Search results for: regression models

Authors: Syaza Isma, Timothy Higgins

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In Malaysia, increased take-up rates of tertiary student borrowing, and reliance on retirement savings to fund children's education show the importance of public higher education financing schemes (PTPTN). PTPTN has been operating for 2 decades now; however, there are some critical issues and challenges that include low loan recovery and loan default that suggest a detailed consideration of student loan/financing scheme alternatives is crucial. In addition, the decline in funding level per student following introduction of the new PTPTN full and partial loan scheme has raised ongoing concerns over the sustainability of the scheme to provide continuous financial assistance to students in tertiary education. This research seeks to assess these issues that put greater efficiency in an effort to ensure equitable access to student funding for current and future generations. We explore the extent of repayment hardship under the current loan arrangements that presumably led to low recovery from the borrowers, particularly low-income graduates. The concept of manageable debt exists in the design of income-contingent repayment schemes, as practiced in Australia, New Zealand, UK, Hungary, USA (in limited form), the Netherlands, and South Korea. Can Income Contingent Loans (ICL) offer the best practice for an education financing scheme, and address the issue of repayment hardship and concurrently, can a properly designed ICL scheme provide a solution to the current issues and challenges facing Malaysia student financing? We examine the different potential ICL models using deterministic and stochastic approach to simulate income of graduates.

Keywords: deterministic, income contingent loan, repayment burden, simulation, stochastic

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Authors: Nedal N. Marei, Nashaat Nassar

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Many treatment techniques have been used to remove the soluble pollutants from wastewater as; dyes and metal ions which could be found in rich amount in the used water of the textile and tanneries industry. The effluents from these industries are complex, containing a wide variety of dyes and other contaminants, such as dispersants, acids, bases, salts, detergents, humectants, oxidants, and others. These techniques can be divided into physical, chemical, and biological methods. Adsorption has been developed as an efficient method for the removal of heavy metals from contaminated water and soil. It is now recognized as an effective method for the removal of both organic and inorganic pollutants from wastewaters. Nanosize materials are new functional materials, which offer high surface area and have come up as effective adsorbents. Nano alumina is one of the most important ceramic materials widely used as an electrical insulator, presenting exceptionally high resistance to chemical agents, as well as giving excellent performance as a catalyst for many chemical reactions, in microelectronic, membrane applications, and water and wastewater treatment. In this study, methylene blue (MB) dye has been used as model dye of textile wastewater in order to synthesize a synthetic MB wastewater. NiO nanoparticles were added in small percentage in the sand packed bed adsorption columns to remove the MB from the synthetic textile wastewater. Moreover, different parameters have been evaluated; flow of the synthetic wastewater, pH, height of the bed, percentage of the NiO to the sand in the packed material. Different mathematical models where employed to find the proper model which describe the experimental data and help to analyze the mechanism of the MB adsorption. This study will provide good understanding of the dyes adsorption using metal oxide nanoparticles in the classical sand bed.

Keywords: adsorption, column, nanoparticles, methylene

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Authors: Numair Ahmed Siddiqui, Abdul Hadi bin Abd Rahman, Chow Weng Sum, Wan Ismail Wan Yousif, Asif Zameer, Joel Ben-Awal

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Advances in data capturing from outcrop studies have made possible the acquisition of high-resolution digital data, offering improved and economical reservoir modelling methods. Terrestrial laser scanning utilizing LiDAR (Light detection and ranging) provides a new method to build outcrop based reservoir models, which provide a crucial piece of information to understand heterogeneities in sandstone facies with high-resolution images and data set. This study presents the detailed application of outcrop based sandstone facies connectivity model by acquiring information gathered from traditional fieldwork and processing detailed digital point-cloud data from LiDAR to develop an intermediate small-scale reservoir sandstone facies model of the Miocene Sandakan Formation, Sabah, East Malaysia. The software RiScan pro (v1.8.0) was used in digital data collection and post-processing with an accuracy of 0.01 m and point acquisition rate of up to 10,000 points per second. We provide an accurate and descriptive workflow to triangulate point-clouds of different sets of sandstone facies with well-marked top and bottom boundaries in conjunction with field sedimentology. This will provide highly accurate qualitative sandstone facies connectivity model which is a challenge to obtain from subsurface datasets (i.e., seismic and well data). Finally, by applying this workflow, we can build an outcrop based static connectivity model, which can be an analogue to subsurface reservoir studies.

Keywords: LiDAR, outcrop, high resolution, sandstone faceis, connectivity model

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Authors: Ethan James

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Over one billion people worldwide suffer from some level of vision loss or blindness as a result of progressive retinal diseases. Many patients, particularly in developing areas, are incorrectly diagnosed or undiagnosed whatsoever due to unconventional diagnostic tools and screening methods. Artificial intelligence (AI) based on deep learning (DL) convolutional neural networks (CNN) have recently gained a high interest in ophthalmology for its computer-imaging diagnosis, disease prognosis, and risk assessment. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a popular imaging technique used to capture high-resolution cross-sections of retinas. In ophthalmology, DL has been applied to fundus photographs, optical coherence tomography, and visual fields, achieving robust classification performance in the detection of various retinal diseases including macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and retinitis pigmentosa. However, there is no complete diagnostic model to analyze these retinal images that provide a diagnostic accuracy above 90%. Thus, the purpose of this project was to develop an AI model that utilizes machine learning techniques to automatically diagnose specific retinal diseases from OCT scans. The algorithm consists of neural network architecture that was trained from a dataset of over 20,000 real-world OCT images to train the robust model to utilize residual neural networks with cyclic pooling. This DL model can ultimately aid ophthalmologists in diagnosing patients with these retinal diseases more quickly and more accurately, therefore facilitating earlier treatment, which results in improved post-treatment outcomes.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, deep learning, imaging, medical devices, ophthalmic devices, ophthalmology, retina

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Authors: Duvert A. Puentes T., Javier A. Maldonado E., Ivan Quintero., Diego F. Villegas

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Mechanical Computation is a great tool to study the performance of complex models. An example of it is the study of the human body structure. This paper took advantage of different types of software to make a 3D model of the glenohumeral joint and apply a finite element analysis. The main objective was to study the change in the biomechanical properties of the joint when it presents an injury. Specifically, a BANKART lesion, which consists in the detachment of the anteroinferior labrum from the glenoid. Stress and strain distribution of the soft tissues were the focus of this study. First, a 3D model was made of a joint without any pathology, as a control sample, using segmentation software for the bones with the support of medical imagery and a cadaveric model to represent the soft tissue. The joint was built to simulate a compression and external rotation test using CAD to prepare the model in the adequate position. When the healthy model was finished, it was submitted to a finite element analysis and the results were validated with experimental model data. With the validated model, it was sensitized to obtain the best mesh measurement. Finally, the geometry of the 3D model was changed to imitate a BANKART lesion. Then, the contact zone of the glenoid with the labrum was slightly separated simulating a tissue detachment. With this new geometry, the finite element analysis was applied again, and the results were compared with the control sample created initially. With the data gathered, this study can be used to improve understanding of the labrum tears. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the computational analysis are approximations and the initial data was taken from an in vitro assay.

Keywords: biomechanics, computational model, finite elements, glenohumeral joint, bankart lesion, labrum

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Authors: Hafiz Arbab Sakandar

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Time-restricted intermittent fasting (TRIF) impacts host’s physiology and health. Plenty of health benefits have been reported for TRIF in animal models. However, limited studies have been conducted on humans especially in underdeveloped economies. Here, we designed a study to investigate the impact of TRIF/Ramadan fasting (16:8) on the modulation of gut-microbiome structure, metabolic pathways, and predicted metabolites and explored the correlation among them at different time points (during and after the month of Ramadan) in Pakistani Expats living in China. We observed different trends of Shannon-Wiener index in different subjects; however, all subjects showed substantial change in bacterial diversity with the progression of TRIF. Moreover, the changes in gut microbial structure by the end of TRIF were higher vis-a-vis in the beginning, significant difference was observed among individuals. Additionally, metabolic pathways analysis revealed that amino acid, carbohydrate and energy metabolism, glycan biosynthesis metabolism of cofactors and vitamins were significantly affected by TRIF. Pyridoxamine, glutamate, citrulline, arachidonic acid, and short chain fatty acid showed substantial difference at different time points based on the predicted metabolism. In conclusion, these results contribute to further our understanding about the key relationship among, dietary intervention (TRIF), gut microbiome structure and function. The preliminary results from study demonstrate significant potential for elucidating the mechanisms underlying gut microbiome stability and enhancing the effectiveness of microbiome-tailored interventions among the Pakistani populace. Nonetheless, extensive, and rigorous large-scale research on the Pakistani population is necessary to expound on the association between diet, gut microbiome, and overall health.

Keywords: gut microbiome, health, fasting, functionality

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

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

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

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Authors: Shazia Almas, Jaffar Iqbal, Nazia Almas

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In most of the South Asian countries like Pakistan medical profession is one the most valued and respectful professions yet being a medical professional requires an enormous amount of responsibilities and work overload at the same time which possibly can be in contrast with family role of a doctor. Job and family are two primary spheres of a person's life no matter whatever the profession one adopts and the type of family one is running. There is a bi-directional relationship between job and family. The type and nature of work, time schedules, working shifts in medical profession are very demanding in the countries like Pakistan where number of patients is far more higher than the number of doctors available. The work life also have significant impact on family life and vice versa. Because of the sensitivity and interdependency of these relations, today’s overarching and competing demands remain dissatisfactory. The main objective of the current research is to investigate how interpersonal relationships affect work and work affects interpersonal relationships of medical professionals. In line with identifying these facts, the current study aimed to examine the predictive role of psychological capital (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience), in organizational outcome (job satisfaction) and personal outcome (family satisfaction) amongst male and medical professionals. A total of 350 participants from public and private sector hospitals of Pakistan were recruited through simple random and stratified sampling techniques, with age ranges from 26-50 years. The questionnaire including established and certified self-report measures of Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction, and Family Satisfaction were adopted to collect the data. The reliability and validity of mentioned instruments were established through Cronbach’s alpha and factor analyses (exploratory and confirmatory) respectively using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) by AMOS. The proposed hypotheses were tested using Pearson’s Correlation and Regression analyses for predicting effect whereas, t-Test was deployed to verify the difference between male and female health professionals. The results revealed that self-efficacy and optimism predicted job satisfaction while, self-efficacy, hope, and resilience predicted family satisfaction. Moreover, the results depicted significant gender differences in job satisfaction where females were higher on job satisfaction as compared to male medical professionals but no significant differences were observed in levels of family satisfaction between both genders. The study has implications for social, organizational and work policy designers. The study also paves for more researches with positive psychological approach to promote work-family harmony.

Keywords: family satisfaction, job satisfaction, medical professionals, psychological capital

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Authors: Pragati Sirohi, Vivek Singh Rana

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Brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design or a combination of all these which is intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of the competitors and perception influences purchase decisions here and so building that perception is critical. The FMCG industry is a low margin business. Volumes hold the key to success in this industry. Therefore, the industry has a strong emphasis on marketing. Creating strong brands is important for FMCG companies and they devote considerable money and effort in developing brands. Brand loyalty is fickle. Companies know this and that is why they relentlessly work towards brand building. The purpose of the study is a comparison between Indian and Multinational companies with regard to FMCG sector in India. It has been hypothesized that after liberalization the Indian companies has taken up the challenge of globalization and some of these are giving a stiff competition to MNCs. There is an existence of strong brand image of MNCs compared to Indian companies. Advertisement expenditures of MNCs are proportionately higher compared to Indian counterparts. The operational area of the study is the country as a whole. Continuous time series data is available from 1996-2014 for the selected 8 companies. The selection of these companies is done on the basis of their large market share, brand equity and prominence in the market. Research methodology focuses on finding trend growth rates of market capitalization, net worth, and brand values through regression analysis by the usage of secondary data from prowess database developed by CMIE (Centre for monitoring Indian Economy). Estimation of brand values of selected FMCG companies is being attempted, which can be taken to be the excess of market capitalization over the net worth of a company. Brand value indices are calculated. Correlation between brand values and advertising expenditure is also measured to assess the effect of advertising on branding. Major results indicate that although MNCs enjoy stronger brand image but few Indian companies like ITC is the outstanding leader in terms of its market capitalization and brand values. Dabur and Tata Global Beverages Ltd are competing equally well on these values. Advertisement expenditures are the highest for HUL followed by ITC, Colgate and Dabur which shows that Indian companies are not behind in the race. Although advertisement expenditures are playing a role in brand building process there are many other factors which affect the process. Also, brand values are decreasing over the years for FMCG companies in India which show that competition is intense with aggressive price wars and brand clutter. Implications for Indian companies are that they have to consistently put in proactive and relentless efforts in their brand building process. Brands need focus and consistency. Brand longevity without innovation leads to brand respect but does not create brand value.

Keywords: brand value, FMCG, market capitalization, net worth

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Authors: Nika GorgoShadze, Anri Shainidze, Bachuki Katamadze

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In parallel to the development of the digital economy in the world, electronic commerce is also widely developing. Internet and ICT (information and communication technology) have created new business models as well as promoted to market consolidation, sustainability of the business environment, creation of digital economy, facilitation of business and trade, business dynamism, higher competitiveness, etc. Electronic commerce involves internet technology which is sold via the internet. Nowadays electronic commerce is a field of business which is used by leading world brands very effectively. After the research of internet market in Georgia, it was found out that quality of internet is high in Tbilisi and is low in the regions. The internet market of Tbilisi can be evaluated as high-speed internet service, competitive and cost effective internet market. Development of electronic commerce in Georgia is connected with organizational and methodological as well as legal problems. First of all, a legal framework should be developed which will regulate responsibilities of organizations. The Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development will play a crucial role in creating legal framework. Ministry of Justice will also be involved in this process as well as agency for data exchange. Measures should be taken in order to make electronic commerce in Georgia easier. Business companies may be offered some model to get low-cost and complex service. A service centre should be created which will provide all kinds of online-shopping. This will be a rather interesting innovation which will facilitate online-shopping in Georgia. Development of electronic business in Georgia requires modernized infrastructure of telecommunications (especially in the regions) as well as solution of institutional and socio-economic problems. Issues concerning internet availability and computer skills are also important.

Keywords: electronic commerce, internet market, electronic business, information technology, information society, electronic systems

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Authors: Nulu Nanono

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Background: The Ugandan national health policy and the national population policy all recognize the need to increase access to quality, affordable, acceptable and sustainable contraceptive services for all people but provision and utilization of quality services remains low. Two contraceptive methods are categorized as long-acting temporary methods: intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUCDs) and implants. Copper-containing IUCDs, generally available in Ministry of Health (MoH) family planning programs and is effective for at least 12 years while Implants, depending on the type, last for up to three to seven years. Uganda’s current policy and political environment are favorable towards achieving national access to quality and safe contraceptives for all people as evidenced by increasing government commitments and innovative family planning programs. Despite the increase of modern contraception use from 14% to 26%, long acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) utilization has relatively remained low with less than 5% using IUDs & Implants which in a way explains Uganda’s persistent high fertility rates. Main question/hypothesis: The purpose of the study was to examine relationship between the demographic, socio-economic characteristics of women, health facility factors and long acting reversible contraception utilization. Methodology: LARC utilization was investigated comprising of the two questions namely are you or your partner currently doing something or using any method to delay or avoid getting pregnant? And which method or methods are you using? Data for the study was sourced from the 2016 Uganda Performance Monitoring and Accountability 2020 Survey comprising of 3816 female respondents aged 15 to 49 years. The analysis was done using the Chi-squared tests and the probit regression at bivariate and multivariate levels respectively. The model was further tested for validity and normality of the residuals using the Sharipo wilks test and test for kurtosis and skewness. Results: The results showed the model the age, parity, marital status, region, knowledge of LARCs, availability of LARCs to be significantly associated with long acting contraceptive utilization with p value of less than 0.05. At the multivariate analysis level, women who had higher parities (0.000) tertiary education (0.013), no knowledge about LARCs (0.006) increases their probability of using LARCs. Furthermore while women age 45-49, those who live in the eastern region reduces their probability of using LARCs. Knowledge contribution: The findings of this study join the debate of prior research in this field and add to the body of knowledge related to long acting reversible contraception. An outstanding and queer finding from the study is the non-utilization of LARCs by women who are aware and have knowledge about them, this may be an opportunity for further research to investigate the attribution to this.

Keywords: contraception, long acting, utilization, women (15-49)

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Authors: Qingsong Xiong, Cheng Yuan, Qingzhao Kong, Haibei Xiong

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Deep-learning-driven approaches based on vibration responses have attracted larger attention in rapid structural condition assessment while obtaining sufficient measured training data with corresponding labels is relevantly costly and even inaccessible in practical engineering. This study proposes an integrated label propagation network for structural condition assessment, which is able to diffuse the labels from continuously-generating measurements by intact structure to those of missing labels of damage scenarios. The integrated network is embedded with damage-sensitive features extraction by deep autoencoder and pseudo-labels propagation by optimized fuzzy clustering, the architecture and mechanism which are elaborated. With a sophisticated network design and specified strategies for improving performance, the present network achieves to extends the superiority of self-supervised representation learning, unsupervised fuzzy clustering and supervised classification algorithms into an integration aiming at assessing damage conditions. Both numerical simulations and full-scale laboratory shaking table tests of a two-story building structure were conducted to validate its capability of detecting post-earthquake damage. The identifying accuracy of a present network was 0.95 in numerical validations and an average 0.86 in laboratory case studies, respectively. It should be noted that the whole training procedure of all involved models in the network stringently doesn’t rely upon any labeled data of damage scenarios but only several samples of intact structure, which indicates a significant superiority in model adaptability and feasible applicability in practice.

Keywords: autoencoder, condition assessment, fuzzy clustering, label propagation

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Authors: Amani Hassan Abu Atieh

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This study aims at examining the patterns of ideology reflected in the written discourse of women writers in the media of Jordan; Lana Mamkgh is taken as an example. This study critically analyzes the discursive, linguistic, and cognitive representations that she employs as an agent in the institutionalized discourse of the media. Grounded in van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis approach to Sociocognitive Discourse Studies, the present study builds a multilayer framework that encompasses van Dijk’s triangle: discourse, society, and cognition. Specifically, the study attempts to analyze, at both micro and macro levels, the underlying cognitive processes and structures, mainly ideology and discursive strategies, which are functional in the production of women’s discourse in terms of meaning, forms, and functions. Cognitive processes that social actors adopt are underlined by experience/context and semantic mental models on the one hand and social cognition on the other. This study is based on qualitative research and adopts purposive sampling, taking as an example a sample of an opinion article written by Lana Mamkgh in the Arabic Jordanian Daily, Al Rai. Taking her role as an agent in the public sphere, she stresses the National and feminist ideologies, demonstrating the use of assertive, evaluative, and expressive linguistic and rhetorical devices that appeal to the logic, ethics, and emotions of the addressee. Highlighting the agency of Jordanian writers in the media, the study sought to achieve the macro goal of dispensing political and social justice to the underprivileged. Further, the study seeks to prove that the voice of Jordanian women, viewed as underrepresented and invisible in the public arena, has come through clearly.

Keywords: critical discourse analysis, sociocognitive theory, ideology, women discourse, media

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Authors: Allya Koesoema, Arni Ariani

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While religion is only a very minor factor contributing to financial exclusion in most countries, the World Bank 2014 Global Financial Development Report highlighted it as a significant barrier for having a financial account in some Muslim majority countries. This is in part due to the perceived incompatibility between traditional financial institutions practices and Islamic finance principles. In these cases, the development of financial institutions and products that are compatible with the principles of Islamic finance may act as an important lever to increasing formal account ownership. However, there is significant diversity in the relationship between a country’s proportion of Muslim population and its level of financial inclusion. This paper combines data taken from the Global Findex Database, World Development Indicators, and the Pew Research Center to quantitatively explore the relationship between individual and country level religious and socioeconomic factor to financial inclusion. Results from regression analyses show a complex relationship between financial inclusion and religion-related factors in the population both on the individual and country level. Consistent with prior literature, on average the percentage of Islamic population positively correlates with the proportion of unbanked populations who cites religious reasons as a barrier to getting an account. However, its impact varies across several variables. First, a deeper look into countries’ religious composition reveals that the average negative impact of a large Muslim population is not as strong in more religiously diverse countries and less religious countries. Second, on the individual level, among the unbanked, the poorest quintile, least educated, older and the female populations are comparatively more likely to not have an account because of religious reason. Results also show indications that in this case, informal mechanisms partially substitute formal financial inclusion, as indicated by the propensity to borrow from family and friends. The individual level findings are important because the demographic groups that are more likely to cite religious reasons as barriers to formal financial inclusion are also generally perceived to be more vulnerable socially and economically and may need targeted attention. Finally, the number of Islamic financial institutions in a particular country is negatively correlated to the propensity of religious reasons as a barrier to financial inclusion. Importantly, the number of financial institutions in a country also mitigates the negative impact of the proportion of Muslim population, low education and individual age to formal financial inclusion. These results point to the potential importance of Islamic Finance Institutions in increasing global financial inclusion, and highlight the potential importance of looking beyond the proportion of Muslim population to other underlying institutional and socioeconomic factor in maximizing its impact.

Keywords: cross country comparison, financial inclusion, Islamic banking and finance, quantitative methods, socioeconomic factors

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Authors: Scott Wysong

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Qatar will spend billions of dollars to host the 2022 World Cup. While football fans around the globe get excited to cheer on their favorite team every four years, critics debate the merits of a country hosting such an expensive and large-scale event. That is, the host countries spend billions of dollars on stadiums and infrastructure to attract these mega sporting events with the hope of equitable returns in economic impact and creating jobs. Yet, in many cases, the host countries are left in debt with decaying venues. There are benefits beyond the economic impact of hosting mega-events. For example, citizens are often proud of their city/country to host these famous events. Yet, often overlooked in the literature is the proposition that serving as the host for a mega-event may enhance the country’s brand image, not only as a tourist destination but for the products made in that country of origin. This research aims to explore this phenomenon by taking an exploratory look at consumer perceptions of three host countries of a mega-event in sports. In 2014, the U.S., Chinese and Finn (Finland) consumer attitudes toward Brazil and its products were measured before and after the World Cup via surveys (n=89). An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the pre-and post-World Cup perceptions of Brazil’s brand personality or country-of-origin image. After the World Cup in 2018, qualitative interviews were held with U.S. sports fans (n=17) in an effort to further explore consumer perceptions of products made in the host country: Russia. A consistent theme of distrust and corruption with Russian products emerged despite their hosting of this prestigious global event. In late 2021, U.S. football (soccer) fans (n=42) and non-fans (n=37) were surveyed about the upcoming 2022 World Cup. A regression analysis revealed that how much an individual indicated that they were a soccer fan did not significantly influence their desire to visit Qatar or try products from Qatar in the future even though the country was hosting the World Cup—in the end, hosting a mega-event as grand as the World Cup showcases the country to the world. However, it seems to have little impact on consumer perceptions of the country, as a whole, or its brands. That is, the World Cup appeared to enhance already pre-existing stereotypes about Brazil (e.g., beaches, partying and fun, yet with crime and poverty), Russia (e.g., cold weather, vodka and business corruption) and Qatar (desert and oil). Moreover, across all three countries, respondents could rarely name a brand from the host country. Because mega-events cost a lot of time and money, countries need to do more to market their country and its brands when hosting. In addition, these countries would be wise to measure the impact of the event from different perspectives. Hence, we put forth a comprehensive future research agenda to further the understanding of how countries, and their brands, can benefit from hosting a mega sporting event.

Keywords: branding, country-of-origin effects, mega sporting events, return on investment

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Authors: Wageeh A. Nafei

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This paper explores the role of Paradoxical Leadership (PL) in enhancing Organizational Success (OS) at private hospitals in Egypt. Based on the collected data from employees in private hospitals (doctors, nursing staff, and administrative staff). The researcher has adopted a sampling method to collect data for the study. The appropriate statistical methods, such as Alpha Correlation Coefficient (ACC), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA), are used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The research has reached a number of results, the most important of which are (1) there is a statistical relationship between the independent variable represented by PL and the dependent variable represented by Organizational Success (OS). The paradoxical leader encourages employees to express their opinions and builds a work environment characterized by flexibility and independence. Also, the paradoxical leader works to support specialized work teams, which leads to the creation of new ideas, on the one hand, and contributes to the achievement of outstanding performance on the other hand. (2) the mentality of the paradoxical leader is flexible and capable of absorbing all suggestions from all employees. Also, the paradoxical leader is interested in enhancing cooperation among them and provides an opportunity to transfer experience and increase knowledge-sharing. Also, the sharing of knowledge creates the necessary diversity that helps the organization to obtain rich external information and enables the organization to deal with a rapidly changing environment. (3) The PL approach helps in facing the paradoxical demands of employees. A paradoxical leader plays an important role in reducing the feeling of instability in the work environment and lack of job security, reducing negative feelings for employees, restoring balance in the work environment, improving the well-being of employees, and increasing the degree of job satisfaction of employees in the organization. The study referred to a number of recommendations, the most important of which are (1) the leaders of the organizations must listen to the views of employees and their needs and move away from the official method of control. The leader should give sufficient freedom to employees to participate in decision-making and maintain enough space among them. The treatment between the leaders and employees must be based on friendliness, (2) the need for organizational leaders to pay attention to sharing knowledge among employees through training courses. The leader should make sure that every information provided by the employee is valuable and useful, which can be used to solve a problem that may face his/her colleagues at work, (3) the need for organizational leaders to pay attention to sharing knowledge among employees through brainstorming sessions. The leader should ensure that employees obtain knowledge from their colleagues and share ideas and information among them. This is in addition to motivating employees to complete their work in a new creative way, which leads to employees’ not feeling bored of repeating the same routine procedures in the organization.

Keywords: paradoxical leadership, organizational success, human resourece, management

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Authors: Ping-Hsiung Wang, Kuo-Chun Chang

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There has been a common trend worldwide in the seismic design and evaluation of bridges towards the performance-based method where the lateral displacement or the displacement ductility of bridge column is regarded as an important indicator for performance assessment. However, the seismic response of a bridge to an earthquake is a combined result of cyclic displacements and accumulated energy dissipation, causing damage to the bridge, and hence the lateral displacement (ductility) alone is insufficient to tell its actual seismic performance. This study aims to propose a damage-based seismic design and evaluation method for reinforced concrete bridges on the basis of the newly developed capacity-based inelastic displacement spectra. The capacity-based inelastic displacement spectra that comprise an inelastic displacement ratio spectrum and a corresponding damage state spectrum was constructed by using a series of nonlinear time history analyses and a versatile, smooth hysteresis model. The smooth model could take into account the effects of various design parameters of RC bridge columns and correlates the column’s strength deterioration with the Park and Ang’s damage index. It was proved that the damage index not only can be used to accurately predict the onset of strength deterioration, but also can be a good indicator for assessing the actual visible damage condition of column regardless of its loading history (i.e., similar damage index corresponds to similar actual damage condition for the same designed columns subjected to very different cyclic loading protocols as well as earthquake loading), providing a better insight into the seismic performance of bridges. Besides, the computed spectra show that the inelastic displacement ratio for far-field ground motions approximately conforms to the equal displacement rule when structural period is larger than around 0.8 s, but that for near-fault ground motions departs from the rule in the whole considered spectral regions. Furthermore, the near-fault ground motions would lead to significantly greater inelastic displacement ratio and damage index than far-field ground motions and most of the practical design scenarios cannot survive the considered near-fault ground motion when the strength reduction factor of bridge is not less than 5.0. Finally, the spectrum formula is presented as a function of structural period, strength reduction factor, and various column design parameters for far-field and near-fault ground motions by means of the regression analysis of the computed spectra. And based on the developed spectrum formula, a design example of a bridge is presented to illustrate the proposed damage-based seismic design and evaluation method where the damage state of the bridge is used as the performance objective.

Keywords: damage index, far-field, near-fault, reinforced concrete bridge, seismic design and evaluation

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Authors: Lucile Soudani, Hervé Illy, Rémi Bouchié

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Mould growth in living environments has been widely reported for decades all throughout the world. A higher level of moisture in housings can lead to building degradation, chemical component emissions from construction materials as well as enhancing mould growth within the envelope elements or on the internal surfaces. Moreover, a significant number of studies have highlighted the link between mould presence and the prevalence of respiratory diseases. In recent years, the proportion of biobased materials used in construction has been increasing, as seen as an effective lever to reduce the environmental impact of the building sector. Besides, bio-based materials are also hygroscopic materials: when in contact with the wet air of a surrounding environment, their porous structures enable a better capture of water molecules, thus providing a more suitable background for mould growth. Many studies have been conducted to develop reliable models to be able to predict mould appearance, growth, and decay over many building materials and external exposures. Some of them require information about temperature and/or relative humidity, exposure times, material sensitivities, etc. Nevertheless, several studies have highlighted a large disparity between predictions and actual mould growth in experimental settings as well as in occupied buildings. The difficulty of considering the influence of all parameters appears to be the most challenging issue. As many complex phenomena take place simultaneously, a preliminary study has been carried out to evaluate the feasibility to sadopt a reliability approach rather than a deterministic approach. Both epistemic and random uncertainties were identified specifically for the prediction of mould appearance and growth. Several studies published in the literature were selected and analysed, from the agri-food or automotive sectors, as the deployed methodology appeared promising.

Keywords: bio-based materials, mould growth, numerical prediction, reliability approach

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Authors: Dhanuja S. Patil, Sanjay B. Waykar

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Event detection is a standout amongst the most key parts for distinctive sorts of area applications of video data framework. Recently, it has picked up an extensive interest of experts and in scholastics from different zones. While detecting video event has been the subject of broad study efforts recently, impressively less existing methodology has considered multi-model data and issues related efficiency. Start of soccer matches different doubtful circumstances rise that can't be effectively judged by the referee committee. A framework that checks objectively image arrangements would prevent not right interpretations because of some errors, or high velocity of the events. Bayesian networks give a structure for dealing with this vulnerability using an essential graphical structure likewise the probability analytics. We propose an efficient structure for analysing and summarization of soccer videos utilizing object-based features. The proposed work utilizes the t-cherry junction tree, an exceptionally recent advancement in probabilistic graphical models, to create a compact representation and great approximation intractable model for client’s relationships in an interpersonal organization. There are various advantages in this approach firstly; the t-cherry gives best approximation by means of junction trees class. Secondly, to construct a t-cherry junction tree can be to a great extent parallelized; and at last inference can be performed utilizing distributed computation. Examination results demonstrates the effectiveness, adequacy, and the strength of the proposed work which is shown over a far reaching information set, comprising more soccer feature, caught at better places.

Keywords: summarization, detection, Bayesian network, t-cherry tree

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Authors: Ercan Karadogan, Fatih Usta

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Auxetic materials have a negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR), which is not often found in nature. They are metamaterials that have potential applications in many engineering fields. Mechanical metamaterials are synthetically designed structures with unusual mechanical properties. These mechanical properties are dependent on the properties of the matrix structure. They have the following special characteristics, i.e., improved shear modulus, increased energy absorption, and intensive fracture toughness. Non-auxetic materials compress transversely when they are stretched. The system naturally is inclined to keep its density constant. The transversal compression increases the density to balance the loss in the longitudinal direction. This study proposes to improve the crushing performance of hybrid auxetic materials. The re-entrant honeycomb structure has been combined with a star honeycomb, an S-shaped unit cell, a double arrowhead, and a structurally hexagonal re-entrant honeycomb by 9 X 9 cells, i.e., the number of cells is 9 in the lateral direction and 9 in the vertical direction. The Finite Element (FE) and experimental methods have been used to determine the compression behavior of the developed hybrid auxetic structures. The FE models have been developed by using Abaqus software. The specimens made of polymer plastic materials have been 3D printed and subjected to compression loading. The results are compared in terms of specific energy absorption and strength. This paper describes the quasi-static crushing behavior of two types of hybrid lattice structures (auxetic + auxetic and auxetic + non-auxetic). The results show that the developed hybrid structures can be useful to control collapse mechanisms and present larger energy absorption compared to conventional re-entrant auxetic structures.

Keywords: auxetic materials, compressive behavior, metamaterials, negative Poisson’s ratio

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Authors: Luiz G. Véras, Felipe L. Medeiros, Lamartine F. Guimarães

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This work approaches the automatic planning of paths for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) through the application of the Rapidly Exploring Random Tree Star-Smart (RRT*-Smart) algorithm. RRT*-Smart is a sampling process of positions of a navigation environment through a tree-type graph. The algorithm consists of randomly expanding a tree from an initial position (root node) until one of its branches reaches the final position of the path to be planned. The algorithm ensures the planning of the shortest path, considering the number of iterations tending to infinity. When a new node is inserted into the tree, each neighbor node of the new node is connected to it, if and only if the extension of the path between the root node and that neighbor node, with this new connection, is less than the current extension of the path between those two nodes. RRT*-smart uses an intelligent sampling strategy to plan less extensive routes by spending a smaller number of iterations. This strategy is based on the creation of samples/nodes near to the convex vertices of the navigation environment obstacles. The planned paths are smoothed through the application of the method called quintic pythagorean hodograph curves. The smoothing process converts a route into a dynamically-viable one based on the kinematic constraints of the vehicle. This smoothing method models the hodograph components of a curve with polynomials that obey the Pythagorean Theorem. Its advantage is that the obtained structure allows computation of the curve length in an exact way, without the need for quadratural techniques for the resolution of integrals.

Keywords: path planning, path smoothing, Pythagorean hodograph curve, RRT*-Smart

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Authors: Farhad Abbas Gandomkar, Mona Danesh

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This paper aims to determine Fundamental Natural Frequency (FNF) of a structural composite floor system known as Chromite. To achieve this purpose, FNFs of studied panels are determined by development of Finite Element Models (FEMs) in ABAQUS program. American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) code in Steel Design Guide Series 11, presents a fundamental formula to calculate FNF of a steel framed floor system. This formula has been used to verify results of the FEMs. The variability in the FNF of the studied system under various parameters such as dimensions of floor, boundary conditions, rigidity of main and secondary beams around the floor, thickness of concrete slab, height of composite joists, distance between composite joists, thickness of top and bottom flanges of the open web steel joists, and adding tie beam perpendicular on the composite joists, is determined. The results show that changing in dimensions of the system, its boundary conditions, rigidity of main beam, and also adding tie beam, significant changes the FNF of the system up to 452.9%, 50.8%, -52.2%, %52.6%, respectively. In addition, increasing thickness of concrete slab increases the FNF of the system up to 10.8%. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that variation in rigidity of secondary beam, height of composite joist, and distance between composite joists, and thickness of top and bottom flanges of open web steel joists insignificant changes the FNF of the studied system up to -0.02%, -3%, -6.1%, and 0.96%, respectively. Finally, the results of this study help designer predict occurrence of resonance, comfortableness, and design criteria of the studied system.

Keywords: Fundamental Natural Frequency, Chromite Composite Floor System, Finite Element Method, low and high frequency floors, Comfortableness, resonance.

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Authors: Neeley Current, Fatih Demir, Kenneth Haggerty, Blake Naughton, Isa Jahnke

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Educational systems seek reform using data-intensive continuous improvement processes known as strategic improvement plans (SIPs). Schools turn to digital systems to monitor, analyze and report SIPs. One technical challenge of these digital systems focuses on integrating a highly diverse set of data sources. Another challenge is to create a learnable sociotechnical system to help administrators, principals and teachers add, manipulate and interpret data. This study explores to what extent one particular system is usable and useful for strategic planning activities and whether intended users see the benefit of the system achieve the goal of improving workflow related to strategic planning in schools. In a three-phase study, researchers used sociotechnical design methods to understand the current workflow, technology use, and processes of teachers and principals surrounding their strategic improvement planning. Additionally, design review and task analysis usability methods were used to evaluate task completion, usability, and user satisfaction of the system. The resulting socio-technical models illustrate the existing work processes and indicate how and at which places in the workflow the newly developed system could have an impact. The results point to the potential of the system but also indicate that it was initially too complicated for use. However, the diverse users see the potential benefits, especially to overcome the diverse set of data sources, and that the system could fill a gap for schools in planning and conducting strategic improvement plans.

Keywords: continuous improvement process, education reform, strategic improvement planning, sociotechnical design, software development, usability

Procedia PDF Downloads 278

Authors: Arias M. L., D’Adamo J., Novosad M. N., Raffo P. A., Burbridge H. P., Artana G.

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Shale oils are highly paraffinic and, consequently, can create wax deposits that foul pipelines during transportation. Several factors must be considered when designing pipelines or treatment programs that prevents wax deposition: including chemical species in crude oils, flowrates, pipes diameters and temperature. This paper describes the wax deposition study carried out within the framework of Y-TEC's flow assurance projects, as part of the process to achieve a better understanding on wax deposition issues. Laboratory experiments were performed on a medium size, 1 inch diameter, wax deposition loop of 15 mts long equipped with a solid detector system, online microscope to visualize crystals, temperature and pressure sensors along the loop pipe. A baseline test was performed with diesel with no paraffin or additive content. Tests were undertaken with different temperatures of circulating and cooling fluid at different flow conditions. Then, a solution formed with a paraffin added to the diesel was considered. Tests varying flowrate and cooling rate were again run. Viscosity, density, WAT (Wax Appearance Temperature) with DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry), pour point and cold finger measurements were carried out to determine physical properties of the working fluids. The results obtained in the loop were analyzed through momentum balance and heat transfer models. To determine possible paraffin deposition scenarios temperature and pressure loop output signals were studied. They were compared with WAT static laboratory methods. Finally, we scrutinized the effect of adding a chemical inhibitor to the working fluid on the dynamics of the process of wax deposition in the loop.

Keywords: paraffin desposition, flow assurance, chemical inhibitors, flow loop

Procedia PDF Downloads 79

Authors: Zhicheng Han

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This study examines the correlation between knowledge of formulaic language, working memory (WM), and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) in Chinese L2 learners of English. This study investigates if WM and PSTM correlate differently to the acquisition of formulaic language, which may be relevant for the discourse around the conceptualization of formulas. Connectionist approaches have lead scholars to argue that formulas are form-meaning connections stored whole, making PSTM significant in the acquisitional process as it pertains to the storage and retrieval of chunk information. Generativist scholars, on the other hand, argued for active participation of interlanguage grammar in the acquisition and use of formulaic language, where formulas are represented in the mind but retain the internal structure built around a lexical core. This would make WM, especially the processing component of WM an important cognitive factor since it plays a role in processing and holding information for further analysis and manipulation. The current study asked L1 Chinese learners of English enrolled in graduate programs in China to complete a preference raking task where they rank their preference for formulas, grammatical non-formulaic expressions, and ungrammatical phrases with and without the lexical core in academic contexts. Participants were asked to rank the options in order of the likeliness of them encountering these phrases in the test sentences within academic contexts. Participants’ syntactic proficiency is controlled with a cloze test and grammar test. Regression analysis found a significant relationship between the processing component of WM and preference of formulaic expressions in the preference ranking task while no significant correlation is found for PSTM or syntactic proficiency. The correlational analysis found that WM, PSTM, and the two proficiency test scores have significant covariates. However, WM and PSTM have different predictor values for participants’ preference for formulaic language. Both storage and processing components of WM are significantly correlated with the preference for formulaic expressions while PSTM is not. These findings are in favor of the role of interlanguage grammar and syntactic knowledge in the acquisition of formulaic expressions. The differing effects of WM and PSTM suggest that selective attention to and processing of the input beyond simple retention play a key role in successfully acquiring formulaic language. Similar correlational patterns were found for preferring the ungrammatical phrase with the lexical core of the formula over the ones without the lexical core, attesting to learners’ awareness of the lexical core around which formulas are constructed. These findings support the view that formulaic phrases retain internal syntactic structures that are recognized and processed by the learners.

Keywords: formulaic language, working memory, phonological short-term memory, academic language

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Authors: Sachil Kumar, Anoop K.Verma, Uma Shankar Singh

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It’s extremely important to study postmortem interval in different causes of death since it assists in a great way in making an opinion on the exact cause of death following such incident often times. With diligent knowledge of the interval one could really say as an expert that the cause of death is not feigned hence there is a great need in evaluating such death to have been at the CRIME SCENE before performing an autopsy on such body. The approach described here is based on analyzing the degradation or proteolysis of a cardiac protein in cases of deaths due to burn as a marker of time since death. Cardiac tissue samples were collected from (n=6) medico-legal autopsies, (Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology), King George’s Medical University, Lucknow India, after informed consent from the relatives and studied post-mortem degradation by incubation of the cardiac tissue at room temperature (20±2 OC) for different time periods (~7.30, 18.20, 30.30, 41.20, 41.40, 54.30, 65.20, and 88.40 Hours). The cases included were the subjects of burn without any prior history of disease who died in the hospital and their exact time of death was known. The analysis involved extraction of the protein, separation by denaturing gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and visualization by Western blot using cTnT specific monoclonal antibodies. The area of the bands within a lane was quantified by scanning and digitizing the image using Gel Doc. As time postmortem progresses the intact cTnT band degrades to fragments that are easily detected by the monoclonal antibodies. A decreasing trend in the level of cTnT (% of intact) was found as the PM hours increased. A significant difference was observed between <15 h and other PM hours (p<0.01). Significant difference in cTnT level (% of intact) was also observed between 16-25 h and 56-65 h & >75 h (p<0.01). Western blot data clearly showed the intact protein at 42 kDa, three major (28 kDa, 30kDa, 10kDa) fragments, three additional minor fragments (12 kDa, 14kDa, and 15 kDa) and formation of low molecular weight fragments. Overall, both PMI and cardiac tissue of burned corpse had a statistically significant effect where the greatest amount of protein breakdown was observed within the first 41.40 Hrs and after it intact protein slowly disappears. If the percent intact cTnT is calculated from the total area integrated within a Western blot lane, then the percent intact cTnT shows a pseudo-first order relationship when plotted against the time postmortem. A strong significant positive correlation was found between cTnT and PM hours (r=0.87, p=0.0001). The regression analysis showed a good variability explained (R2=0.768) The post-mortem Troponin-T fragmentation observed in this study reveals a sequential, time-dependent process with the potential for use as a predictor of PMI in cases of burning.

Keywords: burn, degradation, postmortem interval, troponin-T

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Authors: Vahid Nourani, Atefeh Ashrafi

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Prediction of treated wastewater quality is a matter of growing importance in water treatment procedure. In this way artificial neural network (ANN), as a robust data-driven approach, has been widely used for forecasting the effluent quality of wastewater treatment. However, developing ANN model based on appropriate input variables is a major concern due to the numerous parameters which are collected from treatment process and the number of them are increasing in the light of electronic sensors development. Various studies have been conducted, using different clustering methods, in order to classify most related and effective input variables. This issue has been overlooked in the selecting dominant input variables among wastewater treatment parameters which could effectively lead to more accurate prediction of water quality. In the presented study two ANN models were developed with the aim of forecasting effluent quality of Tabriz city’s wastewater treatment plant. Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) was utilized to determine water quality as a target parameter. Model A used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for input selection as a linear variance-based clustering method. Model B used those variables identified by the mutual information (MI) measure. Therefore, the optimal ANN structure when the result of model B compared with model A showed up to 15% percent increment in Determination Coefficient (DC). Thus, this study highlights the advantage of PCA method in selecting dominant input variables for ANN modeling of wastewater plant efficiency performance.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, biochemical oxygen demand, principal component analysis, mutual information, Tabriz wastewater treatment plant, wastewater treatment plant

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Authors: Ismail Bile Hassan, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad

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This study discovers a novel framework of individual level technology adoption known as I-P (Individual- Privacy) towards Smart National Identity Card health information application. Many countries introduced smart national identity card (SNIC) with various applications such as health information application embedded inside it. However, the degree to which citizens accept and use some of the embedded applications in smart national identity remains unknown to many governments and application providers as well. Moreover, the previous studies revealed that the factors of trust, perceived risk, privacy concern and perceived credibility need to be incorporated into more comprehensive models such as extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology known as UTAUT2. UTAUT2 is a mainly widespread and leading theory existing in the information system literature up to now. This research identifies factors affecting the citizens’ behavioural intention to use health information application embedded in SNIC and extends better understanding on the relevant factors that the government and the application providers would need to consider in predicting citizens’ new technology acceptance in the future. We propose a conceptual framework by combining the UTAUT2 and Privacy Calculus Model constructs and also adding perceived credibility as a new variable. The proposed framework may provide assistance to any government planning, decision, and policy makers involving e-government projects. The empirical study may be conducted in the future to provide proof and empirically validate this I-P framework.

Keywords: unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, UTAUT2 model, smart national identity card (SNIC), health information application, privacy calculus model (PCM)

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Authors: B. Mack, K. Tampe-Mai, E. Diesch

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Findings of an ongoing discrete choice study of future transport mode choice will be presented. Many urban centers face the triple challenge of having to cope with ever increasing traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emission brought about by private car use. In principle, private car use may be diminished by extending public transport systems like bus lines, trams, tubes, and trains. However, there are limits to increasing the (perceived) spatial and temporal flexibility and reducing peak-time crowding of classical public transport systems. An emerging new type of system, publicly or privately operated on-demand shuttle bus services, seem suitable to ameliorate the situation. A fleet of on-demand shuttle busses operates without fixed stops and schedules. It may be deployed efficiently in that each bus picks up passengers whose itineraries may be combined into an optimized route. Crowding may be minimized by limiting the number of seats and the inter-seat distance for each bus. The study is conducted as a discrete choice experiment. The choice between private car, public transport, and shuttle service is registered as a function of several push and pull factors (financial costs, travel time, walking distances, mobility tax/congestion charge, and waiting time/parking space search time). After the completion of the discrete choice items, the study participant is asked to rate the three modes of transport with regard to the pull factors of comfort, safety, privacy, and opportunity to engage in activities like reading or surfing the internet. These ratings are entered as additional predictors into the discrete choice experiment regression model. The study is conducted in the region of Stuttgart in southern Germany. N=1000 participants are being recruited. Participants are between 18 and 69 years of age, hold a driver’s license, and live in the city or the surrounding region of Stuttgart. In the discrete choice experiment, participants are asked to assume they lived within the Stuttgart region, but outside of the city, and were planning the journey from their apartment to their place of work, training, or education during the peak traffic time in the morning. Then, for each item of the discrete choice experiment, they are asked to choose between the transport modes of private car, public transport, and on-demand shuttle in the light of particular values of the push and pull factors studied. The study will provide valuable information on the potential of switching from private car use to the use of on-demand shuttles, but also on the less desirable potential of switching from public transport to on-demand shuttle services. Furthermore, information will be provided on the modulation of these switching potentials by pull and push factors.

Keywords: determinants of travel mode choice, on-demand shuttle services, private car use, public transport

Procedia PDF Downloads 154

Authors: Alex Kiselyov, Suehyun Cho, Darrell Harrington; Florent Cros, Olin Palmer, John Caputo, Michael Kardosh, Eran Oren, William Loudon, Michael Shpigelmacher

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Despite the most aggressive surgical and adjuvant therapeutic strategies, treatment of both pediatric and adult brainstem tumors remains problematic. Novel strategies, including targeted biologics, immunotherapy, and specialized delivery systems such as convection-enhanced delivery (CED), have been proposed. While some of these novel treatments are entering phase I trials, the field is still in need of treatment(s) that exhibits dramatically enhanced potency with optimal therapeutic ratio. Bionaut Labs has developed a modular microrobotic platform for performing localized delivery of diverse therapeutics in vivo. Our biocompatible particles (Bionauts™) are externally propelled and visualized in real-time. Bionauts™ are specifically designed to enhance the effect of radiation therapy via anatomically precise delivery of a radiosensitizing agent, as exemplified by temozolomide (TMZ) and Avastin™ to the brainstem gliomas of diverse origin. The treatment protocol is designed to furnish a better therapeutic outcome due to the localized (vs systemic) delivery of the drug to the neoplastic lesion(s) for use as a synergistic combination of radiation and radiosensitizing agent. In addition, the procedure is minimally invasive and is expected to be appropriate for both adult and pediatric patients. Current progress, including platform optimization, selection of the lead radiosensitizer as well as in vivo safety studies of the Bionauts™ in large animals, specifically the spine and the brain of porcine and ovine models, will be discussed.

Keywords: Bionaut, brainstem, glioma, local delivery, micro-robot, radiosensitizer

Procedia PDF Downloads 166