Search results for: blood glucose level

Authors: Anuoluwapo O. Adewole

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Fermentation is the conversion of monomeric sugars into ethanol and carbondioxide in the presence of microorganisms under anaerobic conditions. In line with the aim and objective of this research project, which is to investigate into the variables affecting the use of charcoal to delay fermentation in wet beans slurry, some physical and chemical analysis were carried out on the wet beans slurry using a PH meter in which a thermometer is incorporated in it, and a measuring cylinder was used for the foam level test. About 250 grams of the ground beans slurry was divided into two portions for testing. The sample with charcoal was labeled sample 'A' while the second sample without charcoal was labeled sample 'B' subsequently. The experiment lasted for a period of 41.15 hours (i.e., forty-one hours and nine minutes). During the fourth process, both samples could not be tested as the laboratory had been saturated with foul odor and both samples were packed and sealed in polythene bag for disposal in the trash can. It was generally observed that the sample with the charcoal lasted for a longer time before that without charcoal before total spoilage occurred.

Keywords: fermentation, monomeric sugars, beans slurry, charcoal, anaerobic conditions

Procedia PDF Downloads 314

Authors: Rashid Ahmed , John N. Avaritsiotis

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Many signal subspace-based approaches have already been proposed for determining the fixed Direction of Arrival (DOA) of plane waves impinging on an array of sensors. Two procedures for DOA estimation based neural networks are presented. First, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is employed to extract the maximum eigenvalue and eigenvector from signal subspace to estimate DOA. Second, minor component analysis (MCA) is a statistical method of extracting the eigenvector associated with the smallest eigenvalue of the covariance matrix. In this paper, we will modify a Minor Component Analysis (MCA(R)) learning algorithm to enhance the convergence, where a convergence is essential for MCA algorithm towards practical applications. The learning rate parameter is also presented, which ensures fast convergence of the algorithm, because it has direct effect on the convergence of the weight vector and the error level is affected by this value. MCA is performed to determine the estimated DOA. Preliminary results will be furnished to illustrate the convergences results achieved.

Keywords: Direction of Arrival, neural networks, Principle Component Analysis, Minor Component Analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 434

Authors: Michelle Roesler, Ian Glendon, Francis O'Callaghan

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This study expands on recent findings and offers a new perspective on recovery from injury and return to work (RTW) after an acute traumatic occupational hand injury. Recovery is a complex medical and psychosocial process. A number of predictor variables were studied simultaneously to identify the bio-psychosocial variables that impede recovery. An unexpected phenomenon to emerge from this study was the high incidence of complications within the hand-injured patient sample. Twenty six percent (n = 71) of the total sample (N = 263) required a second operation due to complications. This warranted further investigation. Results confirmed that complications not only significantly delayed the RTW outcome but also had a profound psychological impact on the individuals affected. Research has found that surgical complications are usually the result of incorrect early assessment and management. A strategic plan needs to be implemented to ensure the optimal level of surgical care is provided for managing acute traumatic hand injuries to avoid such complications.

Keywords: occupational hand trauma, psychological recovery, return to work, psychology

Procedia PDF Downloads 493

Authors: Tahar Djebbar Aziza

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The American society, like all societies, is fractured by social divisions between different groups of people. It is divided by race, class, gender, and other social and cultural characteristics. Social divisions affect the way and the manner welfare is delivered for citizens within the American society. The welfare state exists to guarantee the promotion of well –being for all the different components within a society without taking into account their age, gender, their ethnicity/race, or their social belonging (class). Race, class, and even gender issues are the main factors that affected the formal structure, the nature, as well as the evolution of the American welfare state and led to its uniqueness. They have affected the structure and the evolution of the American welfare state since its creation in the 1930s, and led to its uniqueness in an international level. This study aims therefore at enhancing the readers’ awareness of social divisions: race, class, gender and their implications for the distribution of welfare resources and life chances in the USA from the early 1930s to the late 1990s.

Keywords: African Americans, class, gender, minority groups, race, social divisions, social policy, U.S. welfare state

Procedia PDF Downloads 536

Authors: Hadeel Al Obaidy, Amani Al Heela

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The main purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of semantic web and the role that ontology and semantic annotation plays in the development of semantic web services. The paper focuses on semantic web infrastructure illustrating how ontology and annotation work to provide the learning capabilities for building content semantically. To improve productivity and quality of software, the paper applies approaches, notations and techniques offered by software engineering. It proposes a conceptual model to develop semantic web services for the infrastructure of web information retrieval system of digital libraries. The developed system uses ontology and annotation to build a knowledge based system to define and link the meaning of a web content to retrieve information for users’ queries. The results are more relevant through keywords and ontology rule expansion that will be more accurate to satisfy the requested information. The level of results accuracy would be enhanced since the query semantically analyzed work with the conceptual architecture of the proposed system.

Keywords: semantic web services, software engineering, semantic library, knowledge representation, ontology

Procedia PDF Downloads 161

Authors: Thorsten Prante, Robert Schöch, Ruth Fleisch, Vaheh Khachatouri, Alexander Walch

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The development of industrial plant control software is a complex and often very expensive task. One of the core problems is that a lot of the implementation and adaptation work can only be done after the plant hardware has been installed. In this paper, we present our approach to virtually developing and validating plant-level control software of production plants. This way, plant control software can be virtually commissioned before actual ramp-up of a plant, reducing actual commissioning costs and time. Technically, this is achieved by linking the actual plant-wide process control software (often called plant server) and an elaborate virtual plant model together to form an emulation system. Method-wise, we are suggesting a four-step iterative process with well-defined increments and time frame. Our work is based on practical experiences from planning to commissioning and start-up of several cut-to-size plants.

Keywords: iterative system design, virtual plant engineering, plant control software, simulation and emulation, virtual commissioning

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Authors: Chenchen Liu, Jacques Audran

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Using tablet apps with a certain educational purpose to promote young children’s cognitive development, is quite common now. Developing an educational app on an Ipad like tablet, especially for a young child (age 3-5) requires an optimal level of challenge to continuously attract children’s attention and obtain an educational effect. Adaptive difficulty adjustment, which could dynamically set the difficulty in the challenge according to children’s performance, seems to be a good solution. Since space concept plays an important role in young children’s cognitive development, we made an experimental comparison in a French kindergarten between one group of 23 children using an educational app ‘Debout Ludo’ with adaptive difficulty settings and another group of 20 children using the previous version of ‘Debout Ludo’ with a classic incremental difficulty adjustment. The experiment results of spatial problem solving indicated that a significantly higher learning outcome was acquired by the young children who used the adaptive version of the app.

Keywords: adaptive difficulty, spatial problem solving, tactile tablet, young children

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Authors: Hong Bae Kim, Chang Ho Hur

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Many governments have tried to reduce CO₂ emissions which are believed to be the main cause for global warming. The deployment of electric automobiles is regarded as an effective way to reduce CO₂ emissions. The Korean government has planned to deploy about 200,000 electric automobiles. The policy for the deployment of electric automobiles aims at not only decreasing gasoline consumption but also increasing electricity production. However, if an electricity consuming regions is not consistent with an electricity producing region, the policy generates environmental problems between regions. Hence, this paper has established the energy multi-region input-output model to specifically analyze the impacts of the deployment of electric automobiles on regional energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. Finally, the paper suggests policy directions regarding the deployment of electric automobiles.

Keywords: electric automobiles, CO2 emissions, regional imbalances in electricity production and consumption, energy multi-region input-output model

Procedia PDF Downloads 289

Authors: Rachel Barker

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The exponential velocity in the truly knowledge-intensive world today has increasingly bombarded organizations with unfathomable challenges. Hence organizations are introduced to strange lexicons of descriptors belonging to a new paradigm of who, what and how knowledge at individual and organizational levels should be managed. Although organizational knowledge has been recognized as a valuable intangible resource that holds the key to competitive advantage, little progress has been made in understanding how knowledge sharing at individual level could benefit knowledge use at collective level to ensure added value. The research problem is that a lack of research exists to measure knowledge sharing through a multi-layered structure of ideas with at its foundation, philosophical assumptions to support presuppositions and commitment which requires actual findings from measured variables to confirm observed and expected events. The purpose of this paper is to address this problem by presenting a theoretical approach to measure knowledge sharing in emerging knowledge organizations. The research question is that despite the competitive necessity of becoming a knowledge-based organization, leaders have found it difficult to transform their organizations due to a lack of knowledge on who, what and how it should be done. The main premise of this research is based on the challenge for knowledge leaders to develop an organizational culture conducive to the sharing of knowledge and where learning becomes the norm. The theoretical constructs were derived and based on the three components of the knowledge management theory, namely technical, communication and human components where it is suggested that this knowledge infrastructure could ensure effective management. While it is realised that it might be a little problematic to implement and measure all relevant concepts, this paper presents effect of eight critical success factors (CSFs) namely: organizational strategy, organizational culture, systems and infrastructure, intellectual capital, knowledge integration, organizational learning, motivation/performance measures and innovation. These CSFs have been identified based on a comprehensive literature review of existing research and tested in a new framework adapted from four perspectives of the balanced score card (BSC). Based on these CSFs and their items, an instrument was designed and tested among managers and employees of a purposefully selected engineering company in South Africa who relies on knowledge sharing to ensure their competitive advantage. Rigorous pretesting through personal interviews with executives and a number of academics took place to validate the instrument and to improve the quality of items and correct wording of issues. Through analysis of surveys collected, this research empirically models and uncovers key aspects of these dimensions based on the CSFs. Reliability of the instrument was calculated by Cronbach’s a for the two sections of the instrument on organizational and individual levels.The construct validity was confirmed by using factor analysis. The impact of the results was tested using structural equation modelling and proved to be a basis for implementing and understanding the competitive predisposition of the organization as it enters the process of knowledge management. In addition, they realised the importance to consolidate their knowledge assets to create value that is sustainable over time.

Keywords: innovation, intellectual capital, knowledge sharing, performance measures

Procedia PDF Downloads 180

Authors: Mohammed Abdullah Alrajhi

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The rapid growth in the number of mobile phone subscribers has resulted in an increased number of mobile base stations all over the world. Generally, mobile base stations are existing in huge numbers in populated areas than in non-populated ones to serve the largest number of users. The total number of mobile subscriptions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reached around 50 million at the end of 2014, with a penetration rate of 165.1% according to the quarterly electronic newsletter issued by the Communications and Information Technology Commission. The current investigation was conducted primarily to measure the level of electromagnetic fields emitted from 400 mobile base stations for the purpose of environmental safety and radiation protection in light of national guidelines for public exposure as well as the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). The outcomes of this investigation provide valuable comments and recommendation for safety and protection of electromagnetic fields emitted from mobile base stations.

Keywords: electromagnetic fields, mobile, safety, protection, ICNIRP

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Authors: Klas Elmquist, Anders Larsson

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Until the year 2000, almost all short pulse modulators in the accelerator world were made with the pulse forming network (PFN) technique. The pulse forming network systems have since then been replaced with solid state modulators that have better efficiency, better stability, and lower cost of ownership, and they are much smaller. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to replace a pulse forming network system with a solid-state system without changing the klystron tank and the klystron transformer. The solid-state modulator uses semiconductors switching at 1 kV level. A first pulse transformer transforms the voltage up to 10 kV. The 10 kV pulse is finally fed into the original transformer that is placed under the klystron. A flatness of 0.8 percent and stability of 100 PPM is achieved. The test is done with a CPI 8262 type of klystron. It is also shown that it is possible to run such a system with long cables between the transformers. When using this technique, it will be possible to keep original sub-systems like filament systems, vacuum systems, focusing solenoid systems, and cooling systems for the klystron. This will substantially reduce the cost of an upgrade and prolong the life of the klystron system.

Keywords: modulator, solid-state, PFN-system, thyratron

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: Muhammad Mooneeb Ali

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Institutions, where religious knowledge is given are known as madrassas. They also give formal education along with religious education. This study will be a pioneer to explore if MALL can be beneficial for madrassa students or not in formal educational situations. For investigation, an experimental study was planned in Punjab where the sample size was 100 students, 10 each from 10 different madrassas of Punjab, who are studying at the intermediate level (i.e., 11th grade). The madrassas were chosen through a convenient sampling method, whereas the learners were chosen by a simple random sampling method. A pretest was conducted, and on the basis of the results, the learners were divided into two equal groups (experimental and controlled). After two months of treatment, a posttest was conducted, and the results of both groups were compared. The results indicated that the performance of the experimental group was significantly better than the control one. This indicates that MALL elevates the performance of Madrassa students.

Keywords: english language learners, madrassa students, formal education, mobile assisted language learning (MALL), Pakistan.

Procedia PDF Downloads 60

Authors: R. Hasan

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Male factor infertility due to endocrine disturbances such as abnormalities in prolactin levels are encountered in a significant proportion. This case control study was carried out to determine the effects of prolactin on the male reproductive tract, using 200 male white rats. The rats were maintained as the control group (G1), hypoprolactinaemic group (G2), 3 hyperprolactinaemic groups induced using oral largactil (G3), low dose fluphenazine (G4) and high dose fluphenazine (G5). After 100 days, rats were subjected to serum prolactin (PRL) level measurements and for basic seminal fluid analysis (BSA). The difference between serum PRL concentrations of rats in G2, G3, G4 and G5 as compared to the control group were highly significant by Student’s t-test (p<0.001). There were statistically significant differences in seminal fluid characteristics of rats with induced prolactin abnormalities when compared with those of control group (p value <0.05), effects were more marked as the PRL levels rise.

Keywords: male factor infertility, prolactin, seminal fluid analysis, animal studies

Procedia PDF Downloads 280

Authors: Indu Gupta

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Climate change and global warming is most burning issue for “our common future”. For this common global interest. Countries organize conferences of government and nongovernment type. Human being destroying the non-renewable resources and polluting the renewable resources of planet for economic growth. Air pollution is mainly responsible for global warming and climate change .Due to global warming ice glaciers are shrinking and melting. Forests are shrinking, deserts expanding and soil eroding. The depletion of stratospheric ozone layer is depleting and hole in ozone layer that protect us from harmful ultra violet radiation. Extreme high temperature in summer and extreme low temperature and smog in winters, floods in rainy season. These all are indication of climate change. The level of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases in the atmosphere is increasing at high speed. Nation’s are worried about environmental degradation.

Keywords: environmental degradation, global warming, soil eroding, ultra-Violate radiation

Procedia PDF Downloads 361

Authors: Nais Pinta Adetya, H. Hadiyanto

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Microalgae has a potential to be utilized as food and natural colorant. The microalgae components consists of three main parts, these are lipid, protein, and carbohydrate. Crucial step in producing lipid and protein from microalgae is extraction. Microalgae has high water level (70-90%), it causes drying process of biomass needs much more energy and also has potential to distract lipid and protein from microalgae. Extraction of lipid from wet biomass is able to take place efficiently with cell disruption of microalgae by osmotic shock method. In this study, osmotic shock method was going to be integrated with ultrasound to maximalize the extraction yield of lipid and protein from wet biomass Spirulina sp. with osmotic shock method assisted ultrasound. This study consisted of two steps, these were osmotic shock process toward wet biomass and ultrasound extraction assisted. NaCl solution was used as osmotic agent, with the variation of concentrations were 10%, 20%, and 30%. Extraction was conducted in 40°C for 20 minutes with frequency of ultrasound wave was 40kHz. The optimal yield of protein (2.7%) and (lipid 38%) were achieved at 20% osmotic agent concentration.

Keywords: extraction, lipid, osmotic shock, protein, ultrasound

Procedia PDF Downloads 336

Authors: Kevin Wongleedee

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Food quality and risks are major concerns for inbound senior tourists when visiting tourist destinations in Thailand. The purposes of this study were to investigate food quality and risks perceived by inbound senior tourists. This paper drew upon data collection from an inbound senior tourist survey conducted in Thailand during summer 2013. Summer time in Thailand is a high season for inbound tourists. It is also a high risk period in which a variety food safety issues and incidents have often occurred. The survey was structured primarily to obtain inbound senior tourists’ concerns toward a variety of food quality and risks they encountered during their trip in Thailand. A total of 400 inbound senior tourists were elicited as data input for mean and standard deviation. The findings revealed that inbound tourists rated the overall food quality at a high level and the three most important perceived food risks were 1) unclean physical cooking facility, 2) toxic chemical handling, and 3) unclean water.

Keywords: food quality, inbound senior tourists, risks, Thailand

Procedia PDF Downloads 387

Authors: Andressa dos Santos Nicolau, João P. da S.C Algusto, Claudio Márcio do N. A. Pereira, Roberto Schirru

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In case of abnormal situations, the nuclear power plant (NPP) operators must follow written procedures to check the condition of the plant and to classify the type of emergency. In this paper, we proposed a Real Time Expert System in order to improve operator’s performance in case of transient or accident with reactor shutdown. The expert system’s knowledge is based on the sequence of events (SoE) of known accident and two emergency procedures of the Brazilian Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) NPP and uses two kinds of knowledge representation: rule and logic trees. The results show that the system was able to classify the response of the automatic protection systems, as well as to evaluate the conditions of the plant, diagnosing the type of occurrence, recovery procedure to be followed, indicating the shutdown root cause, and classifying the emergency level.

Keywords: emergence procedure, expert system, operator support, PWR nuclear power plant

Procedia PDF Downloads 319

Authors: Sudeepti Dayal, Neelesh Gupta

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Image abbreviation is utilized for reducing the size of a file without demeaning the quality of the image to an objectionable level. The depletion in file size permits more images to be deposited in a given number of spaces. It also minimizes the time necessary for images to be transferred. Storage of medical images is a most researched area in the current scenario. To store a medical image, there are two parameters on which the image is divided, regions of interest and non-regions of interest. The best way to store an image is to compress it in such a way that no important information is lost. Compression can be done in two ways, namely lossy, and lossless compression. Under that, several compression algorithms are applied. In the paper, two algorithms are used which are, discrete cosine transform, applied to non-region of interest (lossy), and discrete wavelet transform, applied to regions of interest (lossless). The paper introduces SPIHT (set partitioning hierarchical tree) algorithm which is applied onto the wavelet transform to obtain good compression ratio from which an image can be stored efficiently.

Keywords: Compression ratio, DWT, SPIHT, DCT

Procedia PDF Downloads 334

Authors: M. Ahmed, Javed Mallick, Mohammad Abul Hasan

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The flexural tensile strength of concrete is an important parameter for determining cracking behavior of concrete structure and to compute deflection under flexure. Many factors have been shown to influence the flexural tensile strength, particularly the level of concrete strength, size of member, age of concrete and confinement to flexure member etc. Empirical equations have been suggested to relate the flexural tensile strength and compressive strength. Limited literature is available for relationship between flexural tensile strength and compressive strength giving consideration to the factors affecting the flexural tensile strength specially the concrete confinement factor. The concrete member such as slabs, beams and columns critical locations are under confinement effects. The paper presents the experimental study to predict the flexural tensile strength and compressive strength empirical relations using statistical procedures considering the effect of confinement and age of concrete for wide range of concrete strength (from 35 to about 100 MPa). It is concluded from study that due consideration of confinement should be given in deriving the flexural tensile strength and compressive strength proportionality equations.

Keywords: compressive strength, flexural tensile strength, modulus of rupture, statistical procedures, concrete confinement

Procedia PDF Downloads 443

Authors: Hotlan Siagian, Han Tae Hee

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This study aims to examine the effect of supplier trust and top management involvement on the supply chain risk management through buyer-supplier relationship. The population of the research is 44 Korean companies domiciled in East and Central Java of Indonesia. The respondent consists of a top management level from each company. Data collection used a questionnaire designed with five-item Likert scale. Collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique with SmartPLS software version 3.0 to examine the hypotheses. The result revealed that supplier trust has an effect on supply chain risk management, top management involvement affects supply chain risk management, supplier trust influences buyer-supplier relationship, top management involvement affects the buyer-supplier relationship, and buyer-supplier relationship affects supply chain risk management. The last finding is that buyer-supplier relationship empirically mediates the effect of supplier trust and top management involvement.

Keywords: buyer supplier relationship, supplier trust, supply chain risk management, top management involvement

Procedia PDF Downloads 204

Authors: Misook Ahn

Abstract:

This study examines the Institutional Curriculum Repository (ICR) developed with MS SharePoint. The purpose of using MS SharePoint is to organize, share, and manage the curriculum data. The ICR aims to build a centralized curriculum infrastructure, preserve all curriculum materials, and provide academic service to users (faculty, students, or other agencies). The ICR collection includes core language curriculum materials developed by each language school—foreign language textbooks, language survival kits, and audio files currently in or not in use at the schools. All core curriculum materials with audio and video files have been coded, collected, and preserved at the ICR. All metadata for the collected curriculum materials have been input by language, code, year, book type, level, user, version, and current status (in use/not in use). The qualitative content analysis, including the survey data, is used to evaluate the effectiveness of using MS SharePoint for the repository system. This study explains how to manage and preserve curriculum materials with MS SharePoint, along with challenges and suggestions for further research. This study will be beneficial to other universities or organizations considering archiving or preserving educational materials.

Keywords: digital preservation, ms sharepoint, repository, curriculum materials

Procedia PDF Downloads 89

Authors: Fadwa Alaskar, Fang-Chieh Chou, Carlos Flores, Xiao-Yun Lu, Alexandre M. Bayen

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This article proposes a perception model for enhancing the accuracy and stability of car-following control of a longitudinally automated truck. We applied a fusion-based tracking algorithm on measurements of a single preceding vehicle needed for car-following control. This algorithm fuses two types of data, radar and LiDAR data, to obtain more accurate and robust longitudinal perception of the subject vehicle in various weather conditions. The filter’s resulting signals are fed to the gap control algorithm at every tracking loop composed by a high-level gap control and lower acceleration tracking system. Several highway tests have been performed with two trucks. The tests show accurate and fast tracking of the target, which impacts on the gap control loop positively. The experiments also show the fulfilment of control design requirements, such as fast speed variations tracking and robust time gap following.

Keywords: object tracking, perception, sensor fusion, adaptive cruise control, cooperative adaptive cruise control

Procedia PDF Downloads 219

Authors: Magdalena Orth, Gunnar Gotz

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Background: Domestic accountability, budget transparency and public financial management (PFM) are considered vital components of good governance in developing countries. The aid modality budget support (BS) promotes these governance functions in developing countries. BS engages in political decision-making and provides financial and technical support to poverty reduction strategies of the partner countries. Nevertheless, many donors have withdrawn their support from this modality due to cases of corruption, fraud or human rights violations. This exit from BS is leaving a finance and governance vacuum in the countries. The evaluation team analyzed the consequences of terminating the use of this modality and found particularly negative effects for good governance outcomes. Methodology: The evaluation uses a qualitative (theory-based) approach consisting of a comparative case study design, which is complemented by a process-tracing approach. For the case studies, the team conducted over 100 semi-structured interviews in Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia and used four country-specific, tailor-made budget analysis. In combination with a previous DEval evaluation synthesis on the effects of BS, the team was able to create a before-and-after comparison that yields causal effects. Main Findings: In all four countries domestic accountability and budget transparency declined if other forms of pressure are not replacing BS´s mutual accountability mechanisms. In Malawi a fraud scandal created pressure from the society and from donors so that accountability was improved. In the other countries, these pressure mechanisms were absent so that domestic accountability declined. BS enables donors to actively participate in political processes of the partner country as donors transfer funds into the treasury of the partner country and conduct a high-level political dialogue. The results confirm that the exit from BS created a governance vacuum that, if not compensated through external/internal pressure, leads to a deterioration of good governance. For example, in the case of highly aid dependent Malawi did the possibility of a relaunch of BS provide sufficient incentives to push for governance reforms. Overall the results show that the three good governance areas are negatively affected by the exit from BS. This stands in contrast to positive effects found before the exit. The team concludes that the relationship is causal, because the before-and-after comparison coherently shows that the presence of BS correlates with positive effects and the absence with negative effects. Conclusion: These findings strongly suggest that BS is an effective modality to promote governance and its abolishment is likely to cause governance disruptions. Donors and partner governments should find ways to re-engage in closely coordinated policy-based aid modalities. In addition, a coordinated and carefully managed exit-strategy should be in place before an exit from similar modalities is considered. Particularly a continued framework of mutual accountability and a high-level political dialogue should be aspired to maintain pressure and oversight that is required to achieve good governance.

Keywords: budget support, domestic accountability, public financial management and budget transparency, Sub-Sahara Africa

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Authors: Ram Sharan Mehta, Naveen Kumar Pandey, Binod Kumar Deo

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Quality of Life (QOL) is an important component in the evaluation of the well-being of People Living with AIDS (PLWA). This study assessed the effectiveness of education intervention programme in improving the QOL of PLWA on ART attaining the ART-clinics at B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Nepal. A pre-experimental research design was used to conduct the study among the PLWA on ART at BPKIHS from June to August 2013 involving 60 PLWA on pre-test randomly. The mean age of the respondents was 36.70 ± 9.92, and majority of them (80%) were of age group of 25-50 years and Male (56.7%). After education intervention programme there is significant change in the QOL in all the four domains i.e. Physical (p=0.008), Psychological (p=0.019), Social (p=0.046) and Environmental (p=0.032) using student t-test at 0.05 level of significance. There is significant (p= 0.016) difference in the mean QOL scores of pre-test and post-test. High QOL scores in post-test after education intervention programme may reflective of the effectiveness of planned education interventions programme.

Keywords: telephone, AIDS, health service, Nepal

Procedia PDF Downloads 489

Authors: S. O. Oladeji, I. Saleh, A. U. Adamu, S. A. Fowotade

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The proximate composition, trace metal level and amino acid composition of Amaranthus hybridus, Celosia argentea and Solanum nigrum were determined. These vegetables were high in their ash contents. Twelve elements were determined: calcium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, nickel, phosphorous, potassium, sodium and zinc using flame photometer, atomic absorption and UV-Visible spectrophotometers. Calcium levels were highest ranged between 145.28±0.38 to 235.62±0.41mg/100g in all the samples followed by phosphorus. Quantitative chromatographic analysis of the vegetables hydrolysates revealed seventeen amino acids with concentration of leucine (6.51 to 6.66±0.21g/16gN) doubling that of isoleucine (2.99 to 3.33±0.21g/16gN) in all the samples while the limiting amino acids were cystine and methionine. The result showed that these vegetables were of high nutritive values and could be adequate used as supplement in diet.

Keywords: proximate, amino acids, Amaranthus hybridus, Celosia argentea, Solanum nigrum

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Authors: Lotfi O. Gargab, Ruichong R. Zhang

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A wave-based framework is presented for modeling seismic motion in multistory buildings and using measured response for system identification which can be utilized to extract important information regarding structure integrity. With one pair of building response at two locations, a generalized model response is formulated based on wave propagation features and expressed as frequency and time response functions denoted, respectively, as GFRF and GIRF. In particular, GIRF is fundamental in tracking arrival times of impulsive wave motion initiated at response level which is dependent on local model properties. Matching model and measured-structure responses can help in identifying model parameters and infer building properties. To show the effectiveness of this approach, the Millikan Library in Pasadena, California is identified with recordings of the Yorba Linda earthquake of September 3, 2002.

Keywords: system identification, continuous-discrete mass modeling, damage detection, post-earthquake

Procedia PDF Downloads 360

Authors: Huijun Wu

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive negative shocks across countries. Various research institutes have worked assiduously to develop vaccines to help fight the pandemic, but misinformation from the media has spurred public outcry in several countries not to take jabs. This study leverages massive data [i.e., responses from more than 140,000 people sampled from 144 countries] extracted from the Gallup World Poll’s Wellcome Global Monitor, to analyze and assess how the media contributes to inadequate dissemination of basic scientific knowledge on the vaccines and spread of distrust in central governments as predictors of vaccine hesitancy. The results show that all three predictors are statistically significant at a 5% level and that appropriate design and dissemination of basic scientific knowledge on the vaccines and spread of justified reasons to trust governments would help mitigate vaccine hesitancy. The implication of the results is that the media needs to consider such predictors hitherto ignored.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy, media and communication, basic scientific knowledge, distrust in central governments

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: Prajakta Patil, Yash Huzurbazar, Abhijeet Shinde

Abstract:

Aim: To develop a treatment protocol for the management of tinnitus through multi-modality brain stimulation. Methodology: Present study included 33 adults with unilateral (31 subjects) and bilateral (2 subjects) chronic tinnitus with and/or without hearing loss independent of their etiology. The Treatment protocol included 5 consecutive sessions with follow-up of 6 months. Each session was divided into 3 parts: • Pre-treatment: a) Informed consent b) Pitch and loudness matching. • Treatment: Bimanual paper pen task with tinnitus masking for 30 minutes. • Post-treatment: a) Pitch and loudness matching b) Directive counseling and obtaining feedback. Paper-pen task is to be performed bimanually that included carrying out two different writing activities in different context. The level of difficulty of the activities was increased in successive sessions. Narrowband noise of a frequency same as that of tinnitus was presented at 10 dBSL of tinnitus for 30 minutes simultaneously in the ear with tinnitus. Result: The perception of tinnitus was no longer present in 4 subjects while in remaining subjects it reduced to an intensity that its perception no longer troubled them without causing residual facilitation. In all subjects, the intensity of tinnitus decreased by an extent of 45 dB at an average. However, in few subjects, the intensity of tinnitus also decreased by more than 45 dB. The approach resulted in statistically significant reductions in Tinnitus Functional Index and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory scores. The results correlate with pre and post treatment score of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory that dropped from 90% to 0%. Discussion: Brain mapping(qEEG) Studies report that there is multiple parallel overlapping of neural subnetworks in the non-auditory areas of the brain which exhibits abnormal, constant and spontaneous neural activity involved in the perception of tinnitus with each subnetwork and area reflecting a specific aspect of tinnitus percept. The paper pen task and directive counseling are designed and delivered respectively in a way that is assumed to induce normal, rhythmically constant and premeditated neural activity and mask the abnormal, constant and spontaneous neural activity in the above-mentioned subnetworks and the specific non-auditory area. Counseling was focused on breaking the vicious cycle causing and maintaining the presence of tinnitus. Diverting auditory attention alone is insufficient to reduce the perception of tinnitus. Conscious awareness of tinnitus can be suppressed when individuals engage in cognitively demanding tasks of non-auditory nature as the paper pen task used in the present study. To carry out this task selective, divided, sustained, simultaneous and split attention act cumulatively. Bimanual paper pen task represents a top-down activity which underlies brain’s ability to selectively attend to the bimanual written activity as a relevant stimulus and to ignore tinnitus that is the irrelevant stimuli in the present study. Conclusion: The study suggests that this novel treatment approach is cost effective, time saving and efficient to vanish the tinnitus or to reduce the intensity of tinnitus to a negligible level and thereby eliminating the negative reactions towards tinnitus.

Keywords: multi-modality brain stimulation, neural subnetworks, non-auditory areas, paper-pen task, top-down activity

Procedia PDF Downloads 135

Authors: Komon Paisal

Abstract:

The purposes of this research were (1) to create a learning activity for constructivism, (2) study the Mathematical Analysis courses learning achievement, and (3) study students’ attitude toward the learning activity for constructivism. The samples in this study were divided into 2 parts including 3 Mathematical Analysis courses instructors of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University who provided basic information and attended the seminar and 17 Mathematical Analysis courses students who were studying in the academic and engaging in the learning activity for constructivism. The research instruments were lesson plans constructivism, subjective Mathematical Analysis courses achievement test with reliability index of 0.8119, and an attitude test concerning the students’ attitude toward the Mathematical Analysis courses learning activity for constructivism. The result of the research show that the efficiency of the Mathematical Analysis courses learning activity for constructivism is 73.05/72.16, which is more than expected criteria of 70/70. The research additionally find that the average score of learning achievement of students who engaged in the learning activities for constructivism are equal to 70% and the students’ attitude toward the learning activity for constructivism are at the medium level.

Keywords: constructivism, learning management, mathematics analysis courses, learning activity

Procedia PDF Downloads 519

Authors: Ali Meawad Ahmad, Hosny A. Abdelrahman

Abstract:

Chicken meat is a good source of protein of high biological value which contains most of essential amino-acids with high proportion of unsaturated fatty acids and low cholesterol level. Besides, it contain many vitamins as well as minerals which are important for the human body. Therefore, a total of 150 frozen chicken meat product samples, 800g each within their shelf-life, were randomly collected from commercial markets from Egypt (75 samples) and Saudi Arabian (75 samples) for chemical evaluation. The mean values of fat% in the examined samples of Egyptian and Saudi markets were 16.0% and 4.6% for chicken burger; 15.0% and 11% for nuggets and 11% and 11% for strips respectively. The mean values of moisture % in the examined samples of Egyptian and Saudi markets were 67.0% and 81% for chicken burger; 66.0% and 78% for nuggets and 71.0% and 72% for strips respectively. The mean values of protein % in the examined samples of Egyptian and Saudi markets were 15% and 17% for chicken burger; 16% and 16% for nuggets and 16% and 17% for strips respectively. The obtained results were compared with the Egyptian slandered and suggestions for improving the chemical quality of chicken products were given.

Keywords: chicken meat, nutrition, Egypt, markets

Procedia PDF Downloads 553