Search results for: learning methods

Authors: R. A. C. H. Seneviratne, M. Gunawardana, R. P. N. P. Rajapakse

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To address the micronutrient deficiencies in the Asian region, the World Food Program in its current mandate highlights the requirement of employing efficient fortification of micronutrients in rice, under the program 'Scaling-up Rice Fortification in Asia'. The current industrial methods of rice fortification with micronutrients are not promising due to poor permeation or retention of fortificants. This study was carried out to develop a method to improve fortification of micronutrients in rice by removing the air barriers for diffusing micronutrients through the husk. For the purpose, soaking stage of paddy was coupled with vacuum (- 0.6 bar) for different time periods. Both long and short grain varieties of paddy (BG 352 and BG 358, respectively) initially tested for water uptake during hot soaking (70 °C) under vacuum (28.5 and 26.15%, respectively) were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than that of non-vacuum conditions (25.24 and 25.45% respectively), exhibiting the effectiveness of water diffusion into the rice grains through the cleared pores under negative pressure. To fortify the selected micronutrients (iron and zinc), paddy was vacuum-soaked in Fe2+ or Zn2+ solutions (500 ppm) separately for one hour, and continued soaking for another 3.5 h without vacuum. Significantly (P<0.05) higher amounts of Fe2+ and Zn2+ were observed throughout the soaking period, in both short and long grain varieties of rice compared to rice treated without vacuum. To achieve the recommended limits of World Food Program standards for fortified iron (40-48 mg/kg) and zinc (60-72 mg/kg) in rice, soaking was done with different concentrations of Fe2+ or Zn2+ for varying time periods. For both iron and zinc fortifications, hot soaking (70 °C) in 400 ppm solutions under vacuum (- 0.6 bar) during the first hour followed by 2.5 h under atmospheric pressure exhibited the optimum fortification (Fe2+: 46.59±0.37 ppm and Zn2+: 67.24±1.36 ppm) with a greater significance (P < 0.05) compared to the controls (Fe2+: 38.84±0.62 ppm and Zn2+: 52.55±0.55 ppm). This finding was further confirmed by the XRF images, clearly showing a greater fixation of Fe2+ and Zn2+ in the rice grains under vacuum treatment. Moreover, there were no significant (P>0.05) differences among both Fe2+ and Zn2+ contents in fortified rice even after polishing and washing, confirming their greater retention. A seven point hedonic scale showed that the overall acceptability for both iron and zinc fortified rice were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than the parboiled rice without fortificants. With all the drawbacks eliminated, per kilogram cost will be less than US$ 1 for both iron and zinc fortified rice. The new method of rice fortification studied and developed in this research, can be claimed as the best method in comparison to other rice fortification methods currently deployed.

Keywords: fortification, vacuum assisted diffusion, micronutrients, parboiling

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Authors: C. S. Caires, A. Barbosa, W. Hanyou

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In this paper, we present the main results achieved during a five-week international workshop on Interactive Furniture for the Classroom, with 22 Chinese design students, in Jiangmen city (Guangdong province, China), and five teachers from Portugal, France, Iran, Macao SAR, and China. The main goal was to engage design students from China with new skills and practice methodologies towards interactive design research for furniture and product design for the classroom. The final results demonstrate students' concerns on improving Chinese furniture design for the classrooms, including solutions related to collaborative learning and human-interaction design for interactive furniture products. The findings of the research led students to the fabrication of five original prototypes: two for kindergartens ('Candy' and 'Tilt-tilt'), two for primary schools ('Closer' and 'Eks(x)'), and one for art/creative schools ('Wave'). From the findings, it was also clear that collaboration, personalization, and project-based teaching are still neglected when designing furniture products for the classroom in China. Students focused on these issues and came up with creative solutions that could transform this educational field in China.

Keywords: product design, collaborative education, interactive design, design research and prototyping

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Authors: Nicolay Zarutskiy, Roman Bulkin

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The paper deals with the existing methods of force-torque sensor calibration with a number of components from one to six, analyzed their advantages and disadvantages, the necessity of introduction of a calibration method. Calibration method and its constructive realization are also described here. A calibration method allows performing automated force-torque sensor calibration both with selected components of the main vector of forces and moments and with complex loading. Thus, two main advantages of the proposed calibration method are achieved: the automation of the calibration process and universality.

Keywords: automation, calibration, calibration device, calibration method, force-torque sensors

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Authors: Xinqi Guo, Karen R. Dobkins

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Background and Objectives: Humans are probably the only animals whose minds are constantly filled with thoughts, feelings and emotions. Previous studies have investigated human minds from different dimensions, including its proportion of time for not being present, its representative format, its personal relevance, its temporal locus, and affect valence. The current study aims at characterizing human mind by employing Experience Sampling Methods (ESM), a self-report research procedure for studying daily experience. This study emphasis on answering the following questions: 1) How does the contents of the inner experience vary across demographics, 2) Are certain types of inner experiences correlated with level of mindfulness and mental well-being (e.g., are people who spend more time being present happier, and are more mindful people more at-present?), 3) Will being prompted to report one’s inner experience increase mindfulness and mental well-being? Methods: Participants were recruited from the subject pool of UC San Diego or from the social media. They began by filling out two questionnaires: 1) Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form, and 2) Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, and demographic information. Then they participated in the ESM part by responding to the prompts which contained questions about their real-time inner experience: if they were 'at-present', 'mind-wandering', or 'zoned-out'. The temporal locus, the clarity, and the affect valence, and the personal importance of the thought they had the moment before the prompt were also assessed. A mobile app 'RealLife Exp' randomly delivered these prompts 3 times/day for 6 days during wake-time. After the 6 days, participants completed questionnaire (1) and (2) again. Their changes of score were compared to a control group who did not participate in the ESM procedure (yet completed (1) and (2) one week apart). Results: Results are currently preliminary as we continue to collect data. So far, there is a trend that participants are present, mind-wandering and zoned-out, about 53%, 23% and 24% during wake-time, respectively. The thoughts of participants are ranked to be clearer and more neutral if they are present vs. mind-wandering. Mind-wandering thoughts are 66% about the past, consisting 80% of inner speech. Discussion and Conclusion: This study investigated the subjective account of human mind by a tool with high ecological validity. And it broadens the understanding of the relationship between contents of mind and well-being.

Keywords: experience sampling method, meta-memory, mindfulness, mind-wandering

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Authors: Victoria Zenotz

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For Fairclough (1989) critical literacy is a tool to enable readers and writers to build up meaning in discourse. More recently other authors (Leu et al., 2004) have included the new technology context in their definition of literacy. In their view being literate nowadays means to “successfully use and adapt to the rapidly changing information and communication technologies and contexts that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal and professional lives.” (Leu et al., 2004: 1570). In this presentation the concept of critical literacy will be related to the creation of digital stories. In the first part of the presentation concepts such as literacy and critical literacy are examined. We consider that real social practices will help learners may improve their literacy level. Accordingly, we show some research, which was conducted at a secondary school in the north of Spain (2013-2014), to illustrate how the “writing” of digital stories may contribute to the development of critical literacy. The use of several instruments allowed the collection of data at the different stages of their creative process including watching and commenting models for digital stories, planning a storyboard, creating and selecting images, adding voices and background sounds, editing and sharing the final product. The results offer some valuable insights into learners’ literacy progress.

Keywords: literacy, computer assisted language learning, esl

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Authors: Naza Djafarova, Tony Bates, Margaret Verkuyl, Leonora Zefi, Ozgur Turetken, Alex Ferworn, Mastrilli Paula, Daria Romaniuk, Kosha Bramesfeld, Anastasia Dimitriadou, Cheryl To

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Designing serious games for education is a challenging and resource-intensive effort. If a well-designed process that balances pedagogical principles with game mechanics is in place, it can help to simplify the design process of serious games and increase efficiency. Multidisciplinary teams involved in designing serious games can benefit tremendously from such a process in their endeavours to develop and implement these games at undergraduate and graduate levels. This paper presentation will outline research results on identified gaps within existing processes and frameworks and present an adapted process that emerged from the research. The research methodology was based on a survey, semi-structured interviews and workshops for testing the adapted process for game design. Based on the findings, the authors propose a simple process for the pre-production stage of serious game design that may help guide multidisciplinary teams in their work. This process was used to facilitate team brainstorming, and is currently being tested to assess if multidisciplinary teams find value in using it in their process of designing serious games.

Keywords: serious game-design, multidisciplinary team, game design framework, learning games, multidisciplinary game design process

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Authors: Clara T. Fatoye, April Betts, Abayomi Odeyemi, Francis A. Fatoye, Isaac O. Odeyemi

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Background: The post-launch stage is the last stage in the development of a pharmaceutical product. It is important to involve patients in the development of pharmaceutical products at the post-launch stage, as patients are the end-users of pharmaceutical products. It is expected that involving them might ensure an effective working relationship among the various stakeholders. However, involving patients in the development of pharmaceutical products comes with its problems. Hence, this study examined how to resolve problems experienced by involving patients in the developments of pharmaceutical products’ at post-launch consisting of Positioning of pharmaceutical products (POPP), detailing of pharmaceutical products (DOPP) and reimbursement and Formulary Submission (R&FS). Methods: A questionnaire was used for the present study. It was administered at the ISPOR Glasgow 2017 to 104 participants, all of which were professionals from Market access (MA) and health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) backgrounds. They were asked how the issues experienced by patients can be resolved. Participants responded under six domains as follows: communication, cost, effectiveness, external factors, Quality of life (QoL) and safety. Thematic analysis was carried out to identify strategies to resolve issues experienced by patients at the post-launch stage. Results: Three (3) factors cut across at POPP, DOPP, and R&FS that is (external factors, communication and QoL). The first resolution method was an external factor that is, the relationship with stakeholders and policymakers. Communication was also identified as a resolution method that can help to resolve problems experienced by patients at the post-launch stage. The third method was QoL as perceived by the patients based on professionals’ opinions. Other strategies that could be used to resolve problems experienced were the effectiveness of pharmaceutical products at the DOPP level and cost at R&FS. Conclusion: The study showed that focusing on external factors, communication, and patients’ QoL are methods for resolving issues experienced by involving patients at the post-launch stage of pharmaceutical product development. Hence, effective working relationships between patients, policymakers and stakeholders may help to resolve problems experienced at the post-launch stage. Healthcare policymakers are to be aware of these findings as they may help them to put appropriate strategies in place to enhance the involvement of patients in pharmaceutical product development at the post-launch stage, thereby improving the health outcomes of the patients.

Keywords: patients, pharmaceutical products, post-launch stage, quality of life, QoL

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Authors: Miron Wolnicki

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In the past 75 years the world was either influenced by, competing with or learning from U.S. corporations. This is no longer true. As the economic power shifts from the West to the East, U.S. corporations are lagging behind Asian competitors. Moreover, U.S. statecraft fails to address this decline. In a world dominated by interventionist and neo-mercantilist states, having an ineffective non-activist government becomes a costly neoclassic delusion which weakens the world’s largest economy. American conservative economists continue talking about the superiority of the free market system in generating new technologies. The reality is different. The U.S. is sliding further into an overregulated, over-taxed, anti-business state. This paper argues that in order to maintain its economic strength and technological leadership, the U.S. must reform federal institutions to increase support for artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies. The author outlines a number of institutional reforms, under one umbrella, which he calls the American Entrepreneurial State (AES). The AES will improve productivity and bring about coherent business strategies for the next 10-15 years. The design and inspiration for the AES come from the experience of successful statecraft examples in Asia and also other parts the global economy.

Keywords: post-neoliberal system, entrepreneurial state, government and economy, American entrepreneurial state

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Authors: Thiago Brito Bezerra, Mauro Lopes de Freitas, Waldir Sabino da Silva Júnior

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The Sigma-Delta A/D converters have been proposed as a practical application for A/D conversion at high rates because of its simplicity and robustness to imperfections in the circuit, also because the traditional converters are more difficult to implement in VLSI technology. These difficulties with conventional conversion methods need precise analog components in their filters and conversion circuits, and are more vulnerable to noise and interference. This paper aims to analyze the architecture, function and application of Analog-Digital converters (A/D) Sigma-Delta to overcome these difficulties, showing some simulations using the Simulink software and Multisim.

Keywords: analysis, oversampling modulator, A/D converters, sigma-delta

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Authors: Sita Yiemkuntitavorn

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The purposes of this research were to: (1) Develop a distance training package on the teaching principles foundation english language in order to gain the teaching ability for secondary school english teachers in Bangkok and its vicinity (2) study the satisfaction of English teachers towards the quality of a distance training package. The samples for the efficiency testing consisted of 30 english teachers in Bangkok and its vicinity, obtained by purposive sampling. Research tools comprised (1) a distance learning package on the foundation of English writing for teachers. (2) The questionnaires asking the teachers on the quality of the distance training package, and (3) two parallel forms of an achievement test for pre-testing and post-testing. Statistics used were the E1/E2 index, mean and standard deviation. Research findings showed that, (1) the distance training package were efficient at 80.2/80.6 according to the set efficiency criterion of 80/80; (2) and the satisfaction of the teachers on the distance training package of the teaching principles of foundation english for secondary school english teachers in Bangkok and its vicinity was at “Satisfied” level.

Keywords: a distance training package, teaching principles of foundation english, secondary school, Bangkok and its vicinity

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Authors: Mohammad Saleh Vahdatpour, Yanqing Zhang

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Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying motion detection in the human visual system has long been a fascinating challenge in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. This paper presents a spiking neural network model inspired by the processing of motion information in the primate visual system, particularly focusing on the Middle Temporal (MT) area. In our study, we propose a multi-layer spiking neural network model to perform motion detection tasks, leveraging the idea that synaptic delays in neuronal communication are pivotal in motion perception. Synaptic delay, determined by factors like axon length and myelin insulation, affects the temporal order of input spikes, thereby encoding motion direction and speed. Overall, our spiking neural network model demonstrates the feasibility of capturing motion detection principles observed in the primate visual system. The combination of synaptic delays, learning mechanisms, and shared weights and delays in SMD provides a promising framework for motion perception in artificial systems, with potential applications in computer vision and robotics.

Keywords: neural network, motion detection, signature detection, convolutional neural network

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Authors: Messaouda Belaid, Salima Kebbouche-Gana, Djamila Benaziza

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Our study focuses on determining the antibacterial activity of some honeys from northern Algeria. To test this activity, the agar well diffusion methods was employed. The bacterial strains tested were Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Streptococcus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeroginosae. The results showed that all the microbes tested were inhibited by all honey used in this study but Those bacteria that appear to be more sensitive to all honey tested are Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeroginosae.

Keywords: honey, antibacterial activity, Northern Algeria, Staphylococcus aureus

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Authors: J. Ticona Chambi, E. A. De Almeida, C. A. Andrade Raymundo Gaiotto, A. M. Do Espírito Santo, L. Infantes, S. L. Cuffini

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The solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is challenging for the pharmaceutical industry. The new multicomponent crystalline forms as cocrystal and solvates present an opportunity to improve the solubility of APIs. Commonly, the procedure to obtain multicomponent crystalline forms of a drug starts by screening the drug molecule with the different coformers/solvents. However, it is necessary to develop methods to obtain multicomponent forms in an efficient way and with the least possible environmental impact. The Hansen Solubility Parameters (HSPs) is considered a tool to obtain theoretical knowledge of the solubility of the target compound in the chosen solvent. H-Bond Propensity (HBP), Molecular Complementarity (MC), Coordination Values (CV) are tools used for statistical prediction of cocrystals developed by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Center (CCDC). The HSPs and the CCDC tools are based on inter- and intra-molecular interactions. The curcumin (Cur), target molecule, is commonly used as an anti‐inflammatory. The demethoxycurcumin (Demcur) and bisdemethoxycurcumin (Bisdcur) are natural analogues of Cur from turmeric. Those target molecules have differences in their solubilities. In this way, the work aimed to analyze and compare different tools for multicomponent forms prediction (solvates) of Cur, Demcur and Biscur. The HSP values were calculated for Cur, Demcur, and Biscur using the chemical group contribution methods and the statistical optimization from experimental data. The HSPmol software was used. From the HSPs of the target molecules and fifty solvents (listed in the HSP books), the relative energy difference (RED) was determined. The probability of the target molecules would be interacting with the solvent molecule was determined using the CCDC tools. A dataset of fifty molecules of different organic solvents was ranked for each prediction method and by a consensus ranking of different combinations: HSP, CV, HBP and MC values. Based on the prediction, 15 solvents were selected as Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO), Tetrahydrofuran (THF), Acetonitrile (ACN), 1,4-Dioxane (DOX) and others. In a starting analysis, the slow evaporation technique from 50°C at room temperature and 4°C was used to obtain solvates. The single crystals were collected by using a Bruker D8 Venture diffractometer, detector Photon100. The data processing and crystal structure determination were performed using APEX3 and Olex2-1.5 software. According to the results, the HSPs (theoretical and optimized) and the Hansen solubility sphere for Cur, Demcur and Biscur were obtained. With respect to prediction analyses, a way to evaluate the predicting method was through the ranking and the consensus ranking position of solvates already reported in the literature. It was observed that the combination of HSP-CV obtained the best results when compared to the other methods. Furthermore, as a result of solvent selected, six new solvates, Cur-DOX, Cur-DMSO, Bicur-DOX, Bircur-THF, Demcur-DOX, Demcur-ACN and a new Biscur hydrate, were obtained. Crystal structures were determined for Cur-DOX, Biscur-DOX, Demcur-DOX and Bicur-Water. Moreover, the unit-cell parameter information for Cur-DMSO, Biscur-THF and Demcur-ACN were obtained. The preliminary results showed that the prediction method is showing a promising strategy to evaluate the possibility of forming multicomponent. It is currently working on obtaining multicomponent single crystals.

Keywords: curcumin, HSPs, prediction, solvates, solubility

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Authors: Abbas Keramati, Abtin Boostani, Mohammad Jamal Sadeghi

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This paper examines the influence of knowledge management factors on organizational commitment for employees in the oil and gas drilling industry of Iran. We determine what knowledge factors have the greatest impact on the personnel loyalty and commitment to the organization using collected data from a survey of over 300 full-time personnel working in three large companies active in oil and gas drilling industry of Iran. To specify the effect of knowledge factors in the organizational commitment of the personnel in the studied organizations, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used. Findings of our study show that the factors such as knowledge and expertise, in-service training, the knowledge value and the application of individuals’ knowledge in the organization as the factor “learning and perception of personnel from the value of knowledge within the organization” has the greatest impact on the organizational commitment. After this factor, “existence of knowledge and knowledge sharing environment in the organization”; “existence of potential knowledge exchanging in the organization”; and “organizational knowledge level” factors have the most impact on the organizational commitment of personnel, respectively.

Keywords: drilling industry, knowledge management, organizational commitment, loyalty, principle component analysis

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Authors: Khaled I. Nawafleh

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In this work, we apply the method of Hamilton-Jacobi to obtain solutions of Hamiltonian systems in classical mechanics with two certain structures: the first structure plays a central role in the theory of time-dependent Hamiltonians, whilst the second is used to treat classical Hamiltonians, including dissipation terms. It is proved that the generalization of problems from the calculus of variation methods in the nonstationary case can be obtained naturally in Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. Then, another expression of geometry of the Hamilton Jacobi equation is retrieved for Hamiltonians with time-dependent and frictional terms. Both approaches shall be applied to many physical examples.

Keywords: Hamilton-Jacobi, time dependent lagrangians, dissipative systems, variational principle

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Authors: Kumar Satyam Das, Murali Raghunathan

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This note discusses the feasibility of field development of a challenging shallow offshore field in South East Asia and how its learnings can be applied to marginal field development across the world especially developing marginal fields in this low oil price world. The field was found to be economically challenging even during high oil prices and the project was put on hold. Shell started development study with the aim to significantly reduce cost through competitively scoping and revive stranded projects. The proposed strategy to achieve this involved Improve Per platform recovery and Reduction in CAPEX. Methodology: Based on various Benchmarking Tool such as Woodmac for similar projects in the region and economic affordability, a challenging target of 50% reduction in unit development cost (UDC) was set for the project. Technical scope was defined to the minimum as to be a wellhead platform with minimum functionality to ensure production. The evaluation of key project decisions like Well location and number, well design, Artificial lift methods and wellhead platform type under different development concept was carried out through integrated multi-discipline approach. Key elements influencing per platform recovery were Wellhead Platform (WHP) location, Well count, well reach and well productivity. Major Findings: Reservoir being shallow posed challenges in well design (dog-leg severity, casing size and the achievable step-out), choice of artificial lift and sand-control method. Integrated approach amongst relevant disciplines with challenging mind-set enabled to achieve optimized set of development decisions. This led to significant improvement in per platform recovery. It was concluded that platform recovery largely depended on the reach of the well. Choice of slim well design enabled designing of high inclination and better productivity wells. However, there is trade-off between high inclination Gas Lift (GL) wells and low inclination wells in terms of long term value, operational complexity, well reach, recovery and uptime. Well design element like casing size, well completion, artificial lift and sand control were added successively over the minimum technical scope design leading to a value and risk staircase. Logical combinations of options (slim well, GL) were competitively screened to achieve 25% reduction in well cost. Facility cost reduction was achieved through sourcing standardized Low Cost Facilities platform in combination with portfolio execution to maximizing execution efficiency; this approach is expected to reduce facilities cost by ~23% with respect to the development costs. Further cost reductions were achieved by maximizing use of existing facilities nearby; changing reliance on existing water injection wells and utilizing existing water injector (W.I.) platform for new injectors. Conclusion: The study provides a spectrum of technically feasible options. It also made clear that different drivers lead to different development concepts and the cost value trade off staircase made this very visible. Scoping of the project through competitive way has proven to be valuable for decision makers by creating a transparent view of value and associated risks/uncertainty/trade-offs for difficult choices: elements of the projects can be competitive, whilst other parts will struggle, even though contributing to significant volumes. Reduction in UDC through proper scoping of present projects and its benchmarking paves as a learning for the development of marginal fields across the world, especially in this low oil price scenario. This way of developing a field has on average a reduction of 40% of cost for the Shell projects.

Keywords: benchmarking, full field development, CAPEX, feasibility

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Authors: Jamshaid ul Rahman, Akhter Ali, Adnan Manzoor

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Learning-based systems have received increasing interest in recent years; recognition structures, including end-to-end speak recognition, are one of the hot topics in this area. A famous work on end-to-end speaker verification by using Angular Softmax Loss gained significant importance and is considered useful to directly trains a discriminative model instead of the traditional adopted i-vector approach. The margin-based strategy in angular softmax is beneficial to learn discriminative speaker embeddings where the random selection of margin values is a big issue in additive angular margin and multiplicative angular margin. As a better solution in this matter, we present an alternative approach by introducing a bit similar form of an additive parameter that was originally introduced for face recognition, and it has a capacity to adjust automatically with the corresponding margin values and is applicable to learn more discriminative features than the Softmax. Experiments are conducted on the part of Fisher dataset, where it observed that the additive parameter with angular softmax to train the front-end and probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (PLDA) in the back-end boosts the performance of the structure.

Keywords: additive parameter, angular softmax, speaker verification, PLDA

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Authors: Mohammad Zavid Parvez, Manoranjan Paul

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A seizure prediction method is proposed by extracting global features using phase correlation between adjacent epochs for detecting relative changes and local features using fluctuation/deviation within an epoch for determining fine changes of different EEG signals. A classifier and a regularization technique are applied for the reduction of false alarms and improvement of the overall prediction accuracy. The experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods and provides high prediction accuracy (i.e., 97.70%) with low false alarm using EEG signals in different brain locations from a benchmark data set.

Keywords: Epilepsy, seizure, phase correlation, fluctuation, deviation.

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Authors: Rayenne Djemil

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The mechanism of oxidation reaction of linoleic acid C18: 2 (9 cis12) by singlet oxygen 1O2 were theoretically investigated via using quantum chemical methods. We explored the four reaction pathways at PM3, Hartree-Fock HF and, B3LYP functional associated with the base 6-31G (d) level. The results are in favor of the first and the last reaction ways. The transition states were found by QST3 method. Thus the pathways between the transition state structures and their corresponding minima have been identified by the IRC calculations. The thermodynamic study showed that the four ways of oxidation of linoleic acid are spontaneous, exothermic and, the enthalpy values confirm that conjugate hydroperoxydes are the most favorable products.

Keywords: echanism, quantum mechanics, oxidation, linoleic acid H

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Authors: Dinda N. Lestari

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Sundanese language is one of heritage language in Indonesia that must be maintained especially the formal type of it because teenagers nowadays do not speak Sundanese language formally in their daily lives. To maintain it, Cultural and Education Ministry of Indonesia has input Sundanese language lesson at senior high school in West Java area. The aim of this study was to observe whether the existence of Sundanese language lesson in senior high school in the big town of Karawang, West Java - Indonesia give the contribution to the formal type of Sundanese language maintenance or not. For gathering the data, the researcher interviewed the senior high school students who have learned Sundanese language to observe their acquisition of it. As a result of the interview, the data was presented in qualitative research by using the interviewing method. Then, the finding indicated that the existence of Sundanese language in Senior High School also the educational program which is related to it, for instance, Kemis Nyunda seemed to do not effective enough in maintaining the formal type of Sundanese language. Therefore, West Java government must revise the learning strategy of it, including the role of the Sundanese language teacher.

Keywords: heritage language, language maintenance and shift, senior high school, Sundanese language, Sundanese language lesson

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Authors: Shafiq ur Rehman, Zubair Ahmed Shaikh

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This research provides the comparative study of different mobile payment system and proposes an efficient solution of mobile payment system. The research involves discovering how the mobile payment methods can be used and implemented keeping user and system interaction under consideration. The implementation of Nielsen’s heuristic and universal design principles enhanced the user’s interaction design and made the system more appropriate, understandable and visible to the end user. The design of application is greatly affected by the user driven factors. These factors help in the efficiency of the application usage.

Keywords: mobile payment system, m-commerce, usability, near field communication

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Authors: Wajeeh Daher, Nimer Baya'a

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High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) are suggested today as essential for the cognitive development of students and as preparing them for real life skills. Teachers are encouraged to use HOTS activities in the classroom to help their students develop higher order skills and deep thinking. So it is essential to prepare pre-service teachers to write and use HOTS activities for their students. This paper describes a model for integrating HOTS activities with GeoGebra in pre-service teachers’ preparation. This model describes four aspects of HOTS activities and working with them: Activity components, preparation procedure, strategies and processes used in writing a HOTS activity and types of the HOTS activities. In addition, the paper describes the pre-service teachers' difficulties in preparing and working with HOTS activities, as well as their perceptions regarding the use of these activities and GeoGebra in the mathematics classroom. The paper also describes the contribution of a HOTS activity to pupils' learning of mathematics, where this HOTS activity was prepared and taught by one pre-service teacher.

Keywords: high order thinking skills, HOTS activities, pre-service teachers, professional development

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Authors: Samuel Olajide Babawale, Jonathan Bridge

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Natural Flood Management (NFM) is promoted as part of sustainable flood management (SFM) in response to climate change adaptation. Stakeholder engagement is central to this approach, and current trends are progressively moving towards a collaborative learning approach where stakeholder participation is perceived as one of the indicators of sustainable development. Within this methodology, participation embraces a diversity of knowledge and values underpinned by a philosophy of empowerment, equity, trust, and learning. To identify barriers to NFM uptake, there is a need for a new understanding of how stakeholder participation could be enhanced to benefit individual and community resilience within SFM. This is crucial in light of climate change threats and scientific reliability concerns. In contributing to this new understanding, this research evaluated the proposed interventions on six (6) UK NFM in a catchment known as the Sheffield Lakeland Partnership Area with reference to the Environment Agency Working with Natural Processes (WWNP) Potentials/Opportunities. Three of the opportunities, namely Run-off Attenuation Potential of 1%, Run-off Attenuation Potential of 3.3% and Riparian Woodland Potential, were modeled. In all the models, the interventions, though they have been proposed or already in place, are not in agreement with the data presented by EA WWNP. Findings show some institutional weaknesses, which are seen to inhibit the development of adequate flood management solutions locally with damaging implications for vulnerable communities. The gap in communication from practitioners poses a challenge to the implementation of real flood mitigating measures that align with the lead agency’s nationally accepted measures which are identified as not feasible by the farm management officers within this context. Findings highlight a dominant top-bottom approach to management with very minimal indication of local interactions. Current WWNP opportunities have been termed as not realistic by the people directly involved in the daily management of the farms, with less emphasis on prevention and mitigation. The targeted approach suggested by the EA WWNP is set against adaptive flood management and community development. The study explores dimensions of participation using the self-reliance and self-help approach to develop a methodology that facilitates reflections of currently institutionalized practices and the need to reshape spaces of interactions to enable empowered and meaningful participation. Stakeholder engagement and resilience planning underpin this research. The findings of the study suggest different agencies have different perspectives on “community participation”. It also shows communities in the case study area appear to be least influential, denied a real chance of discussing their situations and influencing the decisions. This is against the background that the communities are in the most productive regions, contributing massively to national food supplies. The results are discussed concerning practical implications for addressing interagency partnerships and conducting grassroots collaborations that empower local communities and seek solutions to sustainable development challenges. This study takes a critical look into the challenges and progress made locally in sustainable flood risk management and adaptation to climate change by the United Kingdom towards achieving the global 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

Keywords: natural flood management, sustainable flood management, sustainable development, working with natural processes, environment agency, run-off attenuation potential, climate change

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Authors: Minghao Liu

Abstract:

This paper uses the theory of communication in the context of mass communication, from the construction of communication symbols, communication flow organization, communication experience perception of the three levels of the old industrial factory landscape transformation research and analysis, summarizes the old industrial factory landscape in the communication process to create strategies and design methods for the old industrial factories carried by the urban culture of how to enter the public's life more widely in the existing environment and be familiar with the significance of the exploration, to provide a new idea for the renewal of the urban stock, and ultimately to achieve the sustainable development of the city.

Keywords: communication, old industrial factor, urban renewal, landscape design

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Authors: Anita Bela, Marta Juhasz

Abstract:

Adapting to the always-changing environment comes with complex determinants. The authors are zooming into one aspect only when the current workforce comes with obstacles by being less keen to stay engaged, even short or mid-term, resulting in additional challenges impacting the business performance. Seeing these occurring in practice made the researchers eager to gain a better understanding of the reasons behind. The paper aims to provide an overview of the theoretical background and research methods planned for the different stages of the research. The theoretical part takes the leadership behaviors under lens while the focus is on finding ways to attract and retain those who prefer working under more flexible employment conditions (e.g. contractor, contingent worker, etc.). These are considered as the organizational values and along with the power of people management are having their engaging relevance. The organizational culture (visible or invisible level) is clearly the mirror of the set of shared values guiding all members of the companies towards acceptable behavior. The applied research method, inductive reasoning was selected since the focus and questions raised in this research are results of specific observations made on the employees (various employment types) and leaders of start-ups and corporates. By comparing the similarities and differences, the researchers are hoping to prove the readiness and agility of the start-up culture for the desired leadership behaviours of the current and future workforce against the corporate culture. While exploring the preferences and engaging factors of the 21st-century workforce the data gathering would happen through website analysis – using ATLAS.ti qualitative software – followed by interview sessions where demographics will be collected and preferred leadership behaviors - using the Critical Incident Technique. Moreover, a short engagement survey will be administered to understand the linkage between the organizational culture type and engagement level. To conclude, after gaining theoretical understanding, we will zoom back to the employees to reveal the behaviors to be followed to achieve engagement in an environment where nothing is stable and where the companies always must keep their agile eyes and reactions vivid.

Keywords: leadership behaviours, organizational culture, qualitative analysis, workforce engagement

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Authors: G. V. Siva Krishna Rao, B. Srinivasa Rao

Abstract:

The main aim of the paper is to implement a technique using distributed generation in distribution systems to reduce the distribution system losses and to improve voltage profiles. The fuzzy logic technique is used to select the proper location of DG and an analytical method is proposed to calculate the size of DG unit at any power factor. The optimal sizes of DG units are compared with optimal sizes obtained using the genetic algorithm. The suggested method is programmed under Matlab software and is tested on IEEE 33 bus system and the results are presented.

Keywords: DG Units, sizing of DG units, analytical methods, optimum size

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Authors: Loyd R. Hook, Maryam Moharek

Abstract:

With the envisioned future growth of low altitude urban aircraft operations for airborne delivery service and advanced air mobility, strategies to coordinate and deconflict aircraft flight paths must be prioritized. Autonomous coordination and planning of flight trajectories is the preferred approach to the future vision in order to increase safety, density, and efficiency over manual methods employed today. Difficulties arise because any conflict resolution must be constrained by all other aircraft, all airspace restrictions, and all ground-based obstacles in the vicinity. These considerations make pair-wise tactical deconfliction difficult at best and unlikely to find a suitable solution for the entire system of vehicles. In addition, more traditional methods which rely on long time scales and large protected zones will artificially limit vehicle density and drastically decrease efficiency. Instead, strategic planning, which is able to respond to highly dynamic conditions and still account for high density operations, will be required to coordinate multiple vehicles in the highly constrained low altitude urban environment. This paper develops and evaluates such a planning algorithm which can be implemented autonomously across multiple aircraft and situations. Data from this evaluation provide promising results with simulations showing up to 10 aircraft deconflicted through a relatively narrow low-altitude urban canyon without any vehicle to vehicle or obstacle conflict. The algorithm achieves this level of coordination beginning with the assumption that each vehicle is controlled to follow an independently constructed flight path, which is itself free of obstacle conflict and restricted airspace. Then, by preferencing speed change deconfliction maneuvers constrained by the vehicles flight envelope, vehicles can remain as close to the original planned path and prevent cascading vehicle to vehicle conflicts. Performing the search for a set of commands which can simultaneously ensure separation for each pair-wise aircraft interaction and optimize the total velocities of all the aircraft is further complicated by the fact that each aircraft's flight plan could contain multiple segments. This means that relative velocities will change when any aircraft achieves a waypoint and changes course. Additionally, the timing of when that aircraft will achieve a waypoint (or, more directly, the order upon which all of the aircraft will achieve their respective waypoints) will change with the commanded speed. Put all together, the continuous relative velocity of each vehicle pair and the discretized change in relative velocity at waypoints resembles a hybrid reachability problem - a form of control reachability. This paper proposes two methods for finding solutions to these multi-body problems. First, an analytical formulation of the continuous problem is developed with an exhaustive search of the combined state space. However, because of computational complexity, this technique is only computable for pairwise interactions. For more complicated scenarios, including the proposed 10 vehicle example, a discretized search space is used, and a depth-first search with early stopping is employed to find the first solution that solves the constraints.

Keywords: strategic planning, autonomous, aircraft, deconfliction

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Authors: N. Cihan KayaçEtin, Stijn Verdoodt, Alexis Versele

Abstract:

The construction industry is accounted for one-third of all waste generated in the European Union (EU) countries. The Circular Economy Action Plan of the EU aims to tackle this issue and aspires to enhance the sustainability of the construction industry by adopting more circular principles and bio-based material use. The Interreg Circular Bio-Based Construction Industry (CBCI) project was conceived to research how this adoption can be facilitated. For this purpose, an approach is developed that integrates technical, legal and social aspects and provides business models for circular designing and building with bio-based materials. In the scope of the project, the research outputs are to be displayed in a real-life setting by constructing a demo terraced single-family house, the living lab (LL) located in Ghent (Belgium). The realization of the LL is conducted in a step-wise approach that includes iterative processes for design, description, criteria definition and multi-criteria assessment of building components. The essence of the research lies within the exploratory approach to the state-of-art building envelope and technical systems options for achieving an optimum combination for a circular and bio-based construction. For this purpose, nine preliminary designs (PD) for building envelope are generated, which consist of three basic construction methods: masonry, lightweight steel construction and wood framing construction supplemented with bio-based construction methods like cross-laminated timber (CLT) and massive wood framing. A comparative analysis on the PDs was conducted by utilizing several complementary tools to assess the circularity. This paper focuses on the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach for evaluating the environmental impact of the LL Ghent. The adoption of an LCA methodology was considered critical for providing a comprehensive set of environmental indicators. The PDs were developed at the component level, in particular for the (i) inclined roof, (ii-iii) front and side façade, (iv) internal walls and (v-vi) floors. The assessment was conducted on two levels; component and building level. The options for each component were compared at the first iteration and then, the PDs as an assembly of components were further analyzed. The LCA was based on a functional unit of one square meter of each component and CEN indicators were utilized for impact assessment for a reference study period of 60 years. A total of 54 building components that are composed of 31 distinct materials were evaluated in the study. The results indicate that wood framing construction supplemented with bio-based construction methods performs environmentally better than the masonry or steel-construction options. An analysis on the correlation between the total weight of components and environmental impact was also conducted. It was seen that masonry structures display a high environmental impact and weight, steel structures display low weight but relatively high environmental impact and wooden framing construction display low weight and environmental impact. The study provided valuable outputs in two levels: (i) several improvement options at component level with substitution of materials with critical weight and/or impact per unit, (ii) feedback on environmental performance for the decision-making process during the design phase of a circular single family house.

Keywords: circular and bio-based materials, comparative analysis, life cycle assessment (LCA), living lab

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Authors: Zuzana Crhová, Karel Kolman, Drahomíra Pavelková

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Knowledge is considered as an important asset which can help organizations to create competitive advantage. The necessity of taking care of these assets is more important in these days – in days of turbulent changes in business environment. Knowledge could facilitate adaption to constant changes. The aim of this paper is to describe how the knowledge sharing can be supported in the manufacturing companies. The methods of case studies and grounded theory were used to present information gained by carrying out semi-structured interviews. Results show that knowledge sharing is supported in very similar ways in respondent companies.

Keywords: case study, human resource management, knowledge, knowledge sharing

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Authors: Marina Petrova

Abstract:

Language policy issues related to the preservation and development of the native languages of the Russian peoples and the state languages of the national republics are increasingly becoming the focus of recent attention of educators and parents, public and national figures. Is it legal to teach the national language or the mother tongue as the state language? Due to that dispute language phobia moods easily evolve into xenophobia among the population. However, a civilized, intelligent multicultural personality can only be formed if the country develops bilingualism and multilingualism, and languages as a political tool help to find ‘keys’ to sufficiently closed national communities both within a poly-ethnic state and in internal relations of multilingual countries. The purpose of this study is to design and theoretically substantiate an efficient model of language education in the innovatively developing Republic of Sakha. 800 participants from different educational institutions of Yakutia worked at developing a multilingual model of education. This investigation is of considerable practical importance because researchers could build a methodical system designed to create conditions for the formation of a cultural language personality and the development of the multilingual communicative competence of Yakut youth, necessary for communication in native, Russian and foreign languages. The selected methodology of humane-personal and competence approaches is reliable and valid. Researchers used a variety of sources of information, including access to related scientific fields (philosophy of education, sociology, humane and social pedagogy, psychology, effective psychotherapy, methods of teaching Russian, psycholinguistics, socio-cultural education, ethnoculturology, ethnopsychology). Of special note is the application of theoretical and empirical research methods, a combination of academic analysis of the problem and experienced training, positive results of experimental work, representative series, correct processing and statistical reliability of the obtained data. It ensures the validity of the investigation’s findings as well as their broad introduction into practice of life-long language education.

Keywords: intercultural communication, language policy, multilingual and multicultural education, the Sakha Republic of Yakutia

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