Search results for: evaluation of policy

Authors: Amani Aljahani

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The purpose of the study was to identify the physical and chemical properties of pomegranate juices and to evaluate their sensory quality. The samples were collected from the local markets and included four types of pomegranate produced in the western and southern region of the kingdom. The juices were extracted by manual squeezing and by centrifugal force. The juices were analyzed periodically for their content of organic acids, total acidity, glucose and fructose, total sugars, and the anthosianine. A panel of 30 judges evaluated the juices for their color, smell, taste, consistency and general acceptance using a prepared scale for that purpose. Result showed that pomegranate juices were acidic in nature (PH between 3.56–4.27). The major organic acids were citric, tartaric, malic, and oxalic aids total organic acidity was between 596.32–763.49 ng/100 ml and increased over storage time, however; total acidity almost stable over time except for the southern produced. The major monosaccharide's in pomegranate juices were glucose and fructose. Their concentration in the juice varied by storage. On the average glucose concentration was between 6.68–7.71 g/100 ml while fructose concentration was between 6.72–7.98 g/100 ml. total sugars content was 16% on the average and dropped by storage. Anthosianine concertration increased after five hours of storage then dropped and stabilized over time regardless of method of treatment. In addition, sensory evaluation of the juices showed general acceptance of them as of color, flavor, and constercy but the preferred one was with that of the western kind extracted by squeezing.

Keywords: extracting, pomegranate, juice, quality

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Authors: Hasan Kalyoncu, Ayşe Güneş

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This study was carried on 12 determined stations, on Alara and Karpuz Streams, between January and November 2014. Seasonal samples were taken from the stations to analyze physicochemical parameters and Plecoptera Fauna in the water. The correlation between identified taxa and physicochemical data were tried to determine. As the result of the study, 2088 individuals from Plecoptera fauna were examined, 3 genera and 13 species were identified. The taxa of Brachyptera risi, Capnia bifrons, Dinocras cephalotes, Diura bicaudata, Isogenus nebecula, Isogenus sp., Isoperla grammatica, Leuctra hippopus, Leuctra inermis, Leuctra moselyi, Leuctra sp., Nemoura sp., Perla bipunctata, Perla marginata, Protonemura meyeri and Rhabdiopteryx acuminata were determined. In Alara Stream, the dominant species were; Isogenus nebecula at stations I and IV, Leuctra moselyi at station II, Leuctra hippopus at stations III, V and VI. In Karpuz Stream, Brachyptera risi was the dominant species in all stations. While Leuctra hippopus was the dominant taxon in Alara Stream, in Karpuz Stream it was Brachyptera risi. The highest diversity value was at station III and the lowest was at station VI in Alara Stream and the lowest diversity value was at station VI, while the highest was at station I in Karpuz Stream. In Alara Stream, the most similar stations were I and III, while in Karpuz Stream the highest similarity was determined between stations I and II. As for the evaluation result, the water quality of Alara and Karpuz Streams were determined as at oligosaprobic level.

Keywords: Alara stream, Karpuz stream, plecoptera, water quality

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Authors: Hyun-Kyung Lee, Jehyung Oh, Young Eun Jeong, Hyun-Shik Lee

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Perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) are environmental toxicants that persistently accumulate in the human blood. Their widespread detection and accumulation in the environment raise concerns about whether these chemicals might be developmental toxicants and teratogens in the ecosystem. We evaluated and compared the toxicity of PFCs of containing various numbers of carbon atoms (C8-11 carbons) on vertebrate embryogenesis. We assessed the developmental toxicity and teratogenicity of various PFCs. The toxic effects on Xenopus embryos were evaluated using different methods. We measured teratogenic indices (TIs) and investigated the mechanisms underlying developmental toxicity and teratogenicity by measuring the expression of organ-specific biomarkers such as xPTB (liver), Nkx2.5 (heart), and Cyl18 (intestine). All PFCs that we tested were found to be developmental toxicants and teratogens. Their toxic effects were strengthened with increasing length of the fluorinated carbon chain. Furthermore, we produced evidence showing that perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) and perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFuDA) are more potent developmental toxicants and teratogens in an animal model compared to the other PFCs we evaluated [perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA)]. In particular, severe defects resulting from PFDA and PFuDA exposure were observed in the liver and heart, respectively, using the whole mount in situ hybridization, real-time PCR, pathologic analysis of the heart, and dissection of the liver. Our studies suggest that most PFCs are developmental toxicants and teratogens, however, compounds that have higher numbers of carbons (i.e., PFDA and PFuDA) exert more potent effects.

Keywords: PFC, xenopus, fetax, development

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Authors: Nyeng P. Gyang

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Even though past, current and future trends suggest that multicore and cloud computing systems are increasingly prevalent/ubiquitous, this class of parallel systems is nonetheless underutilized, in general, and barely used for research on employing parallel Delaunay triangulation for parallel surface modeling and generation, in particular. The performances, of actual/physical and virtual/cloud multicore systems/machines, at executing various algorithms, which implement various parallelization strategies of the incremental insertion technique of the Delaunay triangulation algorithm, were evaluated. T-tests were run on the data collected, in order to determine whether various performance metrics differences (including execution time, speedup and efficiency) were statistically significant. Results show that the actual machine is approximately twice faster than the virtual machine at executing the same programs for the various parallelization strategies. Results, which furnish the scalability behaviors of the various parallelization strategies, also show that some of the differences between the performances of these systems, during different runs of the algorithms on the systems, were statistically significant. A few pseudo superlinear speedup results, which were computed from the raw data collected, are not true superlinear speedup values. These pseudo superlinear speedup values, which arise as a result of one way of computing speedups, disappear and give way to asymmetric speedups, which are the accurate kind of speedups that occur in the experiments performed.

Keywords: cloud computing systems, multicore systems, parallel Delaunay triangulation, parallel surface modeling and generation

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Authors: Assia Haif, Djelloul Achouri, Zineddine Soualili

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Introduction: Laparoscopic treatment of liver echinococcosis cyst has become popular. In parallel, the diagnostic approach of cystic liver lesions is based on the number of lesions and their distribution. The etiologies of cystic masses in children are different, and the role of imaging in their characterization and pre-therapeutic evaluation is essential. The main differential diagnoses of hepatic hydatid cysts can be discovered intraoperatively by minimally invasive surgery. Methods: The clinical data contained seven patients with hepatic cystic who underwent laparoscopic surgery in the Department of Pediatric Surgery, SETIF, Algeria, from 2015 to 2022. Results: Of reported seven patients, five are male, and the remaining two are female. Abdominal pain was the most frequent clinical signs. Biological parameters were within normal limits, Abdominal ultrasound, practiced in all cases, completed by abdominal computed tomography (CT), showed a hydatid cystic. For all patients, surgical procedures were performed under laparoscopy. Total cystectomy in four patients, fenestration or subtotal cystectomy in three patients, respectively. A histopathological feature confirmed the nature of the cysts. During the follow-up period, there was no recurrence. Conclusions: Laparoscopic liver surgery is a safe and effective approach, it is an alternative to conventional surgery and a reproducible method. Laparoscopic surgery approach should follow the same principals with those of open surgery. This surgical technique can rectify the diagnosis of hydatid cyst, the histopathological examination confirms the nature of the cystic lesion.

Keywords: children, cyst, echinococcosis, laparoscopic, liver

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Authors: Waepa Wanhussen

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The Ministry of Public Health has established policies accelerating health promotion to prevent public health problems in five border provinces of Thailand. One of these policies employs the religion to guide the community development and solve health issues consistent with the lifestyle and culture of those people. This policy is an important strategy to solve the problems due to the unrest and conflicts in the southern border provinces. This participatory action research aimed to develop mosques as healthy religion places in Narathiwat Province. In the development, the participatory action, consisting of 5 stages, was conducted from October 2012 - May 2013. Stage I: Conducting a survey for problems and needs for developing healthy religion places by employing community participation. Stage II: Analyzing problems and situations at a workshop containing informal interviews and group conversations with 200 participants (health providers at district level, Imams (the Muslim leaders), and community leaders). Stage III: Planning for developing healthy religion places by health providers, Imams, community leaders. Stage IV: Implementing the plan according to the conditions of problems and needs of the community in order to develop healthy religion places. Stage V: Evaluating the implementation by using the instrument, a criteria of being healthy religion place, for collecting data. Data were analyzed by using percentage. It was found that out of 630 mosques 575 (90.12%) passed the criteria of being a healthy religion place. Among these mosques, 190 mosques (30.15%) were in good and very good level, in which, after the implementation, the number of being good and very good healthy mosques increased by 22.58%. The researcher suggested that the developing sustainably healthy religion places require the participation of residences in the community and agencies such as local government, the Islamic Council of Narathiwat Province, and Council of Culture of Narathiwat Province. The healthy religion places can be used to strengthen and sustain health promotion and disease prevention in the community as health learning centers.

Keywords: healthy religion places, development of community participation, nursing informatics, health

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Authors: Jessica Carolina Hernandez Galeano, Juan Carlos Moreno Pirajan, Liliana Giraldo

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Carbon gels are materials whose structure and porous texture can be designed and controlled on a nanoscale. Among their characteristics it is found their low density, large surface area and high degree of porosity. These materials are produced by a sol-gel polymerization of organic monomers using basic or acid catalysts, followed by drying and controlled carbonization. In this work, the synthesis and characterization of carbon aerogels from resorcinol, phenol and formaldehyde in ethanol is described. The aim of this study is obtaining different carbonaceous materials in the form of spheres using the Stöber method to perform a further evaluation of CO₂ adsorption of each material. In general, the synthesis consisted of a sol-gel polymerization process that generates a cluster (cross-linked organic monomers) from the precursors in the presence of NH₃ as a catalyst. This cluster was subjected to specific conditions of gelling and curing (30°C for 24 hours and 100°C for 24 hours, respectively) and CO₂ supercritical drying. Finally, the dry material was subjected to a process of carbonization or pyrolysis, in N₂ atmosphere at 350°C (1° C / min) for 2 h and 600°C (1°C / min) for 4 hours, to obtain porous solids that retain the structure initially desired. For this work, both the concentrations of the precursors and the proportion of ammonia in the medium where modify to describe the effect of the use of phenol and the amount of catalyst in the resulting material. Carbon aerogels were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), N₂ isotherms, infrared spectroscopy (IR) and X-ray Powder Diffraction (XRD) showing the obtention of carbon spheres in the nanometric scale with BET areas around 500 m2g-1.

Keywords: carbon aerogels, carbon spheres, CO₂ adsorption, Stöber method

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Authors: Rai Friedman

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The recent migrant crisis has revealed an unmet demand for increased international protection and promotion of migrant rights. Europe has found itself at the centre of the migration crisis, being the recipient to the largest number of asylum-seekers since the conclusion of the second World War. Rather than impart a unified humanitarian lens of offering legal protections, the Schengen territory is devising new, preventative measures to confront the influx of asylum-seekers. This paper will focus on the refugee crisis in Europe as it relates to the Central Mediterranean route. To do so, it will outline the increased need for international protection for migrant rights through analyzing historic human rights treaties and conventions; the formation of the current composition of the Schengen area; the evolutionary changes in policies and legal landscapes throughout Europe and the Central Mediterranean route; the vernacular transformation surrounding refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers; and expose the gaps in international protection. It will also discuss Europe’s critical position, both geographically and conceptually, critiquing the notion of European victimization. Lastly, it will discuss the increased harm of preventative border measures and argue for tangible sustainability solutions through economic programming models in highly vulnerable countries. To do so, this paper will observe a case study in Algeria that has conceded to an economic programming model for forced migrants. In 2017 amid worker shortages, Algeria announced it would grant African migrants’ legal status to become agriculturalists and construction workers. Algeria is one of the few countries along the Central Mediterranean route that has adopted a law to govern foreign nationals’ conditions of entry, stay and circulation. Thereafter, it will provide recommendations for solutions for forced migration along the Central Mediterranean route and advocate for strengthened protections under international law.

Keywords: refugees, migrants, human rights, middle east, Africa, mediterranean, international humanitarian law, policy

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Authors: Shinta Ardiana Sari, Dini Puti Angelia

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A high number of urban population in Jakarta has been a substantial issue for mobility strategy. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) becomes one of the strategies to improve community livability based on the design of transit place and the system of its context. TOD principle is trying to win over pedestrian motorization habit, makes people would rather transit and travel more than using private vehicle. Train station takes the main role as the catalyst to emerge TOD, in Jakarta this role will be taken by Commuter line and the future MRT. For advancing its development, architectural design perspective is needed to perform evaluation while seeking for the strategies between accessibility transportation modes with convenience and safety for increasing human behavioral intention. This paper discovers design strategy for transit place that appropriates with Jakarta condition use the basic theories of liminal space and transit-oriented development goal. This paper use evidence-based approach with typology method to analyze the present condition of Commuter Line station in Jakarta and precedent of Asian Cities, Tokyo and Seoul, as the secondary sources, and also with numbers of valid questionnaires. Furthermore, the result of this paper aims to the emerging of a transit-oriented community by giving design requirements and suggestion transportation policies preparing for the operational of MRT in the future Jakarta and other similar cities.

Keywords: station design, transit place, transit-oriented development, urban

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Authors: Bambang Heliyanto, Rully Dyah Purwati, Hasnam, Fadjry Djufry

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Jatropha curcas L., a drought tolerant and monoecious perennial shrub, has received attention worldwide during the past decade. Realizing the facts, the Indonesian government has decided to option for Jatropha and palm oil for in country biofuel production. To support the program development of high yielding jatropha varieties is necessary. This paper reviews Jatropha improvement program in Indonesia using mass selection and hybrid development. To start with, at the end of 2005, in-country germplasm collection was mobilized to Lampung and Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) provinces and successfully collected 15 provenances/sub-provenances which serves as a base population for selection. A significant improvement has been achieved through a simple recurrent breeding selection during 2006 to 2007. Seed yield productivity increased more than double, from 0.36 to 0.97 ton dry seed per hectare during the first selection cycle (IP-1), and then increased to 2.2 ton per hectare during the second cycles (IP-2) in Lampung provenance. Similar result was also observed in NTB provenance. Seed yield productivity increased from 0.43 ton to 1 ton dry seed per hectare in the first cycle (IP-1), and then 1.9 ton in the second cycle (IP-2). In 2008, the population IP-3 resulted from the third cycle of selection have been identified which were capable of producing 2.2 to 2.4 ton seed yield per hectare. To improve the seed yield per hectare, jatropha hybrid varieties was developed involving superior provenances. As a result a Jatropha Energy Terbarukan (JET) variety-2 was released in 2017 with seed yield potential of 2.6 ton per hectare. The use of this high yielding genotypes for biofuel is discussed.

Keywords: Jatropha curcas, provenance, biofuel, improve population, hybrid

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Authors: Amaraporn Puraya, Roongtiva Boonpracom, Somsak Thojampa, Sirikanok Klankhajhon, Kittisak Kumpeera

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The objective of this qualitative research was to study the elderly health care process by community participation. Data were collected by quality research methods, including secondary data study, observation, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions and analyzed by content analysis, reflection and review of information. The research results pointed out that the important elderly health care process by community participation consisted of 2 parts, namely the community participation development process in elderly health care and the outcomes from the participation development process. The community participation development process consisted of 4 steps as follows: 1) Building the leadership team, an important social capital of the community, which started from searching for both formal and informal leaders by giving the opportunity for public participation and creating clear agreements defining roles, duties and responsibilities; 2) investigating the problems and the needs of the community, 3) designing the elderly health care activities under the concept of self-care potential development of the elderly through participation in community forums and meetings to exchange knowledge with common goals, plans and operation and 4) the development process of sustainable health care agreement at the local level, starting from opening communication channels to create awareness and participation in various activities at both individual and group levels as well as pushing activities/projects into the community development plan consistent with the local administration policy. The outcomes from the participation development process were as follows. 1) There was the integration of the elderly for doing the elderly health care activities/projects in the community managed by the elderly themselves. 2) The service system was changed from the passive to the proactive one, focusing on health promotion rather than treating diseases or illnesses. 3) The registered nurses / the public health officers can provide care for the elderly with chronic illnesses through the implementation of activities/projects of elderly health care so that the elderly can access the services more. 4) The local government organization became the main mechanism in driving the elderly health care process by community participation.

Keywords: elderly health care process, community participation, elderly, Thailand

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Authors: Siwei Chang, Heng Li, Haitao Wu, Xin Fang

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Construction robots are receiving more and more attention as a promising solution to the manpower shortage issue in the construction industry. The development of intelligent control techniques that assist in controlling the robots to avoid transparency and reflected building obstacles is crucial for guaranteeing the adaptability and flexibility of mobile construction robots in complex construction environments. With the boom of computer vision techniques, a number of studies have proposed vision-based methods for transparent obstacle avoidance to improve operation accuracy. However, vision-based methods are also associated with disadvantages such as high computational costs. To provide better perception and value evaluation, this study aims to analyze the performance of vision-based techniques for avoiding transparent building obstacles. To achieve this, commonly used sensors, including a lidar, an ultrasonic sensor, and a USB camera, are equipped on the robotic platform to detect obstacles. A Raspberry Pi 3 computer board is employed to compute data collecting and control algorithms. The turtlebot3 burger is employed to test the programs. On-site experiments are carried out to observe the performance in terms of success rate and detection distance. Control variables include obstacle shapes and environmental conditions. The findings contribute to demonstrating how effectively vision-based obstacle avoidance strategies for transparent building obstacle avoidance and provide insights and informed knowledge when introducing computer vision techniques in the aforementioned domain.

Keywords: construction robot, obstacle avoidance, computer vision, transparent obstacle

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Authors: Yi-Fung Lin, Pei-Chen Tsai

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Background: The hospital healthcare team provides 24-hour patient care, and therefore shift-work is inevitable in the nursing field. There is an increased awareness that shift-work affecting circadian rhythms may cause various health problems, especially in poor sleep quality, which may harm the quality of life. Purposes: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influences of demographic characteristics on nurses’ sleep quality and quality of life and the relationship between these predictors of nurses’ quality of life. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive correlational study was conducted with purposive sampling of 520 female nurses in a medical center in north Taiwan from July to September 2014. Data were collected with structured questionnaires using Psychometric Evaluation of the Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF). Outcomes: The main results include: 1) Irregular menstruation, non-regular exercisers, and more daily caffeine consumption have negative impacts on sleep quality. 2) Younger age, fewer children, low education level, low annual income, irregular menstruation, pain during menstrual cycles, non-regular exercisers, constipation, and poor sleep quality all contribute negative impacts on the quality of life. 3) The odds ratio of sleep disturbance between 12-hour shifts and 8-hour shifts was 2.26, but there was no significant difference regarding their quality of life scores. Conclusion: This study showed that there is a strong correlation between oncology nurses’ sleep quality and quality of life. Sleep quality is a significant predictor of quality of life in oncology nurses.

Keywords: oncology nurses, sleep quality, quality of life, shift-work

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Authors: Julien Acquadro, Sophie Noel, Frédéric Houze, Philippe Teste, Pascal Chretien, Clément Genet, Edouard Breniaux, Marie-Joël Menu, Florence Ansart, Marie Gressier

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This paper presents the study results of the electrical and tribological properties of nanocomposite hybrid sol-gel coatings developed for industrial applications on electrical connector housings. The electrical properties of coatings are provided by conductive fillers. The coatings presented in this study are formulated with different types of conductive carbon fillers, in this case carbon black and graphite particles. The coatings are deposited on a high-phosphorous nickel substrate by a dip-coating process. The authors have investigated the effects of the carbon black/graphite ratio on the coating's electrical and tribological properties. Electrical characterizations with a 4-probe method and AFM measurements as well as tribological tests by micro-friction shed light on the role of the black carbon/graphite ratio on the final properties of the sol-gel nanocomposite coatings. This study shows that the amount of carbon black mainly drives the coatings' electrical conduction property, while graphite's lubrication properties bring interest to reduce the values of friction coefficients (at a contact pressure of 800 MPa). In the industrial field of electrical connectors, such coatings aim at replacing cadmium and chromium (VI) protection, as recommended by REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) and RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment) regulations (Annex XVII of REACH).

Keywords: carbon conductive fillers, electrical conduction, sol-gel coatings, tribology

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Authors: Tamunotonye Mayowa Braide, Isaac Oluwatayo

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This study investigates multidimensional poverty, and its correlates among rural households in Sekhukhune and Capricorn District municipalities (SDM & CDM) in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Primary data were collected from 407 rural households selected through purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Analytical techniques employed include descriptive statistics, principal component analysis (PCA), and the Alkire Foster (A-F) methodology. The results of the descriptive statistics showed there are more females (66%) than males (34%) in rural areas of Limpopo Province, with about 45% of them having secondary school education as the highest educational level attained and only about 3% do not have formal education. In the analysis of deprivation, eight dimensions of deprivation, constructed from 21 variables, were identified using the PCA. These dimensions include type and condition of dwelling water and sanitation, educational attainment and income, type of fuel for cooking and heating, access to clothing and cell phone, assets and fuel for light, health condition, crowding, and child health. In identifying the poor with poverty cut-off (0.13) of all indicators, about 75.9% of the rural households are deprived in 25% of the total dimensions, with the adjusted headcount ratio (M0) being 0.19. Multidimensional poverty estimates showed higher estimates of poor rural households with 71%, compared to 29%, which fall below the income poverty line. The study conducted poverty decomposition, using sub-groups within the area by examining regions and household characteristics. In SDM, there are more multidimensionally poor households than in CDM. The water and sanitation dimension is the largest contributor to the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) in rural areas of Limpopo Province. The findings can, therefore, assist in better design of welfare policy and target poverty alleviation programs and as well help in efficient resource allocation at the provincial and local municipality levels.

Keywords: Alkire-Foster methodology, Limpopo province, multidimensional poverty, principal component analysis, South Africa

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Authors: Sanchari Mukhopadhyay

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Today, almost the entire realm of human activities are becoming increasingly dependent on the power of information, where through ICTs it is now possible to cater distances and avail various services at a few clicks. In principle, ICTs are thus expected to blur location-specific differences and affiliations of development and bring in an inclusive society at the wake of globalization. However, eventually researchers and policy analysts realized that ICTs are also generating inequality in spite of the hope for an integrated world and widespread social well-being. Regarding this unevenness, location plays a major role as often ICT development is seen to be concentrated into pockets, leaving behind large tracks as underprivileged. Thus, understanding the spatial pattern of ICT development and distribution is significant in relation to exploring the extent to which ICTs are fulfilling the promises or reassuring the existing divisions. In addition, it is also profoundly crucial to investigate how regions are connecting and competing both locally and globally. The focus of the research paper is to evaluate the spatial structure of ICT led development in India. Thereby, it attempts to understand the state level (four selected states) pattern of ICT penetration, the pattern of diffusion across districts with respect to large urban centres and the rural-urban disparity of technology adoption. It also tries to assess the changes in access dynamisms of ICTs as one move away from a large metropolitan city towards the periphery. In brief, the analysis investigates into the tendency towards the uneven growth of development through the identification of the core areas of ICT advancement within the country and its diffusion from the core to the periphery. In order to assess the level of ICT development and rural-urban disparity across the districts of selected states, two indices named ICT Development Index and Rural-Urban Digital Divide Index have been constructed. The study mostly encompasses the latest Census (2011) of the country and TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) in some cases.

Keywords: ICT development, diffusion, core-periphery, digital divide

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Authors: Zhiyong Li, Hiroshi Katayama

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Since 1990s, e-commerce and internet business have been grown gradually over the word and customers tend to express their demand attributes in terms of specification requirement on parts, component, product structure etc. This paper deals with designing effective decoupling points for build to order systems under e-commerce environment, which can be realized through tradeoff relation analysis between two major criteria, customer order lead time and value of work in progress. These KPIs are critical for successful BTO business, namely time-based service effectiveness on coping with customer requirements for the first issue and cost effective ness with risk aversive operations for the second issue. Approach of this paper consists of investigation of successful business standing for BTO scheme, manufacturing model development of this scheme, quantitative evaluation of proposed models by calculation of two KPI values under various decoupling point distributions and discussion of the results brought by pattern of decoupling point distribution, where some cases provide the pareto optimum performances. To extract the relevant trade-off relation between considered KPIs among 2-dimensional resultant performance, useful logic developed by former research work, i.e. Katayama and Fonseca, is applied. Obtained characteristics are evaluated as effective information for managing BTO manufacturing businesses.

Keywords: build-to-order (BTO), decoupling point, e-commerce, order-to-delivery lead time (ODLT), work in progress (WIP)

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Authors: Majid Aldalbahi

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In 2009, over 3.4 billion people in the world resided in urban areas as a result of rapid urban growth. This figure is estimated to increase to 6.5 billion by 2050. This urban growth phenomenon has raised challenges for many countries in both the developing and developed worlds. Urban growth is a complicated process involving the spatiotemporal changes of all socio-economic and physical components at different scales. The socio-economic components of urban growth are related to urban population growth and economic growth, while physical components of urban growth and economic growth are related to spatial expansion, land cover change and land use change which are the focus of this research. The interactions between these components are complex and no-linear. Several factors and forces cause these complex interactions including transportation and communication, internal and international migrations, public policies, high natural growth rates of urban populations and public policies. Urban growth has positive and negative consequences. The positive effects relates to planned and orderly urban growth, while negative effects relate to unplanned and scattered growth, which is called sprawl. Although urban growth is considered as necessary for sustainable urbanization, uncontrolled and rapid growth cause various problems including consumption of precious rural land resources at urban fringe, landscape alteration, traffic congestion, infrastructure pressure, and neighborhood conflicts. Traditional urban planning approaches in fast growing cities cannot accommodate the negative consequences of rapid urban growth. Microsimulation programme, and modelling techniques are effective means to provide new urban development, management and planning methods and approaches. This paper aims to use these techniques to understand and analyse the complex interactions for the case study of Riyadh city, a fast growing city in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: policy implications, urban planning, traffic congestion, urban growth, Suadi Arabia, Riyadh

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Authors: Mahtsente Tadese, Lalit Kumar, Richard Koech

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The aim of this study was to project and analyze climate change in the Awash River Basin (ARB) using bias-corrected Global and Regional Climate Model simulations. The analysis included a baseline period from 1986-2005 and two future scenarios (the 2050s and 2070s) under two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Bias correction methods were evaluated using graphical and statistical methods. Following the evaluation of bias correction methods, the Distribution Mapping (DM) and Power Transformation (PT) were used for temperature and precipitation projection, respectively. The 2050s and 2070s RCP4 simulations showed an increase in precipitation during half of the months with 32 and 10%, respectively. Moreover, the 2050s and 2070s RCP8.5 simulation indicated a decrease in precipitation with 18 and 26%, respectively. The 2050s and 2070s RCP8.5 simulation indicated a significant decrease in precipitation in four of the months (February/March to May) with the highest decreasing rate of 34.7%. The 2050s and 2070s RCP4.5 simulation showed an increase of 0.48-2.6 °C in maximum temperature. In the case of RCP8.5, the increase rate reached 3.4 °C and 4.1 °C in the 2050s and 2070s, respectively. The changes in precipitation and temperature might worsen the water stress, flood, and drought in ARB. Moreover, the critical focus should be given to mitigation strategies and management options to reduce the negative impact. The findings of this study provide valuable information on future precipitation and temperature change in ARB, which will help in the planning and design of sustainable mitigation approaches in the basin.

Keywords: variability, climate change, Awash River Basin, precipitation

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Authors: Mia I. Allen, Bernard N. Johnson, Gagan Deep, Yixin Su, Sangeeta Singth, Ashish Kumar, , Michael A. Nader

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With no FDA-approved treatments for cocaine use disorders (CUD), research has focused on the behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of cocaine in animal models, with the goal of identifying novel interventions. While the majority of people with CUD also use tobacco/nicotine, the majority of preclinical cocaine research does not include the co-use of nicotine. The present study examined nicotine and cocaine co-use under several conditions of intravenous drug self-administration in monkeys. In Experiment 1, male rhesus monkeys (N=3) self-administered cocaine (0.001-0.1 mg/kg/injection) alone and cocaine+nicotine (0.01-0.03 mg/kg/injection) under a progressive-ratio schedule of reinforcement. When nicotine was added to cocaine, there was a significant leftward shift and significant increase in peak break point. In Experiment 2, socially housed female and male cynomolgus monkeys (N=14) self-administered cocaine under a concurrent drug-vs-food choice schedule. Combining nicotine significantly decreased cocaine choice ED50 values (i.e., shifted the cocaine dose-response curve to the left) in females but not in males. There was no evidence of social rank differences. In delay discounting studies, the co-use of nicotine and cocaine required significantly larger delays to the preferred drug reinforcer to reallocate choice compared with cocaine alone. Overall, these results suggest drug interactions of nicotine and cocaine co-use is not simply a function of potency but rather a fundamentally distinctive condition that should be utilized to better understand the neuropharmacology of CUD and the evaluation of potential treatments.

Keywords: polydrug use, animal models, nonhuman primates, behavioral pharmacology, drug self-administration

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Authors: Mohammad Saraj Sharifzai, Keisuke Kitagawa, Ahmad Javid Habib Mohammad Kamil Halimee, Daishi Sakaguchi

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The main purpose of this research is to recognize indoor comfort in contemporary Afghan courtyard house with outdoor welfare in housing layout and neighborhood design where sustainability is a local consideration. This research focuses on three new neighborhoods (Gawoond) in three different provinces of Afghanistan. Since 2001, the capital Kabul and major cities including Kandahar, which will be compared with Peshawar city in Pakistan, have faced a fast, rough-and-tumble process of urban innovation. The effects of this innovation necessitate reconsideration of the formation of sustainable urban environments and in-house thermal comfort. The lack of sustainable urban life in many newly developed Afghan neighborhoods can pose a major challenge to the process of sustainable urban development. Several factors can affect the success or failure of new neighborhoods in the context of urban life. For thermal analysis, we divide our research into three different climatic zones. This study is an evaluation of the environmental impacts of the interior comfort of contemporary courtyard housing with the exterior welfare of neighborhood sustainable design strategy in dry and cold, semi-hot and arid, and semi-humid and hot climates in Afghan cities and Peshawar.

Keywords: Afghan contemporary courtyard house, neighbourhood, street pattern and housing layout, sustainability, welfare, comfort, climate zone, Afghanistan

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Authors: A. Ameur Ameur, H. Boukherrouba

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In red meat slaughterhouses a significant number of organs and carcasses were seized because of the presence of lesions of various origins. The objective of this study is to characterize and evaluate the frequency of these lesions in the slaughterhouse of the Wilaya of BOUIRA. On cattle slaughtered in 2646 and inspected 72% of these carcasses have been no seizures against 28% who have undergone at least one entry. 325 lung (44%), 164 livers (22%), 149 hearts (21%) are the main saisis.38 kidneys members (5%), 33 breasts (4%) and 16 whole carcasses (2%) are less seizures parties. The main reasons are the input hydatid cyst for most seized organs such as the lungs (64.5%), livers (51.8%), hearts (23.2%), hydronephrosis for the kidneys (39.4%), and chronic mastitis (54%) for the breasts. Then we recorded second-degree pneumonia (16%) to the lungs, chronic fascioliasis (25%) for livers. A significant difference was observed (p < 0.0001) by sex, race, origin and age of all cattle having been saisie.une a specific input patterns and So pathology was recorded based on race. The local breed presented (75.2%) of hydatid cyst, (95%) and chronic fascioliasis (60%) pyelonephritis, for against the improved breed presented the entire respiratory lesions include pneumonia (64%) the chronic tuberculosis (64%) and mastitis (76%). These results are an important step in the implementation of the concept of risk assessment as the scientific basis of food legislation, by the identification and characterization of macroscopic damage leading withdrawals in meat and to establish the level of inclusion of these injuries within the recommended risk assessment systems (HACCP).

Keywords: slaughterhouses, meat safety, seizure patterns, HACCP

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Authors: Jiashu Shen

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Objectives: Spirometry is a basic reference for health evaluation which is widely used in clinical. Previous reference of spirometry is not applicable because of drastic changes of social and natural circumstance in China. A new reference values for the spirometry of the Chinese population is extremely needed. Method: Spirometric reference value was established using the statistical modeling method Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape for forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), FEV1/FVC, and maximal mid-expiratory flow (MMEF). Results: Data from 236,606 healthy non-smokers aged 4–90 years was collected from the MJ Health Check database. Spirometry equations for FEV1, FVC, MMEF, and FEV1/FVC were established, including the predicted values and lower limits of normal (LLNs) by sex. The predictive equations that were developed for the spirometric results elaborated the relationship between spirometry and age, and they eliminated the effects of height as a variable. Most previous predictive equations for Chinese spirometry were significantly overestimated (to be exact, with mean differences of 22.21% in FEV1 and 31.39% in FVC for males, along with differences of 26.93% in FEV1 and 35.76% in FVC for females) or underestimated (with mean differences of -5.81% in MMEF and -14.56% in FEV1/FVC for males, along with a difference of -14.54% in FEV1/FVC for females) the results of lung function measurements as found in this study. Through cross-validation, our equations were established as having good fit, and the means of the measured value and the estimated value were compared, with good results. Conclusions: Our study updates the spirometric reference equations for Chinese people of all ages and provides comprehensive values for both physical examination and clinical diagnosis.

Keywords: Chinese, GAMLSS model, reference values, spirometry

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Authors: Feiying Wu

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Chatbots are computer programs that attempt to engage a human in a dialogue, which originated in the 1960s with MIT's Eliza. However, they have become widespread more recently as advances in language technology have produced chatbots with increasing linguistic quality and sophistication, leading to their potential to serve as a tool for Computer-Assisted Language Learning(CALL). The aim of this article is to assess the feasibility of using two chatbots, Mitsuku and CleverBot, as pedagogical tools for learning English as a second language by stimulating L2 learners with distinct English proficiencies. Speaking of the input of stimulated learners, they are measured by AntWordProfiler to match the user's expected vocabulary proficiency. Totally, there are four chat sessions as each chatbot will converse with both beginners and advanced learners. For evaluation, it focuses on chatbots' responses from a linguistic standpoint, encompassing vocabulary and sentence levels. The vocabulary level is determined by the vocabulary range and the reaction to misspelled words. Grammatical accuracy and responsiveness to poorly formed sentences are assessed for the sentence level. In addition, the assessment of this essay sets 25% lexical and grammatical incorrect input to determine chatbots' corrective ability towards different linguistic forms. Based on statistical evidence and illustration of examples, despite the small sample size, neither Mitsuku nor CleverBot is ideal as educational tools based on their performance through word range, grammatical accuracy, topic range, and corrective feedback for incorrect words and sentences, but rather as a conversational tool for beginners of L2 English.

Keywords: chatbots, CALL, L2, corrective feedback

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Authors: Samuel Quick

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The purpose of this paper is to examine future urban street design in the context of developing technologies, evolving street typologies, and projected transportation trends. The goal was to envision a future urban street in the year 2060 that addresses the advent and implementation of autonomous vehicles, the promotion of new street typologies, and the projection of current transportation trends. Using a hierarchy of functional needs for urban streets, the future street was designed and evaluated based on the functions the street provides to the surrounding community. The site chosen for the future street design is an eight-block section of West North Avenue in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Three different conceptual designs were initially completed and evaluated leading to a master plan for West North Avenue as well as street designs for connecting streets that represent different existing street types. Final designs were compared with the existing street design and evaluated with the adapted ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ theory. The review of the literature and the results from this paper indicate that urban streets will have to become increasingly multi-functional to meet the competing needs of the environment and community. Future streets will have to accommodate multimodal transit which will include mass transit, walking, and biking. Furthermore, a comprehensive implementation of green infrastructure within the urban street will provide access to nature for urban communities and essential stormwater management. With these developments, the future of an urban street will move closer to a greenway typology. Findings from this study indicate that urban street design will have to be policy-driven to promote and implement autonomous bus-rapid-transit in order to conserve street space for other functions. With this conservation of space, urban streets can then provide more functions to the surrounding community, taking a holistic approach to urban street design.

Keywords: autonomous vehicle, greenway, green infrastructure, multi-modality, street typology

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Authors: Dina Tamazin, Nicoleta Tipi, Sahar Validi

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The oil refining industry plays vital role in the world economy. Oil refining companies operate in a more complex and dynamic environment than ever before. In addition, oil refining companies and the public are becoming more conscious of crude oil scarcity and climate changes. Hence, sustainability in the oil refining industry is becoming increasingly critical to the industry's long-term viability and to the environmental sustainability. Mainly, it is relevant to the measurement and evaluation of the company's sustainable performance to support the company in understanding their performance and its implication more objectively and establishing sustainability development plans. Consequently, the oil refining companies attempt to re-engineer their supply chain to meet the sustainable goals and standards. On the other hand, this research realized that previous research in oil refining sustainable supply chain performance measurements reveals that there is a lack of studies that consider the integration of sustainability in the supply chain performance measurement practices in the oil refining industry. Therefore, there is a need for research that provides performance guidance, which can be used to measure sustainability and assist in setting sustainable goals for oil refining supply chains. Accordingly, this paper aims to present a comprehensive oil refining sustainable supply chain performance measurement theoretical framework. In development of this theoretical framework, the main characteristics of oil refining industry have been identified. For this purpose, a thorough review of relevant literature on performance measurement models and sustainable supply chain performance measurement models has been conducted. The comprehensive oil refining sustainable supply chain performance measurement theoretical framework introduced in this paper aims to assist oil refining companies in measuring and evaluating their performance from a sustainability aspect to achieve sustainable operational excellence.

Keywords: oil refining industry, oil refining sustainable supply chain, performance measurement, sustainability

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Authors: Dammar Bahadur Adhikari

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Community forestry in Nepal has got disproportionately high level of support from government and other actors in forestry sector. Even though master plan for forestry sector (1989) has highlighted community and private forestry as one component, the government policies and other intervention deliberately left out private forestry in its structure and programs. The study aimed at providing the pathway for formulating appropriate policies to address need of different kind of forest management regimes in Rautahat district, Nepal. The key areas the research focused were assessment of current status of private forestry, community forest users' understanding on private forestry; criteria for choosing species of private forestry and factors affecting establishment of private forestry in the area. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected employing questionnaire survey, rapid forest assessment and key informant interview. The study found out that forest policies are imposed due to intense pressure of exogenous forces than due to endogenous demand. Most of the local people opine that their traditional knowledge and skills are not sufficient for private forestry and hence need training on the matter. Likewise, local use, market value and rotation dictate the choice of species for plantation in private forests. Currently district forest office is the only government institution working in the area of private forestry all other governmental and non-governmental organizations have condoned. private forestry. Similarly, only permanent settlers in the area are found to establish private forests other forest users such as migrants and forest encroachers follow opportunistic behavior to meet their forest product need from community and national forests. In this regard, the study recommends taking appropriate step to support other forest management system including private forestry provide community forestry the benefits of competition as suggested by Darwin in 18th century, one and half century back and to help alleviate poverty by channelizing benefits to household level.

Keywords: community forest, forest management, poverty, private forest, users’ group

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Authors: Rodlyn Remina Hines

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Males and Females respond differently to life situations, including transnational living. Being in a transnational marriage relationship may put a strain on the relationship requiring partners to adjust their behaviors and expectancies of the other partner to accommodate the disruptions in the relationship. More so, when one partner is an immigrant to a new geographic location with the other in the native country, these disruptions may be intensive. This qualitative study examined gender differences in how married Ghanaian couples respond to making a life together as a couple while living across international borders. The study asked two questions: (1) What are the perceptions of males and females on transnational living? and (2) how do married males and females respond to transnational living situations? To answer these questions, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 married couples- with one partner living in the United States (U.S.) and the other spouse in Ghana via purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Participants were aged 26 to 59 years with an average age of 40; the average age of relationship: 10.41; and average years of living apart: 6.7. Induction and deduction hybrid analysis strategies were used to derive emerging themes. The results highlight significant gender differences in response to transnational living status and practices. The data indicate that transnational couples with the male spouse residing in the U.S. experience more relationship strains than is the case when the female partner is the immigrant. Three couples who were in divorce proceedings at the time of the interview had the male partner residing in the U.S. and the female spouse in Ghana. These gender differences also reflected spousal visitation frequency, duration of spousal reunification, amount of and frequency of spousal remittance(s), and immigration processing procedures. Finally, the data show female immigrant partners as better managers of transnational living stresses and strains than their male counterparts. Findings from this study have implications for marriage and family practitioners and immigration policy makers.

Keywords: gender differences, , ghanaian couples, ghanaian immigrants, transnational living

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Authors: Simone Tedeschi, Francesco Crespi, Paolo Liberati, Massimo Paradiso, Antonio Sciala

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This paper aims at contributing to the understanding of smokers’ responses to cigarette prices increases with a focus on heterogeneity, both across individuals and price levels. To do this, a stated preference quasi-experimental design grounded in a random utility framework is proposed to evaluate the effect on smokers’ utility of the price level and variation, along with social conditioning and health impact perception. The analysis is based on individual-level data drawn from a unique survey gathering very detailed information on Italian smokers’ habits. In particular, qualitative information on the individual reactions triggered by changes in prices of different magnitude and composition are exploited. The main findings stemming from the analysis are the following; the average price elasticity of cigarette consumption is comparable with previous estimates for advanced economies (-.32). However, the decomposition of this result across five latent-classes of smokers, reveals extreme heterogeneity in terms of price responsiveness, implying a potential price elasticity that ranges between 0.05 to almost 1. Such heterogeneity is in part explained by observable characteristics such as age, income, gender, education as well as (current and lagged) smoking intensity. Moreover, price responsiveness is far from being independent from the size of the prospected price increase. Finally, by comparing even and uneven price variations, it is shown that uniform across-brand price increases are able to limit the scope of product substitutions and downgrade. Estimated price-response heterogeneity has significant implications for tax policy. Among them, first, it provides evidence and a rationale for why the aggregate price elasticity is likely to follow a strictly increasing pattern as a function of the experienced price variation. This information is crucial for forecasting the effect of a given tax-driven price change on tax revenue. Second, it provides some guidance on how to design excise tax reforms to balance public health and revenue goals.

Keywords: smoking behaviour, preference heterogeneity, price responsiveness, cigarette taxation, random utility models

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Authors: Ahmed Boufedah Badissi, Ahmed Beroual, Farid Boursas

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This research aims to elucidate the role of coarse aggregate in influencing the fresh properties of normal-strength concrete. Specifically, it is aimed to identify the optimal gradation of coarse aggregate to enhance workability. While existing literature discusses the impact of aggregate granularity on concrete workability, more numerical data or models need to quantify the relationship between workability, granularity, and coarse aggregate shape. The main objective is to create a model that describes how coarse aggregate morphology contributes to fresh concrete properties. To investigate the effect of coarse aggregate gradation on Normal Strength Concrete (NSC) workability, various combinations of coarse aggregates (4/22.4 mm) were produced in the laboratory, utilizing three elementary classes: finer coarse aggregate 4/8 mm (Fca), medium coarse aggregate 8/16 mm (Mca), and coarser coarse aggregate 16/22.4 mm (Cca). We introduced a factor, FCR (Finer to Coarser coarse aggregate Ratio), as a numerical parameter to provide a quantitative evaluation and more detailed results analysis. Quantitative characterization parameters for coarse aggregate morphology were established, exploring the influence of particle size distribution, specific surface, and aggregate shape on workability. The research findings are significant for establishing correlations between coarse aggregate morphology and concrete properties. FCR emerges as a valuable tool for predicting the impact of aggregate gradation variations on concrete. The results of this study create a valuable database for construction professionals and concrete producers, affirming that the fresh properties of NSC are intricately linked to coarse aggregate morphology, particularly gradation.

Keywords: morphology, coarse aggregate, workability, fresh properties, gradation

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