Search results for: safety of construction projects

Authors: Fabienne Samyn, Pauline Tranchard, Sophie Duquesne, Emilie Goncalves, Bruno Estebe, Serge Boubigot

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Stringent fire safety regulations are enforced in the aeronautical industry due to the consequences that potential fire event on an aircraft might imply. This is so much true that the fire issue is considered right from the design of the aircraft structure. Due to the incorporation of an increasing amount of polymer matrix composites in replacement of more conventional materials like metals, the nature of the fire risks is changing. The choice of materials used is consequently of prime importance as well as the evaluation of its resistance to fire. The fire testing is mostly done using the so-called certification tests according to standards such as the ISO2685:1998(E). The latter describes a protocol to evaluate the fire resistance of structures located in fire zone (ability to withstand fire for 5min). The test consists in exposing an at least 300x300mm² sample to an 1100°C propane flame with a calibrated heat flux of 116kW/m². This type of test is time-consuming, expensive and gives access to limited information in terms of fire behavior of the materials (pass or fail test). Consequently, it can barely be used for material development purposes. In this context, the laboratory UMET in collaboration with industrial partners has developed a horizontal and a vertical small-scale instrumented fire benches for the characterization of the fire behavior of composites. The benches using smaller samples (no more than 150x150mm²) enables to cut downs costs and hence to increase sampling throughput. However, the main added value of our benches is the instrumentation used to collect useful information to understand the behavior of the materials. Indeed, measurements of the sample backside temperature are performed using IR camera in both configurations. In addition, for the vertical set up, a complete characterization of the degradation process, can be achieved via mass loss measurements and quantification of the gasses released during the tests. These benches have been used to characterize and study the fire behavior of aeronautical carbon/epoxy composites. The horizontal set up has been used in particular to study the performances and durability of protective intumescent coating on 2mm thick 2D laminates. The efficiency of this approach has been validated, and the optimized coating thickness has been determined as well as the performances after aging. Reductions of the performances after aging were attributed to the migration of some of the coating additives. The vertical set up has enabled to investigate the degradation process of composites under fire. An isotropic and a unidirectional 4mm thick laminates have been characterized using the bench and post-fire analyses. The mass loss measurements and the gas phase analyses of both composites do not present significant differences unlike the temperature profiles in the thickness of the samples. The differences have been attributed to differences of thermal conductivity as well as delamination that is much more pronounced for the isotropic composite (observed on the IR-images). This has been confirmed by X-ray microtomography. The developed benches have proven to be valuable tools to develop fire safe composites.

Keywords: aeronautical carbon/epoxy composite, durability, intumescent coating, small-scale ‘ISO 2685 like’ fire resistance test, X-ray microtomography

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Authors: Pavel Prochazka

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The study deals with transducers for measuring vibration displacements of rotating blade tips in turbomachines. In order to prevent major accidents with extensive economic consequences, it shows an urgent need for every low-pressure steam turbine stage being equipped with modern non-contact measuring system providing information on blade loading, damage and residual lifetime under operation. The requirement of measuring vibration and static characteristics of steam turbine blades, therefore, calls for the development and operational verification of both new types of sensors and measuring principles and methods. The task is really demanding: to measure displacements of blade tips with a resolution of the order of 10 μm by speeds up to 750 m/s, humidity 100% and temperatures up to 200 °C. While in gas turbines are used primarily capacitive and optical transducers, these transducers cannot be used in steam turbines. The reason is moisture vapor, droplets of condensing water and dirt, which disable the function of sensors. Therefore, the most feasible approach was to focus on research of electromagnetic sensors featuring promising characteristics for given blade materials in a steam environment. Following types of sensors have been developed and both experimentally and theoretically studied in the Institute of Thermodynamics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic: eddy-current, Hall effect, inductive and magnetoresistive. Eddy-current transducers demand a small distance of 1 to 2 mm and change properties in the harsh environment of steam turbines. Hall effect sensors have relatively low sensitivity, high values of offset, drift, and especially noise. Induction sensors do not require any supply current and have a simple construction. The magnitude of the sensors output voltage is dependent on the velocity of the measured body and concurrently on the varying magnetic induction, and they cannot be used statically. Magnetoresistive sensors are formed by magnetoresistors arranged into a Wheatstone bridge. Supplying the sensor from a current source provides better linearity. The MR sensors can be used permanently for temperatures up to 200 °C at lower values of the supply current of about 1 mA. The frequency range of 0 to 300 kHz is by an order higher comparing to the Hall effect and induction sensors. The frequency band starts at zero frequency, which is very important because the sensors can be calibrated statically. The MR sensors feature high sensitivity and low noise. The symmetry of the bridge arrangement leads to a high common mode rejection ratio and suppressing disturbances, which is important, especially in industrial applications. The MR sensors feature high sensitivity, high common mode rejection ratio, and low noise, which is important, especially in industrial applications. Magnetoresistive transducers provide a range of excellent properties indicating their priority for displacement measurements of rotating blades in turbomachines.

Keywords: turbines, blade vibration, blade tip timing, non-contact sensors, magnetoresistive sensors

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Authors: Heather Warfield, Brad Genereux

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Military personnel encounter a number of challenges when separating from military service to include career uncertainty, relational/family dynamics, trauma as a result of military experiences, reconceptualization of identity, and existential issues related to purpose, meaning making and framing of the military experience(s). Embedded within military culture are well-defined rites of passage and a significant sense of belonging. Consequently, transition out of the military can result in the loss of such rites of passage and belongingness. However, a pilgrimage journey can provide the time and space to engage in a new rite of passage, to construct a new pilgrim identity, and a to develop deep social relationships that lead to a sense of belongingness to a particular pilgrim community as well as to the global community of pilgrims across numerous types of pilgrimage journeys. The aims of the current paper are to demonstrate the rationale for why pilgrimage journeys are particularly significant for military veterans, provide an overview of an innovative program that facilitates the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage for military veterans, and discusses the lessons learned from the initial pilot project of a recently established program. Veterans on the Camino (VOC) is an emerging nongovernmental organization in the USA. Founded by a military veteran, after leaving his military career, the primary objective of the organization is to facilitate healing for veterans via the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage journey. As part of the program, participants complete a semi-structured interview at three time points – pre, during, and post journey. The interview items are based on ongoing research by the principal investigator and address such constructs as meaning-making, wellbeing, therapeutic benefits and transformation. In addition, program participants complete The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe). The pilot program occurred in the spring of 2017. Five participants were selected after an extensive application process and review by a three-person selection board. The selection criteria included demonstrated compatibility with the program objectives (i.e., prior military experience, availability for a 40 day journey, and awareness of the need for a transformational intervention). The participants were connected as a group through a private Facebook site and interacted with one another for several months prior to the pilgrimage. Additionally, the participants were interviewed prior to beginning the pilgrimage, at one point during the pilgrimage and immediately following the conclusion of the pilgrimage journey. The interviews yielded themes related to loss, meaning construction, renewed hope in humanity, and a commitment to future goals. The lessons learned from this pilot project included a confirmation of the need for such a program, a need for greater focus on logistical details, and the recognition that the pilgrimage experience needs to continue in some manner once the veterans return home.

Keywords: pilgrimage, healing, military veterans, Camino de Santiago

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Authors: Esther Gumboh

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The police play a critical role in society and are an integral aspect of the rule of law. Equally, respect for human rights is an integral part of professional policing. In view of the vast powers that the police enjoy and the attendant risk of abuse and resulting human rights violations, the need for police accountability and civilian police oversight is internationally and regionally recognised. Policing oversight springs from the duty to investigate human rights violations. Those implicated in perpetrating or covering up violations must be disciplined or prosecuted to ensure effective accountability. Police accountability is particularly important in Malawi given the dark history of policing in the country during the 30-year dictatorial era under President Kamuzu Banda. Described as one of the most repressive regimes in Africa, the Banda administration was characterised by gross state-sponsored violence, repressive policing and human rights violations. Indeed, the police were involved in various forms of human rights abuse including arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions, torture, and excessive use of force in conducting arrests and public order policing. This situation flourished within a culture of police impunity bolstered in part by the absence of clear oversight mechanisms for police accountability. In turn, there was immense public mistrust of the police. Unsurprisingly, the criminal justice system was one of the priority areas for reform when Malawi adopted its first democratic Constitution in 1994. Section 153 of the Constitution envisions a police service that is, for all intents and purposes, there to provide for the protection of public safety and the rights of persons in Malawi according to the prescriptions of the Constitution and any other law. This position reflects the view that the duty to protect and promote human rights is not incompatible with effective policing. Despite this, the police continue to engage in questionable behaviour in public order policing, excessive use of force, deaths in police custody, ill-treatment, torture and other forms of abuse including sexual abuse. Perpetrators of abuses are occasionally punished, but investigations are often delayed, abandoned, or remain inconclusive. Police accountability remains largely elusive. Commendably, the law does subject the police to significant oversight both internally and externally. However, until 2010, Malawi lacked a wholly independent civilian oversight mechanism specifically mandated to monitor the activities of the Malawi Police Service and held it accountable. This void has since been filled by the Independent Complaints Commission established under the Police Act. This is a positive development that reiterates Malawi’s commitment to the investigation of human rights violations by the police and to ending police impunity. This contribution examines the legal framework for this Commission to project the effectiveness of the Commission. While the framework looks promising on various fronts, there are potential challenges that lie ahead. Malawi must pre-emptively deal with these challenges carefully if the Commission is to have any practical significance in transforming police accountability in the country. Drawing on lessons from other jurisdictions like South Africa, the paper makes recommendations for legislative reform to strengthen the Commission’s framework.

Keywords: civilian policing oversight, Malawi, police, police accountability, policing, policing oversight

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Authors: Giovanna Bimonte, Luigi Senatore, Francesco Saverio Tortoriello, Ilaria Veronesi

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The education process considers capabilities not only to be seen as a means to a certain end but rather as an effective purpose. Sen's capability approach challenges human capital theory, which sees education as an ordinary investment undertaken by individuals. A complex reality requires complex thinking capable of interpreting the dynamics of society's changes to be able to make decisions that can be rational for private, ethical and social contexts. Education is not something removed from the cultural and social context; it exists and is structured within it. In Italy, the "Mathematical High School Project" is a didactic research project is based on additional laboratory courses in extracurricular hours where mathematics intends to bring itself in a dialectical relationship with other disciplines as a cultural bridge between the two cultures, the humanistic and the scientific ones, with interdisciplinary educational modules on themes of strong impact in younger life. This interdisciplinary mathematics presents topics related to the most advanced technologies and contemporary socio-economic frameworks to demonstrate how mathematics is not only a key to reading but also a key to resolving complex problems. The recent developments in mathematics provide the potential for profound and highly beneficial changes in mathematics education at all levels, such as in socio-economic decisions. The research project is built to investigate whether repeated interactions can successfully promote cooperation among students as rational choice and if the skill, the context and the school background can influence the strategies choice and the rationality. A Laboratory on Game Theory as mathematical theory was conducted in the 4th year of the Mathematical High Schools and in an ordinary scientific high school of the Scientific degree program. Students played two simultaneous games of repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with an indefinite horizon, with two different competitors in each round; even though the competitors in each round will remain the same for the duration of the game. The results highlight that most of the students in the two classes used the two games with an immunization strategy against the risk of losing: in one of the games, they started by playing Cooperate, and in the other by the strategy of Compete. In the literature, theoretical models and experiments show that in the case of repeated interactions with the same adversary, the optimal cooperation strategy can be achieved by tit-for-tat mechanisms. In higher education, individual capacities cannot be examined independently, as conceptual framework presupposes a social construction of individuals interacting and competing, making individual and collective choices. The paper will outline all the results of the experimentation and the future development of the research.

Keywords: game theory, interdisciplinarity, mathematics education, mathematical high school

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Authors: Shilpa Murthy, Hazlina Binti Abu Bakar, Juliet Mathew, Chandrashekhar Thummala Hlly Sreerama Reddy, Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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Simulation is defined as a technique that replaces or expands real experiences with guided experiences that interactively imitate real-world processes or systems. Simulation enables learners to train in a safe and non-threatening environment. For decades, simulation has been considered an integral part of clinical teaching and learning strategy in medical education. The several types of simulation used in medical education and the clinical environment can be applied to several models, including full-body mannequins, task trainers, standardized simulated patients, virtual or computer-generated simulation, or Hybrid simulation that can be used to facilitate learning. Simulation allows healthcare practitioners to acquire skills and experience while taking care of patient safety. The recent COVID pandemic has also led to an increase in simulation use, as there were limitations on medical student placements in hospitals and clinics. The learning is tailored according to the educational needs of students to make the learning experience more valuable. Simulation in the pre-clinical years has challenges with resource constraints, effective curricular integration, student engagement and motivation, and evidence of educational impact, to mention a few. As instructors, we may have more reliance on the use of simulation for pre-clinical students while the students’ confidence levels and perceived competence are to be evaluated. Our research question was whether the implementation of simulation-based learning positively influences preclinical medical students' confidence levels and perceived competence. This study was done to align the teaching activities with the student’s learning experience to introduce more low-fidelity simulation-based teaching sessions for pre-clinical years and to obtain students’ input into the curriculum development as part of inclusivity. The study was carried out at International Medical University, involving pre-clinical year (Medical) students who were started with low-fidelity simulation-based medical education from their first semester and were gradually introduced to medium fidelity, too. The Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning Scale questionnaire from the National League of Nursing was employed to collect the responses. The internal consistency reliability for the survey items was tested with Cronbach’s alpha using an Excel file. IBM SPSS for Windows version 28.0 was used to analyze the data. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation between students’ satisfaction and self-confidence in learning. The significance level was set at p value less than 0.05. The results from this study have prompted the researchers to undertake a larger-scale evaluation, which is currently underway. The current results show that 70% of students agreed that the teaching methods used in the simulation were helpful and effective. The sessions are dependent on the learning materials that are provided and how the facilitators engage the students and make the session more enjoyable. The feedback provided inputs on the following areas to focus on while designing simulations for pre-clinical students. There are quality learning materials, an interactive environment, motivating content, skills and knowledge of the facilitator, and effective feedback.

Keywords: low-fidelity simulation, pre-clinical simulation, students satisfaction, self-confidence

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Authors: Cristina Costescu, Carmen David, Adrian Roșan

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Executive functions (EF) and emotion regulation strategies are processes that allow individuals to function in an adaptative way and to be goal-oriented, which is essential for success in daily living activities, at school, or in social contexts. The Emotion Regulation and Executive Functioning Scale for Children and Adolescents (REMEX) represents an empirically based tool (based on the model of EF developed by Diamond) for evaluating significant dimensions of child and adolescent EFs and emotion regulation strategies, mainly in school contexts. The instrument measures the following dimensions: working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, executive attention, planning, emotional control, and emotion regulation strategies. Building the instrument involved not only a top-down process, as we selected the content in accordance with prominent models of FE, but also a bottom-up one, as we were able to identify valid contexts in which FE and ER are put to use. For the construction of the instrument, we implemented three focus groups with teachers and other professionals since the aim was to develop an accurate, objective, and ecological instrument. We used the focus group method in order to address each dimension and to yield a bank of items to be further tested. Each dimension is addressed through a task that the examiner will apply and through several items derived from the main task. For the validation of the instrument, we plan to use item response theory (IRT), also known as the latent response theory, that attempts to explain the relationship between latent traits (unobservable cognitive processes) and their manifestations (i.e., observed outcomes, responses, or performance). REMEX represents an ecological scale that integrates a current scientific understanding of emotion regulation and EF and is directly applicable to school contexts, and it can be very useful for developing intervention protocols. We plan to test his convergent validity with the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory (CHEXI) and Emotion Dysregulation Inventory (EDI) and divergent validity between a group of typically developing children and children with neurodevelopmental disorders, aged between 6 and 9 years old. In a previous pilot study, we enrolled a sample of 40 children with autism spectrum disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder aged 6 to 12 years old, and we applied the above-mentioned scales (CHEXI and EDI). Our results showed that deficits in planning, bebavior regulation, inhibition, and working memory predict high levels of emotional reactivity, leading to emotional and behavioural problems. Considering previous results, we expect our findings to provide support for the validity and reliability of the REMEX version as an ecological instrument for assessing emotion regulation and EF in children and for key features of its uses in intervention protocols.

Keywords: executive functions, emotion regulation, children, item response theory, focus group

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Authors: Robert Caulk

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A generalized framework for adaptive machine learning deployments in algorithmic trading is introduced, tested, and released as open-source code. The presented software aims to test the hypothesis that recent data contains enough information to form a probabilistically favorable short-term price prediction. Further, the framework contains various adaptive machine learning techniques that are geared toward generating profit during strong trends and minimizing losses during trend changes. Results demonstrate that this adaptive machine learning approach is capable of capturing trends and generating profit. The presentation also discusses the importance of defining the parameter space associated with the dynamic training data-set and using the parameter space to identify and remove outliers from prediction data points. Meanwhile, the generalized architecture enables common users to exploit the powerful machinery while focusing on high-level feature engineering and model testing. The presentation also highlights common strengths and weaknesses associated with the presented technique and presents a broad range of well-tested starting points for feature set construction, target setting, and statistical methods for enforcing risk management and maintaining probabilistically favorable entry and exit points. The presentation also describes the end-to-end data processing tools associated with FreqAI, including automatic data fetching, data aggregation, feature engineering, safe and robust data pre-processing, outlier detection, custom machine learning and statistical tools, data post-processing, and adaptive training backtest emulation, and deployment of adaptive training in live environments. Finally, the generalized user interface is also discussed in the presentation. Feature engineering is simplified so that users can seed their feature sets with common indicator libraries (e.g. TA-lib, pandas-ta). The user also feeds data expansion parameters to fill out a large feature set for the model, which can contain as many as 10,000+ features. The presentation describes the various object-oriented programming techniques employed to make FreqAI agnostic to third-party libraries and external data sources. In other words, the back-end is constructed in such a way that users can leverage a broad range of common regression libraries (Catboost, LightGBM, Sklearn, etc) as well as common Neural Network libraries (TensorFlow, PyTorch) without worrying about the logistical complexities associated with data handling and API interactions. The presentation finishes by drawing conclusions about the most important parameters associated with a live deployment of the adaptive learning framework and provides the road map for future development in FreqAI.

Keywords: machine learning, market trend detection, open-source, adaptive learning, parameter space exploration

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Authors: Fstemeh Rais Esmaili, Ehsan Ranjbar

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Pedestrian streets as one type of urban public spaces have an important role in improving the quality of urban life. In Iran, planning and designing of pedestrian streets is in its primary steps. In spite of starting this approach in Iran, and designing several pedestrian streets, there are still not organized studies about quality assessment of pedestrian streets. As a result, the strength and weakness points of the initial experiences have not been utilized. This inattention to quality assessment have caused designing pedestrian streets to be limited to just vehicles traffic control and preliminary actions like paving; so that, special potentials of pedestrian streets for creating social, livable and dynamic public spaces have not been used. This article, as an organized study about quality assessment of pedestrian streets in Iran, tries to reach two main goals: first, introducing a framework for quality assessment of pedestrian streets in Iran, and second, creating a context for improving the quality of pedestrian streets especially for further experiences. The main research methods are description and context analyzing. With respect to comparative analysis of ideas about quality, considering international and local case studies and analyzing existing condition of Saf Pedestrian Street, a particular model for quality assessment has been introduced. In this model, main components and assessment criteria have been presented. On the basis of this model, questionnaire and checklist for assessment have been prepared. The questionnaire and interview have been used to assess qualities which are in direct contact with people and the checklist has been used for analyzing visual qualities by authors through observation. Some results of questionnaire and checklist show that 7 of 11 primary components, diversity, flexibility, cleanness, legibility and imaginably, identity, livability, form and physical setting are rated low and very low in quality degree. Three components, efficiency, comfort and distinctiveness, have medium and low quality degree and one component, access, linkage and permeability has high quality degree. Therefore, based on implemented analyzing process, Saf Pedestrian Street needs to be improved and these quality improvement priorities are determined based on presented criteria. Adaption of final results with existing condition illustrates the shortage of services for satisfying user’s needs, inflexibility and impossibility of using spaces in various times, lack of facilities for different climatic conditions, lack of facilities such as drinking fountain, inappropriate designing of existing urban furniture like garbage cans, and creating pollution and unsuitable view, lack of visual attractions, neglecting disabled persons in designing entrances, shortage of benches and their undesirable designing, lack of vegetation, absence of special characters making it different from other streets, preventing people taking part in the space causing lack of affiliation, lack of appropriate elements for leisure time and lack of exhilaration in the space. On the other hand, these results present high access and permeability, high safety, less sound pollution and more relief, comfortable movement along the way due to suitable pavement and economic efficiency, as the strength points of Saf pedestrian street.

Keywords: pedestrian streets, quality assessment, quality criteria, Saf Pedestrian Street

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Authors: Pawel Magryta, Mateusz Paszko

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In today's world, a big problem of individual mobility, especially in large urban areas, occurs. Commonly used grand way of transport such as buses, trains or cars do not fulfill their tasks, i.e. they are not able to meet the increasing mobility needs of the growing urban population. Additional to that, the limitations of civil infrastructure construction in the cities exist. Nowadays the most common idea is to transfer the part of urban transport on the level of air transport. However to do this, there is a need to develop an individual flying transport vehicle. The biggest problem occurring in this concept is the type of the propulsion system from which the vehicle will obtain a lifting force. Standard propeller drives appear to be too noisy. One of the ideas is to provide the required take-off and flight power by the machine using the innovative ejector system. This kind of the system will be designed through a suitable choice of the three-dimensional geometric structure with special shape of nozzle in order to generate overpressure. The authors idea is to make a device that would allow to cumulate the overpressure using the a five-sided geometrical structure that will be limited on the one side by the blowing flow of air jet. In order to test this hypothesis a computer simulation study of aerodynamic drag of such 3D structures have been made. Based on the results of these studies, the tests on real model were also performed. The final stage of work was a comparative analysis of the results of simulation and real tests. The CFD simulation studies of air flow was conducted using the Star CD - Star Pro 3.2 software. The design of virtual model was made using the Catia v5 software. Apart from the objective to obtain advanced aviation propulsion system, all of the tests and modifications of 3D structures were also aimed at achieving high efficiency of this device while maintaining the ability to generate high value of overpressures. This was possible only in case of a large mass flow rate of air. All these aspects have been possible to verify using CFD methods for observing the flow of the working medium in the tested model. During the simulation tests, the distribution and size of pressure and velocity vectors were analyzed. Simulations were made with different boundary conditions (supply air pressure), but with a fixed external conditions (ambient temp., ambient pressure, etc.). The maximum value of obtained overpressure is 2 kPa. This value is too low to exploit the power of this device for the individual transport vehicle. Both the simulation model and real object shows a linear dependence of the overpressure values obtained from the different geometrical parameters of three-dimensional structures. Application of computational software greatly simplifies and streamlines the design and simulation capabilities. This work has been financed by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Keywords: aviation propulsion, CFD, 3d structure, aerodynamic drag

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Authors: Soumi Banerjee

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In this research paper we will go deep into understanding Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an imagined community and we will analyze why and how national identities were created through long and complex processes, and how there can exist strong emotional bonds between people within an imagined community, given the fact that these people have never known each other personally, but will still feel some form of imagined unity. Such identity construction on the part of an individual or within societies are always in some sense in a state of flux as imagined communities are ever changing, which provides us with the ontological foundation for reaching on this paper. This sort of identity crisis among individuals living in the Western world, who are in search for psychological comfort and security, illustrates a possible need for spatially dislocated, ontologically insecure and vulnerable individuals to have a secure identity. To create such an identity there has to be something to build upon, which could be achieved through what may be termed as ‘homesteading’. This could in short, and in my interpretation of Kinnvall and Nesbitt’s concept, be described as a search for security that involves a search for ‘home’, where home acts as a secure place, which one can build an identity around. The next half of the paper will then look into how populism and identity have played an increasingly important role in the political elections in the so-called western democracies of the world, using the U.S. as an example. Notions of ‘us and them’, the people and the elites will be looked into and analyzed through a social constructivist theoretical lens. Here we will analyze how such narratives about identity and the nation state affects people, their personality development and identity in different ways by studying the U.S. President Donald Trump’s speeches and analyze if and how he used different identity creating narratives for gaining political and popular support. The reason to choose narrative analysis as a method in this research paper is to use the narratives as a device to understand how the perceived notions of 'us and them' can initiate huge identity crisis with a community or a nation-state. This is a relevant subject as results and developments such as rising populist rightwing movements are being felt in a number of European states, with the so-called Brexit vote in the U.K. and the election of Donald Trump as president are two of the prime examples. This paper will then attempt to argue that these mechanisms are strengthened and gaining significance in situations when humans in an economic, social or ontologically vulnerable position, imagined or otherwise, in a general and broad meaning perceive themselves to be under pressure, and a sense of insecurity is rising. These insecurities and sense of being under threat have been on the rise in many of the Western states that are otherwise usually perceived to be some of the safest, democratically stable and prosperous states in the world, which makes it of interest to study what has changed, and help provide some part of the explanation as to how creating a ‘them’ in the discourse of national identity can cause massive security crisis.

Keywords: identity crisis, migration, ontological security(in), nation-states

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Authors: Milena Trojanowska

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Disability is a phenomenon for which meanings and definitions have evolved over the decades. This became the trigger to start a project to answer the question of what disability constitutes in the course of an incurable chronic disease. The chosen research group are people living with multiple sclerosis.The contextual phase of the research was participant observation at the Polish Multiple Sclerosis Society, the largest NGO in Poland supporting people living with MS and their relatives. The research techniques used in the project are (in order of implementation): group interviews with people living with MS and their relatives, narrative interviews, asynchronous technique, participant observation during events organised for people living with MS and their relatives.The researcher is currently conducting follow-up interviews, as inaccuracies in the respondents' narratives were identified during the data analysis. Interviews and supplementary research techniques were used over the four years of the research, and the researcher also benefited from experience gained from 12 years of working with NGOs (diaries, notes). The research was carried out in Poland with the participation of people living in this country only.The research has been based on grounded theory methodology in a constructivist perspectivedeveloped by Kathy Charmaz. The goal was to follow the idea that research must be reliable, original, and useful. The aim was to construct an interpretive theory that assumes temporality and the processualityof social life. TheAtlas.ti software was used to collect research material and analyse it. It is a program from the CAQDAS(Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) group.Several key factors influencing the construction of a disability identity by people living with multiple sclerosis was identified:-course of interaction with significant relatives,- the expectation of identification with disability (expressed by close relatives),- economic profitability (pension, allowances),- institutional advantages (e.g. parking card),- independence and autonomy (not equated with physical condition, but access to adapted infrastructure and resources to support daily functioning),- the way a person with MS construes the meaning of disability,- physical and mental state,- medical diagnosis of illness.In addition, it has been shown that making an assumption about the experience of disability in the course of MS is a form of cognitive reductionism leading to further phenomenon such as: the expectation of the person with MS to construct a social identity as a person with a disability (e.g. giving up work), the occurrence of institutional inequalities. It can also be a determinant of the choice of a life strategy that limits social and individual functioning, even if this necessity is not influenced by the person's physical or psychological condition.The results of the research are important for the development of knowledge about the phenomenon of disability. It indicates the contextuality and complexity of the disability phenomenon, which in the light of the research is a set of different phenomenon of heterogeneous nature and multifaceted causality. This knowledge can also be useful for institutions and organisations in the non-governmental sector supporting people with disabilities and people living with multiple sclerosis.

Keywords: disability, multiple sclerosis, grounded theory, poland

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Authors: Dan Kanmegne

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Africa will become the most populated continent by the end of the century, with around 4 billion inhabitants. Food security and climate changes will become continental issues since agricultural practices depend on climate but also contribute to global emissions and land degradation. Agroforestry has been identified as a cost-efficient and reliable strategy to address these two issues. It is defined as the integrated management of trees and crops/animals in the same land unit. Agroforestry provides benefits in terms of goods (fruits, medicine, wood, etc.) and services (windbreaks, fertility, etc.), and is acknowledged to have a great potential for carbon sequestration; therefore it can be integrated into reduction mechanisms of carbon emissions. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the constraint stands in the lack of information about both areas under agroforestry and the characterization (composition, structure, and management) of each agroforestry system at the country level. This study describes and quantifies “what is where?”, earliest to the quantification of carbon stock in different systems. Remote sensing (RS) is the most efficient approach to map such a dynamic technology as agroforestry since it gives relatively adequate and consistent information over a large area at nearly no cost. RS data fulfill the good practice guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) that is to be used in carbon estimation. Satellite data are getting more and more accessible, and the archives are growing exponentially. To retrieve useful information to support decision-making out of this large amount of data, satellite data needs to be organized so to ensure fast processing, quick accessibility, and ease of use. A new solution is a data cube, which can be understood as a multi-dimensional stack (space, time, data type) of spatially aligned pixels and used for efficient access and analysis. A data cube for Burkina Faso has been set up from the cooperation project between the international service provider WASCAL and Germany, which provides an accessible exploitation architecture of multi-temporal satellite data. The aim of this study is to map and characterize agroforestry systems using the Burkina Faso earth observation data cube. The approach in its initial stage is based on an unsupervised image classification of a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series from 2010 to 2018, to stratify the country based on the vegetation. Fifteen strata were identified, and four samples per location were randomly assigned to define the sampling units. For safety reasons, the northern part will not be part of the fieldwork. A total of 52 locations will be visited by the end of the dry season in February-March 2020. The field campaigns will consist of identifying and describing different agroforestry systems and qualitative interviews. A multi-temporal supervised image classification will be done with a random forest algorithm, and the field data will be used for both training the algorithm and accuracy assessment. The expected outputs are (i) map(s) of agroforestry dynamics, (ii) characteristics of different systems (main species, management, area, etc.); (iii) assessment report of Burkina Faso data cube.

Keywords: agroforestry systems, Burkina Faso, earth observation data cube, multi-temporal image classification

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Authors: Isabelle Gobatto

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Based on an anthropological approach, this paper explores the medical profession and the construction of medical practices by considering the multiform articulations between structural poverty and the production of care from a low-resource francophone West African country, Burkina Faso. This country is considered in its exemplary dimension of culturally differentiated countries of the African continent that share the same situation of structural poverty. The objective is to expose the effects of structural poverty on the ways of constructing professional knowledge and thinking about the sense of the medical profession. If doctors are trained to have the same capacities in South and West countries, which are to treat and save lives whatever the cultural contexts of the practice of medicine, the ways of investing their role and of dealing with this context of action fracture the homogenization of the medical profession. In the line of anthropology of biomedicine, this paper outlines the complex effects of structural poverty on health care, care relations, and the moral economy of doctors. The materials analyzed are based on an ethnography including two temporalities located thirty years apart (1990-1994 and 2020-2021), based on long-term observations of care practices conducted in healthcare institutions, interviews coupled with the life histories of physicians. The findings reveal that disabilities faced by doctors to deliver care are interpreted as policy gaps, but they are also considered by physicians as constitutive of the social and cultural characteristics of patients, making their capacities and incapacities in terms of accompanying caregivers in the production of care. These perceptions have effects on know-how, structured around the need to act even when diagnoses are not made so as not to see patients desert health structures if the costs of care are too high for them. But these interpretations of highly individualizing dimensions of these difficulties place part of the blame on patients for the difficulties in using learned knowledge and delivering effective care. These situations challenge the ethics of caregivers but also of ethnologists. Firstly because the interpretations of disabilities prevent caregivers from considering vulnerabilities of care as constituting a common condition shared with their patients in these health systems, affecting them in an identical way although in different places in the production of care. Correlatively, these results underline that these professional conceptions prevent the emergence of a figure of victim, which could be shared between patients and caregivers who, together, undergo working and care conditions at the limit of the acceptable. This dimension directly involves politics. Secondly, structural poverty and its effects on care challenge the ethics of the anthropologist who observes caregivers producing, without intent to arm, experiences of care marked by an ordinary violence, by not giving them the care they need. It is worth asking how anthropologists could get doctors to think in this light in west-African societies.

Keywords: Africa, care, ethics, poverty

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Authors: Moen Torill, Rismark Marit, Astrid M. Solvberg

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In Norway, every municipality shall provide an educational psychological service, EPS, to support kindergartens and schools in their work with children and youths with special needs. The EPS focus its work on individuals, aiming to identify special needs and to give advice to teachers and parents when they ask for it. In addition, the service also give priority to prevention and system intervention in kindergartens and schools. To master these big tasks university courses are established to support EPS counsellors' continuous learning. There is, however, a need for more in-depth and systematic knowledge on how they experience the courses they attend. In this study, EPS counsellors’ reflection logs during a particular course are investigated. The research question is: what are the content and priorities of the reflections that are communicated in the logs produced by the educational psychological counsellors during a post-graduate course? The investigated course is a credit course organized over a one-year period in two one-semester modules. The altogether 55 students enrolled in the course work as EPS counsellors in various municipalities across Norway. At the end of each day throughout the course period, the participants wrote reflection logs about what they had experienced during the day. The data material consists of 165 pages of typed text. The collaborating researchers studied the data material to ascertain, differentiate and understand the meaning of the content in each log. The analysis also involved the search for similarity in content and development of analytical categories that described the focus and primary concerns in each of the written logs. This involved constant 'critical and sustained discussions' for mutual construction of meaning between the co-researchers in the developing categories. The process is inspired by Grounded Theory. This means that the concepts developed during the analysis derived from the data material and not chosen prior to the investigation. The analysis revealed that the concept 'Useful' frequently appeared in the participants’ reflections and, as such, 'Useful' serves as a core category. The core category is described through three major categories: (1) knowledge sharing (concerning direct and indirect work with students with special needs) with colleagues is useful, (2) reflections on models and theoretical concepts (concerning students with special needs) are useful, (3) reflection on the role as EPS counsellor is useful. In all the categories, the notion of useful occurs in the participants’ emphasis on and acknowledgement of the immediate and direct link between the university course content and their daily work practice. Even if each category has an importance and value of its own, it is crucial that they are understood in connection with one another and as interwoven. It is the connectedness that gives the core category an overarching explanatory power. The knowledge from this study may be a relevant contribution when it comes to designing new courses that support continuing professional development for EPS counsellors, whether for post-graduate university courses or local courses at the EPS offices or whether in Norway or other countries in the world.

Keywords: constructing and circulating knowledge, educational-psychological counsellor, higher education, professional development

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Authors: Serhat Tüzün, Tufan Demirel

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Decision Support Systems (DSS) have been investigated by researchers and technologists for more than 35 years. This paper analyses the developments in the architecture and software of these systems, provides a systematic analysis for different Web-based DSS approaches and Intelligent Decision-making Technologies (IDT), with the suggestion for future studies. Decision Support Systems literature begins with building model-oriented DSS in the late 1960s, theory developments in the 1970s, and the implementation of financial planning systems and Group DSS in the early and mid-80s. Then it documents the origins of Executive Information Systems, online analytic processing (OLAP) and Business Intelligence. The implementation of Web-based DSS occurred in the mid-1990s. With the beginning of the new millennia, intelligence is the main focus on DSS studies. Web-based technologies are having a major impact on design, development and implementation processes for all types of DSS. Web technologies are being utilized for the development of DSS tools by leading developers of decision support technologies. Major companies are encouraging its customers to port their DSS applications, such as data mining, customer relationship management (CRM) and OLAP systems, to a web-based environment. Similarly, real-time data fed from manufacturing plants are now helping floor managers make decisions regarding production adjustment to ensure that high-quality products are produced and delivered. Web-based DSS are being employed by organizations as decision aids for employees as well as customers. A common usage of Web-based DSS has been to assist customers configure product and service according to their needs. These systems allow individual customers to design their own products by choosing from a menu of attributes, components, prices and delivery options. The Intelligent Decision-making Technologies (IDT) domain is a fast growing area of research that integrates various aspects of computer science and information systems. This includes intelligent systems, intelligent technology, intelligent agents, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic, neural networks, machine learning, knowledge discovery, computational intelligence, data science, big data analytics, inference engines, recommender systems or engines, and a variety of related disciplines. Innovative applications that emerge using IDT often have a significant impact on decision-making processes in government, industry, business, and academia in general. This is particularly pronounced in finance, accounting, healthcare, computer networks, real-time safety monitoring and crisis response systems. Similarly, IDT is commonly used in military decision-making systems, security, marketing, stock market prediction, and robotics. Even though lots of research studies have been conducted on Decision Support Systems, a systematic analysis on the subject is still missing. Because of this necessity, this paper has been prepared to search recent articles about the DSS. The literature has been deeply reviewed and by classifying previous studies according to their preferences, taxonomy for DSS has been prepared. With the aid of the taxonomic review and the recent developments over the subject, this study aims to analyze the future trends in decision support systems.

Keywords: decision support systems, intelligent decision-making, systematic analysis, taxonomic review

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Authors: Z. Xu

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Immersive virtual reality (VR) has gained momentum in humanitarian communication due to its utopian promises of co-presence, immediacy, and transcendence. These potential benefits have led the United Nations (UN) to tirelessly produce and distribute VR series to evoke global empathy and encourage policymakers, philanthropic business tycoons and citizens around the world to actually do something (i.e. give a donation). However, it is unclear whether or not VR can cultivate cosmopolitans with a sense of social responsibility towards the geographically, socially/culturally and morally mediated misfortune of faraway others. Drawing upon existing works on the mediation of distant suffering, this article constructs an analytical framework to articulate the issue. Applying this framework on a case study of five of the UN’s VR pieces, the article identifies three paradoxes that exist between cyber-utopian and cyber-dystopian narratives. In the “paradox of distance”, VR relies on the notions of “presence” and “storyliving” to implicitly link audiences spatially and temporally to distant suffering, creating global connectivity and reducing perceived distances between audiences and others; yet it also enables audiences to fully occupy the point of view of distant sufferers (creating too close/absolute proximity), which may cause them to feel naive self-righteousness or narcissism with their pleasures and desire, thereby destroying the “proper distance”. In the “paradox of agency”, VR simulates a superficially “real” encounter for visual intimacy, thereby establishing an “audiences–beneficiary” relationship in humanitarian communication; yet in this case the mediated hyperreality is not an authentic reality, and its simulation does not fill the gap between reality and the virtual world. In the “paradox of the hierarchies of human life”, VR enables an audience to experience virtually fundamental “freedom”, epitomizing an attitude of cultural relativism that informs a great deal of contemporary multiculturalism, providing vast possibilities for a more egalitarian representation of distant sufferers; yet it also takes the spectator’s personally empathic feelings as the focus of intervention, rather than structural inequality and political exclusion (an economic and political power relations of viewing). Thus, the audience can potentially remain trapped within the minefield of hegemonic humanitarianism. This study is significant in two respects. First, it advances the turn of digitalization in studies of media and morality in the polymedia milieu; it is motivated by the necessary call for a move beyond traditional technological environments to arrive at a more novel understanding of the asymmetry of power between the safety of spectators and the vulnerability of mediated sufferers. Second, it not only reminds humanitarian journalists and NGOs that they should not rely entirely on the richer news experience or powerful response-ability enabled by VR to gain a “moral bond” with distant sufferers, but also argues that when fully-fledged VR technology is developed, it can serve as a kind of alchemy and should not be underestimated merely as a “bugaboo” of an alarmist philosophical and fictional dystopia.

Keywords: audience, cosmopolitan, distant suffering, virtual reality, humanitarian communication

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Authors: Betelhem M. Negede, Maarten Voors, Hugo De Groote, Bart Minten

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Farmers in Ethiopia produce most of their own food during one agricultural season per year. Therefore, they need to use on-farm storage technologies to bridge the lean season and benefit from price arbitrage. Maize stored using traditional storage bags offer no protection from insects and molds, leading to high storage losses. In Ethiopia access to and use of modern storage technologies are still limited, restraining farmers to benefit from local maize price fluctuations. We used a randomized controlled trial among 871 maize farmers to evaluate the impacts of Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags, also known as hermetic bags, on storage losses, and especially on behavioral changes with respect to consumption, marketing, and income among maize farmers in Ethiopia. This study builds upon the limited previous experimental research that has tried to understand farmers’ grain storage and post-harvest losses and identify mechanisms behind the persistence of these challenges. Our main hypothesis is that access to PICS bags allows farmers to increase production, storage and maize income. Also delay the length of maize storage, reduce maize post-harvest losses and improve their food security. Our results show that even though farmers received only three PICS bags that represent 10percent of their total maize stored, they delay their length of maize storage for sales by two weeks. However, we find no treatment effect on maize income, suggesting that the arbitrage of two weeks is too small. Also, we do not find any reduction in storage losses due to farmers’ reaction by selling early and by using cheap and readily available but potentially harmful storage chemicals. Looking at the heterogeneity treatment effects between the treatment variable and highland and lowland villages, we find a decrease in the percentage of maize stored by 4 percent in the highland villages. This confirms that location specific factors, such as agro-ecology and proximity to markets are important factors that influence whether and how much of the harvest a farmer stores. These findings highlight the benefits of hermetic storage bags, by allowing farmers to make inter-temporal arbitrage and by reducing potential health risks from storage chemicals. The main policy recommendation that emanates from our study is that postharvest losses reduction throughout the whole value chain is an important pathway to food and income security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, future storage loss interventions with hermetic storage technologies should take into account the agro-ecology of the study area and quantify storage losses beyond farmers self-reported losses, such as the count and weigh method. Finally, studies on hermetic storage technologies indicate positive impacts on post-harvest losses and in improving food security, but the adoption and use of these technologies is currently still low in SSA. Therefore, future works on the scaling up of hermetic bags, should consider reasons why farmers only use PICS bags to store grains for consumption, which is usually related to a safety-first approach or due to lack of incentives (higher price from maize not treated with chemicals), and no grain quality check.

Keywords: arbitrage, PICS hermetic bags, post-harvest storage loss, RCT

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Authors: Carolina Gheller Miguens

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Feeding is, and should be, pleasurable for living beings so they desire to nourish themselves while preserving the continuity of the species. Social rites usually revolve around the table and are closely linked to the cultural traditions of each region and social group. Since the beginning, food has been closely linked with the products each region provides, and, also, related to the respective seasons of production. With the globalization and facilities of modern life we are able to find an ever increasing variety of products at any time of the year on supermarket shelves. These lifestyle changes end up directly influencing food traditions. With the era of uncontrolled obesity caused by the dazzle with the large and varied supply of low-priced to ultra-processed industrial products now in the past, today we are living a time when people are putting aside the pleasure of eating to exclusively eat food dictated by the media as healthy. Recently the medicalization of food in our society has become so present in daily life that almost without realizing we make food choices conditioned to the studies of the properties of these foods. The fact that people are more attentive to their health is interesting. However, when this care becomes an obsessive disorder, which imposes itself on the pleasure of eating and extinguishes traditional customs, it becomes dangerous for our recognition as citizens belonging to a culture and society. This new way of living generates a rupture with the social environment of origin, possibly exposing old traditions to oblivion after two or three generations. Based on these facts, the presented study analyzes these social transformations that occur in our society that triggered the current medicalization of food. In order to clarify what is actually a healthy diet, this research proposes a critical analysis on the subject aiming to understand nutritional rationality and relate how it acts in the medicalization of food. A wide bibliographic review on the subject was carried out followed by an exploratory research in online (especially social) media, a relevant source in this context due to the perceived influence of such media in contemporary eating habits. Finally, this data was crossed, critically analyzing the current situation of the concept of healthy eating and medicalization of food. Throughout this research, it was noticed that people are increasingly seeking information about the nutritional properties of food, but instead of seeking the benefits of products that traditionally eat in their social environment, they incorporate external elements that often bring benefits similar to the food already consumed. This is because the access to information is directed by the media and exalts the exotic, since this arouses more interest of the population in general. Efforts must be made to clarify that traditional products are also healthy foods, rich in history, memory and tradition and cannot be replaced by a standardized diet little concerned with the construction of taste and pleasure, having a relationship with food as if it were a Medicinal product.

Keywords: food traditions, food transformations, healthy eating, medicalization of food

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Authors: Ahlad Neti, Elisa Arch, Martha Hall

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Studies have shown that individuals who use Ankle-Foot-Orthoses (AFOs) have a high level of dissatisfaction regarding their current AFOs. Studies point to the focus on technical design with little attention given to the user perspective as a source of AFO designs that leave users dissatisfied. To design a new AFO that satisfies users and thereby improves their quality of life, the reasons for their dissatisfaction and their wants and needs for an improved AFO design must be identified. There has been little research into the user perspective on AFO use and desired improvements, so the relationship between AFO design and satisfaction in daily use must be assessed to develop appropriate metrics and constraints prior to designing a novel AFO. To assess the user perspective on AFO design, structured interviews were conducted with 7 individuals (average age of 64.29±8.81 years) who use AFOs. All interviews were transcribed and coded to identify common themes using Grounded Theory Method in NVivo 12. Qualitative analysis of these results identified sources of user dissatisfaction such as heaviness, bulk, and uncomfortable material and overall needs and wants for an AFO. Beyond the user perspective, certain objective factors must be considered in the construction of metrics and constraints to ensure that the AFO fulfills its medical purpose. These more objective metrics are rooted in a common medical device market and technical standards. Given the large body of research concerning these standards, these objective metrics and constraints were derived through a literature review. Through these two methods, a comprehensive list of metrics and constraints accounting for both the user perspective on AFO design and the AFO’s medical purpose was compiled. These metrics and constraints will establish the framework for designing a new AFO that carries out its medical purpose while also improving the user experience. The metrics can be categorized into several overarching areas for AFO improvement. Categories of user perspective related metrics include comfort, discreteness, aesthetics, ease of use, and compatibility with clothing. Categories of medical purpose related metrics include biomechanical functionality, durability, and affordability. These metrics were used to guide an iterative prototyping process. Six concepts were ideated and compared using system-level analysis. From these six concepts, two concepts – the piano wire model and the segmented model – were selected to move forward into prototyping. Evaluation of non-functional prototypes of the piano wire and segmented models determined that the piano wire model better fulfilled the metrics by offering increased stability, longer durability, fewer points for failure, and a strong enough core component to allow a sock to cover over the AFO while maintaining the overall structure. As such, the piano wire AFO has moved forward into the functional prototyping phase, and healthy subject testing is being designed and recruited to conduct design validation and verification.

Keywords: ankle-foot orthotic, assistive technology, human centered design, medical devices

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Authors: J. van Vuuren, D. J. van Vuuren, R. Muigai

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In recent times, South Africa has experienced extensive droughts that created the need for reliable small water reservoirs. These reservoirs have comparatively quick fabrication and installation times compared to market alternatives. An elevated water tank has inherent potential energy, resulting in that no additional water pumps are required to sustain water pressure at the outlet point – thus ensuring that, without electricity, a water source is available. The initial construction formwork and the complex geometric shape of concrete towers that requires casting can become time-consuming, rendering steel towers preferable. Reinforced concrete foundations, cast in advance, are required to be of sufficient strength. Thereafter, the prefabricated steel supporting structure and tank, which consist of steel panels, can be assembled and erected on site within a couple of days. Due to the time effectiveness of this system, it has become a popular solution to aid drought-stricken areas. These sites are normally in rural, schools or farmland areas. As these tanks can contain up to 2000kL (approximately 19.62MN) of water, combined with supporting lattice steel structures ranging between 5m and 30m in height, failure of one of the supporting members will result in system failure. Thus, there is a need to gain a comprehensive understanding of the operation conditions because of wind loadings on both the tank and the supporting structure. The aim of the research is to investigate the relationship between the theoretical wind loading on a lattice steel tower in combination with an elevated sectional steel tank, and the current wind loading codes, as applicable to South Africa. The research compares the respective design parameters (both theoretical and wind loading codes) whereby FEA analyses are conducted on the various design solutions. The currently available wind loading codes are not sufficient to design slender cantilever latticed steel towers that support elevated water storage tanks. Numerous factors in the design codes are not comprehensively considered when designing the system as these codes are dependent on various assumptions. Factors that require investigation for the study are; the wind loading angle to the face of the structure that will result in maximum load; the internal structural effects on models with different bracing patterns; the loading influence of the aspect ratio of the tank; and the clearance height of the tank on the structural members. Wind loads, as the variable that results in the highest failure rate of cantilevered lattice steel tower structures, require greater understanding. This study aims to contribute towards the design process of elevated steel tanks with lattice tower supporting structures.

Keywords: aspect ratio, bracing patterns, clearance height, elevated steel tanks, lattice steel tower, wind loads

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Authors: Bagireanu Astrid, Bros-Williamson Julio, Duncheva Mila, Currie John

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The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) sector plays a critical role in the global transition toward sustainable and net-zero built environments. However, the industry faces unique challenges in planning for net-zero while struggling with low productivity, cost overruns and overall resistance to change. Traditional practices fall short due to their inability to meet the requirements for systemic change, especially as governments increasingly demand transformative approaches. Working in silos and rigid hierarchies and a short-term, client-centric approach prioritising immediate gains over long-term benefit stands in stark contrast to the fundamental requirements for the realisation of net-zero objectives. These practices have limited capacity to effectively integrate AEC stakeholders and promote the essential knowledge sharing required to address the multifaceted challenges of achieving net-zero. In the context of built environment, procurement may be described as the method by which a project proceeds from inception to completion. Collaborative procurement methods under the Integrated Practices (IP) umbrella have the potential to align more closely with net-zero objectives. This paper explores the synergies between collaborative procurement principles and the pursuit of net zero in the AEC sector, drawing upon the shared values of cross-disciplinary collaboration, Early Supply Chain involvement (ESI), use of standards and frameworks, digital information management, strategic performance measurement, integrated decision-making principles and contractual alliancing. To investigate the role of collaborative procurement in advancing net-zero objectives, a structured research methodology was employed. First, the study focuses on a systematic review on the application of collaborative procurement principles in the AEC sphere. Next, a comprehensive analysis is conducted to identify common clusters of these principles across multiple procurement methods. An evaluative comparison between traditional procurement methods and collaborative procurement for achieving net-zero objectives is presented. Then, the study identifies the intersection between collaborative procurement principles and the net-zero requirements. Lastly, an exploration of key insights for AEC stakeholders focusing on the implications and practical applications of these findings is made. Directions for future development of this research are recommended. Adopting collaborative procurement principles can serve as a strategic framework for guiding the AEC sector towards realising net-zero. Synergising these approaches overcomes fragmentation, fosters knowledge sharing, and establishes a net-zero-centered ecosystem. In the context of the ongoing efforts to amplify project efficiency within the built environment, a critical realisation of their central role becomes imperative for AEC stakeholders. When effectively leveraged, collaborative procurement emerges as a powerful tool to surmount existing challenges in attaining net-zero objectives.

Keywords: collaborative procurement, net-zero, knowledge sharing, architecture, built environment

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Authors: Isis Ribeiro Berger

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In view of recent war conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, the government of Paraná State, in Brazil, started a program to host Ukrainian scientists in state universities in 2022. The initiative aimed at integrating these scientists into the Brazilian academic community, strengthening the role of universities in producing science and innovation even in times of war, as well as fostering Higher Education internationalization. Paraná state was a pioneer in this initiative due to the fact it has been home to the largest contingent of immigrants and descendants of Ukrainians in Brazil because of migratory processes that began at the end of the 19th century. One of the universities receiving Ukrainian scientists is in Foz do Iguaçu, a city that borders Argentina and Paraguay. It is a multilingual environment, whose majority languages are Portuguese (the official language of Brazil), Spanish (the official language of both Argentina and Paraguay), as well as Guarani (the co-official indigenous language of Paraguay). It is in such a sociolinguistic environment that two Ukrainian professors began their activities within the scope of an Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Program (master’s and doctorate degree). This case study, whose theme is the management of multilingualism, was developed within the scope of Language Policy. It aimed at identifying the attitudes of both Ukrainian professors and postgraduate students towards multilingualism in this context, given the plural linguistic repertoire of the academic community, as well as identifying the language management strategies for the construction of knowledge implemented by the program and in the classroom by these participants. Therefore, the study was conducted under a qualitative approach, for which surveys and interviews were adopted as part of its methodological procedures. Data revealed the presence of different languages in the classroom (Portuguese, Spanish, English and Ukrainian), which made pedagogical practices challenging for both professors and students, whose levels of knowledge in the different languages varied significantly. The results indicate that multilingualism was the norm as the means of instruction adopted in this context, in which bilingual Portuguese-English-Ukrainian instruction was used by the professors in their lectures. Although English has been privileged for the internationalization of Higher Education in various contexts, it was not used as an exclusive means of instruction in this case, mostly because it is a predominantly Portuguese-Spanish-speaking environment. In addition, the professors counted on the mediation of an interpreter hired by the program since not every student had sufficient knowledge of English as part of their repertoires. The findings also suggest Portuguese is the language that most of the participants of this study prefer, both because it is the mother tongue of majority, and because it is the official language of the host country to the professors, who have sought to integrate to the local culture and community. This research is inserted in the Axis: Multilingualism and Education, of the UNESCO Chair on Language Policies for Multilingualism to which this study is related.

Keywords: attitudes, border region, multilingualism management, Ukrainian professors

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Authors: Anishur Rahman, Maria Areias, Diogo Simões, Ana Figeuiredo, Filipa Figueiredo, João Nunes

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The circular economy (CE) has gained increased awareness among academics, businesses, and decision-makers as it stimulates resource circularity in the production and consumption systems. A large epistemological study has explored the principles of CE, but scant attention eagerly focused on analysing how CE is evaluated, consented to, and enforced using economic metabolism data and business intelligent framework. Economic metabolism involves the ongoing exchange of materials and energy within and across socio-economic systems and requires the assessment of vast amounts of data to provide quantitative analysis related to effective resource management. Limited concern, the present work has focused on the regional flows pilot region from Portugal. By addressing this gap, this study aims to promote eco-innovation and sustainability in the regions of Intermunicipal Communities Região de Coimbra, Viseu Dão Lafões and Beiras e Serra da Estrela, using this data to find precise synergies in terms of material flows and give companies a competitive advantage in form of valuable waste destinations, access to new resources and new markets, cost reduction and risk sharing benefits. In our work, emphasis on applying artificial intelligence (AI) and, more specifically, on implementing state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms is placed, contributing to construction a business intelligent approach. With the emergence of new approaches generally highlighted under the sub-heading of AI and machine learning (ML), the methods for statistical analysis of complex and uncertain production systems are facing significant changes. Therefore, various definitions of AI and its differences from traditional statistics are presented, and furthermore, ML is introduced to identify its place in data science and the differences in topics such as big data analytics and in production problems that using AI and ML are identified. A lifecycle-based approach is then taken to analyse the use of different methods in each phase to identify the most useful technologies and unifying attributes of AI in manufacturing. Most of macroeconomic metabolisms models are mainly direct to contexts of large metropolis, neglecting rural territories, so within this project, a dynamic decision support model coupled with artificial intelligence tools and information platforms will be developed, focused on the reality of these transition zones between the rural and urban. Thus, a real decision support tool is under development, which will surpass the scientific developments carried out to date and will allow to overcome imitations related to the availability and reliability of data.

Keywords: circular economy, artificial intelligence, economic metabolisms, machine learning

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Authors: Maciej Szeląg, Stanisław Fic

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The impact of elevated temperatures on the construction materials manifests in change of their physical and mechanical characteristics. Stresses and thermal deformations that occur inside the volume of the material cause its progressive degradation as temperature increase. Finally, the reactions and transformations of multiphase structure of cementitious composite cause its complete destruction. A particularly dangerous phenomenon is the impact of thermal shock – a sudden high temperature load. The thermal shock leads to a high value of the temperature gradient between the outer surface and the interior of the element in a relatively short time. The result of mentioned above process is the formation of the cracks and scratches on the material’s surface and inside the material. The article describes the use of computer image analysis techniques to identify and assess the structure of the cluster cracks on the surfaces of modified cement pastes, caused by thermal shock. Four series of specimens were tested. Two Portland cements were used (CEM I 42.5R and CEM I 52,5R). In addition, two of the series contained metakaolinite as a replacement for 10% of the cement content. Samples in each series were made in combination of three w/b (water/binder) indicators of respectively 0.4; 0.5; 0.6. Surface cracks of the samples were created by a sudden temperature load at 200°C for 4 hours. Images of the cracked surfaces were obtained via scanning at 1200 DPI; digital processing and measurements were performed using ImageJ v. 1.46r software. In order to examine the cracked surface of the cement paste as a system of closed clusters – the dispersal systems theory was used to describe the structure of cement paste. Water is used as the dispersing phase, and the binder is used as the dispersed phase – which is the initial stage of cement paste structure creation. A cluster itself is considered to be the area on the specimen surface that is limited by cracks (created by sudden temperature loading) or by the edge of the sample. To describe the structure of cracks two stereological parameters were proposed: A ̅ – the cluster average area, L ̅ – the cluster average perimeter. The goal of this study was to compare the investigated stereological parameters with the mechanical properties of the tested specimens. Compressive and tensile strength testes were carried out according to EN standards. The method used in the study allowed the quantitative determination of defects occurring in the examined modified cement pastes surfaces. Based on the results, it was found that the nature of the cracks depends mainly on the physical parameters of the cement and the intermolecular interactions on the dispersal environment. Additionally, it was noted that the A ̅/L ̅ relation of created clusters can be described as one function for all tested samples. This fact testifies about the constant geometry of the thermal cracks regardless of the presence of metakaolinite, the type of cement and the w/b ratio.

Keywords: cement paste, cluster cracks, elevated temperature, image analysis, metakaolinite, stereological parameters

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Authors: Rahul Ranjan

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Using gender as a category to cull out historical analysis, feminist scholars have produced plethora of literature on the sexual symbolics and carnal practices of modern European empires. At a symbolic level, the penetration and conquest of faraway lands was charged with sexual significance and intrigue. The white male’s domination and possession of dark and fertile lands in Africa, Asia and the Americas offered, in Anne McClintock’s words, ‘a fantastic magic lantern of the mind onto which Europe projected its forbidden sexual desires and fears’. The politics of rape were also symbolically a question significant to the politics of empire. To the colonized subject, rape was a fearsome factor, a language that spoke of violent and voracious nature of imperial exploitation. The colonized often looked at rape as an act which colonizers used as tool of oppression. The rape as act of violence got encoded into the legal structure under the helm of Lord Macaulay in the so called ‘Age of Reform’ in 1860 under IPC (Indian penal code). Initially Lord Macaulay formed Indian Law Commission in 1837 in which he drafted a bill and defined the ‘crime of rape as sexual intercourse by a man to a woman against her will and without her consent , except in cases involving girls under nine years of age where consent was immaterial’. The modern English law of rape formulated under the colonial era introduced twofold issues to the forefront. On the one hand it deployed ‘technical experts’ who wrote textbooks of medical jurisprudence that were used as credential citation to make case more ‘objective’, while on the other hand the presumptions about barbaric subjects, the colonized women’s body that was docile which is prone to adultery reflected in cases. The untrustworthiness of native witness also remained an imperative for British jurists to put extra emphasis making ‘objective’ and ‘presumptuous’. This sort of formulation put women down on the pedestrian of justice because it disadvantaged her doubly through British legality and their thinking about the rape. The Imperial morality that acted as vanguards of women’s chastity coincided language of science propagated in the post-enlightenment which not only annulled non-conformist ideas but also made itself a hegemonic language, was often used as a tool and language in encoding of law. The medico-legal understanding of rape in the colonial India has its clear imprints in the post-colonial legality. The onus on the part of rape’s victim was dictated for the longest time and still continues does by widely referred idea that ‘there should signs, marks of resistance on the body of the victim’ otherwise it is likely to be considered consensual. Having said so, this paper looks at the textual continuity that had prolonged the colonial construct of women’s body and the self.

Keywords: body, politics, textual construct, phallocentric

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Authors: G. Kontochristopoulos, T. Spiliopoulos, V. Markantoni, E. Platsidaki, A. Kouris, E. Balamoti, C. Bokotas, G. Haidemenos

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Introduction: There is a high patient demand for periorbital rejuvenation since the facial area is often the first to show visible signs of aging. With advancing age, there are sometimes marked changes that occur in the skin, fat, muscle and bone of the periorbital region, resulting to wrinkles and skin laxity. These changes are among the easiest areas to correct using several minimally invasive techniques, which have become increasingly popular over the last decade. Lasers, radiofrequency, botulinum toxin, fat grafting and fillers are available treatments sometimes in combination to traditional blepharoplasty. This study attempts to show the benefits of a minimally invasive approach to periorbital wrinkles and skin laxity that combine microneedling and 10% trichloroacetic acid (TCA) peels. Method: Eleven female patients aged 34-72 enrolled in the study. They all gave informed consent after receiving detailed information regarding the treatment procedure. Exclusion criteria in the study were previous treatment for the same condition in the past six months, pregnancy, allergy or hypersensitivity to the components, infection, inflammation and photosensitivity on the affected region. All patients had diffuse periorbital wrinkles and mild to moderate upper or lower eyelid skin laxity. They were treated with Automatic Microneedle Therapy System-Handhold and topical application of 10% trichloroacetic acid solution to each periorbital area for five minutes. Needling at a 0,25 mm depth was performed in both latelar (x-y) directions. Subsequently, the peeling agent was applied to each periorbital area for five minutes. Patients were subjected to the above combination every two weeks for a series of four treatments. Subsequently they were followed up regularly every month for two months. The effect was photo-documented. A Physician's and a Patient's Global Assessment Scale was used to evaluate the efficacy of the treatment (0-25% indicated poor response, 25%-50% fair, 50%-75% good and 75%-100% excellent response). Safety was assessed by monitoring early and delayed adverse events. Results: At the end of the study, almost all patients demonstrated significant aesthetic improvement. Physicians assessed a fair and a good improvement in 9(81.8% of patients) and 2(18.1% of patients) participants respectively. Patients Global Assessment rated a fair and a good response in 6 (54.5%) and 5 (45.4%) participants respectively. The procedure was well tolerated and all patients were satisfied. Mild discomfort and transient erythema were quite common during or immediately after the procedure, however only temporary. During the monthly follow up, no complications or scars were observed. Conclusions: Microneedling is known as a simple, office–based collagen induction therapy. Low concentration TCA solution applied to the epidermis that has been more permeable by microneedling, can reach the dermis more effectively. In the present study, chemical peels with 10% TCA acted as an adjuvant to microneedling, as it causes controlled skin damage, promoting regeneration and rejuvenation of tissues. This combined therapy improved periorbital fine lines, wrinkles, and overall appearance of the skin. Thus it constitutes an alternative treatment of periorbital skin aging, with encouraging results and minor side-effects.

Keywords: chemical peels, microneedling, periorbital wrinkles, skin laxity

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Authors: Hitesh Kshayap, Shantanu Arya, Ajay Basod, Sachin Sakhuja

Abstract:

This study was undertaken to measure the overall noise levels in different locations/zones and to estimate the prevalence of Noise induced hearing loss in Hawkers & Shopkeepers in Mumbai, India. The Hearing Test developed by American Academy Of Otolaryngology, translated from English to Hindi, and validated is used as a screening tool for hearing sensitivity was employed. The tool is having 14 items. Each item is scored on a scale 0, 1, 2 and 3. The score 6 and above indicated some difficulty or definite difficulty in hearing in daily activities and low score indicated lesser difficulty or normal hearing. The subjects who scored 6 or above or having tinnitus were made to undergo hearing evaluation by Pure tone audiometer. Further, the environmental noise levels were measured from Morning to Evening at road side at different Location/Hawking zones in Mumbai city using SLM9 Agronic 8928B & K type Digital Sound Level Meter) in dB (A). The maximum noise level of 100.0 dB (A) was recorded during evening hours from Chattrapati Shivaji Terminal to Colaba with overall noise level of 79.0 dB (A). However, the minimum noise level in this area was 72.6 dB (A) at any given point of time. Further, 54.6 dB (A) was recorded as minimum noise level during 8-9 am at Sion Circle. Further, commencement of flyovers with 2-tier traffic, sky walks, increasing number of vehicular traffic at road, high rise buildings and other commercial & urbanization activities in the Mumbai city most probably have resulted in increasing the overall environmental noise levels. Trees which acted as noise absorbers have been cut owing to rapid construction. The study involved 100 participants in the age range of 18 to 40 years of age, with the mean age of 29 years (S.D. =6.49). 46 participants having tinnitus or have obtained the score of 6 were made to undergo Pure Tone Audiometry and it was found that the prevalence rate of hearing loss in hawkers & shopkeepers is 19% (10% Hawkers and 9 % Shopkeepers). The results found indicates that 29 (42.6%) out of 64 Hawkers and 17 (47.2%) out of 36 Shopkeepers who underwent PTA had no significant difference in percentage of Noise Induced Hearing loss. The study results also reveal that participants who exhibited tinnitus 19 (41.30%) out of 46 were having mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss between 3000Hz to 6000Hz. The Pure tone Audiogram pattern revealed Hearing loss at 4000 Hz and 6000 Hz while hearing at adjacent frequencies were nearly normal. 7 hawkers and 8 shopkeepers had mild notch while 3 hawkers and 1 shopkeeper had a moderate degree of notch. It is thus inferred that tinnitus is a strong indicator for presence of hearing loss and 4/6 KHz notch is a strong marker for road/traffic/ environmental noise as an occupational hazard for hawkers and shopkeepers. Mass awareness about these occupational hazards, regular hearing check up, early intervention along with sustainable development juxtaposed with social and urban forestry can help in this regard.

Keywords: NIHL, noise, sound level meter, tinnitus

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Authors: Thayalan Nall, Harry Poulos

Abstract:

Piling is the most widely used foundation method for heavy structures in poor soil conditions. The geotechnical engineer can choose among a variety of piling methods, but in most cases, driving piles by impact hammer is the most cost-effective alternative. Under unfavourable conditions, driving piles can cause environmental problems, such as noise, ground movements and vibrations, with the risk of ground disturbance leading to potential damage to proposed structures. In one of the project sites in which the authors were involved, three offshore container terminals, namely CT1, CT2 and CT3, were constructed over thick compressible marine mud. The seabed was around 6m deep and the soft clay thickness within the project site varied between 9m and 20m. CT2 and CT3 were connected together and rectangular in shape and were 2600mx800m in size. CT1 was 400m x 800m in size and was located on south opposite of CT2 towards its eastern end. CT1 was constructed first and due to time and environmental limitations, it was supported on a “forest” of large diameter driven piles. CT2 and CT3 are now under construction and are being carried out using a traditional dredging and reclamation approach with ground improvement by surcharging with vertical drains. A few months after the installation of the CT1 piles, a 2600m long sand bund to 2m above mean sea level was constructed along the southern perimeter of CT2 and CT3 to contain the dredged mud that was expected to be pumped. The sand bund was constructed by sand spraying and pumping using a dredging vessel. About 2000m length of the sand bund in the west section was constructed without any major stability issues or any noticeable distress. However, as the sand bund approached the section parallel to CT1, it underwent a series of deep seated failures leading the displaced soft clay materials to heave above the standing water level. The crest of the sand bund was about 100m away from the last row of piles. There were no plausible geological reasons to conclude that the marine mud only across the CT1 region was weaker than over the rest of the site. Hence it was suspected that the pile driving by impact hammer may have caused ground movements and vibrations, leading to generation of excess pore pressures and cyclic softening of the marine mud. This paper investigates the probable cause of failure by reviewing: (1) All ground investigation data within the region; (2) Soil displacement caused by pile driving, using theories similar to spherical cavity expansion; (3) Transfer of stresses and vibrations through the entire system, including vibrations transmitted from the hammer to the pile, and the dynamic properties of the soil; and (4) Generation of excess pore pressure due to ground vibration and resulting cyclic softening. The evidence suggests that the problems encountered at the site were primarily caused by the “side effects” of the pile driving operations.

Keywords: pile driving, ground vibration, excess pore pressure, cyclic softening

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Authors: Sylvie Michel, Emmanuelle Gagnou, Joanne Hamet

Abstract:

Researchers in the fields of AI and Robotics frequently encounter ethical dilemmas throughout their research endeavors. Various ethical challenges have been pinpointed in the existing literature, including biases and discriminatory outcomes, diffusion of responsibility, and a deficit in transparency within AI operations. This research aims to pinpoint these ethical quandaries faced by researchers and shed light on the mechanisms behind ethical decision-making in the research process. By synthesizing insights from existing literature and acknowledging prevalent shortcomings, such as overlooking the heterogeneous nature of decision-making, non-accumulative results, and a lack of consensus on numerous factors due to limited empirical research, the objective is to conceptualize and validate a model. This model will incorporate influences from individual perspectives and situational contexts, considering potential moderating factors in the ethical decision-making process. Qualitative analyses were conducted based on direct observation of an AI/Robotics research team focusing on collaborative robotics for several months. Subsequently, semi-structured interviews with 16 team members were conducted. The entire process took place during the first semester of 2023. Observations were analyzed using an analysis grid, and the interviews underwent thematic analysis using Nvivo software. An initial finding involves identifying the ethical challenges that AI/robotics researchers confront, underlining a disparity between practical applications and theoretical considerations regarding ethical dilemmas in the realm of AI. Notably, researchers in AI prioritize the publication and recognition of their work, sparking the genesis of these ethical inquiries. Furthermore, this article illustrated that researchers tend to embrace a consequentialist ethical framework concerning safety (for humans engaging with robots/AI), worker autonomy in relation to robots, and the societal implications of labor (can robots displace jobs?). A second significant contribution entails proposing a model for ethical decision-making within the AI/Robotics research sphere. The model proposed adopts a process-oriented approach, delineating various research stages (topic proposal, hypothesis formulation, experimentation, conclusion, and valorization). Across these stages and the ethical queries, they entail, a comprehensive four-point comprehension of ethical decision-making is presented: recognition of the moral quandary; moral judgment, signifying the decision-maker's aptitude to discern the morally righteous course of action; moral intention, reflecting the ability to prioritize moral values above others; and moral behavior, denoting the application of moral intention to the situation. Variables such as political inclinations ((anti)-capitalism, environmentalism, veganism) seem to wield significant influence. Moreover, age emerges as a noteworthy moderating factor. AI and robotics researchers are continually confronted with ethical dilemmas during their research endeavors, necessitating thoughtful decision-making. The contribution involves introducing a contextually tailored model, derived from meticulous observations and insightful interviews, enabling the identification of factors that shape ethical decision-making at different stages of the research process.

Keywords: ethical decision making, artificial intelligence, robotics, research

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