Search results for: saving grace

Authors: Chiyoung Kim, Jaegeol Yim

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Bus service is often either main or the only public transportation available in cities. In metropolitan areas, both subways and buses are available whereas in the medium sized cities buses are usually the only type of public transportation available. Bus Information Systems (BIS) provide current locations of running buses, efficient routes to travel from one place to another, points of interests around a given bus stop, a series of bus stops consisting of a given bus route, and so on to users. Thanks to BIS, people do not have to waste time at a bus stop waiting for a bus because BIS provides exact information on bus arrival times at a given bus stop. Therefore, BIS does a lot to promote the use of buses contributing to pollution reduction and saving natural resources. BIS implementation costs a huge amount of budget as it requires a lot of special equipment such as road side equipment, automatic vehicle identification and location systems, trunked radio systems, and so on. Consequently, medium and small sized cities with a low budget cannot afford to install BIS even though people in these cities need BIS service more desperately than people in metropolitan areas. It is possible to provide BIS service at virtually no cost under the assumption that everybody carries a smartphone and there is at least one person with a smartphone in a running bus who is willing to reveal his/her location details while he/she is sitting in a bus. This assumption is usually true in the real world. The smartphone penetration rate is greater than 100% in the developed countries and there is no reason for a bus driver to refuse to reveal his/her location details while driving. We have developed a mobile app that periodically reads values of sensors including GPS and sends GPS data to the server when the bus stops or when the elapsed time from the last send attempt is greater than a threshold. This app detects the bus stop state by investigating the sensor values. The server that receives GPS data from this app has also been developed. Under the assumption that the current locations of all running buses collected by the mobile app are recorded in a database, we have also developed a web site that provides all kinds of information that most BISs provide to users through the Internet. The development environment is: OS: Windows 7 64bit, IDE: Eclipse Luna 4.4.1, Spring IDE 3.7.0, Database: MySQL 5.1.7, Web Server: Apache Tomcat 7.0, Programming Language: Java 1.7.0_79. Given a start and a destination bus stop, it finds a shortest path from the start to the destination using the Dijkstra algorithm. Then, it finds a convenient route considering number of transits. For the user interface, we use the Google map. Template classes that are used by the Controller, DAO, Service and Utils classes include BUS, BusStop, BusListInfo, BusStopOrder, RouteResult, WalkingDist, Location, and so on. We are now integrating the mobile app system and the web app system.

Keywords: bus information system, GPS, mobile app, web site

Procedia PDF Downloads 218

Authors: Nadeem Yousuf Khan

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This paper proposes the formation of a digital emergency response system (dERS) in the aged, long-term care, and chronic disease setups in the post-COVID healthcare ecosystem, focusing on the Asia Pacific market where the aging population is increasing significantly. It focuses on the use of digital technologies such as wearables, a global positioning system (GPS), and mobile applications to build an integrated care system for old folks with co-morbidities and other chronic diseases. The paper presents a conceptual framework of a connected digital health ecosystem that not only provides proactive care to registered patients but also prevents the damages due to sudden conditions such as strokes by alerting and treating the patients in a digitally connected and coordinated manner. A detailed review of existing digital health technologies such as wearables, GPS, and mobile apps was conducted in context with the new post-COVID healthcare paradigm, along with a detailed literature review on the digital health policies and usability. A good amount of research papers is available in the application of digital health, but very few of them discuss the formation of a new framework for a connected digital ecosystem for the aged care population, which is increasing around the globe. A connected digital emergency response system has been proposed by the author whereby all registered patients (chronic disease and aged/long term care) will be connected to the proposed digital emergency response system (dERS). In the proposed ecosystem, patients will be provided with a tracking wrist band and a mobile app through which the control room will be monitoring the mobility and vitals such as atrial fibrillation (AF), blood sugar, blood pressure, and other vital signs. In addition to that, an alert in case if the patient falls down will add value to this system. In case of any variation in the vitals, an alert is sent to the dERS 24/7, and dERS clinical staff immediately trigger that alert which goes to the connected hospital and the adulatory service providers, and the patient is escorted to the nearest connected tertiary care hospital. By the time, the patient reaches the hospital, dERS team is ready to take appropriate clinical action to save the life of the patient. Strokes or myocardial infarction patients can be prevented from disaster if they are accessible to engagement healthcare. This dERS will play an effective role in saving the lives of aged patients or patients with chronic co-morbidities.

Keywords: aged care, atrial fibrillation, digital health, digital emergency response system, digital technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 122

Authors: Mishadi Herath, Amin Talei, Andreas Hermawan, Clarina Chua

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Green walls are vegetated structures on building’s wall that are considered as part of sustainable urban design. They are proved to have many micro-climate benefits such as reduction in indoor temperature, noise attenuation, and improvement in air quality. On the other hand, several studies have also been conducted on potential reuse of greywater in urban water management. Greywater is relatively clean when compared to blackwater; therefore, this study was aimed to assess the potential reuse of it for irrigating a green wall system. In this study, the campus of Monash University Malaysia located in Selangor state was considered as the study site where total 48 samples of greywater were collected from 7 toilets hand-wash and 5 pantries during 3 months period. The samples were tested to characterize the quality of greywater in the study site and compare it with local standard for irrigation water. PH and concentration of heavy metals, nutrients, Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total Coliform and E.coli were measured. Results showed that greywater could be directly used for irrigation with minimal treatment. Since the effluent of the system was supposed to be drained to stormwater drainage system, the effluent needed to meet certain quality requirement. Therefore, a biofiltration system was proposed to host the green wall plants and also treat the greywater (which is used as irrigation water) to the required level. To assess the performance of the proposed system, an experimental setup consisting of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) soil columns with sand-based filter media were prepared. Two different local creeper plants were chosen considering several factors including fast growth, low maintenance requirement, and aesthetic aspects. Three replicates of each plants were used to ensure the validity of the findings. The growth of creeping plants and their survivability was monitored for 6 months while monthly sampling and testing of effluent was conducted to evaluate effluent quality. An analysis was also conducted to estimate the potential cost and benefit of such system considering water and energy saving in the system. Results showed that the proposed system can work efficiently throughout a long period of time with minimal maintenance requirement. Moreover, the biofiltration-green wall system was found to be successful in reusing greywater as irrigating water while the effluent was meeting all the requirements for being drained to stormwater drainage system.

Keywords: biofiltration, green wall, greywater, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 214

Authors: Andrew Green, Jiaming Liu, Kellathur Srinivasan, Raymond Chua

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Introduction: The size of Singapore’s online health product (HP) market (e-commerce) is largely unknown. However, it is recognized that a large majority comes from overseas and thus, unregulated. As buying HP from unauthorized sources significantly compromises public health safety, understanding e-commerce users’ demographics and their perceptions on online HP purchasing becomes a pivotal first step to form a basis for recommendations in Singapore’s pharmacovigilance efforts. Objective: To assess the prevalence of online HP purchasing behaviour among Singaporean e-commerce users. Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study targeting Singaporean e-commerce users recruited from various local websites and online forums. Participants were not randomized into study arms but instead stratified by random sampling method based on participants’ age. A self-administered anonymous questionnaire was used to explore participants' demographics, online HP purchasing behaviour, knowledge and attitude. The association of different variables with online HP purchasing behaviour was analysed using logistic regression statistics. Main outcome measures: Prevalence of HP e-commerce users in Singapore (%) and variables that contribute to the prevalence (adjusted prevalent ratio). Results: The study recruited 372 complete and valid responses. The prevalence of online HP consumers among e-commerce users in Singapore is estimated to be 55.9% (1.7 million consumers). Online purchasing of complementary HP (46.9%) was the most prevalent, followed by medical devices (21.6%) and Western medicine (20.5%). Multivariate analysis showed that age is an independent variable that correlates with the likelihood of buying HP online. The prevalence of HP e-commerce users is highest in the 35-44 age group (64.1%) and lowest among the 16-24 age group (36.4%). The most bought HP through the internet are vitamins and minerals (21.5%), non-herbal (15.9%), herbal (13.9%), weight loss (8.7%) and sports (8.4%) supplements. While the top 3 products are distributed equally between the genders, there is a skew towards female respondents (12.4% in females vs. 4.9% in males) for weight loss supplements and towards males (13.2% in males vs. 3.7% in females) for sports supplements. Even though online consumers are in the younger age brackets, our study found that up to 72.0% of HP bought online are bought for others (buyer’s family and/or friends). Multivariate analysis showed a statistically significant association between purchasing HP through online means and the perceptions that 'internet is safe' (adjusted Prevalence Ratio=1.15, CI 1.03-1.28), 'buying HP online is time saving' (PR=1.17, CI 1.01-1.36), and 'recognition of HP brand' (PR=1.21 CI 1.06-1.40). Conclusions: This study has provided prevalence data for online HP market in Singapore, and has allowed the country’s regulatory body to formulate a targeted pharmacovigilance approach to this growing problem.

Keywords: e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, pharmacovigilance, Singapore

Procedia PDF Downloads 364

Authors: Aidan N. Smallwood, Celestine R. Weegenaar, Jack N. Evans

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The intensive care unit (ICU) is a particularly resource heavy environment, in terms of staff, drugs and equipment required. Whilst many areas of the hospital are attempting to cut down on plastic use and minimise their impact on the environment, this has proven challenging within the confines of intensive care. Concurrently, as globalization has progressed over recent decades, there has been a tendency towards centralised manufacturing with international distribution networks for products, often covering large distances. In this study, we have modelled the standard consumption of plastic single-use items over the course of the first 24-hours of an average individual patient’s stay in a 12 bed ICU in the United Kingdom (UK). We have identified the country of manufacture and calculated the minimum possible distance travelled by each item from factory to patient. We have assumed direct transport via the shortest possible straight line from country of origin to the UK and have not accounted for transport within either country. Assuming an intubated patient with invasive haemodynamic monitoring and central venous access, there are a total of 52 distincts, largely plastic, disposable products which would reasonably be required in the first 24-hours after admission. Each product type has only been counted once to account for multiple items being shipped as one package. Travel distances from origin were summed to give the total distance combined for all 52 products. The minimum possible total distance travelled from country of origin to the UK for all types of product was 273,353 km, equivalent to 6.82 circumnavigations of the globe, or 71% of the way to the moon. The mean distance travelled was 5,256 km, approximately the distance from London to Mecca. With individual packaging for each item, the total weight of consumed products was 4.121 kg. The CO2 produced shipping these items by air freight would equate to 30.1 kg, however doing the same by sea would produce 0.2 kg CO2. Extrapolating these results to the 211,932 UK annual ICU admissions (2018-2019), even with the underestimates of distance and weight of our assumptions, air freight would account for 6586 tons CO2 emitted annually, approximately 130 times that of sea freight. Given the drive towards cost saving within the UK health service, and the decline of the local manufacturing industry, buying from intercontinental manufacturers is inevitable However, transporting all consumables by sea where feasible would be environmentally beneficial, as well as being less costly than air freight. At present, the NHS supply chain purchases from medical device companies, and there is no freely available information as to the transport mode used to deliver the product to the UK. This must be made available to purchasers in order to give a fuller picture of life cycle impact and allow for informed decision making in this regard.

Keywords: CO2, intensive care, plastic, transport

Procedia PDF Downloads 182

Authors: Karl Erickson I. Ebora

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Science and technology are two inseparable terms which bring wonders to all aspects of life such as education, medicine, food production and even the environment. In education, technology has become an integral part as it brings many benefits to the teaching-learning process. However, in the Philippines, being one of the developing countries resources are scarce and not all schools enjoy the fruits brought by technology. Much of this ordeal impacts that of multigrade instruction. These schools are often the last priority in resources allocation since these have limited number of students. In fact, it is not surprising that these schools do not have even a single computer unit much more a computer laboratory. This paper sought to present a plan on how public schools would receive its e-classroom. Specifically, this paper sought to answer questions like the level of the school readiness in terms of facilities and equipment; the attitude of the respondents towards the use of e-classroom; level of teacher’s familiarity in using different e-classroom software and the plans of interventions undertaken by the school to make it e-classroom ready. After gathering and analysing the necessary data, this paper came up with the following conclusions that in terms of facilities and equipment, Guisguis Talon Elementary School (Main), though a multigrade school, is ready to receive e-classroom.; that the respondents show positive disposition in technology utilization in teaching after they strongly agree that technology plays essential role in the teaching-learning process. Also, they strongly agree that technology is a good motivator; it makes the teaching and learning more interesting and effective; it makes teaching easy; and that technology enhances student’s learning. Additionally, Teacher-respondents in Guisguis Talon Elementary School (Main) show familiarity in using software. They are very familiar with MS Word; MS Excel; MS PowerPoint; and internet and email. Moreover, they are very familiar with basic e-classroom computer operations and basic application software. They are very familiar with MS office and can do simple editing and formatting; in accessing and saving information from CD/DVD, external hard drives, USB and the like; and in browsing effectively different search engines and educational sites, download and upload files. Likewise respondents strongly agree to the interventions undertaken by the school to make it e-classroom ready. They strongly agree that funding and support are needed by the school; that stakeholders should be encouraged to consider donating of equipment; and that school and community should try to mobilize their resources in order to help the school; that the teachers should be provided with trainings in order for them to be technologically competent; and that principals and administrators should motivate their teachers to undergo continuous professional development.

Keywords: e-classroom, multi-grade school, DCP, classroom computers

Procedia PDF Downloads 202

Authors: Nura Khattab, Fayad Al-Haimus, Teruko Kishibe, Netanel Krugliak, Melissa McGowan, Brodie Nolan

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Trauma-induced coagulopathy remains a significant contributor to mortality in severely injured patients. Fibrinogen is essential for early hemostasis and is recognized as the first coagulation factor to fall below critical levels, compromising the coagulation cascade. Early administration of fibrinogen concentrate may be feasible and effective to prevent coagulopathy. We conducted this scoping review to characterize the existing quantity of literature, and to explore the usage of prehospital fibrinogen concentrate products in improving clinical outcomes in trauma patients. Methods: A search strategy was developed in consultation with an information specialist. We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane, and Scopus from inception to May 6th 2024. English studies evaluating prehospital/military usage of fibrinogen concentrate in trauma patients were included. Studies were assessed by three independent reviewers for meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. Reference lists of included articles were reviewed to identify additional studies meeting inclusion criteria. Clinical endpoints regarding fibrinogen concentrate were extracted and synthesized. Results: The literature search returned 1301 articles with seven studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Five studies (71%) were conducted in civilian settings and two studies (29%) were conducted in military settings. Of the included studies, three (43%) utilized a randomized control trial. We identified seven outcomes that compared varying concentrations of fibrinogen or fibrinogen concentrate to a placebo group. The outcomes included overall mortality, death from hemorrhage, thromboembolic events, clotting time, maximum clot firmness, clot stability at ER admission, and fibrinogen concentration at ER admission. Apart from thromboembolic events, all other reported outcomes showed statistically significant differences in group comparisons, determined using p values. The four (57%) non-clinical studies underscored the robustness, practicality, and degree of fibrinogen concentrate utilization in military environments and retrieval services. Conclusion: Preliminary research suggests that prehospital fibrinogen concentrate administration in traumatic bleeding patients is both feasible and effective, improving mortality and clotting parameters. While implementing a time-saving and proactive approach with fibrinogen holds potential for enhancing trauma care, the current evidence is limited. Further studies in this novel field are warranted.

Keywords: fibrinogen concentrate, prehospital, military, trauma, trauma-induced coagulopathy

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Authors: Giorgi Gaprindashvili

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One of the best examples, in evolution of the public procurement, from post-soviet countries are reforms carried out in Georgia, which brought them close to international standards of procurement. In Georgia, public procurement legislation started functioning in 1998. The reform has passed several stages and came in the form as it is today. It should also be noted, that countries with economy in transition, including Georgia, implemented all the reforms in public procurement based on recommendations and support of World Bank, the United Nations and other international organizations. The first law on public procurement in Georgia was adopted on December 9, 1998 which aimed regulation of the procurement process of budget-organizations, transparent and competitive environment for private companies to access state funds legally. The priorities were identified quite clearly in the wording of the law, but operation/function of this law could not be reached on its level, because of some objective and subjective reasons. The high level of corruption in all levels of governance, can be considered as a main obstacle reason and of course, it is natural, that it had direct impact on the procurement process, as well as on transparency and rational use of state funds. This circumstances were the reasons that reforms in this sphere continued, to improve procurement process, in particular, the first wave of reforms began in 2001. Public procurement agency carried out reform with World Bank with main purpose of smartening the procurement legislation and its harmonization with international treaties and agreements. Also with the support of World Bank various activities were carried out to raise awareness of participants involved in procurement system. Further major changes in the legislation were filed in May 2005, which was also directed towards the improvement and smarten of the procurement process. The third wave of the reform began in 2010, which more or less guaranteed the transparency of the procurement process, which later became the basis for the rational spending of state funds. The reform of the procurement system completely changed the procedures. Carried out reform in Georgia resulted in introducing new electronic tendering system, which benefit the transparency of the process, after this became the basis for the further development of a competitive environment, which become a prerequisite for the state rational spending. Increased number of supplier organizations participating in the procurement process resulted in reduction of the estimated cost and the actual cost from 20% up to 40%, it is quite large saving for the procuring organizations and allows them to use the freed-up funds for their other needs. Assessment of the reforms in Georgia in the field of public procurement can be concluded, that proper regulation of the sector and relevant policy may proceed to rational and transparent spending of the budget from country’s state institutions. Also, the business sector has the opportunity to work in competitive market conditions and to make a preliminary analysis, which is a prerequisite for future strategy and development.

Keywords: public administration, public procurement, reforms, transparency

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: Mita Sirait

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Everyday Jakarta produces 7,000 tons of solid waste and only about 5,200 tons delivered to landfill out of the city by 720 trucks, the rest are left yet manageable, as reported by Government of Clean Sector. CLEAN Jakarta Project is aimed at empowering community to achieve healthy environment for children and families in urban slum in Semper Barat and Penjaringan sub-district of North Jakarta that consisted of 20,584 people. The project applies Community Based Total Sanitation, an approach to empowering community to achieve total hygiene and sanitation behaviour by triggering activities. As regulated by Ministry of Health, it has 5 pillars: (1) open defecation free, (2) hand-washing with soaps, (3) drinking-water treatment, (4) solid-waste management and (5) waste-water management; and 3 strategic components: 1) demand creation, 2) supply creation and 3) enabling environment. Demand creation is generated by triggering community’s reaction to their daily sanitation habits by exposing them to their surrounding where they can see faeces, waste and other environmental pollutant to stimulate disgusting, embarrassing and responsibility sense. Triggered people then challenged to commit to improving their hygiene practice such as to stop littering and start waste separation. In order to support this commitment, and for supply creation component, the project initiated waste bank with community working group. It facilitated capacity-building trainings, waste bank system formulation and meetings with local authorities to solicit land permit and waste bank decree. As it is of a general banking system, waste bank has customer service, teller, manager, legal paper and provides saving book and money transaction. In 8 months, two waste banks have established with 148 customers, 17 million rupiah cash, and about 9 million of stored recyclables. Approximately 2.5 tons of 15-35 types of recyclable are managed in both waste banks per week. On enabling environment, the project has initiated sanitation working group in community and multi sectors government level, and advocated both parties. The former is expected to promote behaviour change and monitoring in the community, while the latter is expected to support sanitation with regulations, strategies, appraisal and awards; to coordinate partnering and networking, and to replicate best practices to other areas.

Keywords: urban community, waste management, Jakarta, community based total sanitation (CBTS)

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Authors: Rafael do Amaral Teodoro, Leandro Augusto da Silva

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Originated from graphite, graphene is a two-dimensional (2D) material that promises to revolutionize technology in many different areas, such as energy, telecommunications, civil construction, aviation, textile, and medicine. This is possible because its structure, formed by carbon bonds, provides desirable optical, thermal, and mechanical characteristics that are interesting to multiple areas of the market. Thus, several research and development centers are studying different manufacturing methods and material applications of graphene, which are often compromised by the scarcity of more agile and accurate methodologies to characterize the material – that is to determine its composition, shape, size, and the number of layers and crystals. To engage in this search, this study proposes a computational methodology that applies deep learning to identify graphene oxide crystals in order to characterize samples by crystal sizes. To achieve this, a fully convolutional neural network called U-net has been trained to segment SEM graphene oxide images. The segmentation generated by the U-net is fine-tuned with a standard deviation technique by classes, which allows crystals to be distinguished with different labels through an object delimitation algorithm. As a next step, the characteristics of the position, area, perimeter, and lateral measures of each detected crystal are extracted from the images. This information generates a database with the dimensions of the crystals that compose the samples. Finally, graphs are automatically created showing the frequency distributions by area size and perimeter of the crystals. This methodological process resulted in a high capacity of segmentation of graphene oxide crystals, presenting accuracy and F-score equal to 95% and 94%, respectively, over the test set. Such performance demonstrates a high generalization capacity of the method in crystal segmentation, since its performance considers significant changes in image extraction quality. The measurement of non-overlapping crystals presented an average error of 6% for the different measurement metrics, thus suggesting that the model provides a high-performance measurement for non-overlapping segmentations. For overlapping crystals, however, a limitation of the model was identified. To overcome this limitation, it is important to ensure that the samples to be analyzed are properly prepared. This will minimize crystal overlap in the SEM image acquisition and guarantee a lower error in the measurements without greater efforts for data handling. All in all, the method developed is a time optimizer with a high measurement value, considering that it is capable of measuring hundreds of graphene oxide crystals in seconds, saving weeks of manual work.

Keywords: characterization, graphene oxide, nanomaterials, U-net, deep learning

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Authors: Willem J. A. Louw

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The wave of new advanced computing technology that has been developed during the recent past has significantly changed the way we communicate, collaborate and collect information. It has created a new technology environment and paradigm in which our children and students grow-up and this impacts on their learning. Research confirmed that Generation Y students have a preference for learning in the new technology environment. The challenge or question is: How do we adjust our teaching and learning to make the most of these changes. The complexity of effective and efficient teaching and learning must not be underestimated and changes must be preceded by proper objective research to prevent any haphazard developments that could do more harm than benefit. A blended learning approach has been used in the Forestry department for a few numbers of years including the use of electronic-peer assisted learning (e-pal) in a fixed-computer set-up within a learning management system environment. It was decided to extend the investigation and do some exploratory research by using a range of different Tablet devices. For this purpose, learning activities or assignments were designed to cover aspects of communication, collaboration and collection of information. The Moodle learning management system was used to present normal module information, to communicate with students and for feedback and data collection. Student feedback was collected by using an online questionnaire and informal discussions. The research project was implemented in 2013, 2014 and 2015 amongst first and third-year students doing a forestry three-year technical tertiary qualification in commercial plantation management. In general, more than 80% of the students alluded to that the device was very useful in their learning environment while the rest indicated that the devices were not very useful. More than ninety percent of the students acknowledged that they would like to continue using the devices for all of their modules whilst the rest alluded to functioning efficiently without the devices. Results indicated that information collection (access to resources) was rated the highest advantageous factor followed by communication and collaboration. The main general advantages of using Tablets were listed by the students as being mobility (portability), 24/7 access to learning material and information of any kind on a user friendly device in a Wi-Fi environment, fast computing process speeds, saving time, effort and airtime through skyping and e-mail, and use of various applications. Ownership of the device is a critical factor while the risk was identified as a major potential constraint. Significant differences were reported between the different types and quality of Tablets. The preferred types are those with a bigger screen and the ones with overall better functionality and quality features. Tablets significantly increase the collaboration, communication and information collection needs of the students. It does, however, not replace the need of a computer/laptop because of limited storage and computation capacity, small screen size and inefficient typing.

Keywords: tablets, teaching, blended learning, tablet quality

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: Lina Wu

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The excessive discharge of nitrogen in sewage greatly intensifies the eutrophication of water bodies and poses a threat to water quality. Nitrogen pollution control has become a global concern. Currently, the problem of water pollution in China is still not optimistic. As a typical high ammonia nitrogen organic wastewater, landfill leachate is more difficult to treat than domestic sewage because of its complex water quality, high toxicity, and high concentration.Many studies have shown that the autotrophic anammox bacteria in nature can combine nitrous and ammonia nitrogen without carbon source through functional genes to achieve total nitrogen removal, which is very suitable for the removal of nitrogen from leachate. In addition, the process also saves a lot of aeration energy consumption than the traditional nitrogen removal process. Therefore, anammox plays an important role in nitrogen conversion and energy saving. The process composed of short-range nitrification and denitrification coupled an ammo ensures the removal of total nitrogen and improves the removal efficiency, meeting the needs of the society for an ecologically friendly and cost-effective nutrient removal treatment technology. Continuous flow process for treating late leachate [an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB), anoxic/oxic (A/O)–anaerobic ammonia oxidation reactor (ANAOR or anammox reactor)] has been developed to achieve autotrophic deep nitrogen removal. In this process, the optimal process parameters such as hydraulic retention time and nitrification flow rate have been obtained, and have been applied to the rapid start-up and stable operation of the process system and high removal efficiency. Besides, finding the characteristics of microbial community during the start-up of anammox process system and analyzing its microbial ecological mechanism provide a basis for the enrichment of anammox microbial community under high environmental stress. One research developed partial nitrification-Anammox (PN/A) using an internal circulation (IC) system and a biological aerated filter (BAF) biofilm reactor (IBBR), where the amount of water treated is closer to that of landfill leachate. However, new high-throughput sequencing technology is still required to be utilized to analyze the changes of microbial diversity of this system, related functional genera and functional genes under optimal conditions, providing theoretical and further practical basis for the engineering application of novel anammox system in biogas slurry treatment and resource utilization.

Keywords: nutrient removal and recovery, leachate, anammox, partial nitrification

Procedia PDF Downloads 52

Authors: Alexis Naranjo

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In the current global stage, a new sense and mix feelings against the globalization has started to take shape thanks to events such as Brexit and the 2016 US election. The perceptions towards the globalization have started to focus in a resistance movement called the 'anti-globalization movement'. This paper examines the current global stage vs. leadership decisions in a time when market integrations are not longer seeing as an opportunity for an economic growth buster. The biggest economy in the world the United States of America has started to face a new beginning of something called 'anti-globalization', in the current global stage starting with the United Kingdom to the United States a new strategy to help local economies has started to emerge. A new nationalist movement has started to focus on their local economies which now represents a direct threat to the globalization, trade agreements, wages and free markets. Business leaders of multinationals now in our days face a new dilemma, how to address the feeling that globalization and outsourcing destroy and take away jobs from local economies. The initial perception of the literature and data rebels that companies in Western countries like the US sees many risks associate with outsourcing, however, saving cost associated with outsourcing is greater than the firm’s local reputation. Starting with India as a good example of a supplier of IT developers, analysts and call centers we can start saying that India is an industrialized nation which has not yet secured its spot and title. India has emerged as a powerhouse in the outsource industry, which makes India hold the number one spot in the world to outsource IT services. Thanks to the globalization of economies and markets around the globe that new ideas to increase productivity at a lower cost has been existing for years and has started to offer new ideas and options to businesses in different industries. The economic growth of the information technology (IT) industry in India is an example of the power of the globalization which in the case of India has been tremendous and significant especially in the economic arena. This research paper concentrates in understand the behavior of business leaders: First, how multinational’s leaders will face the new challenges and what actions help them to lead in turbulent times. Second, if outsourcing or withdraw from a market is an option what are the consequences and how you communicate and negotiate from the business leader perspective. Finally, is the perception of leaders focusing on financial results or they have a different goal? To answer these questions, this study focuses on the most recent data available to outline and present the findings of the reason why outsourcing is and option and second, how and why those decisions are made. This research also explores the perception of the phenomenon of outsourcing in many ways and explores how the globalization has contributed to its own questioning.

Keywords: anti-globalization, globalization, leadership, outsourcing

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Authors: Sahar Heidary

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Radiography and radiotherapy have emerged as crucial pillars of modern medical practice, revolutionizing diagnostics and treatment for a myriad of health conditions. This abstract highlights the pivotal role of radiography and radiotherapy in favor of healthcare and society. Radiography, a non-invasive imaging technique, has significantly advanced medical diagnostics by enabling the visualization of internal structures and abnormalities within the human body. With the advent of digital radiography, clinicians can obtain high-resolution images promptly, leading to faster diagnoses and informed treatment decisions. Radiography plays a pivotal role in detecting fractures, tumors, infections, and various other conditions, allowing for timely interventions and improved patient outcomes. Moreover, its widespread accessibility and cost-effectiveness make it an indispensable tool in healthcare settings worldwide. On the other hand, radiotherapy, a branch of medical science that utilizes high-energy radiation, has become an integral component of cancer treatment and management. By precisely targeting and damaging cancerous cells, radiotherapy offers a potent strategy to control tumor growth and, in many cases, leads to cancer eradication. Additionally, radiotherapy is often used in combination with surgery and chemotherapy, providing a multifaceted approach to combat cancer comprehensively. The continuous advancements in radiotherapy techniques, such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery, have further improved treatment precision while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy tissues. Furthermore, radiography and radiotherapy have demonstrated their worth beyond oncology. Radiography is instrumental in guiding various medical procedures, including catheter placement, joint injections, and dental evaluations, reducing complications and enhancing procedural accuracy. On the other hand, radiotherapy finds applications in non-cancerous conditions like benign tumors, vascular malformations, and certain neurological disorders, offering therapeutic options for patients who may not benefit from traditional surgical interventions. In conclusion, radiography and radiotherapy stand as indispensable tools in modern medicine, driving transformative improvements in patient care and treatment outcomes. Their ability to diagnose, treat, and manage a wide array of medical conditions underscores their favor in medical practice. As technology continues to advance, radiography and radiotherapy will undoubtedly play an ever more significant role in shaping the future of healthcare, ultimately saving lives and enhancing the quality of life for countless individuals worldwide.

Keywords: radiology, radiotherapy, medical imaging, cancer treatment

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Authors: Soledad Natalia M. Dalisay, Mylene De Guzman

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In archipelagic countries like the Philippines, many communities thrive along coastal areas. The sea is the community members’ main source of livelihood and the site of many cultural activities. For these communities, the sea is their life and livelihood. Nevertheless, the sea also poses a hazard during the rainy season when typhoons frequent their communities. Coastal communities often encounter threats from storm surges and flooding that are common when there are typhoons. During such periods, disaster evacuation programs are implemented. However, in many instances, evacuation has been the bane of local government officials implementing such programs in their communities as resistance from community members is often encountered. Such resistance is often viewed by program implementers as due to the fact that people were hard headed and ignorant of the potential impacts of living in hazard prone areas. This paper argues that it is not for these reasons that people refused to evacuate. Drawing from data collected from fieldwork done in three sites in Central Philippines affected by super typhoon Haiyan, this study aimed to provide a contextualized understanding of peoples’ refusal to heed disaster evacuation warnings. This study utilized the multi-sited ethnography approach with in-depth episodic interviews, focus group discussions, participatory risk mapping and key informant interviews in gathering data on peoples’ experiences and insights specifically on evacuation during typhoon Haiyan. This study showed that people have priorities and considerations vital in their social lives that they are protecting in their refusal to leave their homes for pre-emptive evacuation. It is not that they are not aware of the risks when the face the hazard. It is more that they had faith in the local knowledge and strategies that they have developed since the time of their ancestors as a result of living and engaging with hazards in their areas for as long as they could remember. The study also revealed that risk in encounters with hazards was gendered. Furthermore, previous engagement with local government officials and the manner in which the pre-emptive evacuation programs were implemented had cast doubt on the value of such programs in saving their lives. Life in the designated evacuation areas can be as dangerous if not more compared with living in their coastal homes. There seems to be the impression that in the evacuation program of the government, people were being moved from hazard zones to death zones. Thus, this paper ends with several recommendations that may contribute to building more responsive evacuation programs that aim to build people’s resilience while taking into consideration the local moral world in communities in identified hazard zones.

Keywords: coastal communities, disaster evacuation, disaster risk perception, social and cultural responses to hazards

Procedia PDF Downloads 337

Authors: Andreas Kapardis, Maria Krambia-Kapardis, Sofia Michaelides-Mateou

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Corruption and economic crime is a serious problem affecting the sustainability of businesses in the 21st century. Nowadays, many corruption or fraud cases come to light thanks to whistleblowers. This article will first discuss the concept of whistleblowing as well as some relevant legislation enacted around the world. Secondly, it will discuss the findings of a survey of whistleblowers or could-have-been whistleblowers. Finally, suggestions for the development of a comprehensive whistleblowing framework will be considered. Whistleblowing can be described as expressing a concern about a wrongdoing within an organization, such as a corporation, an association, an institution or a union. Such concern must be in the public interest and in good faith and should relate to the cover up of matters that could potentially result in a miscarriage of justice, a crime, criminal offence and threats to health and safety. Whistleblowing has proven to be an effective anti-corruption mechanism and a powerful tool that helps deterring fraud, violations, and malpractices within organizations, corporations and the public sector. Research in the field of whistleblowing has concentrated on the reasons for whistleblowing and financial bounties; the effectiveness of whistleblowing; whistleblowing being a prosocial behavior with a psychological perspective and consequences; as a tool in protecting shareholders, saving lives and billions of dollars of public funds. Whilst, no other study of whistleblowing has been carried out on whistleblowers or intended whistleblowers. The study reported in the current paper analyses the findings of 74 whistleblowers or intended whistleblowers, the reasons behind their decision to blow the whistle, or not to proceed to blow the whistle and any regrets they may have had. In addition a profile of a whistleblower is developed concerning their age, gender, marital and family status and position in an organization. Lessons learned from the intended whistleblowers and in response to the questions if they would be willing to blow the whistle again show that enacting legislation to protect the whistleblower is not enough. Similarly, rewarding the whistleblower does not appear to provide the whistleblower with an incentive since the majority noted that “work ethics is more important than financial rewards”. We recommend the development of a comprehensive and holistic framework for the protection of the whistleblower and to ensure that remedial actions are immediately taken once a whistleblower comes forward. The suggested framework comprises (a) hard legislation in ensuring the whistleblowers follow certain principles when blowing the whistle and, in return, are protected for a period of 5 years from being fired, dismissed, bullied, harassed; (b) soft legislation in establishing an agency to firstly ensure psychological and legal advice is provided to the whistleblowers and secondly any required remedial action is immediately taken to avert the undesirable events reported by a whistleblower from occurring and, finally; (c) mechanisms to ensure the coordination of actions taken.

Keywords: whistleblowing, business ethics, legislation, business

Procedia PDF Downloads 311

Authors: Rohit Lall

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The adoption of Micro Irrigation (MI) technologies in India has helped in achieving higher cropping and irrigation intensity with significant savings on resource savings such as labour, fertilizer and improved crop yields. These technologies have received considerable attention from policymakers, growers and researchers over the years for its perceived ability to contribute towards agricultural productivity and economic growth with the well-being of the growers of the country. Keeping the pace with untapped theoretical potential to cover government had launched flagship programs/centre sector schemes with earmarked budget to capture the potential under these waters saving techniques envisaged under these technologies by way of providing financial assistance to the beneficiaries for adopting these technologies. Micro Irrigation technologies have been in the special attention of the policymakers over the years. India being an agrarian economy having engaged 75% of the population directly or indirectly having skilled, semi-skilled and entrepreneurs in the sector with focused attention and financial allocations from the government under these technologies in covering the untapped potential under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) 'Per Drop More Crop component.' During the year 2004, a Taskforce on Micro Irrigation was constituted to estimate the potential of these technologies in India which was estimated 69.5 million hectares by the Task Force Report on MI however only 10.49 million hectares have been achieved so far. Technology collaborations by leading manufacturing companies in overseas have proved to a stepping stone in technology advancement and product up gradation with increased efficiencies. Joint ventures by the leading MI companies have added huge business volumes which have not only accelerated the momentum of achieving the desired goal but in terms of area coverage but had also generated opportunities for the polymer manufacturers in the country. To provide products matching the global standards Bureau of Indian Standards have constituted a sectional technical committee under the Food and Agriculture Department (FAD)-17 to formulated/devise and revise standards pertaining to MI technologies. The research lobby has also contributed at large by developing in-situ analysis proving MI technologies a boon for farming community of the country with resource conservation of which water is of paramount importance. Thus, Micro Irrigation technologies have proved to be the key tool for feeding the grueling demand of food basket of the growing population besides maintaining soil health and have been contributing towards doubling of farmers’ income.

Keywords: task force on MI, standards, per drop more crop, doubling farmers’ income

Procedia PDF Downloads 118

Authors: Hassiba Benguergoura, Kamal Chanane, Sâad Moulay

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Pervaporation (PV), a membrane-based separation technology, has gained much attention because of its energy saving capability and low-cost, especially for separation of azeotropic or close-boiling liquid mixtures. There are two crucial issues for industrial application of pervaporation process. The first is developing membrane material and tailoring membrane structure to obtain high pervaporation performances. The second is modeling pervaporation transport to better understand of the above-mentioned structure–pervaporation relationship. Many models were proposed to predict the mass transfer process, among them, solution-diffusion model is most widely used in describing pervaporation transport including preferential sorption, diffusion and evaporation steps. For modeling pervaporation transport, the permeation flux, which depends on the solubility and diffusivity of components in the membrane, should be obtained first. Traditionally, the solubility was calculated according to the Flory–Huggins theory. Separation of the benzene (Bz)/cyclohexane (Cx) mixture is industrially significant. Numerous papers have been focused on the Bz/Cx system to assess the PV properties of membrane materials. Membranes with both high permeability and selectivity are desirable for practical application. Several new polymers have been prepared to get both high permeability and selectivity. Styrene-butadiene rubbers (SBR), dense membranes cross-linked by chloromethylation were used in the separation of benzene/cyclohexane mixtures. The impact of chloromethylation reaction as a new method of cross-linking SBR on the pervaporation performance have been reported. In contrast to the vulcanization with sulfur, the cross-linking takes places on styrene units of polymeric chains via a methylene bridge. The partial pervaporative (PV) fluxes of benzene/cyclohexane mixtures in styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) were predicted using Fick's first law. The predicted partial fluxes and the PV separation factor agreed well with the experimental data by integrating Fick's law over the benzene concentration. The effects of feed concentration and operating temperature on the predicted permeation flux by this proposed model are investigated. The predicted permeation fluxes are in good agreement with experimental data at lower benzene concentration in feed, but at higher benzene concentration, the model overestimated permeation flux. The predicted and experimental permeation fluxes all increase with operating temperature increasing. Solvent sorption levels for benzene/ cyclohexane mixtures in a SBR membrane were determined experimentally. The results showed that the solvent sorption levels were strongly affected by the feed composition. The Flory- Huggins equation generates higher R-square coefficient for the sorption selectivity.

Keywords: benzene, cyclohexane, pervaporation, permeation, sorption modeling, SBR

Procedia PDF Downloads 328

Authors: Chien-Chun Huang, Yi-U Chiou, Chiun-C.R. Wang

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For longer shelf life of noodles, air-dried method is the traditional way for the noodle preparation. Microwave drying has the specific advantage of rapid and uniform heating due to the penetration of microwaves into the body of the product. Microwave-assisted facility offers a quick and energy saving method during food dehydration as compares to the conventional air-dried method. Recently, numerous studies in the rheological characteristics of pasta or spaghetti were carried out with microwave–assisted air driers and many agricultural products were dried successfully. There are few researches about the evaluation of physicochemical characteristics and cooking quality of microwave-assisted air dried salted noodles. The purposes of this study were to compare the difference between conventional and microwave-assisted drying method on the physicochemical properties and eating quality of rice bran noodles. Three different microwave power including 0.5 KW, 0.75 KW and 1.0 KW installing with 50℃ hot air were applied for dehydration of rice bran noodles in this study. Three proportion of rice bran ranging in 0-20% were incorporated into salted noodles processing. The appearance, optimum cooking time, cooking yield and losses, textural profiles analysis, sensory evaluation of rice bran noodles were measured in this study. The results indicated that high power (1.0 KW) microwave facility caused partially burnt and porous on the surface of rice bran noodles. However, no characteristic of noodle was appeared on the surface of noodles preparing by low power (0.5 KW) microwave facility. The optimum cooking time of noodles was decreased as higher power microwave or higher proportion of rice bran was incorporated into noodles preparation. The higher proportion of rice bran (20%) or higher power of microwave-assisted dried noodles obtained the higher color intensity and the higher cooking losses as compared with conventional air dried noodles. The firmness of cooked rice bran noodles slightly decreased in the cooked noodles which were dried by high power microwave-assisted method. The shearing force, tensile strength, elasticity and texture profiles of cooked rice noodles decreased with the progress of the proportion of rice bran. The results of sensory evaluation indicated conventional dried noodles obtained the higher springiness, cohesiveness and acceptability of cooked noodles than high power (1.0 KW) microwave-assisted dried noodles. However, low power (0.5 KW) microwave-assisted dried noodles showed the comparable sensory attributes and acceptability with conventional dried noodles. Moreover, the sensory attributes including firmness, springiness, cohesiveness decreased, but stickiness increased, with the increases of rice bran proportion. These results inferred that incorporation of lower proportion of rice bran and lower power microwave-assisted dried noodles processing could produce faster cooking time and acceptable quality of cooked noodles as compared to conventional dried noodles.

Keywords: microwave-assisted drying method, physicochemical characteristics, rice bran noodles, sensory evaluation

Procedia PDF Downloads 483

Authors: Masih Nikgou

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ICU nurses or intensive care nurses are highly specialized and trained healthcare personnel. These nurses provide nursing care for patients with life-threatening illnesses or conditions. They provide the experience, knowledge and specialized skills that patients need to survive and recover. Intensive care nurses (ICU) are trained to make momentary decisions and act quickly when the patient's condition changes. Their primary work environment is in the hospital in intensive care units. Typically, ICU patients require a high level of care. ICU nurses work in challenging and complex fields in their nursing profession. They have the primary duty of caring for and saving patients who are fighting for their lives. Intensive care (ICU) nurses are highly trained to provide exceptional care to patients who depend on 24/7 nursing care. A patient in the ICU is often equipped with a ventilator, intubated and connected to several life support machines and medical equipment. Intensive Care Nurses (ICU) have full expertise in considering all aspects of bringing back their patients. Some of the specific responsibilities of ICU nurses include (a) Assessing and monitoring the patient's progress and identifying any sudden changes in the patient's medical condition. (b) Administration of drugs intravenously by injection or through gastric tubes. (c) Provide regular updates on patient progress to physicians, patients, and their families. (d) According to the clinical condition of the patient, perform the approved diagnostic or treatment methods. (e) In case of a health emergency, informing the relevant doctors. (f) To determine the need for emergency interventions, evaluate laboratory data and vital signs of patients. (g) Caring for patient needs during recovery in the ICU. (h) ICU nurses often provide emotional support to patients and their families. (i) Regulating and monitoring medical equipment and devices such as medical ventilators, oxygen delivery devices, transducers, and pressure lines. (j) Assessment of pain level and sedation needs of patients. (k) Maintaining patient reports and records. As the name suggests, critical care nurses work primarily in ICU health care units. ICUs are completely healthy and have proper lighting with strict adherence to health and safety from medical centers. ICU nurses usually move between the intensive care unit, the emergency department, the operating room, and other special departments of the hospital. ICU nurses usually follow a standard shift schedule that includes morning, afternoon, and night schedules. There are also other relocation programs depending on the hospital and region. Nurses who are passionate about data and managing a patient's condition and outcomes typically do well as ICU nurses. An inquisitive mind and attention to processes are equally important. ICU nurses are completely compassionate and are not afraid to advocate for their patients and family members. who are distressed.

Keywords: nursing, intensive care unit, pediatric intensive care unit, mobile intensive care unit, surgical intensive care unite

Procedia PDF Downloads 79

Authors: Noury Bakrim

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Translatability is one of Walter Benjamin’s most influential notions, it is somehow representing the philosophy of language and history of what we might call and what we indeed coined as ‘the other German Speaking Modernity’ which could be shaped as a parallel thought form to the Marxian-Hegelian philosophy of history, the one represented by the school of Frankfurt. On the other hand, we should consider the influence of the plural German speaking identity and the Nietzschian and Goethean heritage, this last being focused on a positive will of power: the humanised human being. Having in perspective the benjaminian notion of translatability (Übersetzbarkeit), to be defined as an internal permanent hermeneutical possibility as well as a phenomenological potential of a translation relation, we are in fact touching this very double limit of both historical and linguistic reason. By life component, we mean the changing conditions of genetic and neurolinguistic post-partum functions, to be grasped as an individuation beyond the historical determinism and teleology of an event. It is, so to speak, the retrospective/introspective canettian auto-fiction, the benjaminian crystallization of the language experience in the now-time of writing/transmission. Furthermore, it raises various questioning points when it comes to translatability, they are basically related to psycholinguistic separate poles, the fatherly ladino Spanish and the motherly Vienna German, but relating more in particular to the permanent ontological quest of a world loss/belonging. Another level of this quest would be the status of Veza Canetti-Taubner Calderón, german speaking Author, Canetti’s ‘literary wife’, writer’s love, his inverted logos, protective and yet controversial ‘official private life partner’, the permanence of the jewish experience in the exiled german language. It sheds light on a traumatic relation of an inadequate/possible language facing the reconstruction of an oral life, the unconscious split of the signifier and above all on the frustrating status of writing in Canetti’s work : Using a suffering/suffered written German to save his remembered acquisition of his tongue/mother tongue by saving the vanishing spoken multilingual experience. While Canetti’s only novel ‘Die Blendung’ designates that fictional referential dynamics focusing on the nazi worldless horizon: the figure of Kien is an onomastic signifier, the anti-Canetti figure, the misunderstood legacy of Kant, the system without thought. Our postulate would be the double translatability of his auto-fiction inventing the bios oral signifier basing on the new praxemes created by Canetti’s german as observed in the English, French translations of his memory corpus. We aim at conceptualizing life component and translatability as two major features of a german speaking modernity.

Keywords: translatability, language biography, presentification, bioeme, life Order

Procedia PDF Downloads 427

Authors: B. Yaman, G. Acikbas, N. Calis Acikbas

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Epoxy based materials have advantages in tribological applications due to their unique properties such as light weight, self-lubrication capacity and wear resistance. On the other hand, their usage is often limited by their low load bearing capacity and low thermal conductivity values. In this study, it is aimed to improve tribological and also mechanical properties of epoxy by reinforcing with ceramic based porcelain waste. It is well-known that the reuse or recycling of waste materials leads to reduction in production costs, ease of manufacturing, saving energy, etc. From this perspective, epoxy and epoxy matrix composites containing 60wt% porcelain waste with different particle size in the range of below 90µm and 150-250µm were fabricated, and the effect of filler particle size on the mechanical and tribological properties was investigated. The microstructural characterization was carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and phase analysis was determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The Archimedes principle was used to measure the density and porosity of the samples. The hardness values were measured using Shore-D hardness, and bending tests were performed. Microstructural investigations indicated that porcelain particles were homogeneously distributed and no agglomerations were encountered in the epoxy resin. Mechanical test results showed that the hardness and bending strength were increased with increasing particle size related to low porosity content and well embedding to the matrix. Tribological behavior of these composites was evaluated in terms of friction, wear rates and wear mechanisms by ball-on-disk contact with dry and rotational sliding at room temperature against WC ball with a diameter of 3mm. Wear tests were carried out at room temperature (23–25°C) with a humidity of 40 ± 5% under dry-sliding conditions. The contact radius of cycles was set to 5 mm at linear speed of 30 cm/s for the geometry used in this study. In all the experiments, 3N of constant test load was applied at a frequency of 8 Hz and prolonged to 400m wear distance. The friction coefficient of samples was recorded online by the variation in the tangential force. The steady-state CoFs were changed in between 0,29-0,32. The dimensions of the wear tracks (depth and width) were measured as two-dimensional profiles by a stylus profilometer. The wear volumes were calculated by integrating these 2D surface areas over the diameter. Specific wear rates were computed by dividing the wear volume by the applied load and sliding distance. According to the experimental results, the use of porcelain waste in the fabrication of epoxy resin composites can be suggested to be potential materials due to allowing improved mechanical and tribological properties and also providing reduction in production cost.

Keywords: epoxy composites, mechanical properties, porcelain waste, tribological properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Christian Lauter, Corin Reuter, Shuang Wu, Thomas Troester

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Lightweight construction became more and more important over the last decades in several applications, e.g. in the automotive or aircraft sector. This is the result of economic and ecological constraints on the one hand and increasing safety and comfort requirements on the other hand. In the field of lightweight design, different approaches are used due to specific requirements towards the technical systems. The use of endless carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) offers the largest weight saving potential of sometimes more than 50% compared to conventional metal-constructions. However, there are very limited industrial applications because of the cost-intensive manufacturing of the fibers and production technologies. Other disadvantages of pure CFRP-structures affect the quality control or the damage resistance. One approach to meet these challenges is hybrid materials. This means CFRP and sheet metal are combined on a material level. Therefore, new opportunities for innovative process routes are realizable. Hybrid lightweight design results in lower costs due to an optimized material utilization and the possibility to integrate the structures in already existing production processes of automobile manufacturers. In recent and current research, the advantages of two-layered hybrid materials have been pointed out, i.e. the possibility to realize structures with tailored mechanical properties or to divide the curing cycle of the epoxy resin into two steps. Current research work at the Chair for Automotive Lightweight Design (LiA) at the Paderborn University focusses on production processes for fiber-metal-laminates. The aim of this work is the development and qualification of a large-scale production process for high-performance fiber-metal-laminates (FML) for industrial applications in the automotive or aircraft sector. Therefore, the prepreg-press-technology is used, in which pre-impregnated carbon fibers and sheet metals are formed and cured in a closed, heated mold. The investigations focus e.g. on the realization of short process chains and cycle times, on the reduction of time-consuming manual process steps, and the reduction of material costs. This paper gives an overview over the considerable steps of the production process in the beginning. Afterwards experimental results are discussed. This part concentrates on the influence of different process parameters on the mechanical properties, the laminate quality and the identification of process limits. Concluding the advantages of this technology compared to conventional FML-production-processes and other lightweight design approaches are carried out.

Keywords: composite material, fiber-metal-laminate, lightweight construction, prepreg-press-technology, large-series production

Procedia PDF Downloads 240

Authors: Feiyu Yang, Chunfang Ni, Rong Wang, Yun Zou, Wenbin Liu, Chenggong Zhang, Fenjin Sun, Chun Wang

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Cocaine is the most frequently used illegal drug globally, with the global annual prevalence of cocaine used ranging from 0.3% to 0.4 % of the adult population aged 15–64 years. Growing consumption trend of abused cocaine and drug crimes are a great concern, therefore urine sample testing has become an important noninvasive sampling whereas cocaine and its metabolites (COCs) are usually present in high concentrations and relatively long detection windows. However, direct analysis of urine samples is not feasible because urine complex medium often causes low sensitivity and selectivity of the determination. On the other hand, presence of low doses of analytes in urine makes an extraction and pretreatment step important before determination. Especially, in gathered taking drug cases, the pretreatment step becomes more tedious and time-consuming. So developing a sensitive, rapid and high-throughput method for detection of COCs in human body is indispensable for law enforcement officers, treatment specialists and health officials. In this work, a new automated magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction (MDSPE) sampling method followed by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) was developed for quantitative enrichment of COCs from human urine, using prepared magnetic nanoparticles as absorbants. The nanoparticles were prepared by silanizing magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles and modifying them with divinyl benzene and vinyl pyrrolidone, which possesses the ability for specific adsorption of COCs. And this kind of magnetic particle facilitated the pretreatment steps by electromagnetically controlled extraction to achieve full automation. The proposed device significantly improved the sampling preparation efficiency with 32 samples in one batch within 40mins. Optimization of the preparation procedure for the magnetic nanoparticles was explored and the performances of magnetic nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer and infrared spectra measurements. Several analytical experimental parameters were studied, including amount of particles, adsorption time, elution solvent, extraction and desorption kinetics, and the verification of the proposed method was accomplished. The limits of detection for the cocaine and cocaine metabolites were 0.09-1.1 ng·mL-1 with recoveries ranging from 75.1 to 105.7%. Compared to traditional sampling method, this method is time-saving and environmentally friendly. It was confirmed that the proposed automated method was a kind of highly effective way for the trace cocaine and cocaine metabolites analyses in human urine.

Keywords: automatic magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction, cocaine detection, magnetic nanoparticles, urine sample testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 204

Authors: Dalia Hanna, Alexander Ferworn

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This research provides detailed proposed training modules for the public safety teams and, specifically, SAR teams responsible for search and rescue operations related to finding lost persons with dementia. Finding a lost person alive is the goal of this training. Time matters if a lost person is to be found alive. Finding lost people living with dementia is quite challenging, as they are unaware they are lost and will not seek help. Even a small contribution to SAR operations could contribute to saving a life. SAR operations will always require expert professional and human volunteers. However, we can reduce their time, save lives, and reduce costs by providing practical training that is based on real-life scenarios. The content for the proposed training is based on the research work done by the researcher in this area. This research has demonstrated that, based on utilizing drones, the algorithmic approach could support a successful search outcome. Understanding the behavior of the lost person, learning where they may be found, predicting their survivability, and automating the search are all contributions of this work, founded in theory and demonstrated in practice. In crisis management, human behavior constitutes a vital aspect in responding to the crisis; the speed and efficiency of the response often get affected by the difficulty of the context of the operation. Therefore, training in this area plays a significant role in preparing the crisis manager to manage the emotional aspects that lead to decision-making in these critical situations. Since it is crucial to gain high-level strategic choices and the ability to apply crisis management procedures, simulation exercises become central in training crisis managers to gain the needed skills to respond critically to these events. The training will enhance the responders’ ability to make decisions and anticipate possible consequences of their actions through flexible and revolutionary reasoning in responding to the crisis efficiently and quickly. As adult learners, search and rescue teams will be approaching training and learning by taking responsibility of the learning process, appreciate flexible learning and as contributors to the teaching and learning happening during that training. These are all characteristics of adult learning theories. The learner self-reflects, gathers information, collaborates with others and is self-directed. One of the learning strategies associated with adult learning is effective elaboration. It helps learners to remember information in the long term and use it in situations where it might be appropriate. It is also a strategy that can be taught easily and used with learners of different ages. Designers must design reflective activities to improve the student’s intrapersonal awareness.

Keywords: training, OER, dementia, drones, search and rescue, adult learning, UDL, instructional design

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: Marco Sewald

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Due to the current enforcement of exterritorial U.S. legislation, up to 9 million U.S. (dual) citizens residing abroad are subject to U.S. double and surcharge taxation and at risk of losing access to otherwise basic financial services and investment opportunities abroad. The United States is the only OECD country that taxes non-resident citizens, lawful permanent residents and other non-resident aliens on their worldwide income, based on local U.S. tax laws. To enforce these policies the U.S. has implemented ‘saving clauses’ in all tax treaties and implemented several compliance provisions, including the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), Qualified Intermediaries Agreements (QI) and Intergovernmental Agreements (IGA) addressing Foreign Financial Institutions (FFIs) to implement these provisions in foreign jurisdictions. This policy creates systematic cases of double and surcharge taxation. The increased enforcement of compliance rules is creating additional report burdens for U.S. persons abroad and FFIs accepting such U.S. persons as customers. FFIs in Europe react with a growing denial of specific financial services to this population. The numbers of U.S. citizens renouncing has dramatically increased in the last years. A case study is chosen as an appropriate methodology and research method, as being an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used. This evaluative approach is testing whether the combination of policies works in practice, or whether they are in accordance with desirable moral, political, economical aims, or may serve other causes. The research critically evaluates the financial and non-financial consequences and develops sufficient strategies. It further discusses these strategies to avoid the undesired consequences of exterritorial U.S. legislation. Three possible strategies are resulting from the use cases: (1) Duck and cover, (2) Pay U.S. double/surcharge taxes, tax preparing fees and accept imposed product limitations and (3) Renounce U.S. citizenship and pay possible exit taxes, tax preparing fees and the requested $2,350 fee to renounce. While the first strategy is unlawful and therefore unsuitable, the second strategy is only suitable if the U.S. citizen residing abroad is planning to move to the U.S. in the future. The last strategy is the only reasonable and lawful way provided by the U.S. to limit the exposure to U.S. double and surcharge taxation and the limitations on financial products. The results are believed to add a perspective to the current academic discourse regarding U.S. citizenship based taxation, currently dominated by U.S. scholars, while providing sufficient strategies for the affected population at the same time.

Keywords: citizenship based taxation, FATCA, FBAR, qualified intermediaries agreements, renounce U.S. citizenship

Procedia PDF Downloads 202

Authors: Yuri Laevsky, Tatyana Nosova

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The phenomenon of filtration gas combustion (FGC) had been discovered experimentally at the beginning of 80’s of the previous century. It has a number of important applications in such areas as chemical technologies, fire-explosion safety, energy-saving technologies, oil production. From the physical point of view, FGC may be defined as the propagation of region of gaseous exothermic reaction in chemically inert porous medium, as the gaseous reactants seep into the region of chemical transformation. The movement of the combustion front has different modes, and this investigation is focused on the low-velocity regime. The main characteristic of the process is the velocity of the combustion front propagation. Computation of this characteristic encounters substantial difficulties because of the strong heterogeneity of the process. The mathematical model of FGC is formed by the energy conservation laws for the temperature of the porous medium and the temperature of gas and the mass conservation law for the relative concentration of the reacting component of the gas mixture. In this case the homogenization of the model is performed with the use of the two-temperature approach when at each point of the continuous medium we specify the solid and gas phases with a Newtonian heat exchange between them. The construction of a computational scheme is based on the principles of mixed finite element method with the usage of a regular mesh. The approximation in time is performed by an explicit–implicit difference scheme. Special attention was given to determination of the combustion front propagation velocity. Straight computation of the velocity as grid derivative leads to extremely unstable algorithm. It is worth to note that the term ‘front propagation velocity’ makes sense for settled motion when some analytical formulae linking velocity and equilibrium temperature are correct. The numerical implementation of one of such formulae leading to the stable computation of instantaneous front velocity has been proposed. The algorithm obtained has been applied in subsequent numerical investigation of the FGC process. This way the dependence of the main characteristics of the process on various physical parameters has been studied. In particular, the influence of the combustible gas mixture consumption on the front propagation velocity has been investigated. It also has been reaffirmed numerically that there is an interval of critical values of the interfacial heat transfer coefficient at which a sort of a breakdown occurs from a slow combustion front propagation to a rapid one. Approximate boundaries of such an interval have been calculated for some specific parameters. All the results obtained are in full agreement with both experimental and theoretical data, confirming the adequacy of the model and the algorithm constructed. The presence of stable techniques to calculate the instantaneous velocity of the combustion wave allows considering the semi-Lagrangian approach to the solution of the problem.

Keywords: filtration gas combustion, low-velocity regime, mixed finite element method, numerical simulation

Procedia PDF Downloads 303

Authors: Gideon J. Bonthuys, Marco van Dijk, Jay N. Bhagwan

Abstract:

Small scale hydropower used to play a very important role in the provision of energy to urban and rural areas of South Africa. The national electricity grid, however, expanded and offered cheap, coal generated electricity and a large number of hydropower systems were decommissioned. Unfortunately, large numbers of households and communities will not be connected to the national electricity grid for the foreseeable future due to high cost of transmission and distribution systems to remote communities due to the relatively low electricity demand within rural communities and the allocation of current expenditure on upgrading and constructing of new coal fired power stations. This necessitates the development of feasible alternative power generation technologies. A feasibility and implementation model was developed to assist in designing and financially evaluating small-scale hydropower (SSHP) plants. Several sites were identified using the model. The SSHP plants were designed for the selected sites and the designs for the different selected sites were priced using pricing models (civil, mechanical and electrical aspects). Following feasibility studies done on the designed and priced SSHP plants, a feasibility analysis was done and a design chart developed for future similar potential SSHP plant projects. The methodology followed in conducting the feasibility analysis for other potential sites consisted of developing cost and income/saving formulae, developing net present value (NPV) formulae, Capital Cost Comparison Ratio (CCCR) and levelised cost formulae for SSHP projects for the different types of plant installations. It included setting up a model for the development of a design chart for a SSHP, calculating the NPV, CCCR and levelised cost for the different scenarios within the model by varying different parameters within the developed formulae, setting up the design chart for the different scenarios within the model and analyzing and interpreting results. From the interpretation of the develop design charts for feasible SSHP in can be seen that turbine and distribution line cost are the major influences on the cost and feasibility of SSHP. High head, short transmission line and islanded mini-grid SSHP installations are the most feasible and that the levelised cost of SSHP is high for low power generation sites. The main conclusion from the study is that the levelised cost of SSHP projects indicate that the cost of SSHP for low energy generation is high compared to the levelised cost of grid connected electricity supply; however, the remoteness of SSHP for rural electrification and the cost of infrastructure to connect remote rural communities to the local or national electricity grid provides a low CCCR and renders SSHP for rural electrification feasible on this basis.

Keywords: cost, feasibility, rural electrification, small-scale hydropower

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Authors: Fabrizio Ascione, Martina Borrelli, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Silvia Ruggiero, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli

Abstract:

The refurbishment of public buildings is one of the key factors of energy efficiency policy of European States. Educational buildings account for the largest share of the oldest edifice with interesting potentialities for demonstrating best practice with regards to high performance and low and zero-carbon design and for becoming exemplar cases within the community. In this context, this paper discusses the critical issue of dealing the energy refurbishment of a university building in heating dominated climate of South Italy. More in detail, the importance of using validated models will be examined exhaustively by proposing an analysis on uncertainties due to modelling assumptions mainly referring to the adoption of stochastic schedules for occupant behavior and equipment or lighting usage. Indeed, today, the great part of commercial tools provides to designers a library of possible schedules with which thermal zones can be described. Very often, the users do not pay close attention to diversify thermal zones and to modify or to adapt predefined profiles, and results of designing are affected positively or negatively without any alarm about it. Data such as occupancy schedules, internal loads and the interaction between people and windows or plant systems, represent some of the largest variables during the energy modelling and to understand calibration results. This is mainly due to the adoption of discrete standardized and conventional schedules with important consequences on the prevision of the energy consumptions. The problem is surely difficult to examine and to solve. In this paper, a sensitivity analysis is presented, to understand what is the order of magnitude of error that is committed by varying the deterministic schedules used for occupation, internal load, and lighting system. This could be a typical uncertainty for a case study as the presented one where there is not a regulation system for the HVAC system thus the occupant cannot interact with it. More in detail, starting from adopted schedules, created according to questioner’ s responses and that has allowed a good calibration of energy simulation model, several different scenarios are tested. Two type of analysis are presented: the reference building is compared with these scenarios in term of percentage difference on the projected total electric energy need and natural gas request. Then the different entries of consumption are analyzed and for more interesting cases also the comparison between calibration indexes. Moreover, for the optimal refurbishment solution, the same simulations are done. The variation on the provision of energy saving and global cost reduction is evidenced. This parametric study wants to underline the effect on performance indexes evaluation of the modelling assumptions during the description of thermal zones.

Keywords: energy simulation, modelling calibration, occupant behavior, university building

Procedia PDF Downloads 141

Authors: Hatharasinghe Liyanage Saneetha Chathaurika, Shreenika De Silva Weliange

Abstract:

Background and Significance of the Study: Natural and human-induced disasters have become more common due to rapid development and climate change. Therefore hospitalization due to injuries has increased in the midst of advancement in medicine. Prehospital trauma care is critical in reducing morbidity and mortality following injury. Army soldiers are one of the first responder categories after a major disaster causing injury. Thus, basic life support measures taken by trained lay first responders is life-saving, it is important to build up their capacities by updating their knowledge and practices while cultivating positive attitudes toward it. Objective: To describe knowledge, attitudes and practices on prehospital trauma care among army soldiers in Matara District. Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among army soldiers in Matara district. The whole population was studied belonging to the above group during the study period. Self-administered questionnaire was used as the study instrument. Cross tabulations were done to identify the possible associations using chi square statistics. Knowledge and practices were categorized in to two groups as “Poor” and “Good” taking 50% as the cut off. Results: The study population consists of 266 participants (response rate 97.79%).The overall level of knowledge on prehospital trauma care is poor (78.6%) while knowledge on golden hour of trauma (77.1%), triage system (74.4%), cardio pulmonary resuscitation (92.5%) and transportation of patients with spinal cord injury (69.2%) was markedly poor. Good knowledge is significantly associated with advance age, higher income and higher level of education whereas it has no significant association with work duration. More than 80% of them had positive attitudes on most aspects of prehospital trauma care while majority thinks it is good to have knowledge on this topic and they would have performed better in disaster situations if they were trained on pre-hospital trauma care. With regard to the practice, majority (62.8%) is included in the group of poor level of practice. They lack practice on first-aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and safe transportation of the patients. Moreover, they had less opportunity to participate in drills/simulation programs done on disaster events. Good practice is significantly associated with advance age and higher level of education but not associated with level of income and working duration of army soldiers. Highly significant association was observed between the level of knowledge and level of practice on prehospital trauma care of army soldiers. It is observed that higher the knowledge practices become better. Conclusion: A higher proportion of army soldiers had poor knowledge and practice on prehospital trauma care while majority had positive attitudes regarding it. Majority lacks knowledge and practice in first-aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Due to significant association observed between knowledge and practice it can be recommended to include a training session on prehospital trauma care in the basic military curriculum which will enhance the ability to act as first responders effectively. Further research is needed in this area of prehospital trauma care to enhance the qualitative outcome.

Keywords: disaster, prehospital trauma care, first responders, army soldiers

Procedia PDF Downloads 233