Search results for: second language reading assessment

Authors: Anthony Oppong Kyekyeku, Sussana Antwi-Boasiako, Emmanuel De-Graft Johnson Owusu Ansah

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In this observational study, the performance of a known conventional storage system was tested and evaluated for fitness for its intended purpose. The system has a scope extended for the storage of dry cocoa beans. System sensitivity, reproducibility and uncertainties are not known in details. This study discusses the system performance in the context of existing literature on factors that influence the quality of cocoa beans during storage. Controlled conditions were defined precisely for the system to give reliable base line within specific established procedures. Minitab® 17 and R statistical software (R-3.3.1) were used for the statistical analyses. The approach to the storage system testing was to observe and compare through laboratory test methods the quality of the cocoa beans samples before and after storage. The samples were kept in Kilner jars and the temperature of the storage environment controlled and monitored over a period of 408 days. Standard test methods use in international trade of cocoa such as the cut test analysis, moisture determination with Aqua boy KAM III model and bean count determination were used for quality assessment. The data analysis assumed the entire population as a sample in order to establish a reliable baseline to the data collected. The study concluded a statistically significant mean value at 95% Confidence Interval (CI) for the performance data analysed before and after storage for all variables observed. Correlational graphs showed a strong positive correlation for all variables investigated with the exception of All Other Defect (AOD). The weak relationship between the before and after data for AOD had an explained variability of 51.8% with the unexplained variability attributable to the uncontrolled condition of hidden infestation before storage. The current study concluded with a high-performance criterion for the storage system.

Keywords: benchmarking performance data, cocoa beans, hidden infestation, storage system validation

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Authors: Candela Contero Urgal

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Using realia to teach English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is a must, as it is thought to be designed to meet the students’ real needs in their professional life. Teachers are then expected to offer authentic materials and set students in authentic contexts where their learning outcomes can be highly meaningful. One way of engaging students is using social networks as a way to bridge the gap between their everyday life and their ESP learning outcomes. It is in ESP, particularly in Business English teaching, that our study focuses, as the ongoing process of digitalization is leading firms to use social media to communicate with potential clients. The present paper is aimed at carrying out a case study in which different digital tools are employed as a way to offer a collection of formats businesses are currently using so as to internationalize and advertise their products and services. A secondary objective of our study will then be to progress on the development of multidisciplinary competencies students are to acquire during their degree. A two-phased study will be presented. The first phase will cover the analysis of course tasks accomplished by undergraduate students at the University of Cadiz (Spain) in their third year of the Degree in Business Management and Administration by comparing the results obtained during the years 2019 to 2021. The second part of our study will present a survey conducted to these students in 2021 and 2022 so as to verify their interest in learning new ways to digitalize as well as internationalize their future businesses. Findings will confirm students’ interest in working with updated realia in their Business English lessons, as a consequence of their strong belief in the necessity to have authentic contexts and didactic resources. Despite the limitations social media can have as a means to teach business English, students will still find it highly beneficial since it will foster their familiarisation with the digital tools they will need to use when they get to the labour market.

Keywords: English for specific purposes, business English, internationalization of higher education, foreign language teaching

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Authors: Sangita Pokhrel, Nalinda Somasiri, Rebecca Jeyavadhanam, Swathi Ganesan

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Tourism is a booming industry with huge future potential for global wealth and employment. There are countless data generated over social media sites every day, creating numerous opportunities to bring more insights to decision-makers. The integration of Big Data Technology into the tourism industry will allow companies to conclude where their customers have been and what they like. This information can then be used by businesses, such as those in charge of managing visitor centers or hotels, etc., and the tourist can get a clear idea of places before visiting. The technical perspective of natural language is processed by analysing the sentiment features of online reviews from tourists, and we then supply an enhanced long short-term memory (LSTM) framework for sentiment feature extraction of travel reviews. We have constructed a web review database using a crawler and web scraping technique for experimental validation to evaluate the effectiveness of our methodology. The text form of sentences was first classified through Vader and Roberta model to get the polarity of the reviews. In this paper, we have conducted study methods for feature extraction, such as Count Vectorization and TFIDF Vectorization, and implemented Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) classifier algorithm for the sentiment analysis to decide the tourist’s attitude towards the destinations is positive, negative, or simply neutral based on the review text that they posted online. The results demonstrated that from the CNN algorithm, after pre-processing and cleaning the dataset, we received an accuracy of 96.12% for the positive and negative sentiment analysis.

Keywords: counter vectorization, convolutional neural network, crawler, data technology, long short-term memory, web scraping, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Vishnu Nagendra, Marten Van Der Veen, Stefania Giodini

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Effective humanitarian logistics operations are a cornerstone in the success of disaster relief operations. However, for effectiveness, they need to be demand driven and supported by adequate data for prioritization. Without this data operations are carried out in an ad hoc manner and eventually become chaotic. The current availability of geospatial data helps in creating models for predictive damage and vulnerability assessment, which can be of great advantage to logisticians to gain an understanding on the nature and extent of the disaster damage. This translates into actionable information on the demand for relief goods, the state of the transport infrastructure and subsequently the priority areas for relief delivery. However, due to the unpredictable nature of disasters, the accuracy in the models need improvement which can be done using remote sensing data from UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) or satellite imagery, which again come with certain limitations. This research addresses the need for a framework to combine data from different sources to support humanitarian logistic operations and prediction models. The focus is on developing a workflow to combine data from satellites and UAVs post a disaster strike. A three-step approach is followed: first, the data requirements for logistics activities are made explicit, which is done by carrying out semi-structured interviews with on field logistics workers. Second, the limitations in current data collection tools are analyzed to develop workaround solutions by following a systems design approach. Third, the data requirements and the developed workaround solutions are fit together towards a coherent workflow. The outcome of this research will provide a new method for logisticians to have immediately accurate and reliable data to support data-driven decision making.

Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicles, damage prediction models, remote sensing, data driven decision making

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Authors: Natalia Feruleva

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The goal of this paper is to develop the fraud risk assessment model basing on both relational and financial data and test the impact of the relationships between Russian non-public companies on the likelihood of financial fraud commitment. Relationships mean various linkages between companies such as parent-subsidiary relationship and person-related relationships. These linkages may provide additional opportunities for committing fraud. Person-related relationships appear when firms share a director, or the director owns another firm. The number of companies belongs to CEO and managed by CEO, the number of subsidiaries was calculated to measure the relationships. Moreover, the dummy variable describing the existence of parent company was also included in model. Control variables such as financial leverage and return on assets were also implemented because they describe the motivating factors of fraud. To check the hypotheses about the influence of the chosen parameters on the likelihood of financial fraud, information about person-related relationships between companies, existence of parent company and subsidiaries, profitability and the level of debt was collected. The resulting sample consists of 160 Russian non-public firms. The sample includes 80 fraudsters and 80 non-fraudsters operating in 2006-2017. The dependent variable is dichotomous, and it takes the value 1 if the firm is engaged in financial crime, otherwise 0. Employing probit model, it was revealed that the number of companies which belong to CEO of the firm or managed by CEO has significant impact on the likelihood of financial fraud. The results obtained indicate that the more companies are affiliated with the CEO, the higher the likelihood that the company will be involved in financial crime. The forecast accuracy of the model is about is 80%. Thus, the model basing on both relational and financial data gives high level of forecast accuracy.

Keywords: financial fraud, fraud prediction, non-public companies, regression analysis, relational data

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Authors: Kandi Sridhar, Charles Albert Linton

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Grapes are excellent sources of bioactive compounds, which have been suggested to be responsible for lowering the risk of chronic diseases. Fresh and freeze-dried extracts of Kyoho and Jubilee, commercial grape varieties available in Taiwan and attractive for their quality berries, were investigated for their total phenolics and total flavonoids contents and related dose-dependent antioxidants properties using various in vitro assays. The efficiency of the extraction yield ranged from 7.10 % to 25.53 % (w/w), depending on solvent used. Fresh samples of Kyoho and Jubilee exhibited total polyphenolic contents (351.56 ± 23.08 and 328.67 ± 16.54 µg GAE/mL, respectively), whereas Kyoho freeze-dried methanol: water extracts contains the good levels of total flavonoids (4767.82 ± 22.20 µg QE/mL). Kyoho and Jubilee freeze-dried extracts exhibited the highest total flavonoid contents. There was a weak correlation between total phenolic and flavonoid assays (r= -0.05, R2 = 0.02, p > 0.05). Kyoho fresh and freeze-dried samples showed the DPPH (11.51 – 77.82 %), superoxide scavenging activity (33.61 – 81.95 %), and total antioxidant inhibition (92.01 – 99.28 %), respectively. Total flavonoids were statistically correlated with EC50 DPPH scavenging radicals (r =0.91, p < 0.01), EC50 nitric oxide (r = 0.25, p > 0.05), and EC50 lipid peroxidation radicals (r = 0.38, p > 0.05). These results suggested that the two commercial grape cultivars in Taiwan could be used as a good source of natural antioxidants. Thus, consumption of grapes as a source antioxidant might lower the risk of chronic diseases. Moreover, future studies will investigate and develop phenolic acid profile for the cultivars in Taiwan.

Keywords: antioxidants, EC50 radical scavenging activity, grape cultivars, total phenolics

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Authors: Veena N. Hegde, S. R. Desai

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Motivating a heterogeneous group of students towards engagement in research related activities is a challenging task in engineering education. An effort is being made at the Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, where two courses are taken up on a pilot basis to kindle research interests in students at the undergraduate level. The courses, namely algorithm and system design (ASD) and automation in process control (APC), are selected for experimentation purposes. The task is being accomplished by providing scope for implementation of research papers and proposing solutions for the current industrial problems by the student teams. The course instructors have proposed an alternative assessment tool to evaluate the undergraduate students that involve activities beyond the curriculum. The method was tested for the aforementioned two courses in a particular academic year, and as per the observations, there is a considerable improvement in the number of student engagement towards research in the subsequent years of their undergraduate course. The student groups from the third-year engineering were made to read, implement the research papers, and they were also instructed to develop simulation modules for certain processes aiming towards automation. The target audience being students, were common for both the courses and the students' strength was 30. Around 50% of successful students were given the continued tasks in the subsequent two semesters, and out of 15 students who continued from sixth semesters were able to follow the research methodology well in the seventh and eighth semesters. Further, around 30% of the students out of 15 ended up carrying out project work with a research component involved and were successful in producing four conference papers. The methodology adopted is justified using a sample data set, and the outcomes are highlighted. The quantitative and qualitative results obtained through this study prove that such practices will enhance learning experiences substantially at the undergraduate level.

Keywords: industrial problems, learning experiences, research related activities, student engagement

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Authors: Faruk Aras, Melih Inal, Tansel Cinar

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The coordination of airport staff especially in the operations and maintenance departments is important for the airport operation. As a result, this coordination will increase the efficiency in all operation. Therefore, a Collaborative Decision-Making (CDM) system targets on improving the overall productivity of all operations by optimizing the use of resources and improving the predictability of actions. Enlarged productivity can be of major benefit for all airport operations. It also increases cost-efficiency. This study explains how predictive maintenance using IoT (Internet of Things), predictive operations and the statistical data such as Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) improves airport terminal operations and utilize airport terminal equipment in collaboration with collaborative decision making system/Airport Operation Control Center (AOCC). Data generated by the predictive maintenance methods is retrieved and analyzed by maintenance managers to predict when a problem is about to occur. With that information, maintenance can be scheduled when needed. As an example, AOCC operator would have chance to assign a new gate that towards to this gate all the equipment such as travellator, elevator, escalator etc. are operational if the maintenance team is in collaboration with AOCC since maintenance team is aware of the health of the equipment because of predictive maintenance methods. Applying predictive maintenance methods based on analyzing the health of airport terminal equipment dramatically reduces the risk of downtime by on time repairs. We can classify the categories as high priority calls for urgent repair action, as medium priority requires repair at the earliest opportunity, and low priority allows maintenance to be scheduled when convenient. In all cases, identifying potential problems early resulted in better allocation airport terminal resources by AOCC.

Keywords: airport, predictive maintenance, collaborative decision-making system, Airport Operation Control Center (AOCC)

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Authors: Hongmei Gu, Shaobo Liang, Richard Bergman

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With current worldwide trend in designs to have net-zero emission buildings to mitigate climate change, widespread use of mass timber products, such as Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), or Nail Laminated Timber (NLT) or Dowel Laminated Timber (DLT) in buildings have been proposed as one approach in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Consequentially, mass timber building designs are being adopted more and more by architectures in North America, especially for mid- to high-rise buildings where concrete and steel buildings are currently prevalent, but traditional light-frame wood buildings are not. Wood buildings and their associated wood products have tended to have lower environmental impacts than competing energy-intensive materials. It is common practice to conduct life cycle assessments (LCAs) and life cycle cost analyses on buildings with traditional structural materials like concrete and steel in the building design process. Mass timber buildings with lower environmental impacts, especially GHG emissions, can contribute to the Net Zero-emission goal for the world-building sector. However, the economic impacts from CLT mass timber buildings still vary from the life-cycle cost perspective and environmental trade-offs associated with GHG emissions. This paper quantified the Total Life Cycle Cost and cradle-to-grave GHG emissions of a pre-designed CLT mass timber building and compared it to a functionally-equivalent concrete building. The Total life cycle Eco-cost-efficiency is defined in this study and calculated to discuss the trade-offs for the net-zero emission buildings in a holistic view for both environmental and economic impacts. Mass timber used in buildings for the United States is targeted to the materials from the nation’s sustainable managed forest in order to benefit both national and global environments and economies.

Keywords: GHG, economic impact, eco-cost-efficiency, total life-cycle costs

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Authors: Anwaar Anwar Tayel

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Background: Rheumatic arthritis (RA) affect all aspects of patients' life, lead to various degrees of disability, and ultimately has a profound impact on the social, economic, psychological, and sexual aspects of the patient's life. Aim of the study: Identify physical, psychological, and sexual implications of rheumatoid arthritis among women in reproductive age. In addition to investigating the correlations between physical functional disability, psychological problems, and sexual dysfunction.Settings: The study was conducted at Rheumatology Clinic at the Main University Hospital of Alexandria. Subjects: Purposive sample was chosen from women patients with rheumatoid arthritis to be subjects of this study (n=250). Tools: Four tools were used to collect data. Tool I: Socio-demographic questionnaire. Tool II: Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ- DI). Tool III: Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS). Tool IV: The Sexual Dysfunction Questionnaire (SDQ) Results: The majority of the studied women suffer from severe physical disability, extreme level of depression, anxiety, and about half of them had an extreme level of stress. Also, the majority of the studied women had a severe level of sexual dysfunction. Also, statistically significant correlations between women's physical disability index, psychological problems, and sexual dysfunction were detected. Conclusion: The findings from this study confirm that women patients with RA suffer from multiple negative implications on the physical, psychological and sexual functions. Recommendations: Provide ongoing support to the patients from the time of diagnosis throughout their care and management. To help them to manage their pain and disabilities, improve their sexual function, promote their mental health, and optimize psychosocial functioning

Keywords: pysical, spycholgical, sexual, implication, rheumatic arthritis

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Authors: Recep Yücel, Cihat Kartal, Mustafa Kara

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On the basis of strategic management, it is believed in the necessity of a number of innovations in the postmodern management approach in the management of universities in our country. In this sense, some of these requirements are the integration of public and private universities, international integration, R & D status and increasing young population will create a dynamic structure. According to the postmodern management approach, universities, in our country despite being governed by the classical approach autonomous universities; academically are thought solid, to be non-hierarchical and creative. In fact, studies that require a multidisciplinary academic environment, universities and there is a close cooperation between formal and non-formal sub-units. Moreover, terms of postmodern management approaches, the requirements specified in the direction of solving the problem of an increasing number of universities in our country is considered to be more difficult. Therefore, considering the psychological impact on the academic personnel the university organizational structure, the study are trying to aim to propose an appropriate model of university organization. In this context, the study sought to answer the question how to have an impact innovation and international integration on the academic achievement of the classical organizational structure. Finally, in the study, due to the adoption of the classical organizational structure of the university, integration is considered to be difficult, academic cooperation between universities at the international level and maintaining it. In addition, it was understood that block the efforts of this organization structure, academic motivation, development and innovation. In this study under these purposes; on the basis of the existing organization and management structure of the universities in the Marmara Region in Turkey, a study was conducted with qualitative research methods. The data have been analyzed using content analysis and assessment was based on the results obtained.

Keywords: university, strategic management, postmodern management approaches, multidisciplinary studies

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Authors: Aminah Salim, Idrees Ahmed Nasir, Abdul Qayyum Rao, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Sohail Anjum, Ayesha Hameed, Bushra Tabassum, Anwar Khan, Arfan Ali, Mariyam Zameer, Tayyab Husnain

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Risk assessment of transgenic herbicide tolerant sugarcane having CEMB codon optimized cp4EPSPS gene was done in present study. Fifteen days old chicks taken from K&Ns Company were randomly assorted into four groups with eight chicks in each group namely control chicken group fed with commercial diet, non-transgenic group fed with non-experimental sugarcane and transgenic group fed with transgenic sugarcane with minimum and maximum level. Body weights, biochemical analysis for Urea, alkaline phosphatase, alanine transferase, aspartate transferase, creatinine and bilirubin determination and histological examination of chicks fed with four types of feed was taken at fifteen days interval and no significant difference was observed in body weight biochemical and histological studies of all four groups. Protein isolated from the serum sample was analyzed through dipstick and SDS-PAGE, showing the absence of transgene protein in the serum sample of control and experimental groups. Moreover the amplification of cp4EPSPS gene with gene specific primers of DNA isolated from chicks blood and also from commercial diet was done to determine the presence and mobility of any nucleotide fragment of the transgene in/from feed and no amplification was obtained in feed as well as in blood extracted DNA of any group. Also no mRNA expression of cp4EPSPS gene was obtained in any tissue of four groups of chicks. From the results it is clear that there is no deleterious or harmful effect of the CEMB codon optimized transgenic cp4EPSPS sugarcane on the chicks health.

Keywords: chicks, cp4EPSPS, glyphosate, sugarcane

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Authors: John Lamb, Robert Epstein, Vasundhara L. Bhupathi, Sanjeev Kumar Marimekala

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In this paper, we focus on the importance of scalable architecture for data centers and buildings in general to help an enterprise achieve environmental sustainability. The scalable architecture helps in many ways, such as adaptability to the business and user requirements, promotes high availability and disaster recovery solutions that are cost effective and low maintenance. The scalable architecture also plays a vital role in three core areas of sustainability: economy, environment, and social, which are also known as the 3 pillars of a sustainability model. If the architecture is scalable, it has many advantages. A few examples are that scalable architecture helps businesses and industries to adapt to changing technology, drive innovation, promote platform independence, and build resilience against natural disasters. Most importantly, having a scalable architecture helps industries bring in cost-effective measures for energy consumption, reduce wastage, increase productivity, and enable a robust environment. It also helps in the reduction of carbon emissions with advanced monitoring and metering capabilities. Scalable architectures help in reducing waste by optimizing the designs to utilize materials efficiently, minimize resources, decrease carbon footprints by using low-impact materials that are environmentally friendly. In this paper we also emphasize the importance of cultural shift towards the reuse and recycling of natural resources for a balanced ecosystem and maintain a circular economy. Also, since all of us are involved in the use of computers, much of the scalable architecture we have studied is related to data centers.

Keywords: scalable architectures, sustainability, application design, disruptive technology, machine learning and natural language processing, AI, social media platform, cloud computing, advanced networking and storage devices, advanced monitoring and metering infrastructure, climate change

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Bernice Badal

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This article addresses a persistent challenge related to teacher agency in knowledge acquisition in professional development (PD) workshops in contexts of educational change, given that scholarship identifies a need for more teacher involvement and amplification of teacher's voices. Theoretical concepts are drawn from Bandura’s Social cognitive theory, incorporating the triadic causation model of agency to examine the reciprocal nature of the context, teacher characteristics, and systemic influences that shape how knowledge is transmitted and acquired in PD workshops. This qualitative study, using a mix of classroom observations and interviews, explored the political, contextual, and personal characteristics of teacher agency in PD through an analysis of data extracted from a PhD study. The narratives of six teachers from three township schools are examined to show how PD efforts in South Africa have failed to take account of the holistic development of teacher agency in knowledge dissemination and how this shapes teacher self-efficacy beliefs about being able to masterfully apply the tenets of the reform. Agency, teacher voice, and contextual considerations were used as markers of the quality of the training provided to understand how knowledge is acquired and meaning is made. The findings suggest that systemic influences of institutionally imposed PD offer partial understandings of the reform, which is offered in traditional formats that do not consider teacher empowerment in knowledge production and the development of teacher agency. Common in all the participants’ responses is the need for more information and training on the prescribed approach for teaching English as a second language; however, this paper holds the view that more information may not solve teachers’ dilemmas. Accordingly, it recommends a restructuring of the programme with facilitators being more cognisant of teacher agency for the development of transformative teachers. The findings of the study contribute to the field of teacher knowledge, teacher training, and professional development in the context of educational reforms.

Keywords: teacher professional development, teacher voice, teacher agency, educational reforms, teacher knowledge

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Authors: S. K. Balashanmugam, Padmavati Manchikanti, S. R. Subramanian

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The question of legal liability over injury arising out of the import and the introduction of GM food emerges as a crucial issue confronting to promote GM food and its derivatives. There is a greater possibility of commercialized GM food from the exporting country to enter importing country where status of approval shall not be same. This necessitates the importance of fixing a liability mechanism to discuss the damage, if any, occurs at the level of transboundary movement or at the market. There was a widespread consensus to develop the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and to give for a dedicated regime on liability and redress in the form of Nagoya Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on the Liability and Redress (‘N-KL Protocol’) at the international context. The national legal frameworks based on this protocol are not adequately established in the prevailing food legislations of the developing countries. The developing economy like India is willing to import GM food and its derivatives after the successful commercialization of Bt Cotton in 2002. As a party to the N-KL Protocol, it is indispensable for India to formulate a legal framework and to discuss safety, liability, and regulatory issues surrounding GM foods in conformity to the provisions of the Protocol. The liability mechanism is also important in the case where the risk assessment and risk management is still in implementing stage. Moreover, the country is facing GM infiltration issues with its neighbors Bangladesh. As a precautionary approach, there is a need to formulate rules and procedure of legal liability to discuss any kind of damage occurs at transboundary trade. In this context, the proposed work will attempt to analyze the liability regime in the existing Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 from the applicability and domestic compliance and to suggest legal and policy options for regulatory authorities.

Keywords: commercialization, food safety, FSSAI, genetically modified foods, India, liability

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Authors: Mohammad Mohammadi, Mohammad Pashmchi

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Background: Malnutrition commonly develops and worsens following gastric cancer surgery, particularly after discharge, which is associated with adverse outcomes. Former studies have primarily focused on patients during their hospital stay period, and there is limited evidence regarding the recommendation of nutritional interventions for patients after discharge from the hospital following gastric cancer surgery. This review is aimed to evaluate the efficiency of post-discharge dietary counseling with oral nutritional supplements (ONS), and dietary counseling alone on post-surgical nutritional outcomes in patients undergoing gastric cancer surgery. Methods: The four databases of Embase, PubMed, web of science, and google scholar were searched up to November 2022 for relevant randomized controlled trials. The Cochrane Collaboration’s assessment tool for randomized trials was used to evaluate the quality of studies. Results: Compared to patients who only received dietary counseling, patients who received both dietary counseling and ONS had considerably higher SMI, BMI, and less weight loss and sarcopenia occurrence rate. The patients who had received dietary counseling and ONS had significantly lower risk of chemotherapy intolerance. No differences in the readmission rate between the two groups was found. In terms of the quality of life, concomitant dietary advice and ONS significantly was associated with lower appetite loss and fatigue rate, but there was no difference in the other outcomes between the two groups. Conclusions: Post-discharge dietary advice with ONS following gastric cancer surgery may improve skeletal muscle maintenance, nutritional outcomes, quality of life variables, and chemotherapy tolerance. This evidence supports the recommendation of post-discharge dietary advice with ONS for patients who underwent gastric cancer surgery.

Keywords: gastric cancer surgery, oral nutritional supplements, malnutrition, gastric cancer

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Authors: Elvin Çomo, Edlira Tako, Albana Hasimi, Rrapo Ormeni, Olger Gjuzi, Mirela Ndrita

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In Albania, only low enthalpy geothermal springs and wells are known, the temperatures of some of them are almost at the upper limits of low enthalpy, reaching over 60°C. These resources can be used to improve the country's energy balance, as well as for profitable economic purposes. The region of Elbasan has the greatest geothermal energy potential in Albania. This bass is one of the most popular and used in our country. This area is a surface with a number of sources, located in the form of a chain, in the sector between Llixha and Hidraj and constitutes a thermo-mineral basin with stable discharge and high temperature. The sources of Elbasan Springs, with the current average flow of thermo mineral water of 12-18 l/s and its temperature 55-65oC, have specific reserves of 39.6 GJ/m2 and potential power to install 2760 kW. For the assessment of physico-chemical parameters and heavy metals, water samples were taken at 5 monitoring stations throughout the year 2022. The levels of basic parameters were analyzed using ISO, EU and APHA 21-th edition standard methods. This study presents the current state of the physico-chemical parameters of this thermal basin, the evaluation of these parameters for curative activities and for industrial processes, as well as the integrated utilization of geothermal energy. Possibilities for using thermomineral waters for heating homes in the area around them or even further, depending on the flow from the source or geothermal well. Sensitization of Albanian investors, medical research and the community for the high economic and curative effectiveness, for the integral use of geothermal energy in this area and the development of the tourist sector. An analysis of the negative environmental impact from the use of thermal water is also provided.

Keywords: geothermal energy, Llixha, physic-chemical parameters, thermal water

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Authors: Prashanth Pillai, Purnaprajna Mangsuli

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Oil exploration and production companies invest considerable time and efforts to extract essential well attributes (like well status, surface, and target coordinates, wellbore depths, event timelines, etc.) from unstructured data sources like technical reports, which are often non-standardized, multimodal, and highly domain-specific by nature. It is also important to consider the context when extracting attribute values from reports that contain information on multiple wells/wellbores. Moreover, semantically similar information may often be depicted in different data syntax representations across multiple pages and document sources. We propose a hierarchical multi-source fact extraction workflow based on a deep learning framework to extract essential well attributes at scale. An information retrieval module based on the transformer architecture was used to rank relevant pages in a document source utilizing the page image embeddings and semantic text embeddings. A question answering framework utilizingLayoutLM transformer was used to extract attribute-value pairs incorporating the text semantics and layout information from top relevant pages in a document. To better handle context while dealing with multi-well reports, we incorporate a dynamic query generation module to resolve ambiguities. The extracted attribute information from various pages and documents are standardized to a common representation using a parser module to facilitate information comparison and aggregation. Finally, we use a probabilistic approach to fuse information extracted from multiple sources into a coherent well record. The applicability of the proposed approach and related performance was studied on several real-life well technical reports.

Keywords: natural language processing, deep learning, transformers, information retrieval

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Authors: Andra-Iulia Ursa

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James Joyce employs several unconventional stylistic features in this landmark novel meant to experiment with language. The episode known as “Sirens” is entirely conceived around music and linguistic structures subordinated to sound. However, the aspiration to the condition of music is reflected throughout this entire literary work, as musical effects are echoed systematically. The numerous melodies scattered across the narrative play an important role in enhancing the thoughts and feelings that pass through the minds of the characters. Often the lyrics are distorted or interweaved with other words, preoccupations or memories, intensifying the stylistic effect. The Victorian song “Love’s old sweet song” is one of the most commonly referred to and meaningful musical allusions in Ulysses, becoming a leitmotif of infidelity. The lyrics of the song “M’appari”, from the opera “Martha”, are compared to an event from Molly and Bloom’s romantic history. Moreover, repeated phrases using words from “The bloom is on the rye” or “The croppy boy” serve as glances into the minds of the characters. Therefore, the central purpose of this study is to shed light on the way musical allusions flit through the episodes from the point of view of the stream of consciousness technique and to compare and analyse how these constructions are rendered into Romanian. Mircea Ivănescu, the single Romanian translator who succeeded in carrying out the translation of the entire ‘stylistic odyssey’, received both praises and disapprovals from the critics. This paper is not meant to call forth eventual flaws of the Romanian translation, but rather to elaborate the complexity of the task. Following an attentive examination and analysis of the two texts, from the point of view of form and meaning of the references to various songs, the conclusions of this study will be able to point out the intricacies of the process of translation.

Keywords: Joyce, melodious constructions, stream of consciousness, style, translation

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Authors: Akram Khelaifia, Salah Guettala, Nesreddine Djafar Henni, Rachid Chebili

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Recent seismic events have underscored the significant influence of masonry infill walls on the resilience of structures. The irregular positioning of these walls exacerbates their adverse effects, resulting in substantial material and human losses. Research and post-earthquake evaluations emphasize the necessity of considering infill walls in both the design and assessment phases. This study delves into the presence of soft stories in reinforced concrete structures with infill walls. Employing an approximate method relying on pushover analysis results, fiber-section-based macro-modeling is utilized to simulate the behavior of infill walls. The findings shed light on the presence of soft first stories, revealing a notable 240% enhancement in resistance for weak column—strong beam-designed frames due to infill walls. Conversely, the effect is more moderate at 38% for strong column—weak beam-designed frames. Interestingly, the uniform distribution of infill walls throughout the structure's height does not influence soft-story emergence in the same seismic zone, irrespective of column-beam strength. In regions with low seismic intensity, infill walls dissipate energy, resulting in consistent seismic behavior regardless of column configuration. Despite column strength, structures with open-ground stories remain vulnerable to soft first-story emergence, underscoring the crucial role of infill walls in reinforced concrete structural design.

Keywords: masonry infill walls, soft Storey, pushover analysis, fiber section, macro-modeling

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Authors: Runlin Liu, Shilong Li

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China is a mountainous country, with two-thirds of its territory covered by plateaus, hills, and mountains, and nearly half of the cities and towns are distributed in mountainous areas. Compared with the environmental constraints in the development path of cities and towns in the plains, there are heterogeneities in aspects such as spatial characteristics, growth mode, and ecological protection and so on for mountain village and townlets, and the development path of mountain village and townlets has a bidirectional relationship between mountain space and economic growth. Based on classical growth theory, this article explores the two-dimensional coupling relation between space and economy in mountain village and townlets under background of rural rejuvenation. GIS technology is adopted in the study to analyze spatial trends and patterns, economical spatial differentiation characteristics of village and townlets. This powerful tool can also help differentiate and analyze limiting factors and assessment systems in the economic growth of village and townlets under spatial dimension of mountainous space. To make the research more specific, this article selects mountain village and townlets in Southwest China as the object of study; this provides good cases for analyzing parallel coupling mechanism of the duality structure system between economic growth and spatial expansion and discussing the path selection of spatial economic growth of mountain village and towns with multiple constraints. The research results can provide quantitative references for the spatial and economic development paths of mountain villages and towns, which is helpful in realizing efficient and high-quality development mode with equal emphasis on spatial and economic benefits for these type of towns.

Keywords: coupling mechanism, geographic information technology, mountainous town, synergetic development, spatial economy

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Authors: Christelle Navarro, Sébastien Viaud, Carole Gard, Bruno Jahier

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Background: Idiopathic or familial nasal hyperkeratosis (NHK) may be considered a cosmetic issue in its uncomplicated form. Nevertheless, prevention of secondary lesions such as fissures or infections could be advised by proper management. The objective of this open-field study is to evaluate the benefits of a moisturizing balm in privately owned dogs with NHK, using an original validation grid for both investigator and owner assessments. Methods: Dogs with idiopathic or familial NHK received a vegetable-based ointment (Sensiderm® Balm, MP Labo, France) BID for 60 days. A global dermatological score (GDS) was defined using the sum of 4 criteria (“dryness,” “lichenification”, “crusts,” and “affected area”) on a 0 (no) to 3 (severe or > 2/3 extension) scale. Evaluation of this GDS (0-12) on D0, D30, and D60, by owners and investigators was the main outcome. The score’s percentage decrease versus D0, the evolution of each individual score, the correlation between observers, and the evaluation of clinical improvement and animal discomfort on VAS (0-10) during follow-up were analysed. Results: The global dermatological score significantly decreased over time (p<0.0001) for all observers. The decrease reached 44.9% and 54.3% at D30 and 54.5% and 62.3% at D60, for investigators and owners, respectively. “Dryness”, “Lichenification,” and “Affected area scores” decreased significantly and steadily over time compared to Day 0 for both investigators and owners (p < 0.001 and p = 0.001 for investigator assessment of dryness). All but one score (lichenification) were correlated at all times between observers (only at D60 for crusts). Whoever the observer, clinical improvement was always above 7. At D30 and until D60, “animal discomfort” was more than halved. Owner satisfaction was high as soon as D30 (8.1/10). No adverse effects were reported. Conclusion and clinical importance: The positive results confirm the benefits and safety of a moisturizing balm when used in dogs with uncomplicated NHK.

Keywords: hyperkeratosis, nose, dog, moisturizer

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Maram Shahad Dana Anfal

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This research paper presents the design of a surveillance drone with computer-aided durability and model analyses that provides a cost-effective and efficient solution for various applications. The quadcopter's design is based on a lightweight and strong structure made of materials such as aluminum and titanium, which provide a durable structure for the quadcopter. The structure of this product and the computer-aided durability system are both designed to ensure frequent repairs or replacements, which will save time and money in the long run. Moreover, the study discusses the drone's ability to track, investigate, and deliver objects more quickly than traditional methods, makes it a highly efficient and cost-effective technology. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of the quadcopter's operation dynamics and limitations is presented. In both simulation and experimental data, the computer-aided durability system and the drone's design demonstrate their effectiveness, highlighting the potential for a variety of applications, such as search and rescue missions, infrastructure monitoring, and agricultural operations. Also, the findings provide insights into possible areas for improvement in the design and operation of the drone. Ultimately, this paper presents a reliable and cost-effective solution for surveillance applications by designing a drone with computer-aided durability and modeling. With its potential to save time and money, increase reliability, and enhance safety, it is a promising technology for the future of surveillance drones. operation dynamic equations have been evaluated successfully for different flight conditions of a quadcopter. Also, CAE modeling techniques have been applied for the modal risk assessment at operating conditions.Stress analysis have been performed under the loadings of the worst-case combined motion flight conditions.

Keywords: drone, material, solidwork, hypermesh

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Samaneh Yavari, Christiane Pferrer, Elisabeth Engelke, Alexander Starke, Juergen Rehage

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Background: Three nociceptive thresholds of thermal, electrical, and mechanical thresholds commonly use to evaluate the local anesthesia in many species, for instance, cow, horse, cat, dog, rabbit, and so on. Due to the lack of investigations to evaluate and/or validate such those nociceptive thresholds, our plan was the comparison of two-foot local anesthesia methods of Intravenous Regional Anesthesia (IVRA) and our modified four-point Nerve Block Anesthesia (NBA). Materials and Methods: Eight healthy nonpregnant nondairy Holstein Frisian cows in a cross-over study design were selected for this study. All cows divided into two different groups to receive two local anesthesia techniques of IVRA and our modified four-point NBA. Three thermal, electrical, and mechanical force and pinpricks were applied to evaluate the quality of local anesthesia methods before and after local anesthesia application. Results: The statistical evaluation demonstrated that our four-point NBA has a qualification to select as a standard foot local anesthesia. However, the recorded results of our study revealed no significant difference between two groups of local anesthesia techniques of IVRA and modified four-point NBA related to quality and duration of anesthesia stimulated by electrical, mechanical and thermal nociceptive stimuli. Conclusion and discussion: All three nociceptive threshold stimuli of electrical, mechanical and heat nociceptive thresholds can be applied to measure and evaluate the efficacy of foot local anesthesia of dairy cows. However, our study revealed no superiority of those three nociceptive methods to evaluate the duration and quality of bovine foot local anesthesia methods. Veterinarians to investigate the duration and quality of their selected anesthesia method can use any of those heat, mechanical, and electrical methods.

Keywords: mechanical, thermal, electrical threshold, IVRA, NBA, hind limb, dairy cow

Procedia PDF Downloads 243

Authors: David A. Harness

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Natural evolution of ATP cognitive systems is to meet AI peer review standards. ATP process of axiom selection from Mizar to prove a conjecture would be further refined, as in all human and machine learning, by solving the real world problem of the proposed AI peer review challenge: Determine which conjecture forms the higher confidence level constructive proof between Standard Model of Physics SU(n) lattice gauge group operation vs. present non-standard 4D GEM EOS SU(n) lattice gauge group spatially extended operation in which the photon and electron are the first two trace angular momentum invariants of a gravitoelectromagnetic (GEM) energy momentum density tensor wavetrain integration spin-stress pressure-volume equation of state (EOS), initiated via 32 lines of Mathematica code. Resulting gravitoelectromagnetic spectrum ranges from compressive through rarefactive of the central cosmological constant vacuum energy density in units of pascals. Said self-adjoint group operation exclusively operates on the stress energy momentum tensor of the Einstein field equations, introducing quantization directly on the 4D spacetime level, essentially reformulating the Yang-Mills virtual superpositioned particle compounded lattice gauge groups quantization of the vacuum—into a single hyper-complex multi-valued GEM U(1) × SU(1,3) lattice gauge group Planck spacetime mesh quantization of the vacuum. Thus the Mizar corpus already contains all of the axioms required for relevant DeepMath premise selection and unambiguous formal natural language parsing in context deep learning.

Keywords: automated theorem proving, constructive quantum field theory, information theory, neural networks

Procedia PDF Downloads 179

Authors: Shang-Yu Chiang, Yu-Shan Tsai, Shih-Hsien Sung, Chung-Ming Lo

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Mitral regurgitation (MR) is a heart disorder which the mitral valve does not close properly when the heart pumps out blood. MR is the most common form of valvular heart disease in the adult population. The diagnostic echocardiographic finding of MR is straightforward due to the well-known clinical evidence. In the determination of MR severity, quantification of sonographic findings would be useful for clinical decision making. Clinically, the vena contracta is a standard for MR evaluation. Vena contracta is the point in a blood stream where the diameter of the stream is the least, and the velocity is the maximum. The quantification of vena contracta, i.e. the vena contracta width (VCW) at mitral valve, can be a numeric measurement for severity assessment. However, manually delineating the VCW may not accurate enough. The result highly depends on the operator experience. Therefore, this study proposed an automatic method to quantify VCW to evaluate MR severity. Based on color Doppler ultrasound, VCW can be observed from the blood flows to the probe as the appearance of red or yellow area. The corresponding brightness represents the value of the flow rate. In the experiment, colors were firstly transformed into HSV (hue, saturation and value) to be closely align with the way human vision perceives red and yellow. Using ellipse to fit the high flow rate area in left atrium, the angle between the mitral valve and the ultrasound probe was calculated to get the vertical shortest diameter as the VCW. Taking the manual measurement as the standard, the method achieved only 0.02 (0.38 vs. 0.36) to 0.03 (0.42 vs. 0.45) cm differences. The result showed that the proposed automatic VCW extraction can be efficient and accurate for clinical use. The process also has the potential to reduce intra- or inter-observer variability at measuring subtle distances.

Keywords: mitral regurgitation, vena contracta, color doppler, image processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: Kuan-Hao Tsui, Li-Te Lin, Chia-Jung Li

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The combination of Y-27632 and Vitamin C significantly enhances the quality of aging germ cells by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, restoring mitochondrial membrane potential balance, and promoting mitochondrial fusion. The age-related decline in oocyte quality contributes to reduced fertility, increased aneuploidy, and diminished embryo quality, with mitochondrial dysfunction in both oocytes and granulosa cells being a key factor in this decline. Experiments on aging germ cells investigated the effects of the Y-27632 and Vitamin C combination. In vivo studies involved aged mice to assess oocyte maturation and ROS accumulation during culture. The assessment included mitochondrial activity, ROS levels, mitochondrial membrane potential, and mitochondrial dynamics. Cellular energy metabolism and ATP production were also measured. The combination treatment effectively addressed mitochondrial dysfunction and regulated cellular energy metabolism, promoting oxygen respiration and increasing ATP production. In aged mice, this supplement treatment enhanced in vitro oocyte maturation and prevented ROS accumulation in aging oocytes during culture. While these findings are promising, further research is needed to explore the long-term effects and potential side effects of the Y-27632 and Vitamin C combination. Additionally, translating these findings to human subjects requires careful consideration. Overall, the study suggests that the Y-27632 and Vitamin C combination could be a promising intervention to mitigate aging-related dysfunction in germ cells, potentially enhancing oocyte quality, particularly in the context of in vitro fertilization.

Keywords: ovarian aging, supplements, ROS, mitochondria

Procedia PDF Downloads 39

Authors: Debra L. Stanley, Gabriela Wasileski

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Offenders face many challenges as they transition from being incarcerated to the community, ranging from housing and employment needs to long standing problems with addictions and mental health issues. A lack of appropriate behavioral health services in the more remote parts of the United States has led to a significant illegal substance abuse problem, housing instability, and unaddressed mental health and trauma issues. High rates of poverty and unemployment exacerbate the growing behavioral health issues, drug overdoses, co-occurring disorders, and crime that are so prevalent across rural communities. This study examines the challenges of rural jail reentry faced by offenders in a treatment capacity. The client-centered evidence-based program is uniquely designed to provide continuity of care that focuses on issues which affect rural communities. Prior to release from jail, individuals go through comprehensive assessment screenings to measure mental health and substance use disorder as well as trauma and prior crime victimization histories; the assessments help to target client-specific services. The quasi-experimental research design tracks clients throughout their recovery and reintegration into the community. Individuals in a rural program often do not have the benefit of easy access or peer mentoring that is so often found in urban recovery programs. Therefore, much of the support is provided through telehealth and e-services. The goal of this study is to explore the nature of rural reentry programs and measures of recidivism, drug overdoses, and other behavioral health needs and successful reentry to include stable housing and employment.

Keywords: jail reentry, rehabilitation, behavioral health, drug abuse, recidivism

Procedia PDF Downloads 95

Authors: Sungsoo Na, Chanho Park

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Lung cancer is one of the most common severe diseases driving to the death of a human. Lung cancer can be divided into two cases of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-SCLC (NSCLC), and about 80% of lung cancers belong to the case of NSCLC. From several studies, the correlation between epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and NSCLCs has been investigated. Therefore, EGFR inhibitor drugs such as gefitinib and erlotinib have been used as lung cancer treatments. However, the treatments result showed low response (10~20%) in clinical trials due to EGFR mutations that cause the drug resistance. Patients with resistance to EGFR inhibitor drugs usually are positive to KRAS mutation. Therefore, assessment of EGFR and KRAS mutation is essential for target therapies of NSCLC patient. In order to overcome the limitation of conventional therapies, overall EGFR and KRAS mutations have to be monitored. In this work, the only detection of EGFR will be presented. A variety of techniques has been presented for the detection of EGFR mutations. The standard detection method of EGFR mutation in ctDNA relies on real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Real-time PCR method provides high sensitive detection performance. However, as the amplification step increases cost effect and complexity increase as well. Other types of technology such as BEAMing, next generation sequencing (NGS), an electrochemical sensor and silicon nanowire field-effect transistor have been presented. However, those technologies have limitations of low sensitivity, high cost and complexity of data analyzation. In this report, we propose a label-free and high-sensitive detection method of lung cancer using quartz crystal microbalance based platform. The proposed platform is able to sense lung cancer mutant DNA with a limit of detection of 1nM.

Keywords: cancer DNA, resonance frequency, quartz crystal microbalance, lung cancer

Procedia PDF Downloads 232

Authors: Iara Rezende, Djalma Silva, Alcino Costa Neto

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Considering the transformations of the contemporary world linked to globalization and climate changes caused by global warming, the environmental and energy issues have been increasingly present in the decisions of the world scenario. Thus, the aim of reducing the impacts caused by human activities there are the energy efficiency measures, which are also applicable in the scope of Civil Engineering. Considering that a large part of the energy demand from buildings is related to the need to adapt the internal environment to the users comfort and productivity, measures capable of reducing this need can minimize the climate changes impacts and also the energy consumption of the building. However, these important measures are currently little used by civil engineers, either because of the interdisciplinarity of the subject, the time required to apply certain methods or the difficult interpretation of the results obtained by computational programs that often have a complex and little applied approach. Thus, it was proposed the development of a Java application with a simpler and applied approach to evaluate the thermal performance of a building in order to obtain results capable of assisting the civil engineers in the decision making related to the users thermal comfort. The program was built in Java programming language and the method used for the evaluation was the Center Scientifique et Technique du Batiment (CSTB) method. The program was used to evaluate the thermal performance of a university classroom. The analysis was carried out from simulations considering the worst climatic situation of the building occupation. Thus, at the end of the process, the favorable result was obtained regarding the classroom comfort zone and the feasibility of using the program, thus achieving the proposed objectives.

Keywords: building occupation, CSTB method, energy efficiency measures, Java application, thermal comfort

Procedia PDF Downloads 130