Search results for: statistical model

Authors: Ebrahim Solgi, Zahra Hamedani, Behrouz Mohammad Kari, Ruwan Fernando, Henry Skates

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The use of thermal energy storage (TES) as part of a passive design strategy can reduce a building’s energy demand. TES materials do this by increasing the lag between energy consumption and energy supply by absorbing, storing and releasing energy in a controlled manner. The increase of lightweight construction in the building industry has made it harder to utilize thermal mass. Consequently, Phase Change Materials (PCMs) are a promising alternative as they can be manufactured in thin layers and used with lightweight construction to store latent heat. This research investigates utilizing PCMs, with the first step being measuring their performance under experimental conditions. To do this requires three components. The first is a calorimeter for measuring indoor thermal conditions, the second is a pyranometer for recording the solar conditions: global, diffuse and direct radiation and the third is a data-logger for recording temperature and humidity for the studied period. This paper reports on the design and implementation of an experimental setup used to measure the thermal characteristics of PCMs as part of a wall construction. The experimental model has been simulated with the software EnergyPlus to create a reliable simulation model that warrants further investigation.

Keywords: phase change materials, EnergyPlus, experimental evaluation, night ventilation

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Authors: Bahman Ghaderi, Hedayat Hosseini, Parviz Kafche

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The role of knowledge management processes in achieving the strategic goals of organizations is crucial. To this end, understanding the relationship between knowledge management processes and different aspects of strategic thinking (followed by long-term organizational planning) should be considered. This research examines the relationship between each of the five knowledge management processes (creation, storage, transfer, audit, and deployment) with each dimension of strategic thinking (vision, creativity, thinking, communication and analysis) in one of the major sectors of the food industry in Iran. In this research, knowledge management and its dimensions (knowledge acquisition, knowledge storage, knowledge transfer, knowledge auditing, and finally knowledge utilization) as independent variables and strategic thinking and its dimensions (creativity, systematic thinking, vision, strategic analysis, and strategic communication) are considered as the dependent variable. The statistical population of this study consisted of 245 managers and employees of Minoo Food Industrial Group in Tehran. In this study, a simple random sampling method was used, and data were collected by a questionnaire designed by the research team. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software. LISERL software is also used for calculating and drawing models and graphs. Among the factors investigated in the present study, knowledge storage with 0.78 had the most effect, and knowledge transfer with 0.62 had the least effect on knowledge management and thus on strategic thinking.

Keywords: knowledge management, strategic thinking, knowledge management processes, food industry

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Authors: S. Apprich, F. Wulle, A. Lechler, A. Pott, A. Verl

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Large-scale machine tools for the manufacturing of large work pieces, e.g. blades, casings or gears for wind turbines, feature pose-dependent dynamic behavior. Small structural damping coefficients lead to long decay times for structural vibrations that have negative impacts on the production process. Typically, these vibrations are handled by increasing the stiffness of the structure by adding mass. That is counterproductive to the needs of sustainable manufacturing as it leads to higher resource consumption both in material and in energy. Recent research activities have led to higher resource efficiency by radical mass reduction that rely on control-integrated active vibration avoidance and damping methods. These control methods depend on information describing the dynamic behavior of the controlled machine tools in order to tune the avoidance or reduction method parameters according to the current state of the machine. The paper presents the appearance, consequences and challenges of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior of lightweight large-scale machine tool structures in production. The paper starts with the theoretical introduction of the challenges of lightweight machine tool structures resulting from reduced stiffness. The statement of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior is corroborated by the results of the experimental modal analysis of a lightweight test structure. Afterwards, the consequences of the pose-dependent dynamic behavior of lightweight machine tool structures for the use of active control and vibration reduction methods are explained. Based on the state of the art on pose-dependent dynamic machine tool models and the modal investigation of an FE-model of the lightweight test structure, the criteria for a pose-dependent model for use in vibration reduction are derived. The description of the approach for a general pose-dependent model of the dynamic behavior of large lightweight machine tools that provides the necessary input to the aforementioned vibration avoidance and reduction methods to properly tackle machine vibrations is the outlook of the paper.

Keywords: dynamic behavior, lightweight, machine tool, pose-dependency

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Authors: Kayla Marie Sarte

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This study sought to describe mother tongue-based classes in the light of classroom interactional discourse using the Sinclair and Coulthard model. It specifically identified the exchanges, grouped into Teaching and Boundary types; moves, coded as Opening, Answering and Feedback; and the occurrence of the 13 acts (Bid, Cue, Nominate, Reply, React, Acknowledge, Clue, Accept, Evaluate, Loop, Comment, Starter, Conclusion, Aside and Silent Stress) in the classroom, and determined what these reveal about the teaching and learning processes in the MTB classroom. Being a qualitative study, using the Single Collective Case Within-Site (embedded) design, varied data collection procedures such as non-participant observations, audio-recordings and transcription of MTB classes, and semi-structured interviews were utilized. The results revealed the presence of all the codes in the model (except for the silent stress) which also implied that the Hiligaynon mother tongue-based class was eclectic, cultural and communicative, and had a healthy, analytical and focused environment which aligned with the aims of MTB-MLE, and affirmed the purported benefits of mother tongue teaching. Through the study, gaps in the mother tongue teaching and learning were also identified which involved the difficulty of children in memorizing Hiligaynon terms expressed in English in their homes and in the communities.

Keywords: discourse analysis, language teaching and learning, mother tongue-based education, multilingualism

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Authors: Theodore Gautier Le Jeune Bikoko, Jean Claude Tchamba, Sofiane Amziane

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This study focuses on the problem of collapsed buildings within the city of Douala over the past ten years, and more precisely, within the period from 2011 to 2020. It was carried out in a bid to ascertain the real causes of this phenomenon, which has become recurrent in the leading economic city of Cameroon. To achieve this, it was first necessary to review some works dealing with construction materials and technology as well as some case histories of structural collapse within the city. Thereafter, a statistical study was carried out on the results obtained. It was found that the causes of building collapses in the city of Douala are: Neglect of administrative procedures, use of poor quality materials, poor composition and confectioning of concrete, lack of Geotechnical study, lack of structural analysis and design, corrosion of the reinforcement bars, poor maintenance in buildings, and other causes. Out of the 46 cases of structural failure of buildings within the city of Douala, 7 of these were identified to have had no geotechnical study carried out, giving a percentage of 15.22%. It was also observed that out of the 46 cases of structural failure, 6 were as a result of lack of proper structural analysis and design, giving a percentage of 13.04%. Subsequently, recommendations and suggestions are made in a bid to placing particular emphasis on the choice of materials, the manufacture and casting of concrete, as well as the placement of the required reinforcements. All this guarantees the stability of a building.

Keywords: collapse buildings, Douala, structural collapse, Cameroon

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Authors: Alireza Bahramian

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High-purity TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) with size ranging between 50 nm and 100 nm are synthesized from titanium slag through sulphate route under sonochemical procedure. The effect of dissolution parameters such as the sulfuric acid/slag weight ratio, caustic soda concentration, digestion temperature and time, and initial particle size of the dried slag on the extraction efficiency of TiO₂ and removal of iron are examined. By optimizing the digestion conditions, a rutile TiO₂ powder with surface area of 42 m²/g and mean pore diameter of 22.4 nm were prepared. A thermo-kinetic analysis showed that the digestion temperature has an important effect, while the acid/slag weight ratio and initial size of the slag has a moderate effect on the dissolution rate. The shrinking-core model including both chemical surface reaction and surface diffusion is used to describe the leaching process. A low value of activation energy, 38.12 kJ/mol, indicates the surface chemical reaction model is a rate-controlling step. The kinetic analysis suggested a first order reaction mechanism with respect to the acid concentrations.

Keywords: TiO₂ nanoparticles, titanium slag, dissolution rate, sonochemical method, thermo-kinetic study

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Authors: Jollen Dai, Truman You, Xinyun Du, Katrina Liu

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Transportation is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Thus, to meet the Paris Agreement 2015, all countries must adopt a different and more sustainable transportation system. From bikes to Maglev, the world is slowly shifting to sustainable transportation. To develop a utility public transit system, a sustainable web of buses must be implemented. As of now, only a handful of cities have adopted a detailed plan to implement a full fleet of e-buses by the 2030s, with Shenzhen in the lead. Every change requires a detailed plan and a focused analysis of the impacts of the change. In this report, the economic implications and financial implications have been taken into consideration to develop a well-rounded 10-year plan for New York City. We also apply the same financial model to the other cities, LA and Chicago. We picked NYC, Chicago, and LA to conduct the comparative NPB analysis since they are all big metropolitan cities and have complex transportation systems. All three cities have started an action plan to achieve a full fleet of e-bus in the decades. Plus, their energy carbon footprint and their energy price are very different, which are the key factors to the benefits of electric buses. Using TCO (Total Cost Ownership) financial analysis, we developed a model to calculate NPB (Net Present Benefit) /and compare EBS (electric buses) to DBS (diesel buses). We have considered all essential aspects in our model: initial investment, including the cost of a bus, charger, and installation, government fund (federal, state, local), labor cost, energy (electricity or diesel) cost, maintenance cost, insurance cost, health and environment benefit, and V2G (vehicle to grid) benefit. We see about $1,400,000 in benefits for a 12-year lifetime of an EBS compared to DBS provided the government fund to offset 50% of EBS purchase cost. With the government subsidy, an EBS starts to make positive cash flow in 5th year and can pay back its investment in 5 years. Please remember that in our model, we consider environmental and health benefits, and every year, $50,000 is counted as health benefits per bus. Besides health benefits, the significant benefits come from the energy cost savings and maintenance savings, which are about $600,000 and $200,000 in 12-year life cycle. Using linear regression, given certain budget limitations, we then designed an optimal three-phase process to replace all NYC electric buses in 10 years, i.e., by 2033. The linear regression process is to minimize the total cost over the years and have the lowest environmental cost. The overall benefits to replace all DBS with EBS for NYC is over $2.1 billion by the year of 2033. For LA, and Chicago, the benefits for electrification of the current bus fleet are $1.04 billion and $634 million by 2033. All NPB analyses and the algorithm to optimize the electrification phase process are implemented in Python code and can be shared.

Keywords: financial modeling, total cost ownership, net present benefits, electric bus, diesel bus, NYC, LA, Chicago

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Authors: Michele L. Tilstra, Tiffany J. Peets

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Interprofessional collaboration in behavioral healthcare education is increasingly recognized for its value in training students to address diverse client needs. While interprofessional education (IPE) is well-documented in occupational therapy education to address physical health, limited research exists on collaboration with counselors to address mental health concerns and the psychosocial needs of individuals receiving care. Counseling education literature primarily examines the collaboration of counseling students with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists. This pretest/posttest survey research study explored changes in attitudes toward interprofessional teams among 56 Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) (n = 42) and Counseling and Human Development (CHD) (n = 14) students participating in the Counselors and Occupational Therapists Professionally Engaged in the Community (COPE) program. The COPE program was designed to strengthen the behavioral health workforce in high-need and high-demand areas. Students accepted into the COPE program were divided into small MOT/CHD groups to complete multiple interprofessional multicultural learning modules using videos, case studies, and online discussion board posts. The online modules encouraged reflection on various behavioral healthcare roles, benefits of team-based care, cultural humility, current mental health challenges, personal biases, power imbalances, and advocacy for underserved populations. Using the Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education- Revision 2 (SPICE-R2) scale, students completed pretest and posttest surveys using a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Agree = 5 to Strongly Disagree = 1) to evaluate their attitudes toward interprofessional teamwork and collaboration. The SPICE-R2 measured three different factors: interprofessional teamwork and team-based practice (Team), roles/responsibilities for collaborative practice (Roles), and patient outcomes from collaborative practice (Outcomes). The mean total scores for all students improved from 4.25 (pretest) to 4.43 (posttest), Team from 4.66 to 4.58, Roles from 3.88 to 4.30, and Outcomes from 4.08 to 4.36. A paired t-test analysis for the total mean scores resulted in a t-statistic of 2.54, which exceeded both one-tail and two-tail critical values, indicating statistical significance (p = .001). When the factors of the SPICE-R2 were analyzed separately, only the Roles (t Stat=4.08, p =.0001) and Outcomes (t Stat=3.13, p = .002) were statistically significant. The item ‘I understand the roles of other health professionals’ showed the most improvement from a mean score for all students of 3.76 (pretest) to 4.46 (posttest). The significant improvement in students' attitudes toward interprofessional teams suggests that the unique integration of OT and CHD students in the COPE program effectively develops a better understanding of the collaborative roles necessary for holistic client care. These results support the importance of IPE through structured, engaging interprofessional experiences. These experiences are essential for enhancing students' readiness for collaborative practice and align with accreditation standards requiring interprofessional education in OT and CHD programs to prepare practitioners for team-based care. The findings contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the integration of IPE in behavioral healthcare curricula to improve holistic client care and encourage students to engage in collaborative practice across healthcare settings.

Keywords: behavioral healthcare, counseling education, interprofessional education, mental health education, occupational therapy education

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Authors: P. J. Sweeney, T. Ahtoniemi, J. Puoliväli, T. Laitinen, K.Lehtimäki, A. Nurmi, D. Wells

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Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked, lethal muscle wasting disease for which there are currently no treatment that effectively prevents the muscle necrosis and progressive muscle loss. DMD is among the most common of inherited diseases affecting around 1/3500 live male births. MDX (X-linked muscular dystrophy) mice only partially encapsulate the disease in humans and display weakness in muscles, muscle damage and edema during a period deemed the “critical period” when these mice go through cycles of muscular degeneration and regeneration. Although the MDX mutant mouse model has been extensively studied as a model for DMD, to-date an extensive temporal, non-invasive imaging profile that utilizes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) has not been performed.. In addition, longitudinal imaging characterization has not coincided with attempts to exacerbate the progressive muscle damage by exercise. In this study we employed an 11.7 T small animal MRI in order to characterize the MRI and MRS profile of MDX mice longitudinally during a 12 month period during which MDX mice were subjected to exercise. Male mutant MDX mice (n=15) and male wild-type mice (n=15) were subjected to a chronic exercise regime of treadmill walking (30 min/ session) bi-weekly over the whole 12 month follow-up period. Mouse gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles were profiled with baseline T2-MRI and 1H-MRS at 6 weeks of age. Imaging and spectroscopy was repeated again at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months of age. Plasma creatine kinase (CK) level measurements were coincided with time-points for T2-MRI and 1H-MRS, but also after the “critical period” at 10 weeks of age. The results obtained from this study indicate that chronic exercise extends dystrophic phenotype of MDX mice as evidenced by T2-MRI and1H-MRS. T2-MRI revealed extent and location of the muscle damage in gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles as hyperintensities (lesions and edema) in exercised MDX mice over follow-up period.. The magnitude of the muscle damage remained stable over time in exercised mice. No evident fat infiltration or cumulation to the muscle tissues was seen at any time-point in exercised MDX mice. Creatine, choline and taurine levels evaluated by 1H-MRS from the same muscles were found significantly decreased in each time-point, Extramyocellular (EMCL) and intramyocellular lipids (IMCL) did not change in exercised mice supporting the findings from anatomical T2-MRI scans for fat content. Creatine kinase levels were found to be significantly higher in exercised MDX mice during the follow-up period and importantly CK levels remained stable over the whole follow-up period. Taken together, we have described here longitudinal prophile for muscle damage and muscle metabolic changes in MDX mice subjected to chronic exercised. The extent of the muscle damage by T2-MRI was found to be stable through the follow-up period in muscles examined. In addition, metabolic profile, especially creatine, choline and taurine levels in muscles, was found to be sustained between time-points. The anatomical muscle damage evaluated by T2-MRI was supported by plasma CK levels which remained stable over the follow-up period. These findings show that non-invasive imaging and spectroscopy can be used effectively to evaluate chronic muscle pathology. These techniques can be also used to evaluate the effect of various manipulations, like here exercise, on the phenotype of the mice. Many of the findings we present here are translatable to clinical disease, such as decreased creatine, choline and taurine levels in muscles. Imaging by T2-MRI and 1H-MRS also revealed that fat content or extramyocellar and intramyocellular lipids, respectively, are not changed in MDX mice, which is in contrast to clinical manifestation of the Duchenne’s muscle dystrophy. Findings show that non-invasive imaging can be used to characterize the phenotype of a MDX model and its translatability to clinical disease, and to study events that have traditionally been not examined, like here rigorous exercise related sustained muscle damage after the “critical period”. The ability for this model to display sustained damage beyond the spontaneous “critical period“ and in turn to study drug effects on this extended phenotype will increase the value of the MDX mouse model as a tool to study therapies and treatments aimed at DMD and associated diseases.

Keywords: 1H-MRS, MRI, muscular dystrophy, mouse model

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Authors: Ke He, Wumaier Parezhati, Haruka Yamashita

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Recently, online marketplaces in the e-commerce industry, such as Rakuten and Alibaba, have become some of the most popular online marketplaces in Asia. In these shopping websites, consumers can select purchase products from a large number of stores. Additionally, consumers of the e-commerce site have to register their name, age, gender, and other information in advance, to access their registered account. Therefore, establishing a method for analyzing consumer preferences from both the store and the product side is required. This study uses the Doc2Vec method, which has been studied in the field of natural language processing. Doc2Vec has been used in many cases to analyze the extraction of semantic relationships between documents (represented as consumers) and words (represented as products) in the field of document classification. This concept is applicable to represent the relationship between users and items; however, the problem is that one more factor (i.e., shops) needs to be considered in Doc2Vec. More precisely, a method for analyzing the relationship between consumers, stores, and products is required. The purpose of our study is to combine the analysis of the Doc2vec model for users and shops, and for users and items in the same feature space. This method enables the calculation of similar shops and items for each user. In this study, we derive the real data analysis accumulated in the online marketplace and demonstrate the efficiency of the proposal.

Keywords: Doc2Vec, online marketplace, marketing, recommendation systems

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Authors: Sehmus Aslan, Sibel Karacaoglu, Cengiz Sevgin, Ummuhan Bas Aslan

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Objective: Anger expression style is an important moderator of the effects on the person and person’s environment. Anger and anger expression have become important constructs in identifying individuals at high risk for psychological difficulties. To our knowledge, there is no information about anger and anger expression of adolescents with visual impairment. The aim of this study was to compare anger and anger expression among adolescents with and without visual impairment. Methods: Thirty-eight adolescents with visual impairment (18 female, 20 male) and 44 adolescents without visual impairment (22 female, 24 male), in totally 84 adolescents aged between 12 to 15 years, participated in the study. Anger and anger expression of the participants assessed with The State-Trait Anger Scale (STAS). STAS, a self-report questionnaire, is designed to measure the experience and expression of anger. STAS has four subtitles including continuous anger, anger in, anger out and anger control. Reliability and validity of the STAS have been well established among adolescents. Mann-Whitney U Test was used for statistical analysis. Results: No significant differences were found in the scores of continuous anger and anger out between adolescents with and without visual impairment (p < 0.05). On the other hand, there were differences in scores of anger control and anger in between adolescents with and without visual impairment (p>0.05). The score of anger control in adolescents with visual impairment were higher compared with adolescents without visual impairment. Meanwhile, the adolescents with visual impairment had lower score for anger in compared with adolescents without visual impairment. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that there is no difference in anger level among adolescents with and without visual impairment meanwhile there is difference in anger expression.

Keywords: adolescent, anger, impaired, visual

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Authors: Mehrdad Shafiei Dizaji, Hoda Azari

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The research explores the pioneering integration of Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) into the domain of Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) data prediction, akin to advancements in medical imaging for tracking tumor progression in the human body. This research presents a detailed development framework for a specialized PINN model proficient at interpreting and forecasting GPR data, much like how medical imaging models predict tumor behavior. By harnessing the synergy between deep learning algorithms and the physical laws governing subsurface structures—or, in medical terms, human tissues—the model effectively embeds the physics of electromagnetic wave propagation into its architecture. This ensures that predictions not only align with fundamental physical principles but also mirror the precision needed in medical diagnostics for detecting and monitoring tumors. The suggested deep learning structure comprises three components: a CNN, a spatial feature channel attention (SFCA) mechanism, and ConvLSTM, along with temporal feature frame attention (TFFA) modules. The attention mechanism computes channel attention and temporal attention weights using self-adaptation, thereby fine-tuning the visual and temporal feature responses to extract the most pertinent and significant visual and temporal features. By integrating physics directly into the neural network, our model has shown enhanced accuracy in forecasting GPR data. This improvement is vital for conducting effective assessments of bridge deck conditions and other evaluations related to civil infrastructure. The use of Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) has demonstrated the potential to transform the field of Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) by enhancing the precision of infrastructure deterioration predictions. Moreover, it offers a deeper insight into the fundamental mechanisms of deterioration, viewed through the prism of physics-based models.

Keywords: physics-informed neural networks, deep learning, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), NDE, ConvLSTM, physics, data driven

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Authors: Hossein Nikandam Kermanshah, Babak Samavatian, Akbar Hemmati Sabet, Mohammad Ahmadpanah

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This is a quasi-experimental study that has been conducted in order to compare the effectiveness of social skills training and stress management training on self-esteem and aggression in first grade high school students. Forty-five people were selected from research community and were put randomly in there groups of social skills training, stress management training and control ones. Collecting data tools in this study was devise, self-esteem and AGQ aggression questionnaire. Self-esteem and aggression questionnaires has been conducted as the pre-test and post-test. Social skills training and stress management groups participated in eight 1.5 hour session in a week. But control group did not receive any therapy. For descriptive analysis of data, statistical indicators like mean, standard deviation were used, and in inferential statistics level multi variable covariance analysis have been used. The finding result show that group training social skills and stress management is significantly effective on the self-esteem and aggression, there is a meaningful difference between training social skills and stress management on self-esteem that the preference is with group social skills training, in the difference between group social skills training and stress management on aggression, the preference is with group stress management.

Keywords: social skill training, stress management training, self-esteem aggression, psychological sciences

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Authors: Hameda Suwaed

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Group work, time management and accepting others' opinions are practices rooted in the socio-political culture of democratic nations. In Libya, a country transitioning towards democracy, what is the impact of encouraging college students to use such practices in the English language classroom? How to encourage teachers to use such practices in educational system characterized by using traditional methods of teaching? Using action research and classroom research gathered data; this study investigates how teachers can use education to change their students' understanding of their roles in their society by enhancing their belonging to it. This study adjusts a model of change that includes giving students clear directions, sufficient motivation and supportive environment. These steps were applied by encouraging students to participate actively in the classroom by using group work and variety of activities. The findings of the study showed that following the suggested model can broaden students' perception of their belonging to their environment starting with their classroom and ending with their country. In conclusion, although this was a small scale study, the students' participation in the classroom shows that they gained self confidence in using practices such as group work, how to present their ideas and accepting different opinions. What was remarkable is that most students were aware that is what we need in Libya nowadays.

Keywords: educational change, students' motivation, group work, foreign language teaching

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Authors: André Luis Lima de Oliveira, Vera Lúcia Viana do Nascimento, Victória Maura Silva Bermudez, Mauricio Nunes Kleinberg, João Carlos da Costa Assunção, José Osvaldo Beserra Carioca

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The objective of this study was to synthesize a triglyceride with high content of unsaturated fatty acids from salmon oil (Salmo salar L.) by esterification with glycerol catalyzed dealuminized zeolite. A kinetic study was conducted to determine the reaction order and the activation energy. A statistical study was conducted to determine optimal reaction conditions. Initially, the crude oil was refined salmon physically and chemically. The crude oil was hydrolyzed and unsaturated free fatty acids were separated by urea complexation method. An experimental project to verify the parameters (temperature, glycerin and catalyst) with the greatest impact on the reaction was developed. In experiments aliquots were taken at predetermined times to measure the amount of free fatty acids. Pareto, surface, contour and hub graphs were used to determine the factors that maximized the reaction. According to the graphs the best reaction conditions were: temperature 80 ° C, the proportion glycerine/oil 5: 1 and 1% of catalyst. The kinetic data showed that the system was compatible with a second-order reaction. After analyzing the rate constant versus temperature charts a value of 85.31 kJ/mol was obtained for the reaction activation energy.

Keywords: esterification, kinect, oil, salmon

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Authors: Su Tezel

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The paper deals with licensed athletes affiliated with the Turkish Underwater Sports Federation to assess the consumption status of street food. The aim of the paper is the frequency of training during competition preparatory training or season periods, the athletes' economic situation, social life, work-life or education situations are the directs them to street food? Also to evaluate the importance that athletes attach to their nutritional status. Data were collected with survey method. 141 underwater sports athletes participated in the survey. Empirical findings on 141 respondents are related to athletes' demographic information, which underwater sports branch they doing (underwater hockey, underwater rugby and free diving), with whom they live, training hours and frequency, street food consumption frequency and preferences, which type drinks they prefer drink with or without street foods and other similar things. Most of the athletes were male (64.5%), female (35.5%) and the most athletes from the sports branches included in the survey belong to underwater hockey (95.7%). 93.7% of athletes have a training time between 08:00 pm to 00:00 am and the frequency of consuming street food after training is 88%. As a remarkable result, 48% of the reasons for consuming street food easy access to street foods after training. Statistical analyzes were made with the data obtained and the status of street food consumption of athletes, whether they were suitable for professional athlete nutrition and their attitudes were evaluated.

Keywords: nutrition, street foods, underwater hockey, underwater sport

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Authors: Roengchai Tansuchat, Wassanai Wattanutchariya, Aree Wiboonpongse

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Parboiled rice is one of the most important food grains and classified in cereal and cereal product. In 2015, parboiled rice was traded more than 14.34 % of total rice trade. The major parboiled rice export countries are Thailand and India, while many countries in Africa and the Middle East such as Nigeria, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, are parboiled rice import countries. In the global rice market, parboiled rice pricing differs from white rice pricing because parboiled rice is semi-processing product, (soaking, steaming and drying) which affects to their color and texture. Therefore, parboiled rice export pricing does not depend only on the trade volume, length of grain, and percentage of broken rice or purity but also depend on their rice seed attributes such as color, whiteness, consistency of color and whiteness, and their texture. In addition, the parboiled rice price may depend on the country of origin, and other attributes, such as certification mark, label, packaging, and sales locations. The objectives of this paper are to study the attributes of parboiled rice sold in different countries and to evaluate the relationship between parboiled rice price in different countries and their attributes by using hedonic pricing model. These results are useful for product development, and marketing strategies development. The 141 samples of parboiled rice were collected from 5 major parboiled rice consumption countries, namely Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Spain. The physicochemical properties and optical properties, namely size and shape of seed, colour (L*, a*, and b*), parboiled rice texture (hardness, adhesiveness, cohesiveness, springiness, gumminess, and chewiness), nutrition (moisture, protein, carbohydrate, fat, and ash), amylose, package, country of origin, label are considered as explanatory variables. The results from parboiled rice analysis revealed that most of samples are classified as long grain and slender. The highest average whiteness value is the parboiled rice sold in South Africa. The amylose value analysis shows that most of parboiled rice is non-glutinous rice, classified in intermediate amylose content range, and the maximum value was found in United Arab Emirates. The hedonic pricing model showed that size and shape are the key factors to determine parboiled rice price statistically significant. In parts of colour, brightness value (L*) and red-green value (a*) are statistically significant, but the yellow-blue value (b*) is insignificant. In addition, the texture attributes that significantly affect to the parboiled rice price are hardness, adhesiveness, cohesiveness, and gumminess. The findings could help both parboiled rice miller, exporter and retailers formulate better production and marketing strategies by focusing on these attributes.

Keywords: hedonic pricing model, optical properties, parboiled rice, physicochemical properties

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Authors: M. Ghanbari, S. Hossainpour, G. Rezazadeh

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In this paper, longitudinal vibration of a micro-beam in micro-scale fluid media has been investigated. The proposed mathematical model for this study is made up of a micro-beam and a micro-plate at its free end. An AC voltage is applied to the pair of piezoelectric layers on the upper and lower surfaces of the micro-beam in order to actuate it longitudinally. The whole structure is bounded between two fixed plates on its upper and lower surfaces. The micro-gap between the structure and the fixed plates is filled with fluid. Fluids behave differently in micro-scale than macro, so the fluid field in the gap has been modeled based on micro-polar theory. The coupled governing equations of motion of the micro-beam and the micro-scale fluid field have been derived. Due to having non-homogenous boundary conditions, derived equations have been transformed to an enhanced form with homogenous boundary conditions. Using Galerkin-based reduced order model, the enhanced equations have been discretized over the beam and fluid domains and solve simultaneously in order to obtain force response of the micro-beam. Effects of micro-polar parameters of the fluid as characteristic length scale, coupling parameter and surface parameter on the response of the micro-beam have been studied.

Keywords: micro-polar theory, Galerkin method, MEMS, micro-fluid

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Authors: Uzma Saqib, Mirza S. Baig

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Myeloid differentiation primary response protein 88 (MYD88) has long been considered a central player in the inflammatory pathway. Recent studies clearly suggest that it is an important therapeutic target in inflammation. On the other hand, a recent study on the interaction between the orphan nuclear receptor (Nur77) and p38α, leading to increased lipopolysaccharide-induced hyperinflammatory response, suggests this binary complex as a therapeutic target. In this study, we have designed inhibitors that can inhibit both MYD88 and Nur77 at the same time. Since both MYD88 and Nur77 are an integral part of the pathways involving lipopolysaccharide-induced activation of NF-κB-mediated inflammation, we tried to target both proteins with the same library in order to retrieve compounds having dual inhibitory properties. To perform this, we developed a homodimeric model of MYD88 and, along with the crystal structure of Nur77, screened a virtual library of compounds from the traditional Chinese medicine database containing ~61,000 compounds. We analyzed the resulting hits for their efficacy for dual binding and probed them for developing a common pharmacophore model that could be used as a prototype to screen compound libraries as well as to guide combinatorial library design to search for ideal dual-target inhibitors. Thus, our study explores the identification of novel leads having dual inhibiting effects due to binding to both MYD88 and Nur77 targets.

Keywords: drug design, Nur77, MYD88, inflammation

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Authors: Avdasheva Svetlanaa, Kryuchkova Polinab

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Comparative social efficiency of private and public enforcement of law is debated. This question is not of academic interest only, it is also important for the development of the legal system and regulations. Generally, involvement of ‘common citizens’ in public law enforcement is considered to be beneficial, while involvement of interest groups representatives is not. Institutional economics as well as law and economics consider the difference between public and private enforcement to be rather mechanical. Actions of bureaucrats in government agencies are assumed to be driven by the incentives linked to social welfare (or other indicator of public interest) and their own benefits. In contrast, actions of participants in private enforcement are driven by their private benefits. However administrative law enforcement may be designed in such a way that it would become driven mainly by individual incentives of alleged victims. We refer to this system as reactive public enforcement. Citizens may prefer using reactive public enforcement even if private enforcement is available. However replacement of public enforcement by reactive version of public enforcement negatively affects deterrence and reduces social welfare. We illustrate the problem of private vs pure public and private vs reactive public enforcement models with the examples of three legislation subsystems in Russia – labor law, consumer protection law and competition law. While development of private enforcement instead of public (especially in reactive public model) is desirable, replacement of both public and private enforcement by reactive model is definitely not.

Keywords: public enforcement, private complaints, legal errors, competition protection, labor law, competition law, russia

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Authors: U. B. Zubair, A. Kiyani

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Introduction: Depressive illness predispose individuals to a lot of physical and mental health issues. Anxiety and substance use disorders have been studied widely as comorbidity. Biological symptoms also now considered part of the depressive spectrum. Cognitive abilities also decline or get affected and need to be looked into in detail in depressed patients. Objective: To determine the prevalence of cognitive decline among patients with major depressive illness and analyze the associated socio-demographic factors. Methods: 190 patients of major depressive illness were included in our study to determine the presence of cognitive decline among them. Depression was diagnosed by a consultant psychiatrist by using the ICD-10 criteria for major depressive disorder. British Columbia Cognitive Complaints Inventory (BC-CCI) was the psychometric tool used to determine the cognitive decline. Sociodemographic profile was recorded and the relationship of various factors with cognitive decline was also ascertained. Findings: 70% of the patients suffering from depression included in this study showed the presence of some degree of cognitive decline, while 30% did not show any evidence of cognitive decline when screened through BCCCI. Statistical testing revealed that the female gender was the only socio-demographic parameter linked significantly with the presence of cognitive decline. Conclusion: Decline in cognitive abilities was found in a significant number of patients suffering from major depression in our sample population. Screening for this parameter f mental function should be done in depression clinics to pick it early.

Keywords: depression, cognitive decline, prevalence, socio-demographic factors

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Authors: Min Kyung An

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In Wireless Sensor Networks which consist of tiny wireless sensor nodes with limited battery power, one of the most fundamental applications is data aggregation which collects nearby environmental conditions and aggregates the data to a designated destination, called a sink node. Important issues concerning the data aggregation are time efficiency and energy consumption due to its limited energy, and therefore, the related problem, named Minimum Latency Aggregation Scheduling (MLAS), has been the focus of many researchers. Its objective is to compute the minimum latency schedule, that is, to compute a schedule with the minimum number of timeslots, such that the sink node can receive the aggregated data from all the other nodes without any collision or interference. For the problem, the two interference models, the graph model and the more realistic physical interference model known as Signal-to-Interference-Noise-Ratio (SINR), have been adopted with different power models, uniform-power and non-uniform power (with power control or without power control), and different antenna models, omni-directional antenna and directional antenna models. In this survey article, as the problem has proven to be NP-hard, we present and compare several state-of-the-art approximation algorithms in various models on the basis of latency as its performance measure.

Keywords: data aggregation, convergecast, gathering, approximation, interference, omni-directional, directional

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Authors: Sanjeev Kumar Appicharla

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This paper presents the results of the modelling and analysis of the European Railway Traffic Management (ERTMS) safety-critical incident to raise awareness of biases in the systems engineering process on the Cambrian Railway in the UK using the RAIB 17/2019 as a primary input. The RAIB, the UK independent accident investigator, published the Report- RAIB 17/2019 giving the details of their investigation of the focal event in the form of immediate cause, causal factors, and underlying factors and recommendations to prevent a repeat of the safety-critical incident on the Cambrian Line. The Systems for Investigation of Railway Interfaces (SIRI) is the methodology used to model and analyze the safety-critical incident. The SIRI methodology uses the Swiss Cheese Model to model the incident and identify latent failure conditions (potentially less than adequate conditions) by means of the management oversight and risk tree technique. The benefits of the systems for investigation of railway interfaces methodology (SIRI) are threefold: first is that it incorporates the “Heuristics and Biases” approach advanced by 2002 Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences, Prof Daniel Kahneman, in the management oversight and risk tree technique to identify systematic errors. Civil engineering and programme management railway professionals are aware of the role “optimism bias” plays in programme cost overruns and are aware of bow tie (fault and event tree) model-based safety risk modelling techniques. However, the role of systematic errors due to “Heuristics and Biases” is not appreciated as yet. This overcomes the problems of omission of human and organizational factors from accident analysis. Second, the scope of the investigation includes all levels of the socio-technical system, including government, regulatory, railway safety bodies, duty holders, signaling firms and transport planners, and front-line staff such that lessons are learned at the decision making and implementation level as well. Third, the author’s past accident case studies are supplemented with research pieces of evidence drawn from the practitioner's and academic researchers’ publications as well. This is to discuss the role of system thinking to improve the decision-making and risk management processes and practices in the IEC 15288 systems engineering standard and in the industrial context such as the GB railways and artificial intelligence (AI) contexts as well.

Keywords: accident analysis, AI algorithm internal audit, bounded rationality, Byzantine failures, heuristics and biases approach

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Authors: Hamid Reza Zeraatpisheh, Shamsoddin Hashemi, Farshad Negintaji

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This study has examined the effects of the architectural anatomy of opera hall on improving the quality of place identity. By measuring the effects of place identity on the inner aspects of human which are influenced by the physical and social environments it has investigated the results of a balance between internal and external environment. To assess the anatomical effects of urban landscape, two components of subjective landscape including perception and diversity and the component of objective landscape including form and order have been measured. The current survey is descriptive and the statistical population has been Shiraz which is a city in Iran. To analyze the data the SPSS software has been used. The results have been investigated in two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics. In the inferential statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient has been used to evaluate the research hypotheses. The results of this study indicate that between the dimensions of landscape, the component of the subjective landscape has the highest impact on the place identity and in the second place, an objective landscape has the impact on the place identity. Anatomical effects have an important role on improving the quality of place identity of Shiraz citizens and in order to enhance the place identity in the urban landscape it is also required that they will be inspired and operated.

Keywords: architectural anatomy, identity, place identity, urban landscape, perception

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Authors: Mohammad Izadkhah, Mojtaba Hoseini, Alireza Khalili Tehrani

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In this paper we presented a new method for tracking flying targets in color video sequences based on contour and kernel. The aim of this work is to overcome the problem of losing target in changing light, large displacement, changing speed, and occlusion. The proposed method is made in three steps, estimate the target location by particle filter, segmentation target region using neural network and find the exact contours by greedy snake algorithm. In the proposed method we have used both region and contour information to create target candidate model and this model is dynamically updated during tracking. To avoid the accumulation of errors when updating, target region given to a perceptron neural network to separate the target from background. Then its output used for exact calculation of size and center of the target. Also it is used as the initial contour for the greedy snake algorithm to find the exact target's edge. The proposed algorithm has been tested on a database which contains a lot of challenges such as high speed and agility of aircrafts, background clutter, occlusions, camera movement, and so on. The experimental results show that the use of neural network increases the accuracy of tracking and segmentation.

Keywords: video tracking, particle filter, greedy snake, neural network

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Authors: Arian Hosseini, Mahmudul Hasan

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To address the increasing need for efficient and accurate content moderation, we propose an efficient and lightweight deep classification ensemble structure. Our approach is based on a combination of simple visual features, designed for high-accuracy classification of violent content with low false positives. Our ensemble architecture utilizes a set of lightweight models with narrowed-down color features, and we apply it to both images and videos. We evaluated our approach using a large dataset of explosion and blast contents and compared its performance to popular deep learning models such as ResNet-50. Our evaluation results demonstrate significant improvements in prediction accuracy, while benefiting from 7.64x faster inference and lower computation cost. While our approach is tailored to explosion detection, it can be applied to other similar content moderation and violence detection use cases as well. Based on our experiments, we propose a "think small, think many" philosophy in classification scenarios. We argue that transforming a single, large, monolithic deep model into a verification-based step model ensemble of multiple small, simple, and lightweight models with narrowed-down visual features can possibly lead to predictions with higher accuracy.

Keywords: deep classification, content moderation, ensemble learning, explosion detection, video processing

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Authors: Kopila Shrestha

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Adolescent sexual reproductive health is one of the most important issues in the world. Reproductive ability is taking place at an earlier age and adolescents are indulging in risk taking behaviors day by day. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Kathmandu valley to assess the knowledge regarding sexual and reproductive health among adolescent. Total of 200 respondents were selected through non-probability convenient sampling technique. Self-administered written questionnaires using semi-structured questions were used. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics such as Chi-square test. The findings revealed that most of the respondents had adequate knowledge regarding transmission and protection of HIV/AIDs and STIs but still some respondents had a misconception regarding it. Few respondents had knowledge regarding legal age for marriage and the minimum age for first child bearing. The statistical analysis revealed that the total mean knowledge score with standard deviation was 45.02±8.674. Nearly half of the respondents (49.5%) had a moderate level of knowledge, followed by an inadequate level of knowledge 29.5% and adequate level of knowledge 21.0% regarding sexual and reproductive health. There was significant association of level of knowledge with area of residence (p-value .002) but no association with age (p-value .067), sex (p-value .999), religion (p-value .082) and ethnicity (p-value .114). Nearly half of the participants possess some knowledge about sexual and reproductive health but still effective educational intervention is required in higher secondary school to encourage more sensible and healthy behaviour.

Keywords: adolescents, higher secondary school, knowledge, sexual and reproductive health

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Authors: Nader Chavoshi Boroujeni, Naser Chavoshi Boroujeni

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Considering the importance of managerial competencies on organizational performance as well as the role of social capital and entrepreneurship as mediator parameters affecting organizational performance, this study attempts to examine the impact carefully. In this regard, Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT) as an effective and knowledge generator company that has a great effect on improving organizational performances of many other companies such as Knowledge-Based Companies (KBCs) activing in the ISTT's site was selected as statistical population. According to coordination with the Department of Development and Technology of ISTT, all employees of ISTT and active KBCs were selected as sample. Then, to analyze the variables a standard and self-made questionnaire containing 98 questions was designed and distributed. Of the 350 questionnaires distributed, 319 questionnaires were collected that 313 cases were confirmed and analyzed. To confirm the reliability of questionnaire, the Leader professor and two other professors approved it. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to validate the questionnaire that all coefficient was between 0/7 and 0/95. So, the validity was confirmed. After descriptive study population, the normality of distribution was investigated with Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Finally, the results obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed by Amos software that all hypotheses were confirmed.

Keywords: managerial competencies, personnel organizational performance, entrepreneurship, social capital

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Authors: Martin Doran, Roy Sterritt, George Wilkie

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NASA, ESA, and NSSC space agencies have plans to put planetary rovers on Mars in 2020. For these future planetary rovers to succeed, they will heavily depend on sensors to detect obstacles. This will also become of vital importance in the future, if rovers become less dependent on commands received from earth-based control and more dependent on self-configuration and self-decision making. These planetary rovers will face harsh environments and the possibility of hardware failure is high, as seen in missions from the past. In this paper, we focus on using Autonomic principles where self-healing, self-optimization, and self-adaption are explored using the MAPE-K model and expanding this model to encapsulate the attributes such as Awareness, Analysis, and Adjustment (AAA-3). In the experimentation, a Pioneer P3-DX research robot is used to simulate a planetary rover. The sonar sensors on the P3-DX robot are used to simulate the sensors on a planetary rover (even though in reality, sonar sensors cannot operate in a vacuum). Experiments using the P3-DX robot focus on how our software system can be adapted with the loss of sonar sensor functionality. The autonomic manager system is responsible for the decision making on how to make use of remaining ‘enabled’ sonars sensors to compensate for those sonar sensors that are ‘disabled’. The key to this research is that the robot can still detect objects even with reduced sonar sensor capability.

Keywords: autonomic, self-adaption, self-healing, self-optimization

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Authors: Stefania Fortino, Petr Hradil, Timo Avikainen

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Timber bridges have an excellent environmental performance, are economical, relatively easy to build and can have a long service life. However, the durability of these bridges is the main problem because of their exposure to outdoor climate conditions. The moisture content accumulated in wood for long periods, in combination with certain temperatures, may cause conditions suitable for timber decay. In addition, moisture content variations affect the structural integrity, serviceability and loading capacity of timber bridges. Therefore, the monitoring of the moisture content in wood is important for the durability of the material but also for the whole superstructure. The measurements obtained by the usual sensor-based techniques provide hygro-thermal data only in specific locations of the wood components. In this context, the monitoring can be assisted by numerical modelling to get more information on the hygro-thermal response of the bridges. This work presents a hygro-thermal model based on a multi-phase moisture transport theory to predict the distribution of moisture content, relative humidity and temperature in wood. Below the fibre saturation point, the multi-phase theory simulates three phenomena in cellular wood during moisture transfer, i.e., the diffusion of water vapour in the pores, the sorption of bound water and the diffusion of bound water in the cell walls. In the multi-phase model, the two water phases are separated, and the coupling between them is defined through a sorption rate. Furthermore, an average between the temperature-dependent adsorption and desorption isotherms is used. In previous works by some of the authors, this approach was found very suitable to study the moisture transport in uncoated and coated stress-laminated timber decks. Compared to previous works, the hygro-thermal fluxes on the external surfaces include the influence of the absorbed solar radiation during the time and consequently, the temperatures on the surfaces exposed to the sun are higher. This affects the whole hygro-thermal response of the timber component. The multi-phase model, implemented in a user subroutine of Abaqus FEM code, provides the distribution of the moisture content, the temperature and the relative humidity in a volume of the timber deck. As a case study, the hygro-thermal data in wood are collected from the ongoing monitoring of the stress-laminated timber deck of Tapiola Bridge in Finland, based on integrated humidity-temperature sensors and the numerical results are found in good agreement with the measurements. The proposed model, used to assist the monitoring, can contribute to reducing the maintenance costs of bridges, as well as the cost of instrumentation, and increase safety.

Keywords: moisture content, multi-phase models, solar radiation, timber decks, FEM

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