Search results for: development of mobile application

Authors: Julie Delany

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To thrive in today’s digital climate, it is vital that organisations adopt new technology and prepare for rising digital trends. This proves more difficult in government where, traditionally, people lack change readiness. While individuals may have a desire to work smarter, this does not necessarily mean embracing technology. This paper discusses the rollout of an application into a small department of highly experienced nurses. The goal was to both streamline the department's workflow and provide a platform for gathering essential business metrics. The biggest challenges were adoption and motivating the nurses to change their routines and learn new computer skills. Two-thirds struggled with the change, and as a result, some jeopardised the validity of the business metrics. In conclusion, there are lessons learned and recommendations for similar projects.

Keywords: change ready, information technology, end-user, iterative method, rollout plan, data analytics

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Authors: Afees Adebayo Salam

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This paper attempts an in-depth analysis of the economic impact of Ogbomoso migrant community in the Jos metropolis. It discusses the factors that motivated a sizeable number of Ogbomoso people (from southwestern Nigeria) to leave their hometown for a new place/space in Jos (northern Nigeria). It examines the historical antecedent of Ogbomoso migrants in northern Nigeria with emphasis on Jos metropolis. The movement of Ogbomoso migrants to Jos was dictated by the economic and social challenges of colonial and post-colonial periods. The political crisis of the 1960s was a contributory factor to the process of Ogbomoso migration to other parts of Nigeria. In the aftermath, many people migrated from Ogbomoso to different parts of the country and beyond to seek for better economic opportunities. The establishment of Ogbomoso migrant community in Jos was dated back to the colonial era when taxation was introduced by the British. Many people could not pay these taxes from their peasant farming activities, while some embarked on migration to places such as Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Keffi and Bauchi due to the harsh economic situation at home. Their settlement in Jos brought about success in several spheres of human endeavours. Ogbomoso migrants dominated both paid jobs and private business sector such as textile merchants, food stuff sellers, herbalists, printers, transporters, and religious missionaries, as well as clerical officers in the government establishments. Their remittances were invested in different sectors of Ogbomoso economy. The migrants had in one way or the other contributed to the socio-economic development of their host community in Jos as entrepreneurs. Branches of such industries were located in their hometown of Ogbomoso as a clear demonstration of community development. The remittance pattern of the migrants has transformed Ogbomoso to enviable position. Moreover, the economic success of Ogbomoso migrants over the period under review indicates the process of nation building due to peaceful nature of inter-ethnic engagements between Ogbomoso migrants and their host community in Jos. Therefore, the paper makes use of oral, archival and secondary sources to analyse the processes of migration and its economic impact. Oral interviews were conducted in Ogbomoso town with veteran migrants and their family members. Interviews were also conducted in Jos with the indigenous host community as well as other urban residents. Archival materials were obtained from Arewa House Archives and the National Archives, Kaduna and the National Archives, Ibadan.

Keywords: Ogbomoso migrants, Jos metropolis, community development, economic impact

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Authors: Bouchaïb Gazzaz, Hamid El Amri, Hind Dehbi, Abderraouf Hilali

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Medical cannabis has been cultivated and used in many countries around the world. The story of the use of cannabis as a therapeutic agent is difficult to trace, in particular, because the laws regulating its production, distribution, possession, and consumption are relatively recent. Nowadays, in countries where it is authorized, medical cannabis is used in a very wide variety of illnesses and pathologies, particularly in cancer cures. Presently, cannabinoid receptor agonists (like nabilone and dronabinol) are used for reducing chemotherapy induced vomiting. This review aims to discuss a recent finding on the use of therapeutic cannabis in patients with cancer. First, this work addresses the progress made in the use of cannabinoids as therapeutic agent and their application in the treatment of different types of cancer. Secondly, a detailed analysis of the pharmacogenetic aspect of cannabis will be discussed.

Keywords: cannabinoids, endocannabinoids system, cancer treatment, cannabinoid receptors, genetic polymorphism, pharmacogenomics

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Authors: Zeta Dooly, Aidan Duane

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The collaborative European funded research and development landscape provides prime environmental conditions for multi-disciplinary teams to learn and enhance their knowledge beyond the capability of training and learning within their own organisation cocoons. Whilst the emergence of the academic entrepreneur has changed the focus of educational institutions to that of quasi-businesses, the training and professional development of lecturers and academic staff are often not formalised to the same level as industry. This research focuses on industry and academic collaborative research funded by the European Commission. The impact of research is scalable if an optimum research network is created and managed effectively. This paper investigates network embeddedness, the nature of relationships, links, and nodes within a research network, and the enhancement of the network’s knowledge. The contribution of this paper extends our understanding of establishing and maintaining effective collaborative research networks. The effects of network embeddedness are recognized in the literature as pertinent to innovation and the economy. Network theory literature claims that networks are essential to innovative clusters such as Silicon valley and innovation in high tech industries. This research provides evidence to support the impact collaborative research has on the disparate individuals toward their innovative contributions to their organisations and their own professional development. This study adopts a qualitative approach and uncovers some of the challenges of multi-disciplinary research through case study insights. The contribution of this paper recommends the establishment of scaffolding to accommodate cooperation in research networks, role appointment, and addressing contextual complexities early to avoid problem cultivation. Furthermore, it suggests recommendations in relation to network formation, intra-network challenges in relation to open data, competition, friendships, and competency enhancement. The network capability is enhanced by the adoption of the relevant theories; network theory, open innovation, and social exchange, with the understanding that the network structure has an impact on innovation and social exchange in research networks. The research concludes that there is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the impact of network reuse and network hoping that provides scaffolding for the network members to enhance and build upon their knowledge using a progressive approach.

Keywords: research networks, competency building, network theory, case study

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Authors: Jonny Beirne

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Hydropower developments have come to assume an important role within the Ethiopian government's overall development strategy for the country during the last ten years. The Gilgel Gibe III on the Omo river, due to become operational in September 2014, represents the most ambitious, and controversial, of these projects to date. Further aspects of the government's national development strategy include leasing vast areas of designated 'unused' land for large-scale commercial agricultural projects and 'voluntarily' villagizing scattered, semi-nomadic agro-pastoralist groups to centralized settlements so as to use land and water more efficiently and to better provide essential social services such as education and healthcare. The Lower Omo valley, along the Omo River, is one of the sites of this villagization programme as well as of these large-scale commercial agricultural projects which are made possible owing to the regulation of the river's flow by Gibe III. Though the Ethiopian government cite many positive aspects of these agricultural and hydropower developments there are still expected to be serious regional and transnational effects, including on migration flows, in an area already characterized by increasing climatic vulnerability with attendant population movements and conflicts over scarce resources. The following paper is an attempt to track actual and anticipated migration flows resulting from the construction of Gibe III in the immediate vicinity of the dam, downstream in the Lower Omo Valley and across the border in Kenya around Lake Turkana. In the case of those displaced in the Lower Omo Valley, this will be considered in view of the distinction between voluntary villagization and forced resettlement. The research presented is not primary-source material. Instead, it is drawn from the reports and assessments of the Ethiopian government, rights-based groups, and academic researchers as well as media articles. It is hoped that this will serve to draw greater attention to the issue and encourage further methodological research on the dynamics of dam constructions (and associated large-scale irrigation schemes) on migration flows and on the ultimate experience of displacement and resettlement for environmental migrants in the region.

Keywords: forced displacement, voluntary resettlement, migration, human rights, human security, land grabs, dams, commercial agriculture, pastoralism, ecosystem modification, natural resource conflict, livelihoods, development

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Authors: Sheng Fu, Yinbo Gao, Hao Lin

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In the current mine air compressors monitoring system, there are some difficulties in the installation and maintenance because of the wired connection. To solve the problem, this paper introduces a new air compressors monitoring system based on ZigBee in which the monitoring parameters are transmitted wirelessly. The collecting devices are designed to form a cluster network to collect vibration, temperature, and pressure of air cylinders and other parameters. All these devices are battery-powered. Besides, the monitoring software in PC is developed using MFC. Experiments show that the designed wireless sensor network works well in the site environmental condition and the system is very convenient to be installed since the wireless connection. This monitoring system will have a wide application prospect in the upgrade of the old monitoring system of the air compressors.

Keywords: condition monitoring, wireless sensor network, air compressor, zigbee, data collecting

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Authors: Hefzollah Mohammadiyan, Mohammad Bagher Heidari, Ensiyeh Hajeb

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In this paper investigates and analyses the structure of nano sensors will be discussed. The structure can be classified based of nano sensors: quantum points, carbon nanotubes and nano tools, which details into each other and in turn are analyzed. Then will be fully examined to the Carbon nanotubes as chemical and mechanical sensors. The following discussion, be examined compares the advantages and disadvantages as different types of sensors and also it has feature and a wide range of applications in various industries. Finally, the structure and application of Chemical sensor transistors and the sensors will be discussed in air pollution control.

Keywords: carbon nanotubes, quantum points, chemical sensors, mechanical sensors, chemical sensor transistors, single walled nanotube (SWNT), atomic force microscope (AFM)

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Authors: Michael Gidey Gebru

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Most DEA models operate in a static environment with input and output parameters that are chosen by deterministic data. However, due to ambiguity brought on shifting market conditions, input and output data are not always precisely gathered in real-world scenarios. Fuzzy numbers can be used to address this kind of ambiguity in input and output data. Therefore, this work aims to expand crisp DEA into DEA with fuzzy environment. In this study, the input and output data are regarded as fuzzy triangular numbers. Then, the DEA model with fuzzy environment is solved using a multi-objective method to gauge the Decision Making Units’ efficiency. Finally, the developed DEA model is illustrated with an application on real data 50 educational institutions.

Keywords: efficiency, DEA, fuzzy, decision making units, higher education institutions

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Authors: M. Amara, M. Tahar Abbes, A. Dokkiche, M. Benbrike

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Shear stresses generate frictional forces thus lead to the reduction of engine performance due to the power losses. This friction can also cause damage to the piston material. Thus, the choice of an optimal material for the piston is necessary to improve the elastohydrodynamical contacts of the piston. In this study, to achieve this objective, an elastohydrodynamical lubrication model that satisfies the best tribological behavior of the piston with the optimum choice of material is developed. Several aluminum alloys composed of different components are studied in this simulation. An application is made on the piston 60 x 120 mm Diesel engine type F8L413 currently mounted on Deutz trucks TB230 by using different aluminum alloys where alloys based on aluminum-silicon have better tribological performance.

Keywords: EHD lubricated contacts, friction, properties of materials, tribological performance

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Authors: ZeinolAbedin Rahmani, Marzieh Evazi Borazjani, Nooshin Salehi

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Organizations are increasingly facing changes and developments scientific, technological, social, cultural changes among these organizations those ones are reckoned successful and effective that in addition to coordinating the development of modern society can forecast future changes and be able to accommodate these changes in order to create favorable developments to build a better future. But we can change that with the changes that occur in the organization of the program it will distinguish. Today's organizations need leaders that change and grow them have to survive. In fact, without transformational managers and leaders, it is certainly difficult to create changes in organizations. Both private and public organizations need to increase knowledge and awareness of the cause widespread changes in the structure, culture and practice for the viability and sustainability of life and growth and development. By now, different signs have determined different causes for a suitable function of employees. However, the important thing is that the commitment of the employees to their organization has always been very important. Since the decrease of organization commitment causes the high rate of absenteeism, turnover intentions, and even to reduce the impact of health staff. and these factors prevent organizations from achieving its goals. If organizations want to retain staff, the organization must find a way to be happy and continue their work with commitment, motivation, and willingness. So here is the need for strong leaders, analysts, creative and transformational upper ranks more than ever is felt. The aim of this study is to revise history, the leadership style of managers shipbuilding company by using the MLQ model.

Keywords: leadership style, managers, organizational, manufacturing company, sustainability of life

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Authors: M. Karzhauov, А. Mukhambetova, M. Sarsenova, E. Raimagambetov, V. Ogay

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Regeneration of injured articular cartilage remains one of the most difficult and unsolved problems in traumatology and orthopedics. Currently, for the treatment of cartilage defects surgical techniques for stimulation of the regeneration of cartilage in damaged joints such as multiple microperforation, mosaic chondroplasty, abrasion and microfractures is used. However, as shown by clinical practice, they can not provide a full and sustainable recovery of articular hyaline cartilage. In this regard, the current high hopes in the regeneration of cartilage defects reasonably are associated with the use of tissue engineering approaches to restore the structural and functional characteristics of damaged joints using stem cells, growth factors and biopolymers or scaffolds. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of chondroinductive growth factors and synovium-derived mesenchymal stem cells (SD-MSCs) on the regeneration of cartilage defects in rabbits. SD-MSCs were isolated from the synovium membrane of Flemish giant rabbits, and expanded in complete culture medium α-MEM. Rabbit SD-MSCs were characterized by CFU-assay and by their ability to differentiate into osteoblasts, chondrocytes and adipocytes. The effects of growth factors (TGF-β1, BMP-2, BMP-4 and IGF-I) on MSC chondrogenesis were examined in micromass pellet cultures using histological and biochemical analysis. Articular cartilage defect (4mm in diameter) in the intercondylar groove of the patellofemoral joint was performed with a kit for the mosaic chondroplasty. The defect was made until subchondral bone plate. Delivery of SD-MSCs and growth factors was conducted in combination with hyaloronic acid (HA). SD-MSCs, growth factors and control groups were compared macroscopically and histologically at 10, 30, 60 and 90 days aftrer intra-articular injection. Our in vitro comparative study revealed that TGF-β1 and BMP-4 are key chondroinductive factors for both the growth and chondrogenesis of SD-MSCs. The highest effect on MSC chondrogenesis was observed with the synergistic interaction of TGF-β1 and BMP-4. In addition, biochemical analysis of the chondrogenic micromass pellets also revealed that the levels of glycosaminoglycans and DNA after combined treatment with TGF-β1 and BMP-4 was significantly higher in comparison to individual application of these factors. In vivo study showed that for complete regeneration of cartilage defects with intra-articular injection of SD-MSCs with HA takes time 90 days. However, single injection of SD-MSCs in combiantion with TGF-β1, BMP-4 and HA significantly promoted regeneration rate of the cartilage defects in rabbits. In this case, complete regeneration of cartilage defects was observed in 30 days after intra-articular injection. Thus, our in vitro and in vivo study demonstrated that combined application of rabbit SD-MSC with chondroinductive growth factors and HA results in strong synergistic effect on the chondrogenesis significantly enhancing regeneration of the damaged cartilage.

Keywords: Mesenchymal stem cells, synovium, chondroinductive factors, TGF-β1, BMP-2, BMP-4, IGF-I

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Authors: Medya Fathi

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Moving toward sustainable development is among today’s critical issues worldwide that make all industries, particularly construction, pay increasing attention to a healthy environment and a society with a prosperous economy. One of the solutions is to improve buildings’ energy performance by cutting energy consumption and related carbon emissions, eventually improving the quality of life. Unfortunately, the energy demand for buildings is rising. For instance, in Europe, the building sector accounts for 19% of the global energy-related greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions, the main contributor to global warming in the last 50 years, and 36% of the total CO2 emissions, according to European Commission 2019. The crisis of energy use demands expanding knowledge and understanding of the potential benefits of energy-efficient buildings. In this regard, the present paper aims to critically review the existing body of knowledge on improving energy efficiency in buildings and detail the significant research contributions. Peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last decade in reputed journals were reviewed using the database Scopus and keywords of Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Energy Performance, Energy Consumption, Energy Efficiency, and Buildings. All contributions will be classified by journal type, publication time, country/region, building occupancy type, applied strategies, and findings. This study will provide an essential basis for researchers working on missing areas and filling the existing gaps in the body of knowledge.

Keywords: sustainability, energy performance, energy efficiency, buildings, review

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Authors: Dong-ping Yuan, Lin Gu, Jun Long, Jie Chen, Ni Jie, Ying-Li Shi

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Endometriosis is a common disease in women of reproductive age, whose classic characteristic is mononuclear cell infiltration into lesions. Shikonin is an anti-inflammatory phytocompound from Lithospermum erythrorhizon, whose potential therapeutic effects for the endometriosis remain unclear. The working hypothesis was that shikonin can inhibit the development of endometriosis by the inhibition of chemotactic effect. Shikonin significantly inhibited the growth of human endometrial tissue implanted into mice (P<0.05). No observable adverse effects were found. The mouse regulated upon activation normal T-cell expressed and secreted (mRANTES) level in peritoneal fluid of animal endometriosis model was higher than that in normal SCID mice (P<0.05), and decreased dramatically after shikonin treatment in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.05). Peritoneal fluid from NOD/SCID mice treated with shikonin inhibited monocytes chemotaxis, which could be abolished by mRANTES antibody. In vitro, shikonin significantly inhibited RANTES expression of U937 cells cultured alone or co-cultured with human methothelail cells and endometrial stromal cells, and inhibited RANTES-induced chemotaxis of U937 cells (P<0.05). The present results suggest that shikonin can inhibit the development of endometriosis by mechanisms that at least include the inhibition of RANTES expression and decreased migration of mononuclear cells to lesions. Shikonin may be a useful and safe new approach for treating endometriosis.

Keywords: endometriosis, shikonin, RANTES chemotaxis

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Authors: Chhaya Gangwal, R. N. Bhaumik, Shishir Kumar

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Handling uncertainty and impreciseness of knowledge appears to be a challenging task in Information Systems. Intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) and rough set theory enhances databases by allowing it for the management of uncertainty and impreciseness. This paper presents a new efficient query optimization technique for the multi-valued or imprecise IF rough database. The usefulness of this technique was illustrated on malaria knowledge from the rural tribal communities of Tripura where most of the information is multi-valued and imprecise. Then, the querying about knowledge on malaria is executed into SQL server to make the implementation of IF rough data querying simpler.

Keywords: intuitionistic fuzzy set, rough set, relational database, IF rough relational database

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Authors: Shin Woo Kim, Eui Ju Lee

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The recent development of biofuel production technology facilitates the use of bioethanol and biodiesel on automobile. Bioethanol, especially, can be used as a fuel for gasoline vehicles because the addition of ethanol has been known to increase octane number and reduce soot emissions. However, the wide application of biofuel has been still limited because of lack of detailed combustion properties such as auto-ignition temperature and pollutant emissions such as NOx and soot, which has been concerned mainly on the vehicle fire safety and environmental safety. In this study, the combustion characteristics of gasoline/ethanol fuel were investigated both numerically and experimentally. For auto-ignition temperature and NOx emission, the numerical simulation was performed on the well-stirred reactor (WSR) to simulate the homogeneous gasoline engine and to clarify the effect of ethanol addition in the gasoline fuel. Also, the response surface method (RSM) was introduced as a design of experiment (DOE), which enables the various combustion properties to be predicted and optimized systematically with respect to three independent variables, i.e., ethanol mole fraction, equivalence ratio and residence time. The results of stoichiometric gasoline surrogate show that the auto-ignition temperature increases but NOx yields decrease with increasing ethanol mole fraction. This implies that the bioethanol added gasoline is an eco-friendly fuel on engine running condition. However, unburned hydrocarbon is increased dramatically with increasing ethanol content, which results from the incomplete combustion and hence needs to adjust combustion itself rather than an after-treatment system. RSM results analyzed with three independent variables predict the auto-ignition temperature accurately. However, NOx emission had a big difference between the calculated values and the predicted values using conventional RSM because NOx emission varies very steeply and hence the obtained second order polynomial cannot follow the rates. To relax the increasing rate of dependent variable, NOx emission is taken as common logarithms and worked again with RSM. NOx emission predicted through logarithm transformation is in a fairly good agreement with the experimental results. For more tangible understanding of gasoline/ethanol fuel on pollutant emissions, experimental measurements of combustion products were performed in gasoline/ethanol pool fires, which is widely used as a fire source of laboratory scale experiments. Three measurement methods were introduced to clarify the pollutant emissions, i.e., various gas concentrations including NOx, gravimetric soot filter sampling for elements analysis and pyrolysis, thermophoretic soot sampling with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Soot yield by gravimetric sampling was decreased dramatically as ethanol was added, but NOx emission was almost comparable regardless of ethanol mole fraction. The morphology of the soot particle was investigated to address the degree of soot maturing. The incipient soot such as a liquid like PAHs was observed clearly on the soot of higher ethanol containing gasoline, and the soot might be matured under the undiluted gasoline fuel.

Keywords: gasoline/ethanol fuel, NOx, pool fire, soot, well-stirred reactor (WSR)

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Authors: Samiah H. Ghounaim

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The topic of this paper is significant because of the increasing need for intercultural training for foreign language teachers due to the continuous challenges they face in their diverse classrooms. First, the structure of the intercultural training program designed will be briefly described, and the structure of a 3D vignette and its intended purposes will be elaborated on. This was the first stage where the program was designed and implemented on the period of three months with a group of local and expatriate foreign language teachers/practitioners at a university in the Middle East. After that, a set of primary data collected during the first stage of this research on the design and co-construction process of a 3D vignette will be reviewed and analysed in depth. Each practitioner designed a personal incident into a 3D vignette where each dimension of the vignette viewed the same incident from a totally different perspective. Finally, the results and the implications of having participant construct their personal incidents into a 3D vignette as a reflective practice will be discussed in detail as well as possible extensions for the research. This process proved itself to be an effective reflective practice where the participants were stimulated to view their incidents in a different light. Co-constructing one’s own critical incidents –be it a positive experience or not– into a structured 3D vignette encouraged participants to decentralise themselves from the incidents and, thus, creating a personal reflective space where they had the opportunity to see different potential outcomes for each incident, as well as prepare for the reflective discussion of their vignette with their peers. This provides implications for future developments in reflective writing practices and possibilities for educators’ continuous professional development (CPD).

Keywords: 3D vignettes, intercultural competence training, reflective practice, teacher training

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Authors: Jinsong Zhao, Lin Zhao

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Shenzhen, one of the fastest growing cities in the world, has been building a global ocean central city since 2017, facing many challenges, especially how to innovate new legal regimes to meet the future demands of the development of global shipping. First, the current legal regime of bills of lading as a document of title was established by English law in the 18th century but limited to the period of marine transportation from port of loading to port of discharge (namely, port to port). The e-commerce era is asking for such a function to be extended from port to port to door to door. Secondly, the function of the port has also been upgraded from the traditional loading and unloading of goods to a much wider area, such as being custody of warehousing goods for its mortgage bank, and therefore its legal status is changing, so it is necessary to amend the law of ports and harbours and innovate the rights and responsibilities of the port under its new role as the custody. Thirdly, the development of new marine energy has made more and more offshore floating wind power and floating photovoltaic devices face new legal issues such as legal status, nationality and ownership registration, mortgage, maritime lien, and possessory lien. Fourthly, the jurisdiction of the above issues, as well as conflicts of law and the applicable law, are also questions pending answers. This paper will discuss these issues of private international law, especially the innovation of new legal regimes with an aim to solve the above problems.

Keywords: maritime law, bills of lading, e-commerce, port law, marine clean energy

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Authors: E. Lam, Z. D. Yang, B. Li, I. Ho, T. Wong, V. Wong

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This paper reports some of the recent studies on strengthening of reinforced concrete members by ferrocement. Using mortar in ferrocement with high tensile strength, tensile properties of (high performance) ferrocement can be enhanced. In the proposed strengthening strategy, defective concrete cover of structural members is replaced by ferrocement so as to increase the load carrying capacity. This has been successfully applied to strengthen columns and beam-column joints. To facilitate the ease of application of the proposed strengthening strategy, mortar in ferrocement is applied through dry spray shotcrete.

Keywords: ferrocement, high performance ferrocement, dry, spray shotcrete, column, beam-column joint, strengthening

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Authors: Ahmad Mohsin, Syda Fatima, Falak Nawaz, Aman Ullah Khan

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Selection of an appropriate architectural style is vital to the success of target web service under development. The nature of architecture design and selection for service-oriented computing applications is quite different as compared to traditional software. Web Services have complex and rigorous architectural styles to choose. Due to this, selection for accurate architectural style for web services development has become a more complex decision to be made by architects. Architectural style selection is a multi-criteria decision and demands lots of experience in service oriented computing. Decision support systems are good solutions to simplify the selection process of a particular architectural style. Our research suggests a new approach using DSS for selection of architectural styles while developing a web service to cater FRs and NFRs. Our proposed DSS helps architects to select right web service architectural pattern according to the domain and non-functional requirements. In this paper, a rule base DSS has been developed using CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) to support decisions using multi-criteria requirements. This DSS takes architectural characteristics, domain requirements and software architect preferences for NFRs as input for different architectural styles in use today in service-oriented computing. Weighted sum model has been applied to prioritize quality attributes and domain requirements. Scores are calculated using multiple criterions to choose the final architecture style.

Keywords: software architecture, web-service, rule-based, DSS, multi-criteria requirements, quality attributes

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Authors: K. Chethana, A. S. Guru Prasad, S. N. Omkar, B. Vadiraj, S. Asokan

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This paper describes an ab-initio design, development and calibration results of an Optical Sensor Ground Reaction Force Measurement Platform (OSGRFP) for gait and geriatric studies. The developed system employs an array of FBG sensors to measure the respective ground reaction forces from all three axes (X, Y and Z), which are perpendicular to each other. The novelty of this work is two folded. One is in its uniqueness to resolve the tri axial resultant forces during the stance in to the respective pure axis loads and the other is the applicability of inherently advantageous FBG sensors which are most suitable for biomechanical instrumentation. To validate the response of the FBG sensors installed in OSGRFP and to measure the cross sensitivity of the force applied in other directions, load sensors with indicators are used. Further in this work, relevant mathematical formulations are presented for extracting respective ground reaction forces from wavelength shifts/strain of FBG sensors on the OSGRFP. The result of this device has implications in understanding the foot function, identifying issues in gait cycle and measuring discrepancies between left and right foot. The device also provides a method to quantify and compare relative postural stability of different subjects under test, which has implications in post surgical rehabilitation, geriatrics and optimizing training protocols for sports personnel.

Keywords: balance and stability, gait analysis, FBG applications, optical sensor ground reaction force platform

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Authors: László L. Lippai

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In addition to the fact that mental health bears great significance to a particular individual, it can also be regarded as an organizational, community and societal resource. Within the Szeged Health Promotion Research Group, we conducted mental health surveys on two levels: The inhabitants of a medium-sized Hungarian town and students of a Hungarian university with a relatively big headcount were requested to participate in surveys whose goals were to define local government priorities and organization-level health promotion programmes, respectively. To facilitate professional decision-making, we defined three, pragmatically relevant, groups of the target population: the mentally healthy, the vulnerable and the endangered. In order to determine which group a person actually belongs to, we designed a simple and quick measurement tool, which could even be utilised as a smoothing method, the Mental State Questionnaire validity of the above three categories was verified by analysis of variance against psychological quality of life variables. We demonstrate the pragmatic significance of our method via the analyses of the scores of our two mental health surveys. On town level, during our representative survey in Hódmezővásárhely (N=1839), we found that 38.7% of the participants was mentally healthy, 35.3% was vulnerable, while 16.3% was considered as endangered. We were able to identify groups that were in a dramatic state in terms of mental health. For example, such a group consisted of men aged 45 to 64 with only primary education qualification and the ratios of the mentally healthy, vulnerable and endangered were 4.5, 45.5 and 50%, respectively. It was also astonishing to see to what a little extent qualification prevailed as a protective factor in the case of women. Based on our data, the female group aged 18 to 44 with primary education—of whom 20.3% was mentally healthy, 42.4% vulnerable and 37.3% was endangered—as well as the female group aged 45 to 64 with university or college degree—of whom 25% was mentally healthy, 51.3 vulnerable and 23.8% endangered—are to be handled as priority intervention target groups in a similarly difficult position. On organizational level, our survey involving the students of the University of Szeged, N=1565, provided data to prepare a strategy of mental health promotion for a university with a headcount exceeding 20,000. When developing an organizational strategy, it was important to gather information to estimate the proportions of target groups in which mental health promotion methods; for example, life management skills development, detection, psychological consultancy, psychotherapy, would be applied. Our scores show that 46.8% of the student participants were mentally healthy, 42.1% were vulnerable and 11.1% were endangered. These data convey relevant information as to the allocation of organizational resources within a university with a considerable headcount. In conclusion, The Mental State Questionnaire, as a valid smoothing method, is adequate to describe a community in a plain and informative way in the terms of mental health. The application of the method can promote the preparation, design and implementation of mental health promotion interventions. 

Keywords: health promotion, mental health promotion, mental state questionnaire, psychological well-being

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Authors: Mamta Kumari, Shashi Jain

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Tannins are a unique category of plant phytochemicals especially in terms of their vast potential health-benefiting properties. Researchers have described the capacity of tannins to enhance glucose uptake and inhibit adipogenesis, thus being potential drugs for the treatment of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. Thus, the present research was conducted to find out tannin content of food products. The percentage of tannin in various analyzed sources ranged from 0.0 to 108.53%; highest in kathaa and lowest in ker and mango bark. The percentage of tannins present in the plants, however, varies. Numerous studies have confirmed that the naturally occurring polyphenols are key factor for the beneficial effects of the herbal medicines. Isolation and identification of active constituents from plants, preparation of standardized dose & dosage regimen can play a significant role in improving the hypoglycaemic action.

Keywords: tannins, diabetes, polyphenols, antioxidant, hypoglycemia

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Authors: Ramy Shaaban

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The purpose of this study was to examine the difference in clinical reasoning skills of students when using virtual audiology cases with and without collaborative assistance from major learning approaches important to clinical reasoning skills and computer-based learning models: Situated Learning Theory, Social Development Theory, Scaffolding, and Collaborative Learning. A quasi-experimental design was conducted at two United States universities to examine whether there is a significant difference in clinical reasoning skills between three treatment groups using IUP Audiosim software. Two computer-based audiology case simulations were developed, and participants were randomly placed into the three groups: no collaboration, virtual collaboration, and live collaboration. The clinical reasoning data were analyzed using One-Way ANOVA and Tukey posthoc analyses. The results show that there was a significant difference in clinical reasoning skills between the three treatment groups. The score obtained by the no collaboration group was significantly less than the scores obtained by the virtual and live collaboration groups. Collaboration, whether virtual or in person, has a positive effect on students’ clinical reasoning. These results with audiology students indicate that combining collaboration models with scaffolding and embedding situated learning and social development theories into the design of future virtual patients has the potential to improve students’ clinical reasoning skills.

Keywords: clinical reasoning, virtual patients, collaborative learning, scaffolding

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Authors: Oluwagbemi Victor Aladeokin

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In the last decade, the global peanut cultivation has seen increased demand, which is attributed to their health benefits, rising to ~ 41.4 MMT in 2019/2020. Peanut and other nutshells are considered as waste in various parts of the world and are usually used for their fuel value. However, this agricultural by-product can be converted to a higher value product such as activated carbon. For many years, due to the highly porous structure of activated carbon, it has been widely and effectively used as an adsorbent in the purification and separation of gases and liquids. Those used for commercial purposes are primarily made from a range of precursors such as wood, coconut shell, coal, bones, etc. However, due to difficulty in regeneration and high cost, various agricultural residues such as rice husk, corn stalks, apricot stones, almond shells, coffee beans, etc, have been explored to produce activated carbons. In the present study, the potential of peanut shells as precursors in the production of activated carbon and their adsorption capacity is investigated. Usually, precursors used to produce activated carbon have carbon content above 45 %. A typical raw peanut shell has 42 wt.% carbon content. To increase the yield, this study has employed chemical activation method using zinc chloride. Zinc chloride is well known for its effectiveness in increasing porosity of porous carbonaceous materials. In chemical activation, activation temperature and impregnation ratio are parameters commonly reported to be the most significant, however, this study has also studied the influence of activation time on the development of activated carbon from peanut shells. Activated carbons are applied for different purposes, however, as the application of activated carbon becomes more specific, an understanding of the influence of activation variables to have a better control of the quality of the final product becomes paramount. A traditional approach to experimentally investigate the influence of the activation parameters, involves varying each parameter at a time. However, a more efficient way to reduce the number of experimental runs is to apply design of experiment. One of the objectives of this study is to optimize the activation variables. Thus, this work has employed response surface methodology of design of experiment to study the interactions between the activation parameters and consequently optimize the activation parameters (temperature, impregnation ratio, and activation time). The optimum activation conditions found were 485 °C, 15 min and 1.7, temperature, activation time, and impregnation ratio respectively. The optimum conditions resulted in an activated carbon with relatively high surface area ca. 1700 m2/g, 47 % yield, relatively high density, low ash, and high fixed carbon content. Impregnation ratio and temperature were found to mostly influence the final characteristics of the produced activated carbon from peanut shells. The results of this study, using response surface methodology technique, have revealed the potential and the most significant parameters that influence the chemical activation process, of peanut shells to produce activated carbon which can find its use in both liquid and gas phase adsorption applications.

Keywords: chemical activation, fixed carbon, impregnation ratio, optimum, surface area

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Authors: Matthew Yeager, Christopher Willy, John Bischoff

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The conceptualization and design phases of a system lifecycle consume a significant amount of the lifecycle budget in the form of direct tasking and capital, as well as the implicit costs associated with unforeseeable design errors that are only realized during downstream phases. Ad hoc or iterative approaches to generating system requirements oftentimes fail to consider the full array of feasible systems or product designs for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to: initial conceptualization that oftentimes incorporates a priori or legacy features; the inability to capture, communicate and accommodate stakeholder preferences; inadequate technical designs and/or feasibility studies; and locally-, but not globally-, optimized subsystems and components. These design pitfalls can beget unanticipated developmental or system alterations with added costs, risks and support activities, heightening the risk for suboptimal system performance, premature obsolescence or forgone development. Supported by rapid advances in learning algorithms and hardware technology, sensors and sensor systems have become commonplace in both commercial and industrial products. The evolving array of hardware components (i.e. sensors, CPUs, modular / auxiliary access, etc…) as well as recognition, data fusion and communication protocols have all become increasingly complex and critical for design engineers during both concpetualization and implementation. This work seeks to develop and utilize a non-deterministic approach for sensor system design within the multi-attribute tradespace exploration (MATE) paradigm, a technique that incorporates decision theory into model-based techniques in order to explore complex design environments and discover better system designs. Developed to address the inherent design constraints in complex aerospace systems, MATE techniques enable project engineers to examine all viable system designs, assess attribute utility and system performance, and better align with stakeholder requirements. Whereas such previous work has been focused on aerospace systems and conducted in a deterministic fashion, this study addresses a wider array of system design elements by incorporating both traditional tradespace elements (e.g. hardware components) as well as popular multi-sensor data fusion models and techniques. Furthermore, statistical performance features to this model-based MATE approach will enable non-deterministic techniques for various commercial systems that range in application, complexity and system behavior, demonstrating a significant utility within the realm of formal systems decision-making.

Keywords: multi-attribute tradespace exploration, data fusion, sensors, systems engineering, system design

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Authors: S. Gherbi, F. Bouchareb

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This paper deals with the novel intelligent bio-inspired control strategies, it presents a novel approach based on an optimal fuzzy immune PID parameters tuning, it is a combination of a PID controller, inspired by the human immune mechanism with fuzzy logic. Such controller offers more possibilities to deal with the delayed systems control difficulties due to the delay term. Indeed, we use an optimization approach to tune the four parameters of the controller in addition to the fuzzy function; the obtained controller is implemented in a modified Smith predictor structure, which is well known that it is the most efficient to the control of delayed systems. The application of the presented approach to control a three tank delay system shows good performances and proves the efficiency of the method.

Keywords: delayed systems, fuzzy immune PID, optimization, Smith predictor

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Authors: Michał Rogala, Jakub Gajewski

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As the automotive industry develops, passive safety is becoming an increasingly important aspect when designing motor vehicles. A commonly used solution is energy absorption by thin-walled construction. One such structure is a closed thin-walled profile fixed to the vehicle stringers. The article presents numerical tests of conical thin-walled profiles filled with aluminum foam. The columns were loaded axially with constant energy. On the basis of the results obtained, efficiency indicators were calculated. The efficiency of the foam filling was evaluated. Artificial neural networks were used for data analysis. The application of regression analysis was used as a tool to study the relationship between the quantities characteristic of the dynamic crush.

Keywords: aluminium foam, crashworthiness, neural networks, thin-walled structure

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Authors: Seon-Hack Hong, Tae-Il Choi

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Interoperability is defined as systems, components, and devices developed by different entities smoothly exchanging information and functioning organically without mutual consultation, being able to communicate with each other and computer systems of the same type or different types, and exchanging information or the ability of two or more systems to exchange information and use the information exchanged without extra effort. Insufficiencies such as duplication of functions when developing systems and applications due to lack of interoperability in the electric power system and low efficiency due to a lack of mutual information transmission system between the inside of the application program and the design is improved, and the seamless linkage of newly developed systems is improved. Since it is necessary to secure interoperability for this purpose, we designed the smart grid-based interoperability standard model in this paper.

Keywords: interoperability, power system, common information model, SCADA, IEEE2030, Zephyr

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Authors: Beloulou Mohamed Lamine, Bouhouf Attef, Meliani Walid, Sellami Dalila, Lamara Abdelhak

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Introduction: Post-surgical chronic pain (PSCP) is a pathological condition with a rather complex etiopathogenesis that extensively involves sensitization processes and neuronal damage. The neuropathic component of these pains is almost always present, with variable expression depending on the type of surgery. Objective: To assess the presumed beneficial effect of Regional Anesthesia-Analgesia Techniques (RAAT) on the development of post-surgical chronic neuropathic pain (PSCNP) in various surgical procedures. Patients and Methods: A comparative study involving 510 patients distributed across five surgical models (mastectomy, thoracotomy, hernioplasty, cholecystectomy, and major abdominal-pelvic surgery) and randomized into two groups: Group A (240) receiving conventional postoperative analgesia and Group B (270) receiving balanced analgesia, including the implementation of a Regional Anesthesia-Analgesia Technique (RAAT). These patients were longitudinally followed over a 6-month period, with post-surgical chronic neuropathic pain (PSCNP) defined by a Neuropathic Pain Score DN2≥ 3. Comparative measurements through univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify associations between the development of PSCNP and certain predictive factors, including the presumed preventive impact (protective effect) of RAAT. Results: At the 6th month post-surgery, 419 patients were analyzed (Group A= 196 and Group B= 223). The incidence of PSCNP was 32.2% (n=135). Among these patients with chronic pain, the prevalence of neuropathic pain was 37.8% (95% CI: [29.6; 46.5]), with n=51/135. It was significantly lower in Group B compared to Group A, with respective percentages of 31.4% vs. 48.8% (p-value = 0.035). The most significant differences were observed in breast and thoracopulmonary surgeries. In a multiple regression analysis, two predictors of PSCNP were identified: the presence of preoperative pain at the surgical site as a risk factor (OR: 3.198; 95% CI [1.326; 7.714]) and RAAT as a protective factor (OR: 0.408; 95% CI [0.173; 0.961]). Conclusion: The neuropathic component of PSCNP can be observed in different types of surgeries. Regional analgesia included in a multimodal approach to postoperative pain management has proven to be effective for acute pain and seems to have a preventive impact on the development of PSCNP and its neuropathic nature or component, particularly in surgeries that are more prone to chronicization.

Keywords: chronic postsurgical pain, postsurgical chronic neuropathic pain, regional anesthesia and analgesia techniques (RAAT), neuropathic pain score dn2, preventive impact

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Authors: Khalid Yousuf Ahmed

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At the beginning of growth period, East Asian countries achieved impressive economic growth for the decades. They transformed from agricultural economy toward industrialization and contributed to dynamic structural transformation. The achievements were driven by government-led development policies that implemented effective innovation policy to boost technological capability of local firms. Recently, most Sub-Saharan African have been showing sustainable growth. Exceptionally, Ethiopia has been recording double-digit growth for a decade. Hence, Ethiopia has claimed to follow the footstep of East Asia development model. The study is going to examine whether Ethiopia can replicate innovation and economic growth model of East Asia by using Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China as a case to illustrate their model of growth. This research will be based on empirical data gathering and extended theory of national innovation system and economic growth theory. Moreover, the methodology is based on Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) and also employing cross-countries regression analysis. The results explained that there is a significant relationship between innovation indicators and economic growth in East Asian countries while the relationship is non-existing for Ethiopia except implementing similar policies and achieving similar growth trend. Therefore, Ethiopia needs to introduce inclusive policies that give priority to improving human capital and invest on the knowledge-based economy to replicate East Asian Model.

Keywords: economic growth, FDI, endogenous growth theory, East Asia model

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