Search results for: category search

Authors: Aistis ZekevicIus

Abstract:

Biopolitical theory, which was first developed by Michel Foucault, takes into consideration the administration of life by implying a style of government based on the regulation of populations as its subject. The intensification of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and popular outcries against racial discrimination in the US health system have prompted us to reconsider the relationship between biopolitics and race in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on works by Foucault, Achille Mbembe and Nicholas Mirzoeff that transcend the boundaries of poststructuralism, critical theory and postcolonial studies, the paper suggests that the global pandemic has highlighted new aspects of the interplay between biopower and race by encouraging the search for scapegoats, deepening the structural racial inequality, and thus producing necropolitical regimes of exclusion.

Keywords: biopolitics, biopower, necropolitics, pandemic, race

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Authors: Hsiao-Yung Wang

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This paper aims to elaborate methodology of visual rhetoric with constant reference to Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotope”. First, it attempts to outline Ronald Barthes, the most representative scholar of visual rhetoric and structuralism, perspective on visual rhetoric and its time-space category by referring to the concurrent word-image, the symbolic systematicity, the outer dialogicity. Second, an alternative approach is explored for grasping the dynamics and functions of visual rhetoric by articulating Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotope.” Furthermore, that visual rhetorical consciousness could be identified as “the meaning parabola which projects from word to image,” “the symbolic system which proceeds from sequence to disorder,” “the ideological environment which struggles from the local to the global.” Last but not least, primary vision of the 2014 Taipei LGBT parade would be analyzed preliminarily to evaluate the effectiveness and persuasiveness embodied by specific visual rhetorical strategies. How Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotope” to explain the potential or possible ideological struggle deployed by visual rhetoric might be interpreted empirically and extensively.

Keywords: barthes, chronotope, Mikhail Bakhtin, Taipei LGBT parade, visual rhetoric

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Authors: Eudjen Cinc

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Common Byzantine origins of church music of Serbs and Romanians are certainly not the only reason for great similarities between the ways of singing of the two nations, especially in the region of Banat. If it was so, the differences between the interpretation of church music in this part of Orthodox religion and the one specific for other parts where Serbs or Romanians live could not be explained. What is it that connects church signing of two nations in this peaceful part of Europe to such an extent that it could be considered a comprehensive corpus, different from other 'Serbian' or 'Romanian' regions? This is the main issue dealt with in the text according to examples and comparative processing of material. The main aim of the paper is representation of the new and interesting, while its value lies in its potential to encourage the reader or a future researcher to investigate and search further.

Keywords: folk influences, melody, melodic models, ethnomusicology

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Authors: Terada Pinyo

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This study is a survey research designed to evaluate the quality of graduate students and factors influencing their quality. The sample group consists of 240 students. The data are collected from stratified sampling and are analyzed and calculated by instant computer program. Statistics used are percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson correlation coefficient, Cramer’s V and logistic regression analysis. It is found that the graduate students’ opinions regarding their characteristics according to the Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF) are at high score range both overall and specific category. The top categories that received the top score are interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, knowledge, cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology skills, respectively. On the other hand, factors affecting the quality of graduate students are cognitive skills, numerical analysis with communication and information technology, knowledge, interpersonal skills and responsibility, ethics and morals, and career regarding sales/business, respectively.

Keywords: student quality evaluation, Thai qualifications framework for higher education, graduate school, cognitive skills

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Authors: R. Ouafi, F. Ouafi

Abstract:

We study the problem of cutting a rectangular material entity into smaller sub-entities of trapezoidal forms with minimum waste of the material. This problem will be denoted TCP (Trapezoidal Cutting Problem). The TCP has many applications in manufacturing processes of various industries: pipe line design (petro chemistry), the design of airfoil (aeronautical) or cuts of the components of textile products. We introduce an orthogonal build to provide the optimal horizontal and vertical homogeneous strips. In this paper we develop a general heuristic search based upon orthogonal build. By solving two one-dimensional knapsack problems, we combine the horizontal and vertical homogeneous strips to give a non orthogonal cutting pattern.

Keywords: combinatorial optimization, cutting problem, heuristic

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Authors: Annika J. Meyer, Tom Piechotta

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have increasingly become vital tools in various applications, including surveillance, search and rescue, and environmental monitoring. One common approach to ensure redundant communication systems when flying beyond visual line of sight is for UAVs to employ multiple mobile data modems by different providers. Although widely adopted, this approach suffers from several drawbacks, such as high costs, added weight and potential increases in signal interference. In light of these challenges, this paper proposes a communication framework intermeshing mobile networks and LoRa (Long Range) technology—a low-power, long-range communication protocol. LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is commonly used in Internet of Things applications, relying on stationary gateways and Internet connectivity. This paper, however, utilizes the underlying LoRa protocol, taking advantage of the protocol’s low power and long-range capabilities while ensuring efficiency and reliability. Conducted in collaboration with the Potsdam Fire Department, the implementation of mobile network technology in combination with the LoRa protocol in small UAVs (take-off weight < 0.4 kg), specifically designed for search and rescue and area monitoring missions, is explored. This research aims to test the viability of LoRa as an additional redundant communication system during UAV flights as well as its intermeshing with the primary, mobile network-based controller. The methodology focuses on direct UAV-to-UAV and UAV-to-ground communications, employing different spreading factors optimized for specific operational scenarios—short-range for UAV-to-UAV interactions and long-range for UAV-to-ground commands. This explored use case also dramatically reduces one of the major drawbacks of LoRa communication systems, as a line of sight between the modules is necessary for reliable data transfer. Something that UAVs are uniquely suited to provide, especially when deployed as a swarm. Additionally, swarm deployment may enable UAVs that have lost contact with their primary network to reestablish their connection through another, better-situated UAV. The experimental setup involves multiple phases of testing, starting with controlled environments to assess basic communication capabilities and gradually advancing to complex scenarios involving multiple UAVs. Such a staged approach allows for meticulous adjustment of parameters and optimization of the communication protocols to ensure reliability and effectiveness. Furthermore, due to the close partnership with the Fire Department, the real-world applicability of the communication system is assured. The expected outcomes of this paper include a detailed analysis of LoRa's performance as a communication tool for UAVs, focusing on aspects such as signal integrity, range, and reliability under different environmental conditions. Additionally, the paper seeks to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency of using a single type of communication technology that reduces UAV payload and power consumption. By shifting from traditional cellular network communications to a more robust and versatile cellular and LoRa-based system, this research has the potential to significantly enhance UAV capabilities, especially in critical applications where reliability is paramount. The success of this paper could pave the way for broader adoption of LoRa in UAV communications, setting a new standard for UAV operational communication frameworks.

Keywords: LoRa communication protocol, mobile network communication, UAV communication systems, search and rescue operations

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Authors: Arshia Ayoub, Zahid Ashraf Wani

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With the introduction of online social Q&A sites, people are able to reach each other efficiently for information seeking and simultaneously creating social bonds. There prevails an issue of low or no response for some questions posed by an information seeker on these sites. So this study tries to understand the effect of question type on responses in Social Q & A sites. The study found that among the answered queries, majority of them were answered within 24 hours of posting the questions and surprisingly most replies were received within one hour of posting. It was observed that questions of general information type were most likely to be answered followed by verification type.

Keywords: community‐based services, information seeking, social search, social Q&A site

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Authors: Fatima Ezzahra Ouboutaib, Abdellatif Aitheda, Soumiya Mekkaoui

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Marketing research is starting to focus on authenticity to position an offer, especially local products. However, its use remains more problematic with the internet for cooperatives. This paper investigates how digitalization impacts the satisfaction of the quest for authenticity. On the theoretical level, it explains authenticity in online and offline contexts in the postmodernism era. Then, an exploratory qualitative study tries to understand the contribution of digitization to the satisfaction of the search for authenticity. Therefore, cooperatives selling terroir products on the Internet are advised to keep also direct contact which tends to show a traditional manner of production to enhance customers’ perception of terroir product authenticity.

Keywords: authenticity, terroir product, online authenticity, postmodernism

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Authors: Ruslan Safarov, Zhanat Shomanova, Yuri Nossenko, Zhandos Mussayev, Ayana Baltabek

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Geochemical maps of distribution of polluting elements V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo, Cd, Pb on the territory of the Pavlodar city (Kazakhstan), which is an industrial hub were designed. The samples of soil were taken from 100 locations. Elemental analysis has been performed using XRF. The obtained data was used for training of the computational model with gradient boosting algorithm. The optimal parameters of model as well as the loss function were selected. The computational model was used for prediction of polluting elements concentration for 1000 evenly distributed points. Based on predicted data geochemical maps were created. Additionally, the total pollution index Zc was calculated for every from 1000 point. The spatial distribution of the Zc index was visualized using GIS (QGIS). It was calculated that the maximum coverage area of the territory of the Pavlodar city belongs to the moderately hazardous category (89.7%). The visualization of the obtained data allowed us to conclude that the main source of contamination goes from the industrial zones where the strategic metallurgical and refining plants are placed.

Keywords: Pavlodar, geochemical map, gradient boosting, CatBoost, QGIS, spatial distribution, heavy metals

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Authors: Imen Ben Abda

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Languages have been classified into different rhythm classes. 'Stress-timed' languages are exemplified by English, 'syllable-timed' languages by French and 'mora-timed' languages by Japanese. However, to our best knowledge, acoustic studies have not been unanimous in strictly establishing which rhythm category a given language belongs to and failed to show empirical evidence for isochrony. Perception seems to be a good approach to categorize languages into different rhythm classes. This study, within the scope of experimental phonetics, includes an account of different perceptual experiments using cues from natural and inverted speech, as well as pitch extracted from speech data. It is an attempt to categorize speech rhythm over a large set of Arabic (Tunisian, Algerian, Lebanese and Moroccan) and English dialects (Welsh, Irish, Scottish and Texan) as well as other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French, and German. Listeners managed to classify the different languages and dialects into different rhythm classes using suprasegmental cues mainly rhythm and pitch (F0). They also perceived rhythmic differences even among languages and dialects belonging to the same rhythm class. This may show that there are different subclasses within very broad rhythmic typologies.

Keywords: F0, inverted speech, mora-timing, rhythm variation, stress-timing, syllable-timing

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Authors: Sameh Eldaly, Rola Essam

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the benefits of low-level laser therapy for Athletic Achilles Tendinopathy. Data sources: Search strategies were conducted on 2 Randomized control trial and one pilot study. Results: three trials (103 participants) were analyzed. Laser therapy associated to eccentric exercises, when compared to eccentric exercises and placebo, had low to very low certainty of evidence in pain and function assessment. Conclusion: those three trials evidenced low to very low effect of LLLT, and the results are insufficient to support the routine use LLLT for Achilles tendinopathy.

Keywords: achilles tendinopathy, evidence-based, low-level laser therapy, review

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Authors: Aleksander Mendoza

Abstract:

Glushkov's construction has many interesting properties, and they become even more evident when applied to transducers. This article strives to show the vast range of possible extensions and optimisations for this algorithm. Special flavour of regular expressions is introduced, which can be efficiently converted to e-free functional subsequential weighted finite state transducers. Produced automata are very compact, as they contain only one state for each symbol (from input alphabet) of original expression and only one transition for each range of symbols, no matter how large. Such compactified ranges of transitions allow for efficient binary search lookup during automaton evaluation. All the methods and algorithms presented here were used to implement open-source compiler of regular expressions for multitape transducers.

Keywords: weighted automata, transducers, Glushkov, follow automata, regular expressions

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Authors: Okorowo Cyril Agochi

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The main challenge of present world is to harness the energy source which is environment friendly and ecologically balanced. This need has forced to search for other alternate source of energy. But unfortunately the new alternative energy sources like the solar, hydro, wind etc. require huge economical value and technical power to operate, which seem to be very difficult for the developing countries like Nigeria. In the present moment biogas energy can be one and only reliable, easily available and economically feasible source of alternative and renewable source which can be managed by locally available sources and simple technology for secondary schools, tertiary institution and rural villages. This paper is aimed at boosting the energy generation for developing of rural Nigeria, through Biogas.

Keywords: bio-gas, energy, environment, nigeria, technology

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Authors: Roman Kusaiko

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For decades, remaking was one of the film industry’s main practices but has become vivid in recent years. The latest geopolitical developments, though, are becoming a new challenge for filmmakers regarding cultural landscapes and contextual differences. Deglobalization may also affect transnational remaking practices. Thus, these upcoming challenges can be addressed through the analysis of contemporary academic thought, primarily from adaptation and film studies and their understanding of the issues of transmediality and how it affects film remaking. However, the analysis would be insufficient without conducting case studies. This paper is part of broader research about transnational remaking practices and their cultural and contextual specifics. This paper aims to understand whether shifting medium affects remaking as a critical category and present case studies of the popular Hong Kong motion picture Infernal Affairs and its transition into the Japanese remake Double Face. Consequently, the analysis of their contextual distinctions will lead to the correct categorization of the transnational remakes allowing scholars and filmmakers to better understand the existing remaking practices and whether they affect the final result.

Keywords: cinema, context, culture, films, remaking, transmediality

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Authors: Sharon K. O'Kelley

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At the heart of mathematics education is the concept of communication which many teachers envision as the influential dialogue they conduct with their students. However, communication in the mathematics classroom operates in different forms at different levels, both externally and internally. Specifically, it can be a central component in the building of critical thinking skills that requires students not only to know how to communicate their solutions to others but that they also be able to navigate their own thought processes in search of those solutions. This paper provides a review of research on the role of communication in the building of critical thinking skills in mathematics with a focus on the problem-solving process and the implications this interplay has for the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Keywords: communication in mathematics, critical thinking skills, mathematics education, problem-solving process

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Authors: Suleiman Aliyu

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Integrating IoT applications with Fog systems presents challenges in optimization due to diverse environments and conflicting objectives. This study explores achieving Pareto optimal deployments for Fog-based IoT systems to address growing QoS demands. We introduce Pareto optimality to balance competing performance metrics. Using the FogTorch optimization framework, we propose a hybrid approach (Backtracking search with branch and bound) for scalable IoT deployments. Our research highlights the advantages of Pareto optimality over single-objective methods and emphasizes the role of FogTorch in this context. Initial results show improvements in IoT deployment cost in Fog systems, promoting resource-efficient strategies.

Keywords: pareto optimality, fog application deployment, resource allocation, internet of things

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Authors: Nisrine Benzbiria, Abderrahmane Thoume, Mustapha Zertoubi

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The goal of this research is to investigate the corrosion inhibition potential of functionalized graphene oxide (GO) with oxime derivative on AA2024-T3 surface in synthetic seawater. The utilization of functionalized graphene oxide is creating a category of corrosion inhibitors known as organically modified nanomaterials. In our work, the functionalization of GO by chalcone oxime enables graphene oxide to have enhanced water solubility and a good corrosion mitigation capacity. Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy was utilized to evaluate the main functional groups of the inhibitor. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization curves (PDP) showed that the inhibitor acts as a mixed-type inhibitor. The inhibitory efficiency (IE) improved as the concentration increased to a value of 96% after one hour of exposure to a medium containing 60 mg/L ppm of the inhibitor. According to thermodynamic calculations, the adsorption of the inhibitor on the AA2024-T3 surface in 3% NaCl followed the Langmuir isotherm. The formation of a barrier layer was further confirmed by surface analysis. The protective film prevented the alloy dissolution and limited the accessibility of attacking ions, as evinced by solution analysis techniques.

Keywords: AA2024-T3, NaCl, electrochemical methods, FT-IR, SEM/AFM, DFT, MC simulation

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Authors: Nguyen J. M., Lucas G., Brunner M., Ruan S., Antonioli D.

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Deep learning based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) is a very powerful technique for classifying information from an image. We propose a new method, DeepNic, to transform each variable of a tabular dataset into an image where each pixel represents a set of conditions that allow the variable to make an error-free prediction. The contrast of each pixel is proportional to its prediction performance and the color of each pixel corresponds to a sub-family of NICs. NICs are probabilities that depend on the number of inputs to each neuron and the range of coefficients of the inputs. Each variable can therefore be expressed as a function of a matrix of 2 vectors corresponding to an image whose pixels express predictive capabilities. Our objective is to transform each variable of tabular data into images into an image that can be analysed by CNNs, unlike other methods which use all the variables to construct an image. We analyse the NIC information of each variable and express it as a function of the number of neurons and the range of coefficients used. The predictive value and the category of the NIC are expressed by the contrast and the color of the pixel. We have developed a pipeline to implement this technology and have successfully applied it to genomic expressions on an Affymetrix chip.

Keywords: tabular data, deep learning, perfect trees, NICS

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Authors: Anne Prip, Kirsten Alling Møller, Dorte Lisbet Nielsen, Mary Jarden, Marie-Helene Olsen, Anne Kjaergaard Danielsen

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Background: The development in cancer care has shifted towards shorter hospital stays and more outpatient treatment. Today, cancer care and treatment predominantly takes place in outpatient settings where encounters between patients and health care professionals are often brief. This development will probably continue internationally as the global cancer burden seems to be growing significantly. Furthermore, the number of patients who require ambulatory treatments such as chemotherapy is increasing. Focusing on the encounters between health care professionals and patients during oncology treatment has thus become increasingly important due to a growing trend in outpatient cancer management. Objective: The aim of the systematic review was to summarize the literature from the perspective of the patient, on experiences of and the need for communication and relationships with the health care professional during chemotherapy treatment in an outpatient setting. Method: The review was designed and carried out according to the PRISMA guidelines and PICO framework. The systematic search was conducted in Medline, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library and Joanna Briggs Institute Evidence Based Practice Database. Results: In all, 1174 studies were identified by literature search. After duplicates were removed, the remaining studies (n = 1053) were screened for inclusion. Nine studies were included; qualitative (n = 5) and quantitative (n = 4) as they met the inclusions criteria. The review identified that communication and relationships between health care professionals and patients were important for the patients’ ability to cope with cancer and also had an impact on patients’ satisfaction with care in the outpatient clinic. Furthermore, the review showed that hope and positivity was a need and strategy for patients with cancer and was facilitated by health care professionals. Finally, it revealed that outpatient clinic visits framed and influenced communication and relationships. Conclusions: This review identified the significance of communication and the relationships between patients and health care professionals in the outpatient setting as it supports patients’ ability to cope with cancer. The review showed the need for health care professionals to pay attention to the relational aspects of communication in an outpatient clinic as encounters are often brief. Furthermore, the review helps to specify which elements of the communication are central in the patient-health care professional interaction from the patients' perspective. Finally, it shows a need for more research to investigate which type of interaction and intervention would be the most effective in supporting patients’ coping during chemotherapy in an outpatient clinic.

Keywords: ambulatory chemotherapy, communication, health care professional-patient relation, nurse-patient relation, outpatient care, systematic review

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Authors: Parul Khanna, Pavol Zavarsky, Dale Lindskog

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Doxing is a term derived from documents, and hence consists of collecting information on an organization or individual through social media websites, search engines, password cracking methods, social engineering tools and other sources of publicly displayed information. The main purpose of doxing attacks is to threaten, embarrass, harass and humiliate the organization or individual. Various tools are used to perform doxing. Tools such as Maltego visualize organization’s architecture which helps in determining weak links within the organization. This paper discusses limitations of Maltego Chlorine CE 3.6.0 and suggests measures as to how organizations can use these tools to protect themselves from doxing attacks.

Keywords: advanced persistent threat, FOCA, OSINT, PII

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Authors: Daniil Karzanov

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This paper studies the effect of quarterly earnings reports on the stock price. The profitability of the stock is modeled by geometric Brownian diffusion and the Constant Elasticity of Variance model. We fit several variations of stochastic differential equations to the pre-and after-report period using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Grid Search of parameters method. By examining the change in the model parameters after reports’ publication, the study reveals that the reports have enough evidence to be a structural breakpoint, meaning that all the forecast models exploited are not applicable for forecasting and should be refitted shortly.

Keywords: stock market, earnings reports, financial time series, structural breaks, stochastic differential equations

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Authors: Usman Adekunle Ojedokun, Adeyinka Abideen Aderinto

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Migration remains an important course of action often resort-to by human and some other classes of animal for survival in the face of life-threatening conditions. However, the activity of certain group of immigrants, who are exploiting the socio-economic and environmental challenges in their home countries to conduct street begging across different countries in Africa, is fast becoming a major cause for concern. This paper examined the migratory trajectory of transnational street beggars in South Western, Nigeria. Strain and Migration Network Theories were adopted for the study. The methods of data collection were survey questionnaire, in-depth interview, and key informant interview. Convenience and purposive sampling techniques were employed for the selection of 395 transnational street beggars and 4 key informants were purposively chosen. Findings revealed that transnational street beggars immigrated into Nigeria all year round and all of them came by road. Also, while some of them entered the country officially, others gained entry illegally. The majority (29.3%) arrived through Sokoto, a border State to some neighbouring countries. This study calls for more security measures at the Nigerian borders as a way of controlling the influx of this category of beggars into the country.

Keywords: transnational street beggars, street begging, migration, Nigeria

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Authors: Yasaswi Palagummi, Sareh Rowlands

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Generalised Zero-Shot Learning, often known as GZSL, is an advanced variant of zero-shot learning in which the samples in the unseen category may be either seen or unseen. GZSL methods typically have a bias towards the seen classes because they learn a model to perform recognition for both the seen and unseen classes using data samples from the seen classes. This frequently leads to the misclassification of data from the unseen classes into the seen classes, making the task of GZSL more challenging. In this work of ours, to solve the GZSL problem, we propose an approach leveraging the Shifted Window based Self-Attention in the Swin Transformer (Swin-GZSL) to work in the inductive GSZL problem setting. We run experiments on three popular benchmark datasets: CUB, SUN, and AWA2, which are specifically used for ZSL and its other variants. The results show that our model based on Swin Transformer has achieved state-of-the-art harmonic mean for two datasets -AWA2 and SUN and near-state-of-the-art for the other dataset - CUB. More importantly, this technique has a linear computational complexity, which reduces training time significantly. We have also observed less bias than most of the existing GZSL models.

Keywords: generalised, zero-shot learning, inductive learning, shifted-window attention, Swin transformer, vision transformer

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Authors: Bale Baidi Blaise, Gilles Marckmann, Liman Kaoye, Talaka Dya, Moustapha Bachirou, Gambo Betchewe, Tibi Beda

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This work highlights the capabilities of particles swarm optimization (PSO) method to identify parameters of hyperelastic models. The study compares this method with Genetic Algorithm (GA) method, Least Squares (LS) method, Pattern Search Algorithm (PSA) method, Beda-Chevalier (BC) method and the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) method. Four classic hyperelastic models are used to test the different methods through parameters identification. Then, the study compares the ability of these models to reproduce experimental Treloar data in simple tension, biaxial tension and pure shear.

Keywords: particle swarm optimization, identification, hyperelastic, model

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Authors: Amar Khoukhi, Mohamed Shahab

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This paper presents the optimal control problem of mobile robot motion as a nonlinear programming problem (NLP) and solved using a direct method of numerical optimal control. The NLP is initialized with a B-Spline for which node locations are optimized using a genetic search. The system acceleration inputs and sampling periods are considered as optimization variables. Different scenarios with different objectives weights are implemented and investigated. Interesting results are found in terms of complying with the expected behavior of a mobile robot system and time-energy minimization.

Keywords: multi-objective control, non-holonomic systems, mobile robots, nonlinear programming, motion planning, B-spline, genetic algorithm

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Authors: Zouhour Neji Ben Salem

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Microscopic evacuation focuses on the evacuee behavior and way of search of safety place in an egress situation. In recent years, several models handled microscopic evacuation problem. Among them, we have proposed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as an alternative to mathematical models that can deal with such problem. In this paper, we present two ANN models: SOM map and Hopfield Network used to predict the evacuee behavior in a disaster situation. These models are tested in a real case, the second floor of Tunisian children hospital evacuation in case of fire. The two models are studied and compared in order to evaluate their performance.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, self-organization map, hopfield network, microscopic evacuation, fire building evacuation

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Authors: Susana Marques, Cleide Abreu

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Presently, more than ever, men’s grooming is seen as a broad category. The problem comes when the previous research about male consumer behavior have neglected some aspects in this subject. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the role of celebrity endorsement in men’s grooming communication to Generation Y. After identifying some gaps in the literature, with regard to this contemporary subject, the most important variables were defined in order to develop the investigation and draw conclusions through statistical analysis and validation, about the role celebrity endorsement as source of credibility in men’s grooming communication. According to the design and methodology, this research was sustained through in depth marketing analysis (secondary data), and primary data collection via online questionnaire, whereby 168 male respondents, from Brazil and Portugal, were exposed to some advertisement pieces in order to express their opinion and feelings. The findings reveal all the relationships among the variables, suggested by the literature, have occurred, presenting a significant relationship in terms of Source Credibility scale dimensions – attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise. This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature with important conclusions about the role of celebrity endorsement and its credibility in men’s grooming advertisement.

Keywords: communication, celebrity endorsement, men’s grooming, consumer behavior

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Authors: Asmaa Benbaba

Abstract:

A series of action plans motivated this work within the city of mobile as the big category and the Peninsula more particularly. Most of the projects sought to educate about the historical and environmental assets of the place, to improve aesthetics, to preserve the natural resources on the Bayou, spread awareness, and reach out to the community. This study was conducted to preserve significant heritage landscapes, and significant historic buildings in the neighborhood of the Peninsula of Mobile at the state of Alabama, while simultaneously strengthen the cultural and historical resources. The purpose of this planning action was to provide planning regulations for the suburban areas of Mobile in Alabama. The plan attempted to overlap three main layers: community, environment, and history. The method that was used to collect data and conduct research was mainly qualitative. The Geographic Information System (GIS) was the tool used to represent this complexity. Results from this study revealed several interventions made to 'neighborhood marina.' The interventions were strategic scenarios to preserve the water landscape, create affordable leisure, connect the Dauphin Island Parkway to the water, preserve all the environmental layers, and add value to the neighborhoods of the Peninsula.

Keywords: community outreach, education, historic preservation, peninsula

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Authors: Ngan Nguyen

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The study analyses adjectives collocating with the word ‘education’ in the American language of the Corpus of Global Web-based English using a combination of corpus linguistic and discourse analytical methods to examine not only language patterns but also social political ideologies around the topic. Significant conclusions are deduced: (1) there are a large number of adjectival collocates of the word education which have been identified and classified into four categories representing four different aspects of education: level, quality, forms and types of education; (2) education, as in combination with three first categories, carries the meaning as the act and process of teaching and learning while with the last category having the meaning of a particular kind of teaching or training; (3) higher education is the topic that gains most concerns from the American public; (4) five most significant ideologies are discovered from the corpus: higher education associates with financial affairs, higher education is an industry, monetary policy of the government on higher education, people require greater accessibility to higher education and people value higher education. The study contributes to the field of developing meanings of words through corpus analysis and the field of discourse analysis.

Keywords: adjectival collocation, American context, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, education

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Authors: Jesus David Argueta Moreno, Justa Rufina Martel, Edith Gabriela Carrasco

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The Central American Coffee small, medium, and large corporations search for excellence, sustainability, and continuous improvement, triggers in a still unknown scale the Local expansion, crusading, and franchising strategies towards a more suitable commercial opportunity, where the dynamics of the Central American business displacement can be explained through the markets permeability traits. By considering the previously mentioned, the present study aims to evaluate the franchising potentialities offered by Central American Coffee business scenario, in order to explain dynamics of the business demography phenomena and its relevance on the Central American competitiveness landscape.

Keywords: competitiveness, franchising, business demography, Central American Coffee

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