like 2D and 3D CAD tools. Thus this paper concludes with BIM framework for Sewage Treatment Plant construction which will achieve optimal construction co-ordination advantages like 4D construction sequencing, interference checking, clash detection checking and resolutions by primary engagement of all key stakeholders thereby identifying potential risks and subsequent creation of risk response strategies. However, certain hiccups like hesitancy in adoption of BIM technology by naïve users and availability of proficient BIM trainers in India poses a phenomenal impediment. Hence the nurture of BIM processes from conception, construction and till commissioning, operation and maintenance along with deconstruction of a project’s life cycle is highly essential for Indian Construction Industry in this digital era.

Keywords: integrated BIM workflow, 4D planning with BIM, building information modeling, clash detection and visualization, constructability reviews, project life cycle

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Authors: Jianzheng Wei, Duo Zhen, Zhihan Yang, Huifeng Tan

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The deployable descent technology is a lightweight entry method using an inflatable heat shield. The heatshield consists of a pressurized core which is covered by different layers of thermal insulation and flexible ablative materials in order to protect against the thermal loads. In this paper, both aluminum and silicon-aluminum aerogels were prepared by freeze-drying method. The latter material has bigger specific surface area and nano-scale pores. Mullite fibers are used as the reinforcing fibers to prepare the aerogel matrix to improve composite flexibility. The flexible composite materials were performed as an insulation layer to an underlying aramid fabric by a thermal shock test at a heat flux density of 120 kW/m² and uniaxial tensile test. These results show that the aramid fabric with untreated mullite fibers as the thermal protective layer is completely carbonized at the heat of about 60 s. The aramid fabric as a thermal resistance layer of the composite material still has good mechanical properties at the same heat condition.

Keywords: aerogel, aramid fabric, flexibility, thermal resistance

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Authors: Gunasekaran Raja, Ramkumar Jayaraman, Rajakumar Arul, Kottilingam Kottursamy

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Broadband Wireless Network (BWN) is the promising technology nowadays due to the increased number of smartphones. Buffering scheme using network coding considers the reliability and proper degree distribution in Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) multi-hop network. Using network coding, a secure way of transmission is performed which helps in improving throughput and reduces the packet loss in the multicast network. At the outset, improved network coding is proposed in multicast wireless mesh network. Considering the problem of performance overhead, degree distribution makes a decision while performing buffer in the encoding / decoding process. Consequently, BuS (Buffer Scheme) based on network coding is proposed in the multi-hop network. Here the encoding process introduces buffer for temporary storage to transmit packets with proper degree distribution. The simulation results depend on the number of packets received in the encoding/decoding with proper degree distribution using buffering scheme.

Keywords: encoding and decoding, buffer, network coding, degree distribution, broadband wireless networks, multicast

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Authors: Felicia Orah Rein Moshe

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Soil erosion has become a priority global concern, impairing water quality and degrading ecosystem services. In Mediterranean climates, following a long dry period, the onset of rain occurs when agricultural soils are often bare and most vulnerable to erosion. Early storms transport sediments and sediment-bound pollutants into streams, along with dissolved chemicals. This results in loss of valuable topsoil, water quality degradation, and potentially expensive dredged-material disposal costs. Information on the provenance of fine sediment and priority sources of adsorbed pollutants represents a critical need for developing effective control strategies aimed at source reduction. Modifying sediment traps designed for marine systems, this study tested a cost-effective method to collect suspended sediments on a catchment scale to characterize stream water quality during first-flush storm events in a flashy Eastern Mediterranean coastal perennial stream. This study investigated the Kishon Basin, deploying sediment traps in 23 locations, including 4 in the mainstream and one downstream in each of 19 tributaries, enabling the characterization of sediment as a vehicle for transporting chemicals. Further, it enabled direct comparison of sediment-bound pollutants transported during the first-flush winter storms of 2020 from each of 19 tributaries, allowing subsequent ecotoxicity ranking. Sediment samples were successfully captured in 22 locations. Pesticides, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, and metal concentrations were quantified, identifying a total of 50 pesticides, 15 pharmaceuticals, and 22 metals, with 16 pesticides and 3 pharmaceuticals found in all 23 locations, demonstrating the importance of this transport pathway. Heavy metals were detected in only one tributary, identifying an important watershed pollution source with immediate potential influence on long-term dredging costs. Simultaneous sediment sampling at first flush storms enabled clear identification of priority tributaries and their chemical contributions, advancing a new national watershed monitoring approach, facilitating strategic plan development based on source reduction, and advancing the goal of improving the farm-stream interface, conserving soil resources, and protecting water quality.

Keywords: adsorbed pollution, dredged material, heavy metals, suspended sediment, water quality monitoring

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Authors: Akbar Farahani, Afsaneh Hassani, Peyman M. Farkhondeh

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Human Resource Management as one of the core processes of the project-based companies, despite its key role in the success and competitive advantage, is relatively unknown. In the project-based companies, due to the accelerated movement of knowledge in the work activities and the temporary nature of the project, the need to develop mechanisms for achieving optimal management of this issues is very challenging. Approach to human resource management in these companies evolves with goals, strategies, and operational processes. Therefore, the need for appropriate tools to facilitate implementation of the optimized human resource management in the project is more than before,Which currently with the development of information technology and modern communication, appropriate to address the optimal approach for dynamic management of human resources in the project have been provided.This is done by using the referral system implemented in Mahab GCE that provides 1: the ability to use humans in projects without geographic limitation and 2:information on the activities and outcomes of referrals.Furthermore, by using this system, recording the lessons learned after any particular activity on projects,accessing quantitative information, procedures, documentation of learned practices that have been stored in the data base as well as using them in future projects is provided.

Keywords: human resource management, project base company, ERP, referrals system

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Authors: Sitthichai Laisema, Panita Wannapiroon

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This study is a research and development which is intended to: 1) design ubiquitous collaborative learning activities with virtual teams using CPS processes to develop creative thinking and collaboration skills, and 2) assess the suitability of the ubiquitous collaborative learning activities. Its methods are divided into 2 phases. Phase 1 is the design of ubiquitous collaborative learning activities with virtual teams using CPS processes, phase 2 is the assessment of the suitability of the learning activities. The samples used in this study are 5 professionals in the field of learning activity design, ubiquitous learning, information technology, creative thinking, and collaboration skills. The results showed that ubiquitous collaborative learning activities with virtual teams using CPS processes to develop creative thinking and collaboration skills consist of 3 main steps which are: 1) preparation before learning, 2) learning activities processing and 3) performance appraisal. The result of the learning activities suitability assessment from the professionals is in the highest level.

Keywords: ubiquitous learning, collaborative learning, virtual team, creative problem solving

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Authors: Islam Sherif, Ahmed Ashour, Ahmed Hassan, Hatem Osman

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Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are common among athletes and individuals participating in sports with sudden stops, pivots, and changes in direction. Arthroscopic surgery is the gold standard for ACL reconstruction, aiming to restore knee stability and function. Recent years have witnessed significant advancements in arthroscopic surgery techniques, graft materials, and technological innovations, revolutionizing the field of ACL reconstruction. This presentation delves into the latest advancements in arthroscopic surgery techniques for ACL reconstruction and their potential impact on patient outcomes. Traditionally, autografts from the patellar tendon, hamstring tendon, or quadriceps tendon have been commonly used for ACL reconstruction. However, recent studies have explored the use of allografts, synthetic scaffolds, and tissue-engineered grafts as viable alternatives. This abstract evaluates the benefits and potential drawbacks of each graft type, considering factors such as graft incorporation, strength, and risk of graft failure. Moreover, the application of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies in surgical planning and intraoperative navigation has gained traction. AR and VR platforms provide surgeons with detailed 3D anatomical reconstructions of the knee joint, enhancing preoperative visualization and aiding in graft tunnel placement during surgery. We discuss the integration of AR and VR in arthroscopic ACL reconstruction procedures, evaluating their accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and overall impact on surgical outcomes. Beyond graft selection and surgical navigation, patient-specific planning has gained attention in recent research. Advanced imaging techniques, such as MRI-based personalized planning, enable surgeons to tailor ACL reconstruction procedures to each patient's unique anatomy. By accounting for individual variations in the femoral and tibial insertion sites, this personalized approach aims to optimize graft placement and potentially improve postoperative knee kinematics and stability. Furthermore, rehabilitation and postoperative care play a crucial role in the success of ACL reconstruction. This abstract explores novel rehabilitation protocols, emphasizing early mobilization, neuromuscular training, and accelerated recovery strategies. Integrating technology, such as wearable sensors and mobile applications, into postoperative care can facilitate remote monitoring and timely intervention, contributing to enhanced rehabilitation outcomes. In conclusion, this presentation provides an overview of the cutting-edge advancements in arthroscopic surgery techniques for ACL reconstruction. By embracing innovative graft materials, augmented reality, patient-specific planning, and technology-driven rehabilitation, orthopedic surgeons and sports medicine specialists can achieve superior outcomes in ACL injury management. These developments hold great promise for improving the functional outcomes and long-term success rates of ACL reconstruction, benefitting athletes and patients alike.

Keywords: arthroscopic surgery, ACL, autograft, allograft, graft materials, ACL reconstruction, synthetic scaffolds, tissue-engineered graft, virtual reality, augmented reality, surgical planning, intra-operative navigation

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Authors: Nagaraju Pendam, C. P. Vardhani

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A simple technology–compatible design of silicon-on-insulator based 1×2 optical power splitter is proposed. For developing large area Opto-electronic Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) devices, the power splitter is a key passive device. The SOI rib- waveguide dimensions (height, width, and etching depth, refractive indices, length of waveguide) leading simultaneously to single mode propagation. In this paper a low loss optical power splitter is designed by using R Soft cad tool and simulated by Beam propagation method, here s-bend waveguides proposed. We concentrate changing the refractive index difference, branching angle, width of the waveguide, free space wavelength of the waveguide and observing transmitted power, effective refractive index in the designed waveguide, and choosing the best simulated results to be fabricated on silicon-on insulator platform. In this design 1550 nm free spacing are used.

Keywords: beam propagation method, insertion loss, optical power splitter, rib waveguide, transmitted power

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Authors: Kazuaki Shiraishi, Narumitsu Asai, Tsukasa Kitahara, Sosuke Mieno, Takaharu Kameoka

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The purpose of this research is to facilitate productivity advances in agriculture. To accomplish this, we developed an automatic three-dimensional (3D) recording system for growth of field crops that consists of a number of inexpensive modules: a very low-cost stereo camera, a couple of ZigBee wireless modules, a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, and a third generation (3G) wireless communication module. Our system uses an inexpensive Web stereo camera in order to keep total costs low. However, inexpensive video cameras record low-resolution images that are very noisy. Accordingly, in order to resolve these problems, we adopted a deep learning method. Based on the results of extended period of time operation test conducted without the use of an external power supply, we found that by using Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network method, our system could achieve a balance between the competing goals of low-cost and superior performance. Our experimental results showed the effectiveness of our system.

Keywords: 3D plant data, automatic recording, stereo camera, deep learning, image processing

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Authors: Fanny Desbiolles, Laure Malleret, Isabelle Laffont-Schwob, Christophe Tiliacos, Anne Piram, Mohamed Sarakha, Pascal Wong-Wah-Chung

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Pharmaceuticals in the environment have become a very hot topic in the recent years. This interest is related to the large amounts dispensed and to their release in urine or faeces from treated patients, resulting in their ubiquitous presence in water resources and wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) effluents. Thereby, many studies focused on the prediction of pharmaceuticals’ behaviour, to assess their fate and impacts in the environment. Carbamazepine is a widely consumed psychotropic pharmaceutical, thus being one of the most commonly detected drugs in the environment. This organic pollutant was proved to be persistent, especially with respect to its non-biodegradability, rendering it recalcitrant to usual biological treatment processes. Consequently, carbamazepine is very little removed in WWTP with a maximum abatement rate of 5 % and is then often released in natural surface waters. To better assess the environmental fate of carbamazepine in aqueous media, its photochemical transformation was undertaken in four natural waters (two French rivers, the Berre salt lagoon, Mediterranean Sea water) representative of coastal and inland water types. Kinetic experiments were performed in the presence of light using simulated solar irradiation (Xe lamp 300W). Formation of short-lifetime species was highlighted using chemical trap and laser flash photolysis (nanosecond). Identification of transformation by-products was assessed by LC-QToF-MS analyses. Carbamazepine degradation was observed after a four-day exposure and an abatement of 20% maximum was measured yielding to the formation of many by-products. Moreover, the formation of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) was evidenced in waters using terephthalic acid as a probe, considering the photochemical instability of its specific hydroxylated derivative. Correlations were implemented using carbamazepine degradation rate, estimated hydroxyl radical formation and chemical contents of waters. In addition, laser flash photolysis studies confirmed •OH formation and allowed to evidence other reactive species, such as chloride (Cl2•-)/bromine (Br2•-) and carbonate (CO3•-) radicals in natural waters. Radicals mainly originate from dissolved phase and their occurrence and abundance depend on the type of water. Rate constants between reactive species and carbamazepine were determined by laser flash photolysis and competitive reactions experiments. Moreover, LC-QToF-MS analyses of by-products help us to propose mechanistic pathways. The results will bring insights to the fate of carbamazepine in various water types and could help to evaluate more precisely potential ecotoxicological effects.

Keywords: carbamazepine, kinetic and mechanistic approaches, natural waters, photodegradation

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Authors: Muhammad Waseem Akram

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The current study attempts to analyze the impact of business constraints on the growth potential and performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the electrical industry of Pakistan. Primary data have been utilized for the study collected from the electrical industry cluster in Sargodha, Pakistan. OLS regression is used to assess the impact of business constraints on the performance of SMEs by controlling the effect of Technology Level, Innovations, and Firm Size. To associate business constraints with the growth potential of SMEs, the study utilized Tetrachoric Correlation and Logistic Regression. Findings reveal that all the business constraints negatively affect the performance of SMEs in the electrical industry except Political Instability. Results of Tetrachoric Correlation show that all the business constraints are negatively correlated with the growth potential of SMEs. Logistic Regression results show that Energy Constraint, Inflation and Price Instability, and Bad Business Practices, all three business constraints cause to reduce the probability of income growth in sample SMEs.

Keywords: SMEs, business constraints, performance, growth potential

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Authors: Redouane Tlemsani, Abdelkader Benyettou

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Work is in on line Arabic character recognition and the principal motivation is to study the Arab manuscript with on line technology. This system is a Markovian system, which one can see as like a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN). One of the major interests of these systems resides in the complete models training (topology and parameters) starting from training data. Our approach is based on the dynamic Bayesian Networks formalism. The DBNs theory is a Bayesians networks generalization to the dynamic processes. Among our objective, amounts finding better parameters, which represent the links (dependences) between dynamic network variables. In applications in pattern recognition, one will carry out the fixing of the structure, which obliges us to admit some strong assumptions (for example independence between some variables). Our application will relate to the Arabic isolated characters on line recognition using our laboratory database: NOUN. A neural tester proposed for DBN external optimization. The DBN scores and DBN mixed are respectively 70.24% and 62.50%, which lets predict their further development; other approaches taking account time were considered and implemented until obtaining a significant recognition rate 94.79%.

Keywords: Arabic on line character recognition, dynamic Bayesian network, pattern recognition, computer vision

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Authors: Abdulah Fajar

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Electronic Procurement System has been implemented at government institution in Indonesia. This system has been developed centrally at Institution of National Procurement Policy (LKPP) and implemented autonomously at either local or national government institution. The lack of competency at many institution on Information Technology Management arise several major problems. The main concern of LKPP to local administrator is assured that the system is running normally and always be able to serve the needs of its users. Monitoring system has been identified as the one of solution to prevent the problems appeared. Monitoring system is developed using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and implemented at LKPP. There are two modules; Main Dashboard and Local Agent. Main Dashboard is intended for LKPP and Local Agent is intended to implement at local autonomous e-procurement system (LPSE). There are several resources that must be monitored such as computation, memory and network traffic. Agile paradigm is applied to this project to assure user and system requirement is met. The length of project is the one of reason why agile paradigm has been chosen. The system has been successfully delivered to LKPP.

Keywords: procurement system, SNMP, LKPP, LPSE

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Authors: Cansu Kandemir, Marco Franchino

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To attain sustainability goals, the manufacturing industries must assess and improve their processes, adopt the latest technologies, and ensure minimal environmental impact. Ongoing debates claim that the definition of sustainability and its assessment is vague. Companies struggle with understanding which processes they should prioritise and necessitate a methodology to aid decision-making. For that reason, our investigation focused on defining a prioritisation guide to help to manufacture engineers identify areas of a facility to prioritise de-carbonisation efforts based on existing sources of data. The authors at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) worked with a range of major businesses, including Food and Drink (Moy Park), Automotive (Nissan), Aerospace and Defence (BAE, Meggitt, Leonardo, and GKN) and Technology (Accenture and Intellium AI). Collected information has been integrated into a prioritisation guide framework that helps process comparison and decision-making. The framework developed in this study aims to ensure that companies have guidance on where to focus their efforts whilst striving to fulfil their environmental and societal obligations.

Keywords: decision making, sustainability, carbon emissions, manufacturing

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Authors: Fahd Sabry Esmail, M. Badr Senousy, Mohamed Ragaie

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In recent years, there has been an explosion in the rate of using technology that help discovering the diseases. For example, DNA microarrays allow us for the first time to obtain a "global" view of the cell. It has great potential to provide accurate medical diagnosis, to help in finding the right treatment and cure for many diseases. Various classification algorithms can be applied on such micro-array datasets to devise methods that can predict the occurrence of Leukemia disease. In this study, we compared the classification accuracy and response time among eleven decision tree methods and six rule classifier methods using five performance criteria. The experiment results show that the performance of Random Tree is producing better result. Also it takes lowest time to build model in tree classifier. The classification rules algorithms such as nearest- neighbor-like algorithm (NNge) is the best algorithm due to the high accuracy and it takes lowest time to build model in classification.

Keywords: data mining, classification techniques, decision tree, classification rule, leukemia diseases, microarray data

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Authors: Celia Marilia Martins, Sonia I. V. Guilundo, Iris M. Victorino, Antonio O. Quilambo

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In Mozambique rapid industrialization (mining, aluminium and cement activities) and urbanization processes has led to the incorporation of heavy metals on soil, thus degrading not only the quality of the environment, but also affecting plants, animals and human healthy. Several methods have been used to remediate contaminated soils, but most of them are costly and difficult to get optimum results. Currently, phytoremediation is an effective and affordable technological solution used to extract or remove inactive metals from contaminated soil. Phytoremediation is the use of plants to clean up a contamination from soils, sediments, and water. This technology is environmental friendly and potentially cost effective. The present investigation summarised the potential of edible vegetable to grow under the high level of heavy metals such as lead and zinc. The plants used in these studies include Tomatoes, lettuce and Soya beans. The studies have shown that edible plants can be grown under the high level of heavy metals on the soil. Further investigations are identifying mechanisms used by plants to ensure a safe and sustainable use for remediation of contaminated soils by heavy metals.

Keywords: contaminated soil, edible plants, heavy metals, phytoremediation

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Authors: Aslı Taş, Şebnem Ertaş

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Culture consists of material and spiritual values adopted by the emerging societies during the historical and social processes and continues to exist from past to present by being transferred through generations. Culture and cultural sustainability are interdependent concepts. Cultural sustainability exists when the requirements established cultural expression are added to the social life as lifestyle and habits. However, sustainability renders change inevitable. Changes that take place in the culture of a society also shows the impact in the daily life places. Functional changes occur in the spaces in order to adapt particularly to cultural change that appear in the aftermath of the user change, to modern technology and living standards. In this context, in this study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of the time-dependent functional changes that took place in the housing where non-Muslim population who was subject to population exchange and Muslim population lived after the population exchange in the vacated housing in Sille. Therefore, the changed and newly added venues in the house belonging to Ali Oğuz in Hacı Ali Ağa Street were investigated over the generated graphic in order to clearly perceive the cultural exchange on the housing and settlement and the functional changes were demonstrated.

Keywords: culture, house, spatial changes, sustainability

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Authors: Balpreet Singh Madan

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The Middle Eastern countries have preserved their heritage, tradition, and culture in their buildings by incorporating vernacular features of Arab-Islamic Architecture. The harsh sun and arid climate in the Gulf region make their buildings and infrastructure extremely hot and challenging to live in. One such iconic feature of Arab architecture is the Mashrabiya, which has been refined and updated for both functional and aesthetic purposes. This feature helps reduce the impact of solar radiation in buildings and lowers the energy requirements for creating livable conditions. The incorporation of Mashrabiya in modern buildings in the region symbolizes the amalgamation of tradition with innovation and modern technology. These buildings depict Mashrabiya with refinements for its better functional performance and aesthetic appeal to make superior built forms. This paper emphasizes the study of Mashrabiya as a vernacular feature with its adaptability for Energy Conservation and Sustainability, as seen in some of the recent iconic buildings of the Middle East, through a literature review and case studies of renowned buildings.

Keywords: energy efficiency, climate responsive, sustainability, innovation, heritage, vernacular

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Authors: Nady Farag Faragalla Hanna

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In the car dealership industry in Japan, the sales specialist is a key factor in the success of the company. I hypothesize that when a company understands the characteristics of sales professionals in its industry, it is easier to recruit and train salespeople effectively. Lean human resources management ensures the economic success and performance of companies, especially small and medium-sized companies.The purpose of the article is to determine the characteristics of sales specialists for small and medium-sized car dealerships using the chi-square test and the proximate variable model. Accordingly, the results show that career change experience, learning ability and product knowledge are important, while university education, career building through internal transfer, leadership experience and people development are not important for becoming a sales professional. I also show that the characteristics of sales specialists are perseverance, humility, improvisation and passion for business.

Keywords: electronics engineering, marketing, sales, E-commerce digitalization, interactive systems, sales process ARIMA models, sales demand forecasting, time series, R codetraits of sales professionals, variable precision rough sets theory, sales professional, sales professionals

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Authors: Emre Kara, Ali Kurşun, Halil Aykul

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The lightweight sandwiches obtained with the use of various core materials such as foams, honeycomb, lattice structures etc., which have high energy absorbing capacity and high strength to weight ratio, are suitable for several applications in transport industry (automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding industry) where saving of fuel consumption, load carrying capacity increase, safety of vehicles and decrease of emission of harmful gases are very important aspects. While the sandwich structures with foams and honeycombs have been applied for many years, there is a growing interest on a new generation sandwiches with micro lattice cores. In order to produce these core structures, various production methods were created with the development of the technology. One of these production technologies is an additive manufacturing technique called selective laser sintering/melting (SLS/SLM) which is very popular nowadays because of saving of production time and achieving the production of complex topologies. The static bending and the dynamic low velocity impact tests of the sandwiches with carbon fiber/epoxy skins and the micro lattice cores produced via SLS/SLM were already reported in just a few studies. The goal of this investigation was the analysis of the flexural response of the sandwiches consisting of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) skins and the micro lattice cores manufactured via SLS under thermo-mechanical loads in order to compare the results in terms of peak load and absorbed energy values respect to the effect of core cell size, temperature and support span length. The micro lattice cores were manufactured using SLS technology that creates the product drawn by a 3D computer aided design (CAD) software. The lattice cores which were designed as body centered cubic (BCC) model having two different cell sizes (d= 2 and 2.5 mm) with the strut diameter of 0.3 mm were produced using titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) powder. During the production of all the core materials, the same production parameters such as laser power, laser beam diameter, building direction etc. were kept constant. Vacuum Infusion (VI) method was used to produce skin materials, made of [0°/90°] woven S-Glass prepreg laminates. The combination of the core and skins were implemented under VI. Three point bending tests were carried out by a servo-hydraulic test machine with different values of support span distances (L = 30, 45, and 60 mm) under various temperature values (T = 23, 40 and 60 °C) in order to analyze the influences of support span and temperature values. The failure mode of the collapsed sandwiches has been investigated using 3D computed tomography (CT) that allows a three-dimensional reconstruction of the analyzed object. The main results of the bending tests are: load-deflection curves, peak force and absorbed energy values. The results were compared according to the effect of cell size, support span and temperature values. The obtained results have particular importance for applications that require lightweight structures with a high capacity of energy dissipation, such as the transport industry, where problems of collision and crash have increased in the last years.

Keywords: light-weight sandwich structures, micro lattice cores, selective laser sintering, transport application

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Authors: Zhiming Ye, Dejiang Wang, Huiling Zhao

Abstract:

Development of the technology demands a higher-level research on the mechanical behavior of materials. Structural members made of bi-modulus materials have different elastic modulus when they are under tension and compression. The stress and strain states of the point effect on the elastic modulus and Poisson ratio of every point in the bi-modulus material body. Accompanied by the uncertainty and nonlinearity of the elastic constitutive relation is the complicated nonlinear problem of the bi-modulus members. In this paper, the small displacement and large displacement finite element method for the bi-modulus members have been proposed. Displacement nonlinearity is considered in the elastic constitutive equation. Mechanical behavior of slender bi-modulus beam-column under different boundary conditions and loading patterns has been simulated by the proposed method. The influence factors on the ultimate bearing capacity of slender beam and columns have been studied. The results show that as the ratio of tensile modulus to compressive modulus increases, the error of the simulation employing the same elastic modulus theory exceeds the engineering permissible error.

Keywords: bi-modulus, ultimate capacity, beam-column, nonlinearity

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Authors: Mary Elizabeth Bernardin, Margie Batek, Joseph Moen, David Schnadower

Abstract:

Background: Injuries due to interpersonal violence are a common reason for emergency department (ED) visits amongst the American pediatric population. Gun violence, in particular, is associated with high morbidity, mortality as well as financial costs. Patterns of pediatric ED usage may be an indicator of risk for future violence, but very little data on the topic exists. Objective: The aims of this study were to assess for frequencies of ED usage for previous interpersonal violence, mental/behavioral issues, sexual/reproductive issues and concerns for abuse in youths presenting to EDs due to physical assault injuries (PAIs) compared to firearm injuries (FIs). Methods: In this retrospective case-control study, ED charts of children ages 8-19 years who presented with injuries due to interpersonal violent encounters from 2014-2017 were reviewed. Data was collected regarding all previous ED visits for injuries due to interpersonal violence (including physical assaults and firearm injuries), mental/behavioral health visits (including depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, homicidal ideation and violent behavior), sexual/reproductive health visits (including sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy related issues), and concerns for abuse (including physical abuse or domestic violence, neglect, sexual abuse, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence). Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of gun violence based on previous ED visits amongst physical assault injured versus firearm injured youths. Results: A total of 407 patients presenting to the ED for an interpersonal violent encounter were analyzed, 251 (62%) of which were due to physical assault injuries (PAIs) and 156 (38%) due to firearm injuries (FIs). The majority of both PAI and FI patients had no previous history of ED visits for violence, mental/behavioral health, sexual/reproductive health or concern for abuse (60.8% PAI, 76.3% FI). 19.2% of PAI and 13.5% of FI youths had previous ED visits for physical assault injuries (OR 0.68, P=0.24, 95% CI 0.36 to 1.29). 1.6% of PAI and 3.2% of FI youths had a history of ED visits for previous firearm injuries (OR 3.6, P=0.34, 95% CI 0.04 to 2.95). 10% of PAI and 3.8% of FI youths had previous ED visits for mental/behavioral health issues (OR 0.91, P=0.80, 95% CI 0.43 to 1.93). 10% of PAI and 2.6% of FI youths had previous ED visits due to concerns for abuse (OR 0.76, P=0.55, 95% CI 0.31 to 1.86). Conclusions: There are no statistically significant differences between physical assault-injured and firearm-injured youths in terms of ED usage for previous violent injuries, mental/behavioral health visits, sexual/reproductive health visits or concerns for abuse. However, violently injured youths in this study have more than twice the number of previous ED usage for physical assaults and mental health visits than previous literature indicates. Data comparing ED usage of victims of interpersonal violence to nonviolent ED patients is needed, but this study supports the notion that EDs may be a useful place for identification of and enrollment in interventions for youths most at risk for future violence.

Keywords: child abuse, emergency department usage, pediatric gun violence, pediatric interpersonal violence, pediatric mental health, pediatric reproductive health

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Authors: Angela Nkiru Nwammuo

Abstract:

This paper evaluates the influence of selected Nigerian gender-based Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in embodying feminism within digital spaces.. The study will focus on notable organizations that make use of online platforms for sensitization, advocacy, education and mobilization of women and stakeholders against gender-based violence in tertiary institutions.. The strategies they adopt in carrying out these functions, and the nature of their influence will be analyzed. Through the adoption of in-depth interview as a tool for data collection, leaders of the selected NGOs will be studied. Also Gender Studies Directors in Nigerian tertiary institutions the NGOs included in their advocacy will be interviewed to ascertain if there are noticeable results. By investigating the use of technology by the NGOs in feminism activism, this study, will underscore the importance of digital spaces in amplifying women’s voices and in advancing feminist ideologies in Nigeria and Africa, as a whole. The findings will highlight how gender-based NGOs in Africa shape, and reshape perceptions of gender equality and women’s rights throughout the continent.

Keywords: embodied feminism, digital spaces, nigerian women, gender-based NGOs, feminism activism

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Authors: Vani Singhal, Jitendra Parmar, Satyendra Singh Chouhan

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Unseen class discovery has now become an important part of a machine-learning algorithm to judge new classes. Unseen classes are the classes on which the machine learning model is not trained on. With the advancement in technology and AI replacing humans, the amount of data has increased to the next level. So while implementing a model on real-world examples, we come across unseen new classes. Our aim is to find the number of unseen classes by using a hierarchical-based active learning algorithm. The algorithm is based on hierarchical clustering as well as active sampling. The number of clusters that we will get in the end will give the number of unseen classes. The total clusters will also contain some clusters that have unseen classes. Instead of first discovering unseen classes and then finding their number, we directly calculated the number by applying the algorithm. The dataset used is for intent classification. The target data is the intent of the corresponding query. We conclude that when the machine learning model will encounter real-world data, it will automatically find the number of unseen classes. In the future, our next work would be to label these unseen classes correctly.

Keywords: active sampling, hierarchical clustering, open world learning, unseen class discovery

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Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Sava G. Tabakov, Aleksander B. Peltekov, Krasimir I. Ivanov

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A field study was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition and quality of the Aronia fruits, as well as the possibilities of Aronia cultivation on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The experiment was performed on an agricultural field contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works (NFMW) near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The study included four varieties of Aronia; Aron variety, Hugin variety, Viking variety and Nero variety. The Aronia was cultivated according to the conventional technology on areas at a different distance from the source of pollution NFMW- Plovdiv (1 km, 3.5 km, and 15 km). The concentrations of macroelements, microelements, and heavy metals in Aronia fruits were determined. The dry matter content, ash, sugars, proteins, and fats were also determined. Aronia is a crop that is tolerant to heavy metals and can successfully be grown on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The increased content of heavy metals in the soil leads to less absorption of the nutrients (Ca, Mg and P) in the fruit of the Aronia. Soil pollution with heavy metals does not affect the quality of the Aronia fruit varieties.

Keywords: aronia, chemical composition, fruits, quality

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