Search results for: decision problems

Authors: Jingting Luo, Yong Wang, Ying Wang

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Pedestrian detection in image or video data is a very important and challenging task in security surveillance. The difficulty of this task is to locate and detect pedestrians of different scales in complex scenes accurately. To solve these problems, a deep neural network (RT-YOLOv3) is proposed to realize real-time pedestrian detection at different scales in security monitoring. RT-YOLOv3 improves the traditional YOLOv3 algorithm. Firstly, the deep residual network is added to extract vehicle features. Then six convolutional neural networks with different scales are designed and fused with the corresponding scale feature maps in the residual network to form the final feature pyramid to perform pedestrian detection tasks. This method can better characterize pedestrians. In order to further improve the accuracy and generalization ability of the model, a hybrid pedestrian data set training method is used to extract pedestrian data from the VOC data set and train with the INRIA pedestrian data set. Experiments show that the proposed RT-YOLOv3 method achieves 93.57% accuracy of mAP (mean average precision) and 46.52f/s (number of frames per second). In terms of accuracy, RT-YOLOv3 performs better than Fast R-CNN, Faster R-CNN, YOLO, SSD, YOLOv2, and YOLOv3. This method reduces the missed detection rate and false detection rate, improves the positioning accuracy, and meets the requirements of real-time detection of pedestrian objects.

Keywords: pedestrian detection, feature detection, convolutional neural network, real-time detection, YOLOv3

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Authors: Hamdi Sana, Emna Bouazizi, Sami Faiz

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In recent years, there is a huge increase in the use of spatio-temporal applications where data and queries are continuously moving. As a result, the need to process real-time spatio-temporal data seems clear and real-time stream data management becomes a hot topic. Sliding window model and frequent itemset mining over dynamic data are the most important problems in the context of data mining. Thus, sliding window model for frequent itemset mining is a widely used model for data stream mining due to its emphasis on recent data and its bounded memory requirement. These methods use the traditional transaction-based sliding window model where the window size is based on a fixed number of transactions. Actually, this model supposes that all transactions have a constant rate which is not suited for real-time applications. And the use of this model in such applications endangers their performance. Based on these observations, this paper relaxes the notion of window size and proposes the use of a timestamp-based sliding window model. In our proposed frequent itemset mining algorithm, support conditions are used to differentiate frequents and infrequent patterns. Thereafter, a tree is developed to incrementally maintain the essential information. We evaluate our contribution. The preliminary results are quite promising.

Keywords: real-time spatial big data, frequent itemset, transaction-based sliding window model, timestamp-based sliding window model, weighted frequent patterns, tree, stream query

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Authors: Francisco Fernandez de Castro

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The Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) model gives monetary transfers to beneficiary families on the condition that they take specific education and health actions. According to the economic rationale of CCTs the poor need incentives to invest in their human capital because they are trapped by a lack of information and misleading beliefs. If left to their own decision, the poor will not be able to choose what is in their best interests. The basic assumption of the CCT model is that the poor need incentives to take care of their own education and health-nutrition. Due to the incentives (income cash transfers and conditionalities), beneficiary families are supposed to attend doctor visits and health talks. Children would stay in the school. These incentivized behaviors would produce outcomes such as better health and higher level of education, which in turn will reduce poverty. Based on a grounded theory approach to conduct a two-year period of qualitative data collection in northern Mexico, this study shows that this explanation is incomplete. In addition to the information failure and inadequate beliefs, there are structural barriers in everyday life of households that make health-nutrition and education investments difficult. In-depth interviews and observation work showed that the program takes for granted local conditions in which beneficiary families should fulfill their co-responsibilities. Data challenged the program’s assumptions and unveiled local obstacles not contemplated in the program’s design. These findings have policy and research implications for the CCT agenda. They bring elements for late programming due to the gap between the CCT strategy as envisioned by policy designers, and the program that beneficiary families experience on the ground. As for research consequences, these findings suggest new avenues for scholarly work regarding the causal mechanisms and social processes explaining CCT outcomes.

Keywords: conditional cash transfers, incentives, poverty, structural barriers

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Authors: Adel A. Ghobbar, Ahmad Bakkar

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Although special care is given to maintenance, aircraft systems fail, and these failures cause delays and cancellations. The occurrence of Delays and Cancellations affects operators and manufacturers negatively. To reduce technical delays and cancellations, one should be able to determine the important systems causing them. The goal of this research is to find a method to define the most expensive delays and cancellations systems for Airline operators. A predictive model was introduced to forecast the failure and their impact after carrying out research that identifies relevant information to tackle the problems faced while answering the questions of this paper. Data were obtained from the manufacturers’ services reliability team database. Subsequently, delays and cancellations evaluation methods were identified. No cost estimation methods were used due to their complexity. The model was developed, and it takes into account the frequency of delays and cancellations and uses weighting factors to give an indication of the severity of their duration. The weighting factors are based on customer experience. The data Analysis approach has shown that delays and cancellations events are not seasonal and do not follow any specific trends. The use of weighting factor does have an influence on the shortlist over short periods (Monthly) but not the analyzed period of three years. Landing gear and the navigation system are among the top 3 factors causing delays and cancellations for all three aircraft types. The results did confirm that the cooperation between certain operators and manufacture reduce the impact of delays and cancellations.

Keywords: reliability, availability, delays & cancellations, aircraft maintenance

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Authors: Çisem Gündüz Arabacı

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Deliberation has been seen one of the most important components of democratic ideals especially since liberal democratic attributions have been under fire. Deliberative democracy advocates that people should participate in collective decision-making processes by other mechanisms rather than conventional ones in order to reach legitimate decisions. Deliberative democratic theory makes emphasis on deliberative communication between people and encourages them not to merely express their political opinions (through surveys and referendum) but to form those opinions through public debates. This paper focuses on deliberative democratic visions of Gezi Park Public Forums by taking deliberative democracy as theoretical basis and examining Gezi Park Public Forums in the light of core elements of deliberative democracy. Gezi Movement started on 28 May 2013 in İstanbul as a reaction to local government's revision plans for Taksim Gezi Park, spread throughout the country and created new zones in public sphere which are called Public Park Forums. During the summer of 2013, especially in İstanbul but also in other cities, people gathered in public parks, discussed and took collective decisions concerning actions which they will take. It is worth to mention that since 3 and half years some Public Park Forums are still continuing their meetings regularly in city of İzmir. This paper analyzes four 'Public Park Forums' in İzmir which are called Bornova Public Forum; Karşıyaka Public Forum, Foça Public Forum and Güzelyalı Public Forum. These Forums are under investigation in terms of their understanding of democracy and the values that support that understanding. Participant observation and in-depth interview methods are being used as research methods. Core element of deliberative democracy are being collected under three main category: common interest versus private interest, membership, rational argument and these values are being questioning within one of each Forum in order to draw an overall picture and also make comparison between them. Discourse analysis is being used in order to examine empirical data and paper aims to reveal how participants of public forums perceive deliberative democratic values and whether they give weight to these values.

Keywords: deliberative democracy, Gezi Park movement, public forums, social movement

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Authors: Javad Sadidi, Ehsan Babaei, Hani Rezayan

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The advent of web 2.0 gives a possibility to scale down the costs of data collection and mapping, specifically if the process is done by volunteers. Every volunteer can be thought of as a free and ubiquitous sensor to collect spatial, descriptive as well as multimedia data for tourist services. The lack of large-scale information, such as real-time climate and weather conditions, population density, and other related data, can be considered one of the important challenges in developing countries for tourists to make the best decision in terms of time and place of travel. The current research aims to design and implement a spatiotemporal web map service using volunteer-submitted data. The service acts as a tourist-guide service in which tourists can search interested places based on their requested time for travel. To design the service, three tiers of architecture, including data, logical processing, and presentation tiers, have been utilized. For implementing the service, open-source software programs, client and server-side programming languages (such as OpenLayers2, AJAX, and PHP), Geoserver as a map server, and Web Feature Service (WFS) standards have been used. The result is two distinct browser-based services, one for sending spatial, descriptive, and multimedia volunteer data and another one for tourists and local officials. Local official confirms the veracity of the volunteer-submitted information. In the tourist interface, a spatiotemporal search engine has been designed to enable tourists to find a tourist place based on province, city, and location at a specific time of interest. Implementing the tourist-guide service by this methodology causes the following: the current tourists participate in a free data collection and sharing process for future tourists, a real-time data sharing and accessing for all, avoiding a blind selection of travel destination and significantly, decreases the cost of providing such services.

Keywords: VGI, tourism, spatiotemporal, browser-based, web mapping

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Authors: Stephen Wagman

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This paper identifies three common structures in English sentences that are important for understanding academic texts, regardless of the characteristics or background of the readers or whether they are reading English as a second or a foreign language. Adapting a model from the Humanities, the explication of texts used in literary studies, the paper analyses sample sentences to reveal structures that enable the reader not only to decide which words are necessary for understanding the main ideas but to make the decision without knowing the meaning of the words. By their very syntax noun structures point to the key word for understanding them. As a rule, the key noun is followed by easily identifiable prepositions, relative pronouns, or verbs and preceded by single adjectives. With few exceptions, the modifiers are unnecessary for understanding the idea of the sentence. In addition, sentences are often structured by lists in which the items frequently consist of parallel groups of words. The principle of a list is that all the items are similar in meaning and it is not necessary to understand all of the items to understand the point of the list. This principle is especially important when the items are long or there is more than one list in the same sentence. The similarity in meaning of these items enables readers to reduce sentences that are hard to grasp to an understandable core without excessive use of a dictionary. Finally, the idea of subordination and the identification of the subordinate parts of sentences through connecting words makes it possible for readers to focus on main ideas without having to sift through the less important and more numerous secondary structures. Sometimes a main idea requires a subordinate one to complete its meaning, but usually, subordinate ideas are unnecessary for understanding the main point of the sentence and its part in the development of the argument from sentence to sentence. Moreover, the connecting words themselves indicate the functions of the subordinate structures. These most frequently show similarity and difference or reasons and results. Recognition of all of these structures can not only enable students to read more efficiently but to focus their attention on the development of the argument and this rather than a multitude of unknown vocabulary items, the repetition in lists, or the subordination in sentences are the one necessary element for comprehension of academic articles.

Keywords: development of the argument, lists, noun structures, subordination

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Authors: Badr M. Thamer

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The use of hydrogels as adsorbents for pollutants removal from wastewater is limited due to their high swelling properties and the difficulty in recovering them after the adsorption process. To overcome these problems, a new hydrogel nanocomposite based on chitosan-g-polyacrylic acid/oxidized electrospun carbon nanofibers (CT-g-PAA/O-ECNFs) was prepared by in-situ grafting polymerization process. The prepared hydrogel nanocomposite was used as a novel effective and highly reusable adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from polluted water with low cost. The morphology and the structure of CT-g-PAA/O-ECNFs were investigated by numerous techniques. The effect of incorporating O-ECNFs on the swelling capability of the prepared hydrogel was explored in distillated water and MB solution at normal pH. The effect of parameters including the ratio of O-ECNFs, contact time, pH, initial concentration, and temperature on the adsorption process were explored. The adsorption isotherm and kinetic were studied by numerous non-linear models. The obtained results confirmed that the incorporation of O-ECNFs into the hydrogel network improved its ability towards MB dye removal with decreasing their swelling capacity. The adsorption process depends on the pH value of the dye solution. Additionally, the adsorption and kinetic results were fitted using the Freundlich isotherm model and pseudo second order model (PSO), respectively. Moreover, the new adsorbents can be recycled for at least five cycles keeping its adsorption capacity and can be easily recovered without loss in its initial weight.

Keywords: carbon nanofibers, hydrogels, nanocomposites, water treatment

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Authors: Jibril Mohammed, Usman Dadum Hamza, Abdulsalam Surajudeen, Baba Yahya Danjuma

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Considerable concerns have been raised over the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in water. In this study, coconut shell based activated carbon was produced through chemical activation with potassium acetate (PAAC) for adsorption of benzene and toluene. The porous carbons were characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), proximate analysis, and ultimate analysis and nitrogen adsorption tests. Adsorption of benzene and toluene on the porous carbons were conducted at varying concentrations (50-250 mg/l). The high BET surface area of 622 m2/g and highly heteroporous adsorbent prepared gave good removal efficiencies of 79 and 82% for benzene and toluene respectively, with 32% yield. Equilibrium data were fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherms with all the models having R2 > 0.94. The equilibrium data were best represented by the Langmuir isotherm, with maximum adsorption capacity of 192 mg/g and 227 mg/g for benzene and toluene respectively. The Webber and Chakkravorti equilibrium parameter (RL) values are between 0 and 1 confirming the favourability of the Langmuir model. The adsorption kinetics was found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The PAAC produced can be used effectively to salvage environmental pollution problems posed by VOCs through a sustainable process.

Keywords: adsorption, equilibrium and kinetics studies, potassium acetate, water treatment

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Authors: Chris Ogwu Attah, Okpanachi Linus Odiji

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An election is no doubt a universally accepted means of resolving societal problems, particularly those with political connotations. While the process has often been conducted in advanced democracies without attacks on opponents and the populace, that ambiance of political tranquillity has hardly been enjoyed in many African states. While the violent nature of polls on this part of the globe have for long been linked among other things to monetization and the zero-sum character of politics, emerging trends show how the increasing rate of electoral violence may not be unconnected to the broadcasts of violent acts in the media. Anchored on the age-long complaints about the possible deleterious effects of mass media and Plato’s concern about the effects of plays on the youth, this study aims to interrogate the relationship between media and electoral violence in Nigeria using Kogi State as a case study. While the Social Cognitive Theory is adopted to guide the study to fruition, data was elicited primarily from a multi-stage sampling arrangement in which respondents from three purposively selected locations (Anyigba, Lokoja, and Okene) were randomly selected. Using chi-square to test the assumption that media violence catalyzes electoral violence in Kogi State, it was discovered among other revelations that electoral violence increases numerically with the depiction of violence in the media. As a recommendation, therefore, this paper advocate that Civil Society Organisations, as well as relevant governmental agencies, should carry out mass political education which aims at instilling political morals on the populace, especially the youths.

Keywords: electoral violence, media, media violence, violence

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Authors: Lara A. Alshawawreh, R. Sean Smith, John B. Wood

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This study focuses on the sheltering response in the Middle East, specifically through reviewing two Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, involving Zaatari and Azraq. Zaatari camp involved the rapid deployment of tents and shelters over a very short period of time and Azraq was purpose built and pre-planned over a longer period. At present, both camps collectively host more than 133,000 occupants. Field visits were taken to both camps and the main issues and problems in the sheltering response were highlighted through focus group discussions with camp occupants and inspection of shelter habitats. This provided both subjective and objective research data sources. While every case has its own significance and deployment to meet humanitarian needs, there are some common requirements irrespective of geographical region. The results suggest that there is a gap in the suitability of the required habitat needs and what has been provided. It is recommended that the global international response and support could be improved in relation to the habitat form, construction type, layout, function and critically the cultural aspects. Services, health and hygiene are key elements to the shelter habitat provision. The study also identified the amendments to shelters undertaken by the beneficiaries providing insight into their key main requirements. The outcomes from this study could provide an important learning opportunity to develop improved habitat response for future shelters.

Keywords: culture, post-disaster, refugees, shelters

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Authors: Osaretin Rosemary Uyi, A. O. Ogungbemi

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Female involvement in policy making and partnership in a man-driven-world is fast gaining international recognition. The Nigeria commercial real estate is one of the sectors of the economy that has a significant number of the male in the business. This study was conducted to assess the participation of females in estate management in Lagos state, Nigeria. Lagos is the commercial nerve center of Nigeria having the highest number of real estate practitioners and investors. The population due to the daily influx of people has made real estate business to continue to grow in this part of Nigeria. A structured questionnaire duly pre-tested and validated was used to elicit information from the respondents. The data collected were presented using tables and charts and were analyzed using descriptive statistical tools such as frequency counts, percentages, were used to test the hypothesis. The results also indicated that most females that participated in commercial real estate business are educated (80%), fell within 31-40 years of age (75%) and of high income status (88%) earn above ₦800,000 per year, while 10% are real estate investors and 82% of the female in the sector are employee. The study concluded that the number of female participating in various aspect of commercial real estate business in the study area was moderate while the numbers of female investors are low when compared to male. This might be due to the problems associated with rent collection, land disputes and other issues that are associated with property management in Nigeria. It is therefore recommended that females in real estate should be empowered and encouraged to match with their male counterpart.

Keywords: commercial real estate, empowerment, female, participation, property management

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Authors: Forouzan Salehi Fergeni

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Converting the movement intents of a person into commands for action employing brain signals like electroencephalogram signals is a brain-computer interface (BCI) system. When left or right-hand motions are imagined, different patterns of brain activity appear, which can be employed as BCI signals for control. To make better the brain-computer interface (BCI) structures, effective and accurate techniques for increasing the classifying precision of motor imagery (MI) based on electroencephalography (EEG) are greatly needed. Subject dependency and non-stationary are two features of EEG signals. So, EEG signals must be effectively processed before being used in BCI applications. In the present study, after applying an 8 to 30 band-pass filter, a car spatial filter is rendered for the purpose of denoising, and then, a method of analysis of variance is used to select more appropriate and informative channels from a category of a large number of different channels. After ordering channels based on their efficiencies, a sequential forward channel selection is employed to choose just a few reliable ones. Features from two domains of time and wavelet are extracted and shortlisted with the help of a statistical technique, namely the t-test. Finally, the selected features are classified with different machine learning and neural network classifiers being k-nearest neighbor, Probabilistic neural network, support-vector-machine, Extreme learning machine, decision tree, Multi-layer perceptron, and linear discriminant analysis with the purpose of comparing their performance in this application. Utilizing a ten-fold cross-validation approach, tests are performed on a motor imagery dataset found in the BCI competition III. Outcomes demonstrated that the SVM classifier got the greatest classification precision of 97% when compared to the other available approaches. The entire investigative findings confirm that the suggested framework is reliable and computationally effective for the construction of BCI systems and surpasses the existing methods.

Keywords: brain-computer interface, channel selection, motor imagery, support-vector-machine

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Authors: Olumuyiwa I. Ojo, Kola Amao, Josiah A. Adeyemo, Fred A. O. Otieno

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A study was carried out to assess the environmental impact of Kampe (Omi) irrigation scheme with respect to public health hazards, the rising water table, salinity and alkalinity problems on the project site. A structured questionnaire was used as the main tool to gather information on the effect of the irrigation project on the various communities around the project site. The different sections of the questionnaire enabled the gathering of information ranging from general to more specific information. The results obtained from the study showed that the two effects are obvious: the 'positive effects' which include increasing the socioeconomic development of the entire communities, resulting in an increase in employment opportunities and better lifestyle and the 'negative effects' in which malaria (100% occurrence) and schistosomiasis (66.7%) were found to be active diseases caused by irrigation activities. Increase in height of water table and salinity is eminent in the irrigation site unless adequate drainage is provided. The collection and experimental analyses of representation soil and water samples from each scheme were used to assess the current status of each receptor. Results obtained indicate the absence of soil with sodium adsorption ration (SAR) values ranging from 3.0 to 3.89, exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) ranged from 3.8% to 5.5% while pH values ranged from 6.60 to 7.00. Drainage facilities of the project site are inadequate, therefore making it difficult to leach the soil and flood history is occasional.

Keywords: irrigation, impact, soil analysis, Nigeria

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Authors: Radek Richtr, Petr Paus

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The connection to the primal environment, living and growing nature is disappearing for most of the residents in urban core areas nowadays. Most of the residents perceive scattered green mass like more technical objects than sentient living organisms. The Arboretum is a type of application from the 'serious games' genre -it is a research experiment masked as a gaming environment. In used virtual and augmented reality environments, every city district is represented by central objects; Pillars created as a result of resident’s consensus. Every player can furthermore plant and grow virtual organic seeds everywhere he wants. Seeds sprout, and their form is determined by both players’ choice and nearest pillar. Every house, private rooms, and even workspace get their new living virtual avatar-connected 'residents' growing from player-planted seeds. Every room or workspace is transformed into (calming) nature scene, reflecting in some way both players and community spirit and together create a vicinity environment. The conceptual design phase of the project is crucial and allows for the identification of the fundamental problems through abstraction. The project that centers on wide community usage needs a clear and accessible interface. Simultaneously the conceptual design allows early sharing of project ideas and creating public concern. The paper discusses the current conceptual model of an Arboretum project (which is part of a whole widespread project) and its validation.

Keywords: augmented reality, conceptual design, mixed reality, social engineering

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Authors: Mohamed Khaled Ahmed Azzam

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Complete dentures, a non biological appliance, were and are still used to replace missing teeth and surrounding structures. Its main objectives are esthetics, speech, function and psychological state improvement. Dentists must realize that, just as dentate patients vary in their dental treatment complexity; edentulous patients also vary in the difficulty of their treatment plan. There are two main problems facing the removable Prosthodontist which harden his/her task how to please his patient with their new dentures being: Denture construction which however its fabrication is at the highest standards still is an unpleasant experience to all patients in the beginning and improves by time. This varies from one to several years according to the patient’s attitude, age, gender, socio-economical level and culture. The second problem of edentulous patients is both physical and psychological. Good interview, communication and note how patients present themselves for the concerns of their appearance, overall attitude and expectations concerning treatment is very important physically. On the psychological aspect patients have great difficulty to cope with new dentures to the extent of not using them at all. Hence their mind preparation should be commenced from day one by more than one method. This had a great impact on the acceptance which led to habituation to their dentures and patients were appreciative and pleased. In conclusion to successfully treat edentulous patients a great deal of information is required to complete a proper diagnosis, including patient mental attitude, past and present medical and dental conditions, and extra and intra-oral examinations. In addition to the clinical experience and skill of the whole dental team.

Keywords: complete dentures, edentulous patients, management of denture, psychological mind preparation

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Authors: A. Roukbi, B. Draoui

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Due to the high cost and the environmental problems caused by the conventional air-conditioning systems, various researches are being increasingly focused on thermal comfort in the building sector integrating renewable energy sources, particularly solar energy. For that purpose, this study aims to present a modeling and performance analysis of a direct air-cooled Water/LiBr absorption chiller. The chiller is considered to be coupled to a small residential building at an arid zone situated in south Algeria. The system is modeled with TRNSYS simulation program. The main objective is to study the feasibility of the chosen system in arid zones and to apply a simplified method to predict the performance of the system by mean of the characteristic equation approach tacking in account the influence of the climatic conditions of the considered site, the collector area and storage volume of the hot water tank on the performance of the installation. First, the results of the system modeling are compared with an experimental data from the open literature and the developed model is then validated. In another hand, a parametric study is performed to analyze the performance of the direct air-cooled absorption chiller at the operating conditions of interest for the present study. Thus, the obtained results has shown that the studied system can present a good alternative for cooling systems in arid zones since the cooling load is roughly in phase with solar availability.

Keywords: absorption chiller, air-cooled, arid zone, thermal comfort

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Authors: Ashutosh Kumar, Irene M. C. Lo

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Ever since the discovery of TiO2 for decomposition of cyanide in water, it has been investigated extensively for the photocatalytic degradation of environmental pollutants, and became the most practical and prevalent photocatalyst. The superiority of TiO2 is due to its chemical and biological inertness, nontoxicity, strong oxidizing power and cost-effectiveness. However, during degradation of pollutants in wastewater, it suffers from problems, such as (a) separation after use, and (b) its poor photocatalytic performance under visible light irradiation (~45% of the solar spectrum). In order to bridge the research gaps, N-TiO2@SiO2@Fe3O4 nanophotocatalysts of average size 19 nm and effective surface area 47 m2 gm-1 were synthesized using sol-gel method. The characterization was performed using BET, TEM-EDX, VSM and XRD. The performance was improved by considering different factors involved during the synthesis, such as calcination temperature, amount of Fe3O4 nanoparticles used and amount of urea used for N-doping. The final nanophotocatalyst was calcined at 500 °C which was able to degrade 94% of the ibuprofen within 5 h of irradiation time. Under the influence of ~200 mT electromagnetic field, 95% nanophotocatalysts separation efficiency was achieved within 20-25 min. Moreover, the effect of different visible light source of similar irradiance, such as compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and light emitting diode (LED), is also investigated in this research. The performance of nanophotocatalysts was found to be comparatively higher under ~310 µW cm-2 irradiance with peak emissive wavelengths of 543 nm emitted by CFL. Therefore, a promising visible-light-driven magnetically separable TiO2-based nanophotocatalysts was synthesized for the efficient degradation of ibuprofen.

Keywords: ibuprofen, magnetic N-TiO2, photocatalysis, visible light sources

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Authors: Elisa Menicucci, Guido Paolucci

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Purpose: The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing profitability in the Italian hospitality industry during the period 2008-2016. Design/methodology/approach: This study examines the profitability and its determinants using a sample of 2366 Italian hotel firms. First, we use a multidimensional measure of profitability including attributes as return on equity, return on assets and occupancy rate. Second, we examine variables that are potentially related with performance and we sort these into five categories: market variables, business model, ownership structure, management education and control variables. Findings: The results show that financial crisis, business model and ownership structure influence profitability of hotel firms. Specific factors such as the internationalization, location, firm’s declaring accommodation as their primary activity and chain affiliation are associated positively with profitability. We also find that larger hotel firms have higher performance rankings, while hotels with higher operating cash flow volatility, greater sales volatility and a higher occurrence of losses have lower profitability. Research limitations/implications: Findings suggest the importance of considering firm specific factors to evaluate the profitability of a hotel firm. Results also provide evidence for academics to critically evaluate factors that would ensure profitability of hotels in developed countries such as Italy. Practical implications: This investigation offers valuable information and strategic implications for government, tourism policymakers, tourist hotel owners, hoteliers and tourism managers in their decision-making. Originality/value: This paper provides interesting insights into the characteristics and practices of profitable hotels in Italy. Few econometric studies empirically explored the determinants of performance in the European hospitality field so far. Therefore, this paper tries to close an important gap in the existing literature improving the understanding of profitability in the Italian hospitality industry.

Keywords: hotel firms, profitability, determinants, Italian hospitality industry

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Authors: Vishwa Nath Maurya, Rama Shanker Sharma, Saad Talib Hasson Aljebori, Avadhesh Kumar Maurya, Diwinder Kaur Arora

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Present paper deals with problems of determining the relationship between the variables of corporate governance and financial performance of Islamic banks. Here, we dealt with the corporate governance in the banking sector, where increasing the importance of corporate governance, due to their special nature, as the bankruptcy of banks affects not only the relevant parties from customers, depositors and lenders, but also affect financial stability and then the economy as a whole. Through this paper we dealt to the specificity of governance in Islamic banks, which face double governance: Anglo-Saxon governance system and Islamic governance system. In addition, we focused our attention to measure the impact of corporate governance variables on financial performance through an empirical study on a sample of Islamic banks during the period 2005-2012 in the GCC region. Our present study implies that there is a very strong relationship between the variables of governance and financial performance of Islamic banks, where there is a positive relationship between return on assets and the composition of the Board of Directors, the size of the Board of Directors, the number of committees in the Council, as well as the number of members of the Sharia Supervisory Board, while it is clear that there is a negative relationship between return on assets and concentration ownership.

Keywords: correlation analysis, parametric estimation, corporate governance, financial performance, financial stability, conventional banks, bankruptcy, Islamic governance system

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Authors: Shimaa Nagro, Russell Campion

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Mobile devices are becoming ever more widely available, with growing functionality, and they are increasingly used as enabling technology to give students access to educational material anytime and anywhere. However, the design of educational material's user interfaces for mobile devices is beset by many unresolved research problems such as those arising from constraints associated with mobile devices or from issues linked to effective learning. The proposed research aims to produce: (i) a method framework for the design and evaluation of educational material’s interfaces to be delivered on mobile devices, in multimedia form based on Human Computer Interaction strategies; and (ii) a software tool implemented as a fast-track alternative to use the method framework in full. The investigation will combine qualitative and quantitative methods, including interviews and questionnaires for data collection and three case studies for validating the method framework. The method framework is a framework to enable an educational designer to effectively and efficiently create educational multimedia interfaces to be used on mobile devices by following a particular methodology that contains practical and usable tools and techniques. It is a method framework that accepts any educational material in its final lesson plan and deals with this plan as a static element, it will not suggest any changes in any information given in the lesson plan but it will help the instructor to design his final lesson plan in a multimedia format to be presented in mobile devices.

Keywords: mobile learning, M-Learn, HCI, educational multimedia, interface design

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Authors: R. Hassan, J. Duncombe, E. Darke, A. Dias, K. Anderson, R. G. Middleton

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NHS England has set itself the task of delivering a “Net Zero” National Health service by 2040. It is incumbent upon all health care practioners to work towards this goal. Orthopaedic surgeons are no exception. Distal radial fractures are the most common fractures sustained by the adult population. However, studies are shortcoming on individual patient experience. The aim of this study was to assess the patient’s satisfaction and outcomes with woodcast used in the conservative management of distal radius fractures. For all patients managed with woodcast in our unit, we undertook a structured questionnaire that included the Patient Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE) score, The EQ-5D-5L score and the pain numerical score at the time of injury and six weeks after. 30 patients were initially managed with woodcast. 80% of patients tolerated woodcast for the full duration of their treatment. Of these, 20% didn’t tolerate woodcast and had their casts removed within 48 hours. Of the remaining, 79.1% were satisfied about woodcast comfort, 66% were very satisfied about woodcast weight, 70% were satisfied with temperature and sweatiness, 62.5% were very satisfied about the smell/odour, and 75% were satisfied about the level of support woodcast provided. During their treatment, 83.3% of patients rated their pain as five or less. For those who completed their treatment in woodcast, none required any further intervention or utilised the open appointment because of ongoing wrist problems. In conclusion, when woodcast is tolerated, patients’ satisfaction and outcome levels were good. However, we acknowledged 20% of patients in our series were not able to tolerate woodacst, Therefore, we suggest a comparison between the widely used synthetic plaster of Paris casting and woodcast to come in order.

Keywords: distal radius fractures, ecological cast, sustainability, woodcast

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Authors: Vahidreza Mahmoudabadi, Omid Bahar, Mohammad Kazem Jafari

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In many applied engineering problems, structural analysis is usually conducted by assuming a rigid bed, while imposing the effect of structure bed flexibility can affect significantly on the structure response. This article focuses on investigation and evaluation of the effects arising from considering a soil-structure system in evaluation of dynamic characteristics of a steel structure with respect to elastic and inelastic behaviors. The recorded structure acceleration during Taiwan’s strong Chi-Chi earthquake on different floors of the structure was our evaluation criteria. The respective structure is an eight-story steel bending frame structure designed using a displacement-based direct method assuring weak beam - strong column function. The results indicated that different identification methods i.e. reverse Fourier transform or transfer functions, is capable to determine some of the dynamic parameters of the structure precisely, rather than evaluating all of them at once (mode frequencies, mode shapes, structure damping, structure rigidity, etc.). Response evaluation based on the input and output data elucidated that the structure first mode is not significantly affected, even considering the soil-structure interaction effect, but the upper modes have been changed. Also, it was found that the response transfer function of the different stories, in which plastic hinges have occurred in the structure components, provides similar results.

Keywords: bending steel frame structure, dynamic characteristics, displacement-based design, soil-structure system, system identification

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Authors: Mónica Catarina Soares

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Neoliberal rationality is currently changing the ways concepts like freedom or equality are framed. As an omnipresent and context-sensitive paradigm, homo oeconomicus is continuously taking place in realms of life previously insulated from economic and market-driven principles. This presentation is based on the argument that, more than ever, this paradigm is nowadays framing institutional and everyday discourses in regard to social problems. Although neoliberal rationality is based on the putative ideological basis that everyone is equal, equality seems to be reshaped by specific meanings apprehended by this rationality. In this sense, an illusion of equality seems to be relevant to legitimize different social inequalities (e.g., access to health care or to habitation). Political psychology has studied how ideology is relevant to legitimize market and unequal systems, but still the specific relation between markets, (in)equality and neoliberal languages is not widely addressed. The goal is to discuss the smithereens of the neoliberal rationality when it comes to legitimizing social inequalities by contesting the arguments of meritocracy, progressive freedom and minimal guarantees obeying to market-rules and principles. This analysis can be helpful to grasp for instance the continuously dismantlement of the welfare-state in different countries of the global north and how it is turning the regulation/emancipation tension inside out. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the breaking up of a paradigm that is still too big to capture, too depoliticized and chameleonic to fully acknowledge the biopolitics of power that is helping to create it.

Keywords: discourses, legitimacy, neoliberal rationality, social inequality

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Authors: Jinsong Zhao, Lin Zhao

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Shenzhen, one of the fastest growing cities in the world, has been building a global ocean central city since 2017, facing many challenges, especially how to innovate new legal regimes to meet the future demands of the development of global shipping. First, the current legal regime of bills of lading as a document of title was established by English law in the 18th century but limited to the period of marine transportation from port of loading to port of discharge (namely, port to port). The e-commerce era is asking for such a function to be extended from port to port to door to door. Secondly, the function of the port has also been upgraded from the traditional loading and unloading of goods to a much wider area, such as being custody of warehousing goods for its mortgage bank, and therefore its legal status is changing, so it is necessary to amend the law of ports and harbours and innovate the rights and responsibilities of the port under its new role as the custody. Thirdly, the development of new marine energy has made more and more offshore floating wind power and floating photovoltaic devices face new legal issues such as legal status, nationality and ownership registration, mortgage, maritime lien, and possessory lien. Fourthly, the jurisdiction of the above issues, as well as conflicts of law and the applicable law, are also questions pending answers. This paper will discuss these issues of private international law, especially the innovation of new legal regimes with an aim to solve the above problems.

Keywords: maritime law, bills of lading, e-commerce, port law, marine clean energy

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Authors: Feran Asur

Abstract:

In cities, plants; with its visual and functional effects, it helps to provide balance between human and environmental system. It is possible to develop alternative solutions to eliminate visual pollution by evaluating the potential properties of plant materials with other inanimate materials such as color, texture, form, size, etc. characteristics and other inanimate materials such as highlighter, background forming, harmonizing and concealer. In cold climates, the number of ornamental plant species that grow in warmer climates is less. For this reason, especially in the landscaping works of urban spaces, it is difficult to create the desired visuality with aesthetically qualified plants that are suitable for the ecology of the area, without creating monotony, with color variety. In this study, the importance of plant and plant compositions in the solution of visual problems in urban environments in cold climatic conditions is emphasized. The potential of ornamental plants that can be used for this purpose in preventing visual pollution is given. It has been shown how to use prominent features of these ornamental plants such as size, form, texture, vegetation periods to improve visual landscape in urban spaces in a long time. In addition to the design group disciplines that have activity on planning or application basis in the city and its surroundings, landscape architecture discipline can provide visual improvement of the studies to be carried out in detail in terms of planting design.

Keywords: residential landscape, planting, urban space, visual improvement

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Authors: Safee Chaudhary, Mahnoor Naseer Gondal, Hira Anees Awan, Abdul Rehman, Ammar Arif, Risham Hussain, Huma Khawar, Zainab Arshad, Muhammad Faizyab Ali Chaudhary, Waleed Ahmed, Muhammad Umer Sultan, Bibi Amina, Salaar Khan, Muhammad Moaz Ahmad, Osama Shiraz Shah, Hadia Hameed, Muhammad Farooq Ahmad Butt, Muhammad Ahmad, Sameer Ahmed, Fayyaz Ahmed, Omer Ishaq, Waqar Nabi, Wim Vanderbauwhede, Bilal Wajid, Huma Shehwana, Muhammad Tariq, Amir Faisal

Abstract:

Cancer is a manifestation of multifactorial deregulations in biomolecular pathways. These deregulations arise from the complex multi-scale interplay between cellular and extracellular factors. Such multifactorial aberrations at gene, protein, and extracellular scales need to be investigated systematically towards decoding the underlying mechanisms and orchestrating therapeutic interventions for patient treatment. In this work, we propose ‘TISON’, a next-generation web-based multiscale modeling platform for clinical systems oncology. TISON’s unique modeling abstraction allows a seamless coupling of information from biomolecular networks, cell decision circuits, extra-cellular environments, and tissue geometries. The platform can undertake multiscale sensitivity analysis towards in silico biomarker identification and drug evaluation on cellular phenotypes in user-defined tissue geometries. Furthermore, integration of cancer expression databases such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Human Proteome Atlas (HPA) facilitates in the development of personalized therapeutics. TISON is the next-evolution of multiscale cancer modeling and simulation platforms and provides a ‘zero-code’ model development, simulation, and analysis environment for application in clinical settings.

Keywords: systems oncology, cancer systems biology, cancer therapeutics, personalized therapeutics, cancer modelling

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Authors: Erhan Zor, Funda Copur, Asli I. Dogan, Haluk Bingol

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Current trends in the wide-scale sensing technologies rely on the development of miniaturized, rapid and easy-to-use sensing platforms. Quantum dots (QDs) with strong and easily tunable luminescence and high emission quantum yields have become a well-established photoluminescent nanomaterials for sensor applications. Although the majority of the reports focused on the cadmium-based QDs which have toxic effect on biological systems and eventually would cause serious environmental problems, carbon-based quantum dots (CQDs) that do not contain any toxic class elements have attracted substantial research interest in recent years. CQDs are small carbon nanostructures (less than 10 nm in size) with various unique properties and are widely-used in different fields during the last few years. In this respect, chiral nanostructures have become a promising class of materials in various areas such as pharmacology, catalysis, bioanalysis and (bio)sensor technology due to the vital importance of chirality in living systems. We herein report the synthesis of chiral CQDs with D- or L-tartaric acid as precursor materials. The optimum experimental conditions were examined and the purification procedure was performed using ethanol/water by column chromatography. The purified chiral CQDs were characterized by UV-Vis, FT-IR, XPS, PL and TEM techniques. The resultants display different photoluminescent characteristics due to the size and conformational difference. Considering the results, it can be concluded that chiral CQDs is expected to be used as optical chiral sensor in different platforms.

Keywords: carbon quantum dots, chirality, sensor, tartaric acid

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Authors: Jiyoung Kim, Chae Weon Chung

Abstract:

Labor pain is one of the most common concerns of pregnant women, thus women are in need of possible options they could take to control the pain. So, this study aimed to explore maternal perception of epidural anesthesia and to compare the childbirth outcomes according to the use of epidural anesthesia. For this descriptive study, women who were over 36 weeks of pregnancy were recruited from an out-patient obstetric clinic in a public hospital in Seoul. Women were included in the study if agreed to participate, were pregnant singleton, without pregnancy complication, and expecting a natural birth. Data collection was done twice, the first one at the prenatal care visit and the second one at an in-patient ward on 2nd day postpartum. The instrument of the beliefs about epidural anesthesia, one item of asking intention to use epidural anesthesia, demographics, and obstetrical characteristics were incorporated into a questionnaire. One nurse researcher performed data collection with the structured questionnaire after the approval of the institutional review board. At the initial data collection 133 women were included, while 117 were retained at the second point after excluded 13 women due to the occurrence of complications. Analyses were done by chi-square, t-test, and ANOVA using the SPSS program. Women were aged 32.5 years old, 22.2% were over 35 years old. The average gestational age was 38.5 weeks, and 67.5% were nulliparous. Out of 38 multiparous women, 20 women (52.6%) had received epidural anesthesia in the previous delivery. At the initial interview, 62.6% (n=73) of women wanted to receive epidural anesthesia while 22.4% answered not decided and 15.4% did not want to take the procedure. However, there were changes in proportions between women’s intention to take it and actual procedures done, particularly, two-thirds of women (n=26) who had been undecided were found to receive epidural anesthesia during labor. There was a significant difference in the perception of epidural anesthesia measured before delivery between women who received and not received it (t=3.68, p < .001). Delivery outcomes were statistically different between the two groups in delivery mode (chi-square=8.64, p=.01), O₂ supply during labor (chi-square =5.01, p=.03), duration of 2nd stage of labor (t=3.70, p < .001), and arterial cord blood pH (t=2.64, p=.01). Interestingly, there was no difference in labor pain perceived between women with and without epidural anesthesia. Considering the preference and use of epidural anesthesia, health professionals need to assess coping ability of women undergoing delivery and to provide accurate information about pain control to support their decision making and eventually to enhance delivery outcomes for mothers and neonates.

Keywords: epidural anesthesia, delivery outcomes, labor pain, perception

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Authors: Jelena Slugan, Ivica Ružić

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We are witnessing the rapid development of technologies that change the world around us. However, curriculums and teaching processes are often slow to adapt to the change; it takes time, money and expertise to implement technology in the classroom. Therefore, the University of Split, Croatia, partnered with local school Marko Marulić High School and created the project "Modern competence in modern high schools" as part of which five different curriculums for STEM areas were developed. One of the curriculums involves combining information technology with physics. The main idea was to teach students how to use different circuits and microcomputers to explore nature and physical phenomena. As a result, using electrical circuits, students are able to recreate in the classroom the phenomena that they observe every day in their environment. So far, high school students had very little opportunity to perform experiments independently, and especially, those physics experiment did not involve ICT. Therefore, this project has a great importance, because the students will finally get a chance to develop themselves in accordance to modern technologies. This paper presents some new methods of teaching physics that will help students to develop experimental skills through the study of deterministic nature of physical laws. Students will learn how to formulate hypotheses, model physical problems using the electronic circuits and evaluate their results. While doing that, they will also acquire useful problem solving skills.

Keywords: ICT in physics, curriculum, laboratory activities, STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics)

Procedia PDF Downloads 188