Search results for: regenerative point technique

Authors: Agustinus Bandur, Dyah Budiastuti

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With the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) in globalisation era, higher education (HE) internationalisation has become a worldwide phenomenon. However, even though various studies have been widely published in existing literature, the settings of these studies were taken places in developed countries. Accordingly, the major purpose of this article is to explore the current trends of higher education internationalisation programs with particular reference to identify the benefits and challenges confronted by participating staff and students. For these purposes, ethnographic qualitative study with the usage of NVivo 11 software was applied in coding, analyzing, and visualization of non-numeric data gathered from interviews, videos, web contents, social media, and relevant documents. Purposive sampling technique was applied in this study with a total of ten high-ranked accredited government and private universities in Indonesia. On the basis of thematic and cross-case analyses, this study indicates that while Australia has led other countries in dual-degree programs, partner universities from Japan and Korea have the most frequent collaboration on student exchange programs. Meanwhile, most visiting scholars who have collaborated with the universities in this study came from the US, the UK, Japan, Australia, Netherlands, and China. Other European countries such as Germany, French, and Norway have also conducted joint research with Indonesian universities involved in this study. This study suggests that further supports of government policy and grants are required to overcome the challenges as well as strategic leadership and management roles to achieve high impacts of such programs on higher education quality.

Keywords: higher education, internationalisation, challenges, Indonesia

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Authors: Wang Jie

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This article advances the reform of Chinese migration law through an analysis of the updated and former versions of the Chinese migration law, specifically for the Exit-Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China and Regulations on Foreigners’ Permanent Residence in the People’s Republic of China(Exposure Draft), which was most recently issued in 2012 and 2020 respectively. After a fundamental reform of China’s migration law, China’s immigration legal framework has become relatively well developed compared with the previous one. Immigration procedures are available online and these procedures have become relatively simple. Comparative research for the Chinese migration laws has been done during the past several years for its legislation, legal reference for western countries and its preliminary implementation. Some results show that the reform is a superficial one and may not have a practical effect on China’s current immigration legal framework. However, complete results cannot be obtained only through the comparative research of legal definitions. Some practical case studies will also be required to analyze in detail to demonstrate the reasons that some reforms still remain at the superficial level and what further progress is required in China's immigration legal framework. This is a perspective that has been overlooked in most comparative law studies. In the first part, this article will conduct a simple comparative study of the reform of Chinese migration law and use cases studies to illustrate the reform of Chinese migration law. In the second part, this article will point out another perspective that is easily overlooked, that is, how do the Chinese nationals treat the reform: whether it is a legislative advance or a failure, and whether it deepens social tensions between nationals and immigrants. In the third part, the article will discuss Chinese migration law through China’s international law perspective with international organizations, such as International Organization for Migration and International Labour Organization will also be discussed to dialectically judge the reform of Chinese migration law. This article will adopt case and comparative studies to conduct overall research based on the reform of Chinese migration law and try to put forward more constructive advice for China’s immigration legal framework.

Keywords: Chinese migration law, reform, foreigners, immigration legal framework

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Authors: Ravi Vishwanath, Saumya Kumaar, S. N. Omkar

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Brain-computer interfacing (BCI) is a technology that is almost four decades old, and it was developed solely for the purpose of developing and enhancing the impact of neuroprosthetics. However, in the recent times, with the commercialization of non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) headsets, the technology has seen a wide variety of applications like home automation, wheelchair control, vehicle steering, etc. One of the latest developed applications is the mind-controlled quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle. These applications, however, do not require a very high-speed response and give satisfactory results when standard classification methods like Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLPC). Issues are faced when there is a requirement for high-speed control in the case of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles where such methods are rendered unreliable due to the low speed of classification. Such an application requires the system to classify data at high speeds in order to retain the controllability of the vehicle. This paper proposes a novel method of classification which uses a combination of Common Spatial Paradigm and Linear Discriminant Analysis that provides an improved classification accuracy in real time. A non-linear SVM based classification technique has also been discussed. Further, this paper discusses the implementation of the proposed method on a fixed-wing and VTOL unmanned aerial vehicles.

Keywords: brain-computer interface, classification, machine learning, unmanned aerial vehicles

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Authors: W. Wen, G. Jackson, S. Maskill, D. G. McCartney, W. Sun

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CoNiCrAlY alloys have been widely used as bond coats for thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems because of low cost, improved control of composition, and the feasibility to tailor the coatings microstructures. Coatings are in general very thin structures, and therefore it is impossible to characterize the mechanical responses of the materials via conventional mechanical testing methods. Due to this reason, miniature specimen testing methods, such as the small punch test technique, have been developed. This paper presents some of the recent research in evaluating the mechanical properties of the CoNiCrAlY coatings at room and high temperatures, through the use of small punch testing and the developed miniature specimen tensile testing, applicable to a range of temperature, to investigate the elastic-plastic and creep behavior as well as ductile-brittle transition temperature (DBTT) behavior. An inverse procedure was developed to derive the mechanical properties from such tests for the coating materials. A two-layer specimen test method is also described. The key findings include: 1) the temperature-dependent coating properties can be accurately determined by the miniature tensile testing within a wide range of temperature; 2) consistent DBTTs can be identified by both the SPT and miniature tensile tests (~ 650 °C); and 3) the FE SPT modelling has shown good capability of simulating the early local cracking. In general, the temperature-dependent material behaviors of the CoNiCrAlY coating has been effectively characterized using miniature specimen testing and inverse method.

Keywords: NiCoCrAlY coatings, mechanical properties, DBTT, miniature specimen testing

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Authors: Shruti Malviya, Chris Bowler

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Analysis of microbial eukaryotic diversity is fundamental to understanding ecosystems’ structure, biology, and ecology. Diatoms (Stramenopiles, Bacillariophyceae) are one of the most diverse and ecologically prominent groups of phytoplankton. This study was performed to enhance the understanding of global biodiversity patterns and structure of planktonic diatom communities across the world's oceans. We used the metabarcoding data set generated from the biological samples and associated environmental data collected during the Tara Oceans (2009-2013) global circumnavigation covering all major oceanic provinces. A total of ~18 million diatom V9-18S rDNA tags from 126 sampling stations, constituting 631 size-fractionated plankton communities were generated. Using ~250,000 unique diatom metabarcodes, the global diatom distribution and diversity across size classes, genus and ecological niches was assessed. Notably, our analysis revealed: (i) a new estimate of the total number of planktonic diatom species, (ii) a considerable unknown diversity and exceptionally high diversity in the open ocean, and (iii) complex diversity patterns across oceanic provinces. Also, co-occurrence of several ribotypes in locations separated by great geographic distances (equatorial stations) demonstrated a widespread but not ubiquitous distribution. This work provides a comprehensive perspective on diatom distribution and diversity in the world’s oceans and elaborates interconnections between associated theories and underlying drivers. It shows how meta-barcoding approaches can provide a framework to investigate environmental diversity at a global scale, which is deemed as an essential step in answering various ecological research questions. Consequently, this work also provides a reference point to explore how microbial communities will respond to environmental conditions.

Keywords: diatoms, Tara Oceans, biodiversity, metabarcoding

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Authors: Khairul Bariah Sulaiman, Tajul Aris Yang

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Malaysian dried cocoa beans have been reported to have low quality flavour and are often sold at discounted prices. Various efforts have been made to improve the Malaysian beans quality. Among these efforts is introduction of the shallow box fermentation technique and pulp preconditioned through pods storage. However, after nearly four decades of the effort was done, Malaysian cocoa farmers still received lower prices for their beans. So, this study was carried out in order to assess the flavour quality of dried cocoa beans produced by shallow box fermentation techniques, combination of shallow box fermentation with pods storage and compared to dried cocoa beans obtained from Ghana. A total of eight samples of dried cocoa was used in this study, which one of the samples was Ghanaian beans (coded with no.8), while the rest were Malaysian cocoa beans with different post-harvest processing (coded with no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7). Cocoa liquor was prepared from all samples in the prescribed techniques and sensory evaluation was carried out using Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA) Method with 0-10 scale by Malaysian Cocoa Board trained panelist. Sensory evaluation showed that cocoa attributes for all cocoa liquors ranging from 3.5 to 5.3, whereas bitterness was ranging from 3.4 to 4.6 and astringent attribute ranging from 3.9 to 5.5, respectively. Meanwhile, all cocoa liquors were having acid or sourness attribute ranging from 1.6 to 3.6, respectively. In general cocoa liquor prepared from sample coded no 4 has almost similar flavour profile and no significantly different at p < 0.05 with Ghana, in term of most flavour attributes as compared to the other six samples.

Keywords: cocoa beans, flavour, fermentation, shallow box, pods storage

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Authors: José Alberto García Fernández, Zhimin Du, Xinqiao Jin

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Nowadays, data center industry faces strong challenges for increasing the speed and data processing capacities while at the same time is trying to keep their devices a suitable working temperature without penalizing that capacity. Consequently, the cooling systems of this kind of facilities use a large amount of energy to dissipate the heat generated inside the servers, and developing new cooling techniques or perfecting those already existing would be a great advance in this type of industry. The installation of a temperature sensor matrix distributed in the structure of each server would provide the necessary information for collecting the required data for obtaining a temperature profile instantly inside them. However, the number of temperature probes required to obtain the temperature profiles with sufficient accuracy is very high and expensive. Therefore, other less intrusive techniques are employed where each point that characterizes the server temperature profile is obtained by solving differential equations through simulation methods, simplifying data collection techniques but increasing the time to obtain results. In order to reduce these calculation times, complicated and slow computational fluid dynamics simulations are replaced by simpler and faster finite element method simulations which solve the Burgers‘ equations by backward, forward and central discretization techniques after simplifying the energy and enthalpy conservation differential equations. The discretization methods employed for solving the first and second order derivatives of the obtained Burgers‘ equation after these simplifications are the key for obtaining results with greater or lesser accuracy regardless of the characteristic truncation error.

Keywords: Burgers' equations, CFD simulation, data center, discretization methods, FEM simulation, temperature profile

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Authors: Gadiri Sabiha

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Introduction: Current allergy diagnostic tools using Multiplex technology have made it possible to increase the efficiency of the search for specific IgE. This opportunity is provided by the newly developed “Alex Biochip”, consisting of a panel of 282 allergens in native and molecular form, a CCD inhibitor, and the potential for detecting cross-reactive allergens. We evaluated the performance of this technology in detecting cross-reactivity in previously explored patients. Material/Method: The sera of 39 patients presenting sensitization and polysensitization profiles were explored. The search for specific IgE is carried out by the Alex ® IgE Biochip, and the results are analyzed by nature and by molecular family of allergens using specific software. Results/Discussion: The analysis gave a particular profile of cross-reactivity allergens: 33% for the Ole e1 family, 31% for NPC2, 26% for storage proteins, 20% for Tropomyosin, 10% for LTPs, 10% for Arginine Kinase and 10% for Uteroglobin CCDs were absent in all patients. The “Ole e1” allergen is responsible for a pollen-pollen cross allergy. The storage proteins found and LTP are not species-specific, causing cross-pollen-food allergy. The nDer p2 of the NPC2 family is responsible for cross-reactivity between mite species. Conclusion: The cross-reactivities responsible for mixed syndromes at diagnosis in our patients were dominated by pollen-pollen and pollen-food syndromes. They allow the identification of severity factors linked to the prognosis and the best-adapted immunotherapy.

Keywords: specific IgE, allergy, cross reactivity, molecular allergens

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Authors: Yizhi Zhang, Xiaozan Wang, Mingming Guo, Pengpeng Li

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Introduction: The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of after-school football training in improving the physical fitness of primary school students, so as to provide corresponding suggestions for carrying out after-school football training in primary schools. Methods: A total of 72 students from the experimental primary school of Mouping district, Yantai city, Shandong province, participated in this experiment. The experiment was conducted for two semesters. During the experiment period, the experimental group conducted one-hour football training after school from Monday to Thursday afternoon every week, and two hours of football training on Saturday morning every week. The control group conducted sports teaching and extracurricular activities as usual without other intervention. Before and after the experiment, both the experimental group and the control group underwent physical fitness tests according to the physical fitness test standards of Chinese students, including lung capacity, 50-meter run, one-minute skipping rope, sitting forward flexor, and one-minute sit-ups. The test results were all converted to the 100-point system according to the scoring standards. Results: (1) Before the experiment, there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in various physical fitness indicators (p > 0.05). (2) After the experiment, the lung capacity score (T = 3.108, p < 0.05), the 50-meter run score (T = 6.593, p < 0.05), the skipping score (T = 9.227, p < 0.05), the sitting forward flexor score (T = 3.742, p < 0.05), and the sit-up score (T = 5.210, p < 0.05) of the experimental group were significantly higher than that of the control group. Conclusion: This study shows that the physical fitness of primary school students can be improved by football training in their spare time. It is suggested to carry out after-school football training activities in primary schools so as to effectively improve the physical fitness of pupils.

Keywords: after-school football training, physical fitness, primary school students, school sports

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Authors: Sabina Ampon-Wireko

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Purpose: The study explores the influence of the organizational climate of silence on job performance through the mediating effects of work engagement (WE). Further, the degree to which supervisor support (SS) and work engagement moderate job performance are examined. Method: Using a questionnaire, the study collected 565 valid responses from frontline nurses in Ghana. The hierarchical regression technique was employed in estimating the relationship between the variables. Findings: The results showed a significant negative influence of top managers' and supervisors' attitudes to silence on both contextual and task performance. Communication opportunities, however, revealed positive and significant effects on contextual and task performance. Work engagement had no role in mediating top managers' and supervisors’ attitudes toward silence, communication opportunities, and task performance. Supervisor support acted as a moderating factor in the relationship between job engagement and task performance. In contrast, despite the direct positive relationship between supervisor support and contextual performance, it failed to moderate the relationship between work engagement and contextual performance. Practical implications: The study's findings demonstrate the need for health managers and supervisors to become more conscious of silence. The findings offer diverse recommendations for encouraging the sharing of relevant ideas, facts, and opinions within the health sector.

Keywords: organizational climate of silence, job performance, work engagement, supervisor support, frontline nurses

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Authors: Muqadis Shazia Rajpar, Lawrence Mitelberg, Rubaiat S. Ahmed, Jemer Garrido, Rukhsana Hossain, Sergey M. Motov

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Distraction techniques have been used as a means to reduce pain, anxiety, and stress in various healthcare settings to facilitate care and make visits less unpleasant. Using virtual reality (VR) in the pediatric emergency setting can be a valuable, effective, and safe non-pharmacological alternative to the current standard of care for pain and anxiety management in pediatric patients. Our pilot study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a VR-based intervention as an alternative distraction modality to alleviate pain and anxiety associated with pediatric emergency department (ED) visits and acute pain conditions. The pilot study period was from November 16 to December 9, 2022, for pediatric ED visits for pain, anxiety, or both. Patients were selected based on a novel VR protocol to receive the VR intervention with the administration of pre and post-intervention surveys concerning pain/anxiety ratings and pain scores (Wong-Baker FACES/NRS). Descriptive statistics, paired t-test, and a Fisher Exact Test were used for data analysis, assuming a p-value of 0.05 for significance. A total of 33 patients (21 females, 12 males), ages 5-20 (M = 10.5, SD = 3.43) participated in this study – 12 patients had pain, 2 patients had anxiety, and 19 patients had both pain and anxiety. There was a statistically significant decrease in post-intervention pain scores of less than one point on the rating scale (6.48 vs. 5.62, p < .001). There was a statistically significant reduction in the percentage of patients suffering from “considerable” or “great” pain after the VR intervention (51.6% to 42.3%, p < .001). Similarly, we noticed an increase in the number of patients with “slight” or “moderate” pain post–VR intervention (48.4% to 57.7%, p < .001). Lastly, we demonstrated a decrease in anxiety among patients after utilizing VR (63.6% vs. 36.4%, p < .001). To conclude, VR can alleviate pain and anxiety in pediatric patients and be a useful non-pharmacological tool in the emergency setting.

Keywords: anxiety, emergency room, pain management, pediatric emergency medicine, virtual reality

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Authors: Myungsu Lim, William Xiu Shun Wong, Yoonjin Hyun, Chen Liu, Seongi Choi, Dasom Kim, Namgyu Kim

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The amount of real-time data generated through various mass media has been increasing rapidly. In this study, we had performed topic analysis by using the unstructured text data that is distributed through news article. As one of the most prevalent applications of topic analysis, the issue tracking technique investigates the changes of the social issues that identified through topic analysis. Currently, traditional issue tracking is conducted by identifying the main topics of documents that cover an entire period at the same time and analyzing the occurrence of each topic by the period of occurrence. However, this traditional issue tracking approach has limitation that it cannot discover dynamic mutation process of complex social issues. The purpose of this study is to overcome the limitations of the existing issue tracking method. We first derived core issues of each period, and then discover the dynamic mutation process of various issues. In this study, we further analyze the mutation process from the perspective of the issues categories, in order to figure out the pattern of issue flow, including the frequency and reliability of the pattern. In other words, this study allows us to understand the components of the complex issues by tracking the dynamic history of issues. This methodology can facilitate a clearer understanding of complex social phenomena by providing mutation history and related category information of the phenomena.

Keywords: Data Mining, Issue Tracking, Text Mining, topic Analysis, topic Detection, Trend Detection

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Authors: Azizah Ismail, Zainab Khalifah, Abbas Mardani

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Sustainable community-based tourism through homestay programme is a growing niche market that has impacted destinations in many countries including Malaysia. With demand predicted to continue increasing, the importance of the homestay product will grow in the tourism industry. This research examines the sustainability criteria for homestay programme in Malaysia covering economic, socio-cultural and environmental dimensions. This research applied a two-stage methodology for data analysis. Specifically, the researcher implements a hybrid method which combines two multi-criteria decision making approaches. In the first stage of the methodology, the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique is applied. Then, Analytical Network Process (ANP) is employed for the achievement of the objective of the current research. After factors identification and problem formulation, DEMATEL is used to detect complex relationships and to build a Network Relation Map (NRM). Then ANP is used to prioritize and find the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria of the decision model. The research verifies the framework of multi-criteria for sustainable community-based tourism from the perspective of stakeholders. The result also provides a different perspective on the importance of sustainable criteria from the view of multi-stakeholders. Practically, this research gives the framework model and helps stakeholders to improve and innovate the homestay programme and also promote community-based tourism.

Keywords: community-based tourism, homestay programme, sustainable tourism criteria, sustainable tourism development

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Authors: Tamer El-Messery, Teresa Sanchez-Moya, Ruben Lopez-Nicolas, Gaspar Ros, Esmat Aly

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Olive leaves (OLs), the main by-product of the olive oil industry, have a considerable amount of phenolic compounds. The exploitation of these compounds represents the current trend in food processing. In this study, OLs polyphenols were microencapsulated with polycaprolactone (PCL) and utilized in formulating novel functional yoghurt. PCL-microcapsules were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry analysis. Their total phenolic (TPC), total flavonoid (TFC) contents, and antioxidant activities (DPPH, FRAP, ABTS), and polyphenols bioaccessibility were measured after oral, gastric, and intestinal steps of in vitro digestion. The four yoghurt formulations (containing 0, 25, 50, and 75 mg of PCL-microsphere/100g yoghurt) were evaluated for their pH, acidity, syneresis viscosity, and color during storage. In vitro digestion significantly affected the phenolic composition in non-encapsulated extract while had a lower impact on encapsulated phenolics. Higher protection was provided for encapsulated OLs extract, and their higher release was observed at the intestinal phase. Yoghurt with PCL-microsphere had lower viscosity, syneresis, and color parameters, as compared to control yoghurt. Thus, OLs represent a valuable and cheap source of polyphenols which can be successfully applied, in microencapsulated form, to formulate functional yoghurt.

Keywords: yoghurt quality attributes, olive leaves, phenolic and flavonoids compounds, antioxidant activity, polycaprolactone as microencapsulant

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Authors: Jonathan Okewu

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Socio-economic occurrences and developments in any society is usually a thing of concern especially when this is been jeopardised as a result of insecurity of all sorts. There are numerous channels that such issues are brought to the fore for attention. Among this channels are the art media and more precisely the ceramic art media. Renown ceramic artists in Nigeria have taken to the medium of expression (clay) to contribute to succinct issues as it affects the society. This study takes advantage of a unique form of ceramic press moulding termed clay palm press. This uncommon production technique has been developed in this study to interrogate socio-economic insecurity in the form of ceramic art titled; “dancing in bullets and in brokenness”. This work was made possible through a ceramic medium that has been termed “terracotta on canvas”. Extensive studio practice was carried out to generate the terracotta forms for this study. Findings from this study indicates that the medium and mode of execution of the art work shows a unique side of working with clay that negates tactile or three dimensionality of inured ceramic practice. Additionally, the process of clay palm press in this study indicates that it could be therapeutical against medical conditions of muscles of the palm. This is because the process tightens and develops the muscles of the palm further. Dancing in bullets and in brokenness as portrayed through the medium of terracotta on canvas that social and security challenges are not a limiting factor to a resolute Nigerian, despite all, the strong will of Nigerians keeps persisting and overcoming challenges.

Keywords: canvas, dancing in bullets and in brokenness, metaphor, terracotta, palm press

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Authors: Samson Olusegun Apantaku, Adetayo K. Aromolaran, Giyatt Hammed

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The study assessed the use of participatory research methods among Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Nigeria (FUNAAB) researchers. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and twenty respondents from the study area. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Data collected were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses. Results showed that 75.8% of the respondents were males while only 21.3% were female. The mean age of the respondents was 38.8 years and most (77.5%) of them were married. 15% of the respondents were in professorial cadre, 21.7% and 20% of the respondents were senior lecturers/fellow and lecturer/research fellow I&II respectively. The results further revealed that 93.3% of the respondents were aware of participatory research methods and 82.5% of the respondents have utilized it before. The average period of usage was 2.7 years and participation by consultation (86.7%) and interactive participation (76.7%) were mostly used. Most (94.2%) indicated that fund was the major hindrance to the use of participatory research methods. The result of correlation analysis showed that there was significant relationship between the years of research experience, designation post (status) of the respondents and usage of participatory research methods (r = 0.034, 0.031, p < 0.05). The study concluded that most of the researchers were aware of and used participatory research methods, which could influence the quality of their research or make it acceptable to the end users. It was recommended that more funds should be made available and accessible for participatory research. All researchers should be trained and encouraged to make use of participatory research methods in their research activities so as to achieve effective research and capacity building that could enhance adoption of technologies and increase agricultural production in the country. Farmers’ capacity to participate in agricultural research should also be enhanced.

Keywords: participatory research, participatory research methods, awareness, utilization

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Authors: Zunnu Raen Akhtar, U. Irshad, M. Majid

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Due to the widespread cultivation of transgenic cotton, intense selection pressure resulted in resistant allele in pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Gelechiidae: Lepidoptera). A resistant strain of pink bollworm against transgenic cotton has become a challenge to Integrated Resistance Management (IRM) in the World. Laboratory and field studies were conducted to determine the resistant strains of pink bollworm by performing bioassay, extracting the DNA, conducting PCR of both laboratory as well as field collected pink bollworms to observe the developed resistance. In all of the studies, two Bt varieties FH-142 and FH-118 expressing Cry1Ac compared to non-Bt (Control) were tested against pink bollworm. In the laboratory, bioassay results showed that there was no significant mortality difference between Bt and non-Bt varieties. Similar mortality percentage was observed in transgenic and non-transgenic (control) variety. Insects which were survived after bioassay, as well as those collected from the Bt cotton fields, were selected for further molecular studies. DNA extraction followed by PCR was conducted to check the resistant strains in pink bollworm. In field studies, we also observed the population dynamics of pink boll worms on Bt as compared to non-Bt varieties. Laboratory and field studies confirmed that resistant strains occurs in Pakistani Bt cotton fields. Different strategies should be adopted to combat that serious prevailing resistance issues.

Keywords: transgenic cotton, resistance, pectinophora gossypiella, , integrated resistance management (IRM), polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

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Authors: Shirajul Islam Khan, Muhammad Ashraful Alam Bhuiyan, Syeda Tania Begum

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Introduction: Acne vulgaris is one of the most common dermatologic conditions and affects the vast majority of people at some point during their lifetime, so effective treatment is of major importance. The failure of usual treatment modalities, teratogenic effects with some severe side effects, and resistance to P.Acne by Retinoides have been focusing on new therapeutic options for the treatment of acne. More recently, pulsed dye laser therapy has been reported to reduce acne lesion counts. The negligible morbidity of these treatment modalities and some other benefits of subsequent acne scar management lead this therapy more attractive. Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the efficacy and safety of pulsed dye laser therapy in the treatment of inflammatory acne vulgaris. Materials and Methods: A prospective clinical trial was done in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Dhaka, to find out the role of pulse dye laser in the treatment of inflammatory acne vulgaris. The study was carried out with 60 patients with mild to moderate acne vulgaris, and those were treated with pulsed dye laser therapy at baseline and after 4, 8, and 12 weeks. Results: Among 60 patients with inflammatory acne, 42(70%) were in the age group of less than 20 years, and 36(60%) were female. Regarding the number of inflammatory lesions, the baseline mean number (± SD) was 12.77 ± 4.01; after 4 weeks of treatment of inflammatory acne by pulsed dye laser was 7.80 ± 4.11; after 8 weeks of treatment, 6.10 ± 4.03 and after 12 weeks of treatment was 4.17 ± 4.02. After 4 weeks of treatment by pulse dye laser, the level of improvement was excellent at 3.3%, good at 10%, fair at 60%, and poor at 26.7%; after 8 weeks of treatment, excellent was 13.3%, good was 46.7%, the fair was 30% and poor 10% and after 12 weeks of treatment, excellent was 56.7%, good 13.3%, fair 23.3% and poor 6.7%. Regarding safety level, out of 60 patients of inflammatory acne vulgaris treated by pulsed dye laser, about 52(86.7%) patients did not observe any side effects. Conclusions: On the basis of the study results, it can be concluded that pulsed-dye laser is highly effective and well tolerated by patients in the treatment of inflammatory acne.

Keywords: pulsed-dye laser, inflammatory acne, acne vulgaris, retinoids

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Authors: Beng Yew Low, Cher Liang Cha, Cheng Yong Teoh

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Due to a lack of continual assessment or grade related data, identifying first-year engineering students in a polytechnic education at risk of failing is challenging. Our experience over the years tells us that there is no strong correlation between having good entry grades in Mathematics and the Sciences and excelling in hardcore engineering subjects. Hence, identifying students at risk of failure cannot be on the basis of entry grades in Mathematics and the Sciences alone. These factors compound the difficulty of early identification and intervention. This paper describes the development of a predictive analytics model in the early detection of students at risk of failing and evaluates its effectiveness. Data from continual assessments conducted in term one, supplemented by data of student psychological profiles such as interests and study habits, were used. Three classification techniques, namely Logistic Regression, K Nearest Neighbour, and Random Forest, were used in our predictive model. Based on our findings, Random Forest was determined to be the strongest predictor with an Area Under the Curve (AUC) value of 0.994. Correspondingly, the Accuracy, Precision, Recall, and F-Score were also highest among these three classifiers. Using this Random Forest Classification technique, students at risk of failure could be identified at the end of term one. They could then be assigned to a Learning Support Programme at the beginning of term two. This paper gathers the results of our findings. It also proposes further improvements that can be made to the model.

Keywords: continual assessment, predictive analytics, random forest, student psychological profile

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Authors: Sk Shamim Hasan Abir, Karen Lozano, Mohammed Jasim Uddin

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Over the last few years, nanofiber-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has caught great attention among researchers all over the world due to its inherent capability of converting mechanical energy to usable electrical energy. In this study, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanofiber prepared by Forcespinning® (FS) technique were used to fabricate TENG for self-charging energy storage device and biomechanical body motion sensor. The surface of the TPU nanofiber was modified by uniform deposition of thin gold film to enhance the frictional properties; yielded 254 V open-circuit voltage (Voc) and 86 µA short circuit current (Isc), which were 2.12 and 1.87 times greater in contrast to bare PVDF-TPU TENG. Moreover, the as-fabricated PVDF-TPU/Au TENG was tested against variable capacitors and resistive load, and the results showed that with a 3.2 x 2.5 cm2 active contact area, it can quick charge up to 7.64 V within 30 seconds using a 1.0 µF capacitor and generate significant 2.54 mW power, enough to light 75 commercial LEDs (1.5 V each) by the hand tapping motion at 4 Hz (240 beats per minutes (bpm)) load frequency. Furthermore, the TENG was attached to different body parts to capture distinctive electrical signals for various body movements, elucidated the prospective usability of our prepared nanofiber-based TENG in wearable body motion sensor application.

Keywords: biomotion sensor, forcespinning, nanofibers, triboelectric nanogenerator

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Authors: Oluwlola Felicia Kikelomo

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This study examined the influence of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF) intervention projects and resource utilization in universities in South Western State of Nigeria. The study was a descriptive design of the correlation type. Purposive sampling technique was used to select six out of 14 beneficiary universities in the States. Instruments used to collect data were TETF Intervention Projects Checklist (TETFIPC), Educational Facilities Checklists (EFC) and Resources Utilization Checklists (RUC). The research questions raised were answered using percentage and utilization rates, while Pearson product-moment correlation statistic was used to test the hypotheses formulated to guide the study 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study indicated that building construction had the highest TETF allocation (64.5%), while staff development opportunities had the least (1.1%) in the sampled universities. Significant and positive relationship existed between time and space utilization rates and student academic performance in the universities (r (1,800) = 0.63 and r (1,800) = 0.59, p ≤ 0.05 respectively). Based, on these findings, it was recommended that there should be periodic evaluation of completed TETF projects and utilization to ensure that TETF funds are properly used for the approved projects; and that TETF should improve on the provision of educational facilities to universities for staff and students’ use through increase in education tax from 2% to 4% with collaboration with the world bank and other funding agencies as being practiced in other countries of the world such as Norway, Spain, and United Kingdom.

Keywords: tertiary education trust fund, intervention, education, human development

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Authors: Thomas Wimmer, Bernhard Weigand

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The improvement of gas turbine efficiency is one of the main drivers of research and development in the gas turbine market. This has led to elevated gas turbine inlet temperatures beyond the melting point of the utilized materials. The turbine parts need to be actively cooled in order to withstand these harsh environments. However, the usage of compressor air as coolant decreases the overall gas turbine efficiency. Thus, coolant consumption needs to be minimized in order to gain the maximum advantage from higher turbine inlet temperatures. Therefore, sophisticated cooling designs for gas turbine parts aim to minimize coolant mass flow. New design space is accessible as additive manufacturing is maturing to industrial usage for the creation of hot gas flow path parts. By making use of this technology more efficient cooling schemes can be manufacture. In order to find such cooling schemes a generative design method is being developed. It generates cooling schemes randomly which adhere to a set of rules. These assure the sanity of the design. A huge amount of different cooling schemes are generated and implemented in a simulation environment where it is validated. Criteria for the fitness of the cooling schemes are coolant mass flow, maximum temperature and temperature gradients. This way the whole design space is sampled and a Pareto optimum front can be identified. This approach is applied to a flat plate, which resembles a simplified section of a hot gas flow path part. Realistic boundary conditions are applied and thermal barrier coating is accounted for in the simulation environment. The resulting cooling schemes are presented and compared to representative conventional cooling schemes. Further development of this method can give access to cooling schemes with an even better performance having higher complexity, which makes use of the available design space.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, cooling, gas turbine, heat transfer, heat transfer design, optimization

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Authors: Quang Hung Nguyen, Avinash Baji, Tien Thanh Nguyen, Vi Khanh Truong

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This study investigates the properties of zinc oxide (ZnO) as an antibacterial agent to combat Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a significant public health threat due to its antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Contamination by S. aureus, particularly through food, poses substantial health risks to communities. ZnO, known for its antibacterial properties, was evaluated as an alternative to conventional antibiotics, which are increasingly ineffective against AMR strains of S. aureus. The study involved depositing S. aureus onto ZnO nanostructures grown on PVDF-HFP fiber micropillars fabricated using a nanoimprinting technique. These ZnO nanostructures created a sharp, textured surface capable of combating S. aureus through both physical contact and chemical interactions. Bacterial viability was assessed using the Live/Dead™ BacLight™ Bacterial Viability Kit and observed under confocal laser microscopy. The results showed a significant reduction in S. aureus levels, with bacterial cells largely eliminated and inhibited on the ZnO surface (3.8% ± 6%, P < 0.00001), confirming ZnO's effectiveness as an antibacterial agent. Additionally, ZnO’s application in food packaging was evaluated, demonstrating its potential to improve food safety by reducing bacterial contamination. This study underscores ZnO as a sustainable and effective solution to address the challenges posed by AMR in S. aureus, offering promising applications in public health and food safety.

Keywords: S. Aureus, antibacterial, antimicrobial resistant, nanostructures, Micropillar, copolymers material, food packaging

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Authors: Marin Mandić, Elis Sutlović, Tonći Modrić, Luka Stanić

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With the restructuring and deregulation of the power system, storage owners, generation companies or private producers can offer their multiple services on various power markets and earn income in different types of markets, such as the day-ahead, real-time, ancillary services market, etc. During the COVID-19 pandemic, electricity prices, as well as ancillary services prices, increased significantly. The optimization of the energy storage operation was performed using a suitable model for simulating the operation of a pumped storage hydropower plant under market conditions. The objective function maximizes the income earned through energy arbitration, regulation-up, regulation-down and spinning reserve services. The optimization technique used for solving the objective function is mixed integer linear programming (MILP). In numerical examples, the pumped storage hydropower plant operation has been optimized considering the already achieved hourly electricity market prices from Nord Pool for the pre-pandemic (2019) and the pandemic (2020 and 2021) years. The impact of the electricity market prices during the COVID-19 pandemic on energy storage operation is shown through the analysis of income, operating hours, reserved capacity and consumed energy for each service. The results indicate the role of energy storage during a significant fluctuation in electricity and services prices.

Keywords: electrical market prices, electricity market, energy storage optimization, mixed integer linear programming (MILP) optimization

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Authors: Zhai Yuan, Wu Xueqing

Abstract:

This article statistics the technology which used by Chinese and foreign excellent players in the game, including types and serves areas,receive technology and effect and utilization ratio receiving and losing points. The sample is che videos which is world's top matches of excellent badminton athletes of che single, including Chinese players’ 43 games and foreign players’ 38 games. Conclusion: For the serving, Chinese and foreign single players are to give priority to forehand short-low serve and the long-high serve. And Chinese and foreign players in using forehand short-low serve and drive server exist significant differences; For the serves areas, Chinese and foreign players serve area is concentrated in area 1,5,6. Area 6 has the highest rate of all the district areas, following by the area 1and area 5. Among the 2ed serve area Sino-foreign player, there exist significant differences; In the receiver, when returning the frontcourt shutter, players is given priority to net lift and push. When returning the backcourt shutter, receiver's the best ball is smash, followed by clear and drop shot. Foreign players have higher utilization rate in smash than Chinese players in the backcourt; In the receiver result, Chinese players give priority to actively and equally situation than foreign players, but in negatively receiving is just opposite.

Keywords: badminton, woman’s singles, technique and tactics, comparative analysis

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Authors: Feijoo E. Colomine Duran, Carlos E. Peñaloza Corredor

Abstract:

There modeling component selection financial investment (Portfolio) a variety of problems that can be addressed with optimization techniques under evolutionary schemes. For his feature, the problem of selection of investment components of a dichotomous relationship between two elements that are opposed: The Portfolio Performance and Risk presented by choosing it. This relationship was modeled by Markowitz through a media problem (Performance) - variance (risk), ie must Maximize Performance and Minimize Risk. This research included the study and implementation of multi-objective evolutionary techniques to solve these problems, taking as experimental framework financial market equities Colombia Stock Exchange between 2009-2015. Comparisons three multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, namely the Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II), the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) and Indicator-Based Selection in Multiobjective Search (IBEA) were performed using two measures well known performance: The Hypervolume indicator and R_2 indicator, also it became a nonparametric statistical analysis and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The comparative analysis also includes an evaluation of the financial efficiency of the investment portfolio chosen by the implementation of various algorithms through the Sharpe ratio. It is shown that the portfolio provided by the implementation of the algorithms mentioned above is very well located between the different stock indices provided by the Colombia Stock Exchange.

Keywords: finance, optimization, portfolio, Markowitz, evolutionary algorithms

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Authors: Guclu Insel, Efe Gumuslu, Gulten Yuksek, Nilay Sayi Ucar, Emine Ubay Cokgor, Tugba Olmez Hanci, Didem Okutman Tas, Fatos Germirli Babuna, Derya Firat Ertem, Okmen Yildirim, Ozge Erturan, Betul Kirci

Abstract:

In order to eliminate water scarcity problems, effective precautions must be taken. Growing competition for water is increasingly forcing facilities to tackle their own water scarcity problems. At this point, application of wastewater reclamation and reuse results in considerable economic advantageous. In this study, an enamel coating facility, which is one of the high water consumed facilities, is evaluated in terms of its wastewater reuse potential. Wastewater reclamation and reuse can be defined as one of the best available techniques for this sector. Hence, process and pollution profiles together with detailed characterization of segregated wastewater sources are appraised in a way to find out the recoverable effluent streams arising from enamel coating operations. Daily, 170 m³ of process water is required and 160 m³ of wastewater is generated. The segregated streams generated by two enamel coating processes are characterized in terms of conventional parameters. Relatively clean segregated wastewater streams (reusable wastewaters) are separately collected and experimental treatability studies are conducted on it. The results reflected that the reusable wastewater fraction has an approximate amount of 110 m³/day that accounts for 68% of the total wastewaters. The need for treatment applicable on reusable wastewaters is determined by considering water quality requirements of various operations and characterization of reusable wastewater streams. Ultra-filtration (UF), Nano-filtration (NF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes are subsequently applied on reusable effluent fraction. Adequate organic matter removal is not obtained with the mentioned treatment sequence.

Keywords: enamel coating, membrane, reuse, wastewater reclamation

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Authors: Maysoon Khalil Askar

Abstract:

The delineation of possible areas of corrosion along the external face of an underground oil pipeline in Trunk line of Al- Garraf oil field was investigated using the horizontal electrical resistivity profiling technique and study the contribution of pH, Moisture Content in Soil and Presence chlorides, sulfates and total dissolve salts in soil and water. The test sites represent a physical and chemical properties of soils. The hydrogen-ion concentration of soil and groundwater range from 7.2 to 9.6, and the resistivity values of the soil along the pipeline were obtained using the YH302B model resistivity meter having values between 1588 and 720 Ohm-cm. the chloride concentration in soil and groundwater is high (more than 1000 ppm), total soulable salt is more than 5000 ppm, and sulphate range from 0.17% and 0.98% in soil and more than 600 ppm in groundwater. The soil is poor aeration, the soil texture is fine (clay and silt soil), the water content is high (the groundwater is close to surface), the chloride and sulphate is high in the soil and groundwater, the total soulable salt is high in ground water and finally the soil electric resistivity is low that the soil is very corrosive and there is the possibility of the pipeline failure. These methods applied in the study are quick, economic and efficient for detecting along buried pipelines which need to be protected. Routine electrical geophysical investigations along buried oil pipelines should be undertaken for the early detection and prevention of pipeline failure with its attendant environmental, human and economic consequences.

Keywords: soil resistivity, corrosion, cathodic protection, chloride concentration, water content

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Authors: Onur Potok, Deniz Deger, Kemal Ulutas, Sahin Yakut, Deniz Bozoglu

Abstract:

Thalium Selenide (TlSe) is used for optoelectronic devices, pressure sensitive detectors, and gamma-ray detectors. The TlSe samples were grown as large single crystals using the Stockbarger-Bridgman method. The thin films, in the form of Al/TlSe/Al, were deposited on the microscope slide in different thicknesses (300-3000 Å) using thermal evaporation technique at 10-5 Torr. The dielectric properties of (TlSe) thin films, capacitance (C) and dielectric loss factor (tanδ), were measured in a frequency range of 10-105 Hz, and temperatures between 213K and 393K via Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy analyzer. The dielectric constant (ε’) and the dielectric loss (ε’’) of the thin films were derived from measured parameters (C and tanδ). These results showed that the dielectric properties of TlSe thin films are frequency and temperature dependent. The capacitance and the dielectric constant decrease with increasing frequency and decreasing temperature. The dielectric loss of TlSe thin films decreases with increasing frequency, on the other hand, they increase with increasing temperature and increasing thicknesses. There is two relaxation region in the investigated frequency and temperature interval. These regions can be called as low and high-frequency dispersion regions. Low-frequency dispersion region can be attributed to the polarization of the main part of the chain structure of TlSe while high-frequency dispersion region can be attributed to the polarization of side parts of the structure.

Keywords: thin films, thallium selenide, dielectric spectroscopy, binary compounds

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Authors: Susana P. Dias, Andrea Gomes, Fernanda M. Ferreira, Marta F. Henriques

Abstract:

Thymus mastichina L. is an endogenous medicinal and aromatic plant of the Mediterranean flora. It has been used empirically over the years as a natural preservative in food. Nowadays, the antimicrobial activity of its bioactive compounds, such as essential oils and extracts, has been well recognized. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the antimicrobial effect of Thymus mastichina ethanolic and aqueous extracts on pathogens and spoilage microorganisms present in cheese during ripening. The effect that the extract type and its concentration has on the development of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Yarrowia lipolytica populations during 24 hours, was studied 'in vitro' using appropriate culture media. The results achieved evidenced the antimicrobial activity of T. mastichina extracts against the studied strains, and the concentration of 2 mg/mL (w/v) was selected and used directly on the cheese surface during ripening. In addition to the microbiological evaluation in terms of total aerobic bacteria, Enterobacteriaceae, yeasts (particularly Y. lipolytica) and molds, the treated cheeses physicochemical evaluation (humidity, aw, pH, colour, and texture) was also performed. The results were compared with cheeses with natamicyn (positive control) and without any treatment (negative control). The physicochemical evaluation showed that the cheeses treated with ethanolic extract of Thymus mastichina, except the fact that they lead to a faster water loss during ripening, did not present considerable differences when compared to controls. The study revealed an evident antimicrobial power of the extracts, although less effective than the one shown by the use of natamycin. For this reason, the improvement of the extraction methods and the adjustment of the extract concentrations will contribute to the use of T. mastichina as a healthier and eco-friendly alternative to natamycin, that is also more attractive from an economic point of view.

Keywords: antimicrobial activity, cheese, ethanolic extract, Thymus mastichina

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