Search results for: French as an additional language education

Authors: Nuray Baltaci, Kursat Cagiltay

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University rankings which can be seen as nouveau topic are at the center of focus and followed closely by different parties. Students are interested in university rankings in order to make informed decisions about the selection of their candidate future universities. University administrators and academicians can utilize them to see and evaluate their universities’ relative performance compared to other institutions in terms of including but not limited to academic, economic, and international outlook issues. Local institutions may use those ranking systems, as TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) and YOK (Council of Higher Education) do in Turkey, to support students and give scholarships when they want to apply for undergraduate and graduate studies abroad. When it is considered that the ranking systems are concerned by this many different parties, the importance of having clear, easy to use and well-designed websites by ranking institutions will be apprehended. In this paper, a usability study for the websites of four different global university ranking institutions, namely Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education, QS and University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), was conducted. User-based approach was adopted and usability tests were conducted with 10 graduate students at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Before performing the formal usability tests, a pilot study had been completed to reflect the necessary changes to the settings of the study. Participants’ demographics, task completion times, paths traced to complete tasks, and their satisfaction levels on each task and website were collected. According to the analyses of the collected data, those ranking websites were compared in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction dimensions of usability as pointed in ISO 9241-11. Results showed that none of the selected ranking websites is superior to other ones in terms of overall effectiveness and efficiency of the website. However the only remarkable result was that the highest average task completion times for two of the designed tasks belong to the Times Higher Education Rankings website. Evaluation of the user satisfaction on each task and each website produced slightly different but rather similar results. When the satisfaction levels of the participants on each task are examined, it was seen that the highest scores belong to ARWU and URAP websites. The overall satisfaction levels of the participants for each website showed that the URAP website has highest score followed by ARWU website. In addition, design problems and powerful design features of those websites reported by the participants are presented in the paper. Since the study mainly tackles about the design problems of the URAP website, the focus is on this website. Participants reported 3 main design problems about the website which are unaesthetic and unprofessional design style of the website, improper map location on ranking pages, and improper listing of the field names on field ranking page.

Keywords: university ranking, user-based approach, website usability, design

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Authors: Mahdi Naeemi Nooghabi, Mohammad Tofiqu Arif

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Gas Insulated Switchgears by using an insulation material named SF6 (Sulphur Hexafluoride) and its significant dielectric properties have been the only choice in urban areas and other polluted industries. However, the initial investment of GIS is more than conventional AIS substation, its total life cycle costs caused to reach huge amounts of electrical market share. SF6 environmental impacts on global warming, atmosphere depletion, and decomposing to toxic gases in high temperature situation, and highest rate in Global Warming Potential (GWP) with 23900 times of CO2e and a 3200-year period lifetime was the only undeniable concern of GIS substation. Efforts of international environmental institute and their politic supports have been able to lead SF6 emission reduction legislation. This research targeted to find an appropriate alternative for GIS substations to meet all advantages in land occupation area and to improve SF6 environmental impacts due to its leakage and emission. An innovative new conceptual design named Multi-Storey prepared a new AIS design similar in land occupation, extremely low Sf6 emission, and maximum greenhouse gas emission reduction. Surprisingly, by considering economic benefits due to carbon price saving, it can earn more than $675 million during the 30-year life cycle by replacing of just 25% of total annual worldly additional GIS switchgears.

Keywords: AIS substation, GIS substation, SF6, greenhouse gas, global warming potential, carbon price, emission

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Authors: Mohammad Amin Mozaheb, Jalal Farzaneh Dehkordi, Khojasteh Hosseinzadehpilehvar

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English Language Teaching (ELT) is widely promoted across the world. ELT textbooks play pivotal roles in the mentioned process. Since biases of authors have been an issue of continuing interest to analysts over the past few years, the present study seeks to analyze an ELT textbook using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). To obtain the goal of the study, the listening section of a book called World English 3 (new edition) has been analyzed in terms of the cultures and countries mentioned in the listening section of the book using content-based analysis. The analysis indicates biases towards certain cultures. Moreover, some countries are shown as rich and powerful countries, while some others have been shown as poor ones without considering the history behind them.

Keywords: ELT, textbooks, critical discourse analysis, World English

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Authors: Abdullah Alhaqbani

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Purpose: Implementing continuous improvement is a challenge that public sector organisations face in becoming successful. Many obstacles hinder public organisations from successfully implementing continuous improvement. This paper aims to highlight the key core obstacles that face public organisations to implement continuous improvement programmes. Approach: Based on the literature, this paper reviews 66 papers that were published between 2000 and 2013 and that focused on the concept of continuous improvement and improvement methodologies in the context of public sector organisations. The methodologies for continuous improvement covered in these papers include Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, process re-engineering, lean thinking and Kaizen. Findings: Of the 24 obstacles found in the literature, 11 barriers were seen as core barriers that frequently occurred in public sector organisations. The findings indicate that lack of top management commitment; organisational culture and political issues and resistance to change are significant obstacles for improvement programmes. Moreover, this review found that improvement methodologies share some core barriers to successful implementation within public organisations. These barriers as well are common in the different geographic area. For instance lack of top management commitment and training that found in the education sector in Albanian are common barriers of improvement studies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Spain, UK and US. Practical implications: Understanding these core issues and barriers will help managers of public organisations to improve their strategies with respect to continuous improvement. Thus, this review highlights the core issues that prevent a successful continuous improvement journey within the public sector. Value: Identifying and understanding the common obstacles to successfully implementing continuous improvement in the public sector will help public organisations to learn how to improve in launching and successfully sustaining such programmes. However, this is not the end; rather, it is just the beginning of a longer improvement journey. Thus, it is intended that this review will identify key learning opportunities for public sector organisations in developing nations which will then be tested via further research.

Keywords: continuous improvement, total quality management, obstacles, public sector

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Authors: Reetika Sharma, Lalit Tejwani, Himanshu Shekhar, Arun Singhvi

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Purpose: To describe a novel technique of trabeculectomy targeting triple modulation on wound healing to increase the overall success rate. Method: Ten eyes of 10 patients underwent trabeculectomy with subconjunctival mitomycin C (0.4mg/ml for 4 minutes) application combined with Ologen implantation subconjunctivally and subsclerally. Five of these patients underwent additional phacoemulsification with intraocular lens implantation. The Ologen implant was wet with 0.1 ml Bevacizumab. Result: All the eyes achieved target intraocular pressure (IOP), which was maintained until one year of follow-up. Two patients needed anterior chamber reformation at day two post surgery. One patient needed cataract surgery after four months of surgery and achieved target intraocular pressure on two topical antiglaucoma medicines. Conclusion: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) concentration has been seen to increase in the aqueous humor after filtration surgery. Ologen implantation helps in collagen remodelling, antifibroblastic response, and acts as a spacer. Bevacizumab augmented Ologen, in addition, targets the increased VEGF and helps in decreasing scarring. Anti-VEGF augmented Ologen in trabeculectomy with mitomycin C (MMC) hence appears to have encouraging short-term intraocular pressure control.

Keywords: ologen, anti-VEGF, trabeculectomy, scarring

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Authors: Mohammad Torabiyan, Kazem Mosawi Nejad

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Today architecture has become as a powerful media for introducing cultures to the world, which in turn brings about a change in the global insight, power gaining, investment and development. Islamic architecture is based on the language of Koran and shows the depth and richness of Islam through spiritual soul. This is in a way that belief in monotheism and faith in Islamic teachings are manifested as Islam's aesthetic thought in Islamic architecture. Unfortunately, Islamic architecture has been damaged a lot due to lack of necessary information and also successive wars which have overtaken the Muslims as well as the dominance of colonizing counties. Islamic architecture is rooted in the history, culture and civilization of Muslims but its deficiencies and shortcomings should be removed through systematizing the Islamic architecture researchers. Islamic countries should act in a way that the art of Islamic architecture shows its true place in different architecture eras and makes everybody aware that Islamic architecture has a historical root and is connected eternally to the genuineness, religious art and culture of Muslims and civilization.

Keywords: art, culture, civilization, Islamic architecture, Muslims

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Authors: Beate Weyland

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The interdisciplinary laboratory EDEN, Educational Environments with Nature, born in 2020 at the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bolzano, is working on a research path initiated in 2012 on the relationship between pedagogy and architecture in the design process of school buildings. Between 2016 and 2018, advisory support activity for schools was born, which combined the need to qualify the physical spaces of the school with the need to update teaching practices and develop school organization with the aim of improving pupils' and teachers' sense of well-being. The goal of accompanying the development of school communities through research-training paths concerns the process of designing together pedagogical-didactic and architectural environments in which to stage the educational relationship, involving professionals from education, educational research, architecture and design, and local administration. Between 2019 and 2024, more than 30 schools and educational communities throughout Italy have entered into research-training agreements with the university, focusing increasingly on the need to create new spaces and teaching methods capable of imagining educational spaces as places of well-being and where cultural development can be presided over. The paper will focus on the presentation of the research path and on the mixed methods used to support schools and educational communities: identification of the research question, development of the research objective, experimentation, and data collection for analysis and reflection. School and educational communities are involved in a participative and active manner. The quality of the action-research work is enriched by a special focus on the relationship with plants and nature in general. Plants are seen as mediators of processes that unhinge traditional didactics and invite teachers, students, parents, and administrators to think about the quality of learning spaces and relationships based on well-being. The contribution is characterized by a particular focus on research methodologies and tools developed together with teachers to answer the issues raised and to measure the impact of the actions undertaken.

Keywords: school development, learning space, wellbeing, plants and nature

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Authors: Lolwa Alansari, Hanen Mrabet, Kholoud Khaled, Abdelhamid Azhaghdani, Sufia Athar, Aska Kaima, Zaineb Mhamdia, Zubaria Altaf, Almunzer Zakaria, Tamara Alshadafat

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Introduction: The Obstetrics and Gynecology Emergency Department at Alwakra Hospital has faced significant challenges, which have been further worsened by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges involve issues such as overcrowding, extended wait times, and a notable surge in demand for emergency care services. Moreover, prolonged waiting times have emerged as a primary factor contributing to situations where patients leave without receiving attention, known as left without being seen (LWBS), and unexpectedly abscond. Addressing the issue of insufficient patient mobility in the obstetrics and gynecology emergency department has brought about substantial improvements in patient care, healthcare administration, and overall departmental efficiency. These changes have not only alleviated overcrowding but have also elevated the quality of emergency care, resulting in higher patient satisfaction, better outcomes, and operational rewards. Methodology: The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for substantial transformations in the obstetrics and gynecology emergency, aligning seamlessly with the strategic direction of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). The fundamental aim of this initiative is to revolutionize the operational efficiency of the OB-GYN ED. To accomplish this mission, a range of transformations has been initiated, focusing on essential areas such as digitizing systems, optimizing resource allocation, enhancing budget efficiency, and reducing overall costs. The project utilized the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) model, involving a diverse team collecting baseline data and introducing throughput improvements. Post-implementation data and feedback were analysed, leading to the integration of effective interventions into standard procedures. These interventions included optimized space utilization, real-time communication, bedside registration, technology integration, pre-triage screening, enhanced communication and patient education, consultant presence, and a culture of continuous improvement. These strategies significantly reduced waiting times, enhancing both patient care and operational efficiency. Results: Results demonstrated a substantial reduction in overall average waiting time, dropping from 35 to approximately 14 minutes by August 2023. The wait times for priority 1 cases have been reduced from 22 to 0 minutes, and for priority 2 cases, the wait times have been reduced from 32 to approximately 13.6 minutes. The proportion of patients spending less than 8 hours in the OB ED observation beds rose from 74% in January 2022 to over 98% in 2023. Notably, there was a remarkable decrease in LWBS and absconded patient rates from 2020 to 2023. Conclusion: The project initiated a profound change in the department's operational environment. Efficiency became deeply embedded in the unit's culture, promoting teamwork among staff that went beyond the project's original focus and had a positive influence on operations in other departments. This effectiveness not only made processes more efficient but also resulted in significant cost reductions for the hospital. These cost savings were achieved by reducing wait times, which in turn led to fewer prolonged patient stays and reduced the need for additional treatments. These continuous improvement initiatives have now become an integral part of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Division's standard operating procedures, ensuring that the positive changes brought about by the project persist and evolve over time.

Keywords: overcrowding, waiting time, person centered care, quality initiatives

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Authors: W. S. Barber, S. L. King

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This paper is a qualitative case study analysis of the development of a fully online learning community of graduate students through arts-based community building activities. With increasing numbers and types of online learning spaces, it is incumbent upon educators to continue to push the edge of what best practices look like in digital learning environments. In digital learning spaces, instructors can no longer be seen as purveyors of content knowledge to be examined at the end of a set course by a final test or exam. The rapid and fluid dissemination of information via Web 3.0 demands that we reshape our approach to teaching and learning, from one that is content-focused to one that is process-driven. Rather than having instructors as formal leaders, today’s digital learning environments require us to share expertise, as it is the collective experiences and knowledge of all students together with the instructors that help to create a very different kind of learning community. This paper focuses on innovations pursued in a 36 hour 12 week graduate course in higher education entitled “Critical and Reflective Practice”. The authors chronicle their journey to developing a fully online learning community (FOLC) by emphasizing the elements of social, cognitive, emotional and digital spaces that form a moving interplay through the community. In this way, students embrace anywhere anytime learning and often take the learning, as well as the relationships they build and skills they acquire, beyond the digital class into real world situations. We argue that in order to increase student online engagement, pedagogical approaches need to stem from two primary elements, both creativity and critical reflection, that are essential pillars upon which instructors can co-design learning environments with students. The theoretical framework for the paper is based on the interaction and interdependence of Creativity, Intuition, Critical Reflection, Social Constructivism and FOLCs. By leveraging students’ embedded familiarity with a wide variety of technologies, this case study of a graduate level course on critical reflection in education, examines how relationships, quality of work produced, and student engagement can improve by using creative and imaginative pedagogical strategies. The authors examine their professional pedagogical strategies through the lens that the teacher acts as facilitator, guide and co-designer. In a world where students can easily search for and organize information as self-directed processes, creativity and connection can at times be lost in the digitized course environment. The paper concludes by posing further questions as to how institutions of higher education may be challenged to restructure their credit granting courses into more flexible modules, and how students need to be considered an important part of assessment and evaluation strategies. By introducing creativity and critical reflection as central features of the digital learning spaces, notions of best practices in digital teaching and learning emerge.

Keywords: online, pedagogy, learning, communities

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Authors: T. Thein, S. Kalyar Myo

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Human uses visual information for understanding the speech contents in noisy conditions or in situations where the audio signal is not available. The primary advantage of visual information is that it is not affected by the acoustic noise and cross talk among speakers. Using visual information from the lip movements can improve the accuracy and robustness of automatic speech recognition. However, a major challenge with most automatic lip reading system is to find a robust and efficient method for extracting the linguistically relevant speech information from a lip image sequence. This is a difficult task due to variation caused by different speakers, illumination, camera setting and the inherent low luminance and chrominance contrast between lip and non-lip region. Several researchers have been developing methods to overcome these problems; the one is lip reading. Moreover, it is well known that visual information about speech through lip reading is very useful for human speech recognition system. Lip reading is the technique of a comprehensive understanding of underlying speech by processing on the movement of lips. Therefore, lip reading system is one of the different supportive technologies for hearing impaired or elderly people, and it is an active research area. The need for lip reading system is ever increasing for every language. This research aims to develop a visual teaching method system for the hearing impaired persons in Myanmar, how to pronounce words precisely by identifying the features of lip movement. The proposed research will work a lip reading system for Myanmar Consonants, one syllable consonants (င (Nga)၊ ည (Nya)၊ မ (Ma)၊ လ (La)၊ ၀ (Wa)၊ သ (Tha)၊ ဟ (Ha)၊ အ (Ah) ) and two syllable consonants ( က(Ka Gyi)၊ ခ (Kha Gway)၊ ဂ (Ga Nge)၊ ဃ (Ga Gyi)၊ စ (Sa Lone)၊ ဆ (Sa Lain)၊ ဇ (Za Gwe) ၊ ဒ (Da Dway)၊ ဏ (Na Gyi)၊ န (Na Nge)၊ ပ (Pa Saug)၊ ဘ (Ba Gone)၊ ရ (Ya Gaug)၊ ဠ (La Gyi) ). In the proposed system, there are three subsystems, the first one is the lip localization system, which localizes the lips in the digital inputs. The next one is the feature extraction system, which extracts features of lip movement suitable for visual speech recognition. And the final one is the classification system. In the proposed research, Two Dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform (2D-DCT) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) with Active Contour Model (ACM) will be used for lip movement features extraction. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier is used for finding class parameter and class number in training set and testing set. Then, experiments will be carried out for the recognition accuracy of Myanmar consonants using the only visual information on lip movements which are useful for visual speech of Myanmar languages. The result will show the effectiveness of the lip movement recognition for Myanmar Consonants. This system will help the hearing impaired persons to use as the language learning application. This system can also be useful for normal hearing persons in noisy environments or conditions where they can find out what was said by other people without hearing voice.

Keywords: feature extraction, lip reading, lip localization, Active Contour Model (ACM), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Two Dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform (2D-DCT)

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Authors: A. Kourou, A. Ioakeimidou, E. Bafa, C. Fassoulas, M. Panoutsopoulou

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The role of volunteers in disaster management is of decisive importance and the need of their involvement is well recognized, both for prevention measures and for disaster management. During major catastrophes, whereas professional personnel are outsourced, the role of volunteers is crucial. In Greece experience has shown that various groups operating in the civil protection mechanism like local administration staff or volunteers, in many cases do not have the necessary knowledge and information on best practices to act against natural disasters. One of the major problems is the lack of volunteers’ education and training. In the above given framework, this paper presents the results of a survey aimed to identify the level of education and preparedness of civil protection volunteers in Greece. Furthermore, the implementation of earthquake protection measures at individual, family and working level, are explored. More specifically, the survey questionnaire investigates issues regarding pre-earthquake protection actions, appropriate attitudes and behaviors during an earthquake and existence of contingency plans in the workplace. The questionnaires were administered to citizens from different regions of the country and who attend the civil protection training program: “Protect Myself and Others”. A closed-form questionnaire was developed for the survey, which contained questions regarding the following: a) knowledge of self-protective actions; b) existence of emergency planning at home; c) existence of emergency planning at workplace (hazard mitigation actions, evacuation plan, and performance of drills); and, d) respondents` perception about their level of earthquake preparedness. The results revealed a serious lack of knowledge and preparedness among respondents. Taking into consideration the aforementioned gap and in order to raise awareness and improve preparedness and effective response of volunteers acting in civil protection, the EVANDE project was submitted and approved by the European Commission (EC). The aim of that project is to educate and train civil protection volunteers on the most serious natural disasters, such as forest fires, floods, and earthquakes, and thus, increase their performance.

Keywords: civil protection, earthquake, preparedness, volunteers

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Authors: Ridwan Dewayanto Rusli

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We show how prisoner's dilemma-type competition problems can be mitigated through rapid platform diversification and ecosystem expansion. We analyze a ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia, Gojek, whose network grew to more than 170 million users comprising consumers, partner drivers, merchants, and complementors within a few years and has already achieved higher contribution margins than ride-hailing peers Uber and Lyft. Its ecosystem integrates ride-hailing, food delivery and logistics, merchant solutions, e-commerce, marketplace and advertising, payments, and fintech offerings. The company continues growing its network of complementors and App developers, expanding content and gaining critical mass in consumer data analytics and advertising. We compare the company's growth and diversification trajectory with those of its main international rivals and peers. The company's rapid growth and future potential are analyzed using Cusumano's (2012) Staying Power and Six Principles, Hax and Wilde's (2003) and Hax's (2010) The Delta Model as well as Santos' (2016) home-market advantages frameworks. The recently announced multi-billion-dollar merger with one of Southeast Asia's largest e-commerce majors lends additional support to the above arguments.

Keywords: ride-hailing, prisoner's dilemma, platform and ecosystem strategy, digital applications, diversification, home market advantages, e-commerce

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Authors: Ruhollah Heydari Sheikh Ahmad, Sara Alaie Khoraem

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Introduction: Substance use disorder is conceptualized as a chronic relapsing condition where relapse is usually defined as the return to problematic substance use following treatment. An issue of great importance is the identification of the predictors of relapse and the development of treatments that may help prevent relapse. One of the strongest predictors of relapse is craving. The purpose of the present study was to study the effect of anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and coping motives on craving. Materials and method: Participants (n=74) were male opiate users recruited from a semi-private clinic providing de-toxification and treatment services for substance users. Anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, coping motives and craving were assessed using relevant questionnaires. The addiction severity index was used to assess addiction severity. Results: All patients were methadone maintained and one year after detoxification, 36 patients (48.64%) relapsed. Stress and anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, addiction severity and coping motives predicted craving and relapse. Anxiety sensitivity specifically predicted early relapse. Conclusion: Substance use is a severe mental disorder, with high relapse rates. Substance users high in anxiety sensitivity are particularly prone to relapse during the first six months of treatment. Addiction severity and coping motives need to be taken into account when providing interventional services for substance users. Findings imply the significance of additional psychological attention to methadone maintained patients to prevent craving and relapse.

Keywords: anxiety sensitivity, coping motives, relapse, substance use craving

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Authors: Regis Pochon, Nicolas Stefaniak, Veronique Baltazart, Pamela Gobin

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Anxiety is known to have an impact on working memory. In reasoning or memory tasks, individuals with anxiety tend to show longer response times and poorer performance. Furthermore, there is a memory bias for negative information in anxiety. Given the crucial role of working memory in lexical learning, anxious students may encounter more difficulties in learning to read and spell. Anxiety could even affect an earlier learning, that is the activation of phonological representations, which are decisive for the learning of reading and writing. The aim of this study is to compare the access to phonological representations of beginning readers and writers according to their level of anxiety, using an auditory lexical decision task. Eighty students of 6- to 9-years-old completed the French version of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and were then divided into four anxiety groups according to their total score (Low, Median-Low, Median-High and High). Two set of eighty-one stimuli (words and non-words) have been auditory presented to these students by means of a laptop computer. Stimuli words were selected according to their emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral). Students had to decide as quickly and accurately as possible whether the presented stimulus was a real word or not (lexical decision). Response times and accuracy were recorded automatically on each trial. It was anticipated a) longer response times for the Median-High and High anxiety groups in comparison with the two others groups, b) faster response times for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words only for the Median-High and High anxiety groups, c) lower response accuracy for Median-High and High anxiety groups in comparison with the two others groups, d) better response accuracy for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words only for the Median-High and High anxiety groups. Concerning the response times, our results showed no difference between the four groups. Furthermore, inside each group, the average response times was very close regardless the emotional valence. Otherwise, group differences appear when considering the error rates. Median-High and High anxiety groups made significantly more errors in lexical decision than Median-Low and Low groups. Better response accuracy, however, is not found for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words in the Median-High and High anxiety groups. Thus, these results showed a lower response accuracy for above-median anxiety groups than below-median groups but without specificity for the negative-valence words. This study suggests that anxiety can negatively impact the lexical processing in young students. Although the lexical processing speed seems preserved, the accuracy of this processing may be altered in students with moderate or high level of anxiety. This finding has important implication for the prevention of reading and spelling difficulties. Indeed, during these learnings, if anxiety affects the access to phonological representations, anxious students could be disturbed when they have to match phonological representations with new orthographic representations, because of less efficient lexical representations. This study should be continued in order to precise the impact of anxiety on basic school learning.

Keywords: anxiety, emotional valence, childhood, lexical access

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Authors: Shawn Baker-Garcia, Janna O. Schaeffer

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As the global and national communities and governments strive to address ongoing and evolving threats to humanity and pervasive or emerging “shared” global priorities on environmental, economic, political, and security, it is more urgent than ever before to understand each other, communicate effectively with one another, identify models of cooperation that yield improved, mutually reinforcing outcomes across and within cultures. It is within the backdrop of this reality that the presentation examines whether cultural training as we have approached it in recent decades is sufficiently meeting our current needs and what changes may be applied to foster better and more productive and sustainable intercultural interactions. Domestic and global relations face multiple challenges to peaceable cooperation. The last two years, in particular, have been defined by a travel-restricted COVID-19 pandemic yielding increased intercultural interactions over virtual platforms, polarized politics dividing nations and regions, and the commensurate rise in weaponized social and traditional media communication. These societal and cultural fissures are noticeably challenging our collective and individual abilities to constructively interact both at home and abroad. It is within this pressure cooker environment that the authors believe it is time to reexamine existing and broadly accepted inter- and cross- cultural training approaches and concepts to determine their level of effectiveness in setting conditions for optimal human understanding and relationships both in the national and international context. In order to better understand the amount and the type of intercultural training practitioners professionally engaging in international partnership building have received throughout their careers and its perceived effectiveness, a survey was designed and distributed to US and international professionals presently engaged in the fields of diplomacy, military, academia, and international business. The survey questions were deigned to address the two primary research questions investigators posed in this exploratory study. Research questions aimed to examine practitioners’ view of the role and effectiveness of current and traditional cultural training and education as a means to fostering improved communication, interactions, understanding, and cooperation among inter, cross, or multi-cultural communities or efforts.Responses were then collected and analyzed for themes present in the participants’ reflections. In their responses, the practitioners identified the areas of improvement and desired outcomes in regards to intercultural training and awareness raising curricular approaches. They also raised issues directly and indirectly pertaining to the role of foreign language proficiency in intercultural interactions and a need for a solid grasp on cultural and regional issues (regional expertise) to facilitate such an interaction. Respondents indicated knowledge, skills, abilities, and capabilities that the participants were not trained on but learned through ad hoc personal and professional intercultural interactions, which they found most valuable and wished they had acquired prior to the intercultural experience.

Keywords: cultural training, improved communication, intercultural competence, international cooperation

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Authors: P. G. Siddheshwar, R. K. Vanishree, C. Kanchana

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A local nonlinear stability analysis using a eight-mode expansion is performed in arriving at the coupled amplitude equations for Rayleigh-Bénard-Brinkman convection (RBBC) in the presence of LTNE effects. Streamlines and isotherms are obtained in the two-dimensional unsteady finite-amplitude convection regime. The parameters’ influence on heat transport is found to be more pronounced at small time than at long times. Results of the Rayleigh-Bénard convection is obtained as a particular case of the present study. Additional modes are shown not to significantly influence the heat transport thus leading us to infer that five minimal modes are sufficient to make a study of RBBC. The present problem that uses rolls as a pattern of manifestation of instability is a needed first step in the direction of making a very general non-local study of two-dimensional unsteady convection. The results may be useful in determining the preferred range of parameters’ values while making rheometric measurements in fluids to ascertain fluid properties such as viscosity. The results of LTE are obtained as a limiting case of the results of LTNE obtained in the paper.

Keywords: coupled Ginzburg–Landau model, local thermal non-equilibrium (LTNE), local thermal equilibrium (LTE), Rayleigh–Bénard-Brinkman convection

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Authors: Michela Quadrini

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Chord diagrams occur in mathematics, from the study of RNA to knot theory. They are widely used in theory of knots and links for studying the finite type invariants, whereas in molecular biology one important motivation to study chord diagrams is to deal with the problem of RNA structure prediction. An RNA molecule is a linear polymer, referred to as the backbone, that consists of four types of nucleotides. Each nucleotide is represented by a point, whereas each chord of the diagram stands for one interaction for Watson-Crick base pairs between two nonconsecutive nucleotides. A chord diagram is an oriented circle with a set of n pairs of distinct points, considered up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle. A linear chord diagram (LCD) is a special kind of graph obtained cutting the oriented circle of a chord diagram. It consists of a line segment, called its backbone, to which are attached a number of chords with distinct endpoints. There is a natural fattening on any linear chord diagram; the backbone lies on the real axis, while all the chords are in the upper half-plane. Each linear chord diagram has a natural genus of its associated surface. To each chord diagram and linear chord diagram, it is possible to associate the intersection graph. It consists of a graph whose vertices correspond to the chords of the diagram, whereas the chord intersections are represented by a connection between the vertices. Such intersection graph carries a lot of information about the diagram. Our goal is to define an LCD equivalence class in terms of identity of intersection graphs, from which many chord diagram invariants depend. For studying these invariants, we introduce a new representation of Linear Chord Diagrams based on a set of appropriate topological operators that permits to model LCD in terms of the relations among chords. Such set is composed of: crossing, nesting, and concatenations. The crossing operator is able to generate the whole space of linear chord diagrams, and a multiple context free grammar able to uniquely generate each LDC starting from a linear chord diagram adding a chord for each production of the grammar is defined. In other words, it allows to associate a unique algebraic term to each linear chord diagram, while the remaining operators allow to rewrite the term throughout a set of appropriate rewriting rules. Such rules define an LCD equivalence class in terms of the identity of intersection graphs. Starting from a modelled RNA molecule and the linear chord, some authors proposed a topological classification and folding. Our LCD equivalence class could contribute to the RNA folding problem leading to the definition of an algorithm that calculates the free energy of the molecule more accurately respect to the existing ones. Such LCD equivalence class could be useful to obtain a more accurate estimate of link between the crossing number and the topological genus and to study the relation among other invariants.

Keywords: chord diagrams, linear chord diagram, equivalence class, topological language

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Authors: Nabil Hameed Al-Farsi

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This study’s main goal is to develop a model and a maintenance strategy for a cement factory called Arabian Cement Company, Rabigh Plant. The proposed work here depends on Reliability centric maintenance approach to develop a strategy and maintenance schedule that ensures increasing the reliability of the production system components, thus ensuring continuous productivity. The cost-effective maintenance of the plant’s dependability performance is the key goal of durability-based maintenance is. The cement plant consists of 7 important steps, so, developing a maintenance plan based on Reliability centric maintenance (RCM) method is made up of 10 steps accordingly starting from selecting units and data until performing and updating the model. The processing unit chosen for the analysis of this case is the calcinatory unit regarding model’s validation and the Travancore Titanium Products Ltd (TTP) using the claimed data history acquired from the maintenance department maintenance from the mentioned company. After applying the proposed model, the results of the maintenance simulation justified the plant's existing scheduled maintenance policy being reconsidered. Results represent the need for preventive maintenance for all Class A criticality equipment instead of the planned maintenance and the breakdown one for all other equipment depends on its criticality and an FMEA report. Consequently, the additional cost of preventive maintenance would be offset by the cost savings from breakdown maintenance for the remaining equipment.

Keywords: engineering, reliability, strategy, maintenance, failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMEA)

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Authors: M. Asl. Dehghan, M. H. Daemi, S. Radmard, S. H. Nabavi

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Thin disk lasers are engineered for efficient thermal cooling and exhibit superior performance for this task. However the disk thickness and large pumped area make the use of this gain format in a resonator difficult when constructing a single-mode laser. Choosing an unstable resonator design is beneficial for this purpose. On the other hand, the low gain medium restricts the application of unstable resonators to low magnifications and therefore to a poor beam quality. A promising idea to enable the application of unstable resonators to wide aperture, low gain lasers is to couple a fraction of the out coupled radiation back into the resonator. The output coupling gets dependent on the ratio of the back reflection and can be adjusted independently from the magnification. The excitation of the converging wave can be done by the use of an external reflector. The resonator performance is numerically predicted. First of all the threshold condition of linear, V and 2V shape resonator is investigated. Results show that the maximum magnification is 1.066 that is very low for high quality purposes. Inserting an additional reflector covers the low gain. The reflectivity and the related magnification of a 350 micron Yb:YAG disk are calculated. The theoretical model was based on the coupled Kirchhoff integrals and solved numerically by the Fox and Li algorithm. Results show that with back reflection mechanism in combination with increasing the number of beam incidents on disk, high gain and high magnification can occur.

Keywords: unstable resonators, thin disk lasers, gain, external reflector

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Authors: Roselyn T. Bustos

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Literature is an imitation of life. It depicts man's culture as well as his struggles. In short, literature is a part of man's way of life- a reflection of his personal or vicarious experiences. Using the qualitative-descriptive content analysis, this study investigates the mimetic signification in the five select sonnets of William Shakespeare.An in- depth analysis of the poetic elements such as the figurative language used and the themes extracted is made to draw out the universal meaning of his works. It is found out that his select sonnets use figurative languages such as simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbaton which becomes a potent element that allows his sonnets to convey the themes of love and perseverance. With these findings, it is concluded that William Shakespeare's sonnets are evidently written within the context of the universals and that they are worthy of wide readership not only because of him being a renowned English poet and playwright but most importantly of the realities his sonnets signify.

Keywords: imitation, mimesis, potent, realities

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Authors: Moon Moon Devi, Ran Budnik

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The current large area cosmic ray detector surface arrays typically measure only the net flux and arrival-time of the charged particles produced in an extensive air shower (EAS). Measurement of the individual charged particles at a surface array will provide additional distinguishing parameters to identify the primary and to map the very high energy interactions in the upper layers of the atmosphere. In turn, these may probe anomalies in QCD interactions at energies beyond the reach of current accelerators. The recent attempts of studying the individual muon tracks are limited in their expandability to larger arrays and can only probe primary particles with energy up to about 10^15.5 eV. New developments in detector technology allow for a realistic cost of large area detectors, however with limitations on energy resolutions, directional information, and dynamic range. In this study, we perform a simulation study using CORSIKA to combine the energy spectrum and lateral spread of the muons with the longitudinal depth (Xmax) of an EAS initiated by a primary at ultra high energies (10¹⁶ – 10¹⁹) eV. Using proton and iron as the shower primaries, we show that the muon observables and Xmax together can be used to distinguish the primary. This study can be used to design a future detector for the surface array, which will be able to enhance our knowledge of primaries and QCD interactions.

Keywords: ultra high energy extensive air shower, muon tracking, air shower primaries, QCD interactions

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Authors: Barry Aifesehi Aiworo, Henry Oriakhi

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This paper, examines the analysis of access pattern to school and travel risks among school children in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. The risk includes accident, molestation (sexually) and kidnapping. The objective of this paper are to examine the various means (modes) of transport to school; determine the type and incidences of risk experienced by school children in the study area; examine the risk incidences and ages of school children in the study area. Hypothesis which states that the types of risks encountered by school children are independent of means of transport was tested using the chi-square test (X2). A sampling ratio of twelve percent (12%) was taken from 396 schools in Benin City. By implication, 49 schools were randomly selected in Benin City for this research. A total of 42,053 students in the 49 schools constitute the sample frame for the research. Two percent (2%), 841 students were taken as the sample size. The use of stratified sampling method was applied by stratifying the study area (Benin City) into local governments- Egor, Ikpoba-Okha and Oredo. Thereafter, the lists of schools in the various local governments were obtained from the Ministry of Education before the schools for research were randomly chosen from each local government area. The analysis revealed that 6.7% of the total students interviewed have been involved in road accidents. 1.04% of the total respondents said at one time or the other that they have been kidnapped. Finally, the research found that travel is comparatively safe and believes this may be partly attributable to safer route to schools and school children being more familiar with the school journey. The research indicates that children aged between eleven and fifteen are most at risk of hit or knocked down on Benin City’s roads. These findings may help in planning and targeting road safety initiative (education, campaigns) in Benin City.

Keywords: accident, molestation (sexually), kidnapping, pedophile, pedestrian

Procedia PDF Downloads 199

Authors: Tabrej Khan

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Examination Scheduling System (ESS) is a scheduling system that targets as an exam committee in any academic institute to help them in managing the exams automatically. We present an algorithm for Examination Scheduling System. Nowadays, many universities have challenges with creating examination schedule fast with less confliction compared to hand works. Our aims are to develop a computerized system that can be used in examination scheduling in an academic institute versus available resources (Time, Hall, Invigilator and instructor) with no contradiction and achieve fairness among students. ESS was developed using HTML, C# language, Crystal Report and ASP.NET through Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 as developing tools with integrated SQL server database. This application can produce some benefits such as reducing the time spent in creating an exam schedule and achieving fairness among students

Keywords: examination scheduling system (ESS), algorithm, ASP.NET, crystal report

Procedia PDF Downloads 385

Authors: A. Javorova, J. Oravcova, K. Velisek

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The article summarizes the experience of technical subjects teaching methodologies using a number of software products to solve specific assigned tasks described in this paper. Task is about the problems of automation and mechanization in the industry. Specifically, it focuses on introducing automation in the wood industry. The article describes the design of the automation process for marking wooden hammers. Similar problems are solved by students in CA laboratory.

Keywords: CA system, education, simulation, subject

Procedia PDF Downloads 285

Authors: L. Al Ahmad, C. Latrille, D. Hainos, D. Blanc, M. Clausse

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A two-dimensional finite volume axisymmetric model is developed to predict the simultaneous heat and mass transfers during the drying of industrial sludge. The simulations were run using COMSOL-Multiphysics 3.5a. The input parameters of the numerical model were acquired from a preliminary experimental work. Results permit to establish correlations describing the evolution of the various parameters as a function of the drying temperature and the sludge water content. The selection and coupling of the equation are validated based on the drying kinetics acquired experimentally at a temperature range of 45-65 °C and absolute pressure range of 200-1000 mbar. The model, incorporating the heat and mass transfer mechanisms at different operating conditions, shows simulated values of temperature and water content. Simulated results are found concordant with the experimental values, only at the first and last drying stages where sludge shrinkage is insignificant. Simulated and experimental results show that sludge drying is favored at high temperatures and low pressure. As experimentally observed, the drying time is reduced by 68% for drying at 65 °C compared to 45 °C under 1 atm. At 65 °C, a 200-mbar absolute pressure vacuum leads to an additional reduction in drying time estimated by 61%. However, the drying rate is underestimated in the intermediate stage. This rate underestimation could be improved in the model by considering the shrinkage phenomena that occurs during sludge drying.

Keywords: industrial sludge drying, heat transfer, mass transfer, mathematical modelling

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Authors: Katarzyna Oberda

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The aim of this paper is to conceptual emotions in the process of mediation. Although human emotions have been approached from various disciplines and perspectives, e.g. philosophy, linguistics, psychology and neurology, this complex phenomenon still needs further investigation into its discursive character with the an open mind and heart. To attain this aim, the theoretical and practical considerations are taken into account both to contextualize the discursive psychology of emotions in mediation and show how cognitive and linguistic activity expressed in language may lead to the emotional turn in the process of mediation. The double directions of this research into the discursive psychology of emotions have been partially inspired by the evaluative components of mediation forms. In the conducted research, we apply the methodology of discursive psychology with the discourse analysis as a tool. The practical data come from the recorded mediations online. The major findings of the conducted research result in the reconstruction of the emotional transformation model in mediation.

Keywords: discourse analysis, discursive psychology, emotions, mediation

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Authors: Anita, Sari Septiani Tangke, Rusdina Bte Ladju, Nasrum Massi

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New diagnostic tools are urgently needed to interrupt the transmission of tuberculosis and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The microscopic-observation drug-susceptibility (MODS) assay is a rapid, accurate and simple liquid culture method to detect multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). MODS were evaluated to determine a lower and same concentration of isoniazid and rifampin for detection of MDR-TB. Direct drug-susceptibility testing was performed with the use of the MODS assay. Drug-sensitive control strains were tested daily. The drug concentrations that used for both isoniazid and rifampin were at the same concentration: 0.16, 0.08 and 0.04μg per milliliter. We tested 56 M. tuberculosis clinical isolates and the control strains M. tuberculosis H37RV. All concentration showed same result. Of 53 M. tuberculosis clinical isolates, 14 were MDR-TB, 38 were susceptible with isoniazid and rifampin, 1 was resistant with isoniazid only. Drug-susceptibility testing was performed with the use of the proportion method using Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) system as reference. The result of MODS assay using lower concentration was significance (P<0.001) compare with the reference methods. A lower and same concentration of isoniazid and rifampin can be used to detect MDR-TB. Operational cost and application can be more efficient and easier in resource-limited environments. However, additional studies evaluating the MODS using lower and same concentration of isoniazid and rifampin must be conducted with a larger number of clinical isolates.

Keywords: isoniazid, MODS assay, MDR-TB, rifampin

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Authors: Andreas Gohs, Reinhold Kosfeld

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This study should be of interest for practitioners who want to predict precisely the sales numbers of vehicles equipped with an innovative propulsion technology as well as for researchers interested in applied (regional) time series analysis. The study is based on the numbers of new registrations of pure electric and hybrid cars. Methods of time series analysis like ARIMA are compared with the Bass Diffusion-model concerning their forecasting performances for new registrations in Germany at the national and federal state levels. Especially it is investigated if the additional information content from regional data increases the forecasting accuracy for the national level by adding predictions for the federal states. Results of parameters of the Bass Diffusion Model estimated for Germany and its sixteen federal states are reported. While the focus of this research is on the German market, estimation results are also provided for selected European and other countries. Concerning Bass-parameters and forecasting performances, we get very different results for Germany's federal states and the member states of the European Union. This corresponds to differences across the EU-member states in the adoption process of this innovative technology. Concerning the German market, the adoption is rather proceeded in southern Germany and stays behind in Eastern Germany except for Berlin.

Keywords: bass diffusion model, electric vehicles, forecasting performance, market diffusion

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Lukumba Phiri, Simon Tembo, Kumbuso Joshua Nyoni

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In Zambia recent initiatives by various power operators like ZESCO, CEC, and consumers like the mines to upgrade power systems into smart grids target an even tighter integration with information technologies to enable the integration of renewable energy sources, local and bulk generation, and demand response. Thus, for the reliable operation of smart grids, its information infrastructure must be secure and reliable in the face of both failures and cyberattacks. Due to the nature of the systems, ICS/SCADA cybersecurity and governance face additional challenges compared to the corporate networks, and critical systems may be left exposed. There exist control frameworks internationally such as the NIST framework, however, there are generic and do not meet the domain-specific needs of the SCADA systems. Zambia is also lagging in cybersecurity awareness and adoption, therefore there is a concern about securing ICS controlling key infrastructure critical to the Zambian economy as there are few known facts about the true posture. In this paper, we introduce a stochastic Edged-based Anomaly Detection for SCADA systems (SEADS) framework for threat modeling and risk assessment. SEADS enables the calculation of steady-steady probabilities that are further applied to establish metrics like system availability, maintainability, and reliability.

Keywords: anomaly, availability, detection, edge, maintainability, reliability, stochastic

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Abdullah Al. Morshed, Mohammad Nahid Mia

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Introduction: Food security refers to the availability of food and a person’s access to it. It is a complex sustainable development issue, which is closely related to under-nutrition. Food security, in turn, can widely affect the living standard, and is rooted in poverty and leads to poor health, low productivity, low income, food shortage, and hunger. The study's aim was to identify the most vulnerable women who are in insecure positions. Method: 17,842 married women were selected for analysis from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2011. Food security defined as dichotomous variables of skipped meals and eaten less food at least once in the last year. The outcome variables were cross-tabulated with women's socio-demographic characteristics and chi2 test was applied to see the significance. Logistic regression models were applied to identify the most vulnerable groups in terms of food security. Result: Only 18.5% of women said that they ever had to skip meals in the last year. 45.7% women from low socioeconomic status had skip meal for at least once whereas only 3.6% were from women with highest socioeconomic status. Women meal skipping was ranged from 1.4% to 34.2% by their educational status. 22% of women were eaten less food during the last year. The rate was higher among the poorest (51.6%), illiterate (39.9%) and household have no electricity connection (38.1) in compared with richest (4.4%), higher educated (2.0%), and household has electricity connection (14.0%). The logistic regression analysis indicated that household socioeconomic status, and women education show strong gradients to skip meals. Poorest have had higher odds (20.9) than richest and illiterate women had 7.7 higher odds than higher educated. In terms of religion, Christianity was 2.3 times more likely to skip their meals than Islam. On the other hand, a similar trend was observed in our other outcome variable eat less food. Conclusion: In this study we able to identify women with lower economics status and women with no education were mostly suffered group from starvation.

Keywords: food security, hunger, under-nutrition, women

Procedia PDF Downloads 361