Search results for: depth-wise separable convolutional neural network for light-weight GAN architecture for EDGE devices

Authors: Huang Wei-Yi

Abstract:

Objective: This article explores the intensive care nursing experience of a lung cancer patient with pulmonary embolism who was placed on ECMO. Following a sudden change in the patient’s condition and a consensus reached during a family meeting, the decision was made to withdraw life-sustaining equipment and collaborate with the palliative care team. Methods: The nursing period was from October 20 to October 27, 2023. The author monitored physiological data, observed, provided direct care, conducted interviews, performed physical assessments, and reviewed medical records. Together with the critical care team and bypass personnel, a comprehensive assessment was conducted using Gordon's Eleven Functional Health Patterns to identify the patient’s health issues, which included pain related to lung cancer and invasive devices, fear of death due to sudden deterioration, and altered tissue perfusion related to hemodynamic instability. Results: The patient was admitted with fever, back pain, and painful urination. During hospitalization, the patient experienced sudden discomfort followed by cardiac arrest, requiring multiple CPR attempts and ECMO placement. A subsequent CT angiogram revealed a pulmonary embolism. The patient's condition was further complicated by severe pain due to compression fractures, and a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer was unexpectedly confirmed, leading to emotional distress and uncertainty about future treatment. Throughout the critical care process, ECMO was removed on October 24, stabilizing the patient’s body temperature between 36.5-37°C and maintaining a mean arterial pressure of 60-80 mmHg. Pain management, including Morphine 8mg in 0.9% N/S 100ml IV drip q6h PRN and Ultracet 37.5 mg/325 mg 1# PO q6h, kept the pain level below 3. The patient was transferred to the ward on October 27 and discharged home on October 30. Conclusion: During the care period, collaboration with the medical team and palliative care professionals was crucial. Adjustments to pain medication, symptom management, and lung cancer-targeted therapy improved the patient’s physical discomfort and pain levels. By applying the unique functions of nursing and the four principles of palliative care, positive encouragement was provided. Family members, along with social workers, clergy, psychologists, and nutritionists, participated in cross-disciplinary care, alleviating anxiety and fear. The consensus to withdraw ECMO and life-sustaining equipment enabled the patient and family to receive high-quality care and maintain autonomy in decision-making. A follow-up call on November 1 confirmed that the patient was emotionally stable, pain-free, and continuing with targeted lung cancer therapy.

Keywords: intensive care, lung cancer, pulmonary embolism, ECMO

Procedia PDF Downloads 19

Authors: Yuki Hara

Abstract:

Healthy assets are recognized as important for all people in the world through experiencing COVID-19. Each part of life and work is important to be changed against the preceding wide-spreading of COVID-19. Furthermore, it is necessary to innovate the whole structure of a city upon the sum of the parts. This study aims at creating a comprehensive strategy from a small practice of making healthier lives with collaborating local actors for a city. This paper employs action research as the research framework. The core practice is the 'Ken’iku Festival' at Ken’iku Festival Committee. The field locates the urban-rural fringe in the northwest part of Fujisawa city, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. The data is collected through the author's practices for three years from the observations and interviews at meetings and discussions among stakeholders, texts in municipal reports, books, and movies, 3 questionnaires for customers and stakeholders at the Ken’iku Festival. These data are analysed by qualitative methods. The results show that couples in their 40s with children and couples or friends over the 70s are at the heart of promoting healthy lifestyles. In contrast, 40% of the visitors at the festival are the people who have no idea or no interest in healthier actions, which the committee has to suggest healthy activities through more pleasing services. The committee could organize staff and local actors as the core parties involved through gradually expanding its tasks relating to the local practices. This private sectoral activity from health promotion is covering a part of the whole-city planning of Fujisawa municipality by including many people over organisations into one community. This paper concludes from local practice networking through the festival that a comprehensive strategy for a healthy city is both a practical approach easily applied to each partner and one of the holistic services.

Keywords: communal practice network, healthy cities, health & development, health promotion, with and after COVID-19

Procedia PDF Downloads 126

Authors: Yasaman Samie

Abstract:

The ever-increasing rate of textile and clothing (T&C) waste generation and the common ineffective waste management practices have been for long a challenge for civic waste management. This challenge stems from not only the complexity in the T&C material components but also the heterogeneous nature of the T&C waste management sector and the disconnection between the stakeholders. To date, there is little research that investigates the importance of a governmental structure and its role in T&C waste managerial practices and decision makings. This paper reflects on the impacts and involvement of governments, the Acts, and legislation on the effectiveness of T&C waste management practices, which are carried out by multiple players in a city context. In doing so, this study first develops a methodical framework for holistically analyzing a city’s T&C waste ecosystem. Central to this framework are six dimensions: social, environmental, economic, political, cultural, and educational, as well as the connection between these dimensions such as Socio-Political and Cultural-Political. Second, it delves into the political dimension and its interconnections with varying aspects of T&C waste. In this manner, this case-study takes metropolitan Melbourne as a case and draws on social theories of Actor-Network Theory and the principals of supply chain design and planning. Data collection was through two rounds of semi-structured interviews with 18 key players of T&C waste ecosystem (including charities, city councils, private sector providers and producers) mainly within metropolitan Melbourne and also other Australian and European cities. Research findings expand on the role of the politics of waste in facilitating a proactive approach to T&C waste management in the cities. That is achieved through a revised definition for T&C waste and its characteristics, discussing the varying perceptions of value in waste, prioritizing waste types in civic waste management practices and how all these aspects shall be reflected in the in-placed acts and legislations.

Keywords: civic waste management, multi-stakeholder ecosystem, textile and clothing waste, waste and governments

Procedia PDF Downloads 111

Authors: Lucia Billeci, Gennaro Tartarisco, Maurizio Varanini

Abstract:

Fetal cardiac monitoring by fetal electrocardiogram (fECG) can provide significant clinical information about the healthy condition of the fetus. Despite this potentiality till now the use of fECG in clinical practice has been quite limited due to the difficulties in its measuring. The recovery of fECG from the signals acquired non-invasively by using electrodes placed on the maternal abdomen is a challenging task because abdominal signals are a mixture of several components and the fetal one is very weak. This paper presents an approach for fECG extraction from abdominal maternal recordings, which exploits the characteristics of pseudo-periodicity of fetal ECG. It consists of devising a quality index (fQI) for fECG and of finding the linear combinations of preprocessed abdominal signals, which maximize these fQI (quality index optimization - QIO). It aims at improving the performances of the most commonly adopted methods for fECG extraction, usually based on maternal ECG (mECG) estimating and canceling. The procedure for the fECG extraction and fetal QRS (fQRS) detection is completely unsupervised and based on the following steps: signal pre-processing; maternal ECG (mECG) extraction and maternal QRS detection; mECG component approximation and canceling by weighted principal component analysis; fECG extraction by fQI maximization and fetal QRS detection. The proposed method was compared with our previously developed procedure, which obtained the highest at the Physionet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013. That procedure was based on removing the mECG from abdominal signals estimated by a principal component analysis (PCA) and applying the Independent component Analysis (ICA) on the residual signals. Both methods were developed and tuned using 69, 1 min long, abdominal measurements with fetal QRS annotation of the dataset A provided by PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2013. The QIO-based and the ICA-based methods were compared in analyzing two databases of abdominal maternal ECG available on the Physionet site. The first is the Abdominal and Direct Fetal Electrocardiogram Database (ADdb) which contains the fetal QRS annotations thus allowing a quantitative performance comparison, the second is the Non-Invasive Fetal Electrocardiogram Database (NIdb), which does not contain the fetal QRS annotations so that the comparison between the two methods can be only qualitative. In particular, the comparison on NIdb was performed defining an index of quality for the fetal RR series. On the annotated database ADdb the QIO method, provided the performance indexes Sens=0.9988, PPA=0.9991, F1=0.9989 overcoming the ICA-based one, which provided Sens=0.9966, PPA=0.9972, F1=0.9969. The comparison on NIdb was performed defining an index of quality for the fetal RR series. The index of quality resulted higher for the QIO-based method compared to the ICA-based one in 35 records out 55 cases of the NIdb. The QIO-based method gave very high performances with both the databases. The results of this study foresees the application of the algorithm in a fully unsupervised way for the implementation in wearable devices for self-monitoring of fetal health.

Keywords: fetal electrocardiography, fetal QRS detection, independent component analysis (ICA), optimization, wearable

Procedia PDF Downloads 275

Authors: C. Amer, M. Sahin

Abstract:

The design of an optimised horizontal axis 5-meter-long wind turbine rotor blade in according with IEC 61400-2 standard is a research and development project in order to fulfil the requirements of high efficiency of torque from wind production and to optimise the structural components to the lightest and strongest way possible. For this purpose, a research study is presented here by focusing on the structural characteristics of a composite wind turbine blade via finite element modelling and analysis tools. In this work, first, the required data regarding the general geometrical parts are gathered. Then, the airfoil geometries are created at various sections along the span of the blade by using CATIA software to obtain the two surfaces, namely; the suction and the pressure side of the blade in which there is a hat shaped fibre reinforced plastic spar beam, so-called chassis starting at 0.5m from the root of the blade and extends up to 4 m and filled with a foam core. The root part connecting the blade to the main rotor differential metallic hub having twelve hollow threaded studs is then modelled. The materials are assigned as two different types of glass fabrics, polymeric foam core material and the steel-balsa wood combination for the root connection parts. The glass fabrics are applied using hand wet lay-up lamination with epoxy resin as METYX L600E10C-0, is the unidirectional continuous fibres and METYX XL800E10F having a tri-axial architecture with fibres in the 0,+45,-45 degree orientations in a ratio of 2:1:1. Divinycell H45 is used as the polymeric foam. The finite element modelling of the blade is performed via MSC PATRAN software with various meshes created on each structural part considering shell type for all surface geometries, and lumped mass were added to simulate extra adhesive locations. For the static analysis, the boundary conditions are assigned as fixed at the root through aforementioned bolts, where for dynamic analysis both fixed-free and free-free boundary conditions are made. By also taking the mesh independency into account, MSC NASTRAN is used as a solver for both analyses. The static analysis aims the tip deflection of the blade under its own weight and the dynamic analysis comprises normal mode dynamic analysis performed in order to obtain the natural frequencies and corresponding mode shapes focusing the first five in and out-of-plane bending and the torsional modes of the blade. The analyses results of this study are then used as a benchmark prior to modal testing, where the experiments over the produced wind turbine rotor blade has approved the analytical calculations.

Keywords: dynamic analysis, fiber reinforced composites, horizontal axis wind turbine blade, hand-wet layup, modal testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 420

Authors: Yiorgos Hadjichristou

Abstract:

The paper will focus on the hybrid living typologies which are brought about due to the Global Crisis. Mixing of the generations and the groups of people, mingling the functions of living with working and socializing, merging the act of living in synergy with the urban realm and its constituent elements will be the springboard of proposing an essential sustainable housing approach and the respective urban development. The thematic will be based on methodologies developed both on the academic, educational environment including participation of students’ research and on the practical aspect of architecture including case studies executed by the author in the island of Cyprus. Both paths of the research will deal with the explorative understanding of the hybrid ways of living, testing the limits of its autonomy. The evolution of the living typologies into substantial hybrid entities, will deal with the understanding of new ways of living which include among others: re-introduction of natural phenomena, accommodation of the activity of work and services in the living realm, interchange of public and private, injections of communal events into the individual living territories. The issues and the binary questions raised by what is natural and artificial, what is private and what public, what is ephemeral and what permanent and all the in-between conditions are eloquently traced in the everyday life in the island. Additionally, given the situation of Cyprus with the eminent scar of the dividing ‘Green line’ and the waiting of the ‘ghost city’ of Famagusta to be resurrected, the conventional way of understanding the limits and the definitions of the properties is irreversibly shaken. The situation is further aggravated by the unprecedented phenomenon of the crisis on the island. All these observations set the premises of reexamining the urban development and the respective sustainable housing in a synergy where their characteristics start exchanging positions, merge into each other, contemporarily emerge and vanish, changing from permanent to ephemeral. This fluidity of conditions will attempt to render a future of the built- and unbuilt realm where the main focusing point will be redirected to the human and the social. Weather and social ritual scenographies together with ‘spontaneous urban landscapes’ of ‘momentary relationships’ will suggest a recipe for emerging urban environments and sustainable living. Thus, the paper will aim at opening a discourse on the future of the sustainable living merged in a sustainable urban development in relation to the imminent solution of the division of island, where the issue of property became the main obstacle to be overcome. At the same time, it will attempt to link this approach to the global need for a sustainable evolution of the urban and living realms.

Keywords: social ritual scenographies, spontaneous urban landscapes, substantial hybrid entities, re-introduction of natural phenomena

Procedia PDF Downloads 261

Authors: M. Lu

Abstract:

The paper presents part of the results of EU-funded projects: SoCool@EU (Sustainable Organisation between Clusters Of Optimized Logistics @ Europe), DG-RTD (Research and Innovation), Regions of Knowledge Programme (FP7-REGIONS-2011-1). It will provide an in-depth review of emerging technologies for further improving urban mobility and freight transport systems, such as (information and physical) infrastructure, ICT-based Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), vehicles, advanced logistics, and services. Furthermore, the paper will provide an analysis of the barriers and will review business models for the market uptake of innovations. From a perspective of science and technology, the challenges of urbanization could be mainly handled through adequate (human-oriented) solutions for urban planning, sustainable energy, the water system, building design and construction, the urban transport system (both physical and information aspects), and advanced logistics and services. Implementation of solutions for these domains should be follow a highly integrated and balanced approach, a silo approach should be avoided. To develop a sustainable urban transport system (for people and goods), including inter-hubs and intra-hubs, a holistic view is needed. To achieve a sustainable transport system for people and goods (in terms of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, environment-friendliness and fulfillment of the mobility, transport and logistics needs of the society), a proper network and information infrastructure, advanced transport systems and operations, as well as ad hoc and seamless services are required. In addition, a road map for an enhanced urban transport system until 2050 will be presented. This road map aims to address the challenges of urban transport, and to provide best practices in inter-city and intra-city environments from various perspectives, including policy, traveler behaviour, economy, liability, business models, and technology.

Keywords: synchromodality, multimodal transport, logistics, Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)

Procedia PDF Downloads 315

Authors: Daniela Ailincai, Bogdan C. Simionescu, Luminita Marin

Abstract:

Polymer dispersed liquid crystals (PDLC) represent an interesting class of materials which combine the ability of polymers to form films and their mechanical strength with the opto-electronic properties of liquid crystals. The proper choice of the two components - the liquid crystal and the polymeric matrix - leads to materials suitable for a large area of applications, from electronics to biomedical devices. The objective of our work was to obtain PDLC films with potential applications in the biomedical field, using poly vinyl alcohol boric acid (PVAB) as a polymeric matrix for the first time. Presenting all the tremendous properties of poly vinyl alcohol (such as: biocompatibility, biodegradability, water solubility, good chemical stability and film forming ability), PVAB brings the advantage of containing the electron deficient boron atom, and due to this, it should promote the liquid crystal anchoring and a narrow liquid crystal droplets polydispersity. Two different PDLC systems have been obtained, by the use of two liquid crystals, a nematic commercial one: 4-cyano-4’-penthylbiphenyl (5CB) and a new smectic liquid crystal, synthesized by us: buthyl-p-[p’-n-octyloxy benzoyloxy] benzoate (BBO). The PDLC composites have been obtained by the encapsulation method, working with four different ratios between the polymeric matrix and the liquid crystal, from 60:40 to 90:10. In all cases, the composites were able to form free standing, flexible films. Polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, RAMAN- spectroscopy and the contact angle measurements have been performed, in order to characterize the new composites. The new smectic liquid crystal has been characterized using 1H-NMR and single crystal X-ray diffraction and its thermotropic behavior has been established using differential scanning calorimetry and polarized light microscopy. The polarized light microscopy evidenced the formation of round birefringent droplets, anchored homeotropic in the first case and planar in the second, with a narrow dimensional polydispersity, especially for the PDLC containing the largest amount of liquid crystal, fact evidenced by SEM, also. The obtained values for the water to air contact angle showed that the composites have a proper hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance, making them potential candidates for bioapplications. More than this, our studies demonstrated that the water to air contact angle varies as a function of PVAB matrix crystalinity degree, which can be controled as a function of time. This fact allowed us to conclude that the use of PVAB as matrix for PDLCs obtaining offers the possibility to modulate their properties for specific applications.

Keywords: 4-cyano-4’-penthylbiphenyl, buthyl-p-[p’-n-octyloxy benzoyloxy] benzoate, contact angle, polymer dispersed liquid crystals, poly vinyl alcohol boric acid

Procedia PDF Downloads 447

Authors: Liliane Samara Ferreira Leite, Francys Kley Vieira Moreira, Luiz Henrique Capparelli Mattoso

Abstract:

The increasing environmental concern regarding the plastic pollution worldwide has stimulated the development of low-cost biodegradable materials. Proteins are renewable feedstocks that could be used to produce biodegradable plastics. Gelatin, for example, is a cheap film-forming protein extracted from animal skin and connective tissues of Brazilian Livestock residues; thus it has a good potential in low-cost biodegradable plastic production. However, gelatin plastics are limited in terms of mechanical and barrier properties. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) are efficient nanofillers that have been used to extend physical properties of polymers. This work was aimed at evaluating the reinforcing efficiency of CNC on gelatin films. Specifically, we have employed the continuous casting as the processing method for obtaining the gelatin/CNC bionanocomposites. This required a first rheological study for assessing the effect of gelatin-CNC and CNC-CNC interactions on the colloidal state of the aqueous bionanocomposite formulations. CNC were isolated from eucalyptus pulp by sulfuric acid hydrolysis (65 wt%) at 55 °C for 30 min. Gelatin was solubilized in ultra-pure water at 85°C for 20 min and then mixed with glycerol at 20 wt.% and CNC at 0.5 wt%, 1.0 wt% and 2.5 wt%. Rotational measurements were performed to determine linear viscosity (η) of bionanocomposite solutions, which increased with increasing CNC content. At 2.5 wt% CNC, η increased by 118% regarding the neat gelatin solution, which was ascribed to percolation CNC network formation. Storage modulus (G’) and loss modulus (G″) further determined by oscillatory tests revealed that a gel-like behavior was dominant in the bionanocomposite solutions (G’ > G’’) over a broad range of temperature (20 – 85 °C), particularly at 2.5 wt% CNC. These results confirm effective interactions in the aqueous gelatin-CNC bionanocomposites that could substantially increase the physical properties of the gelatin plastics. Tensile tests are underway to confirm this hypothesis. The authors would like to thank the Fapesp (process n 2016/03080-3) for support.

Keywords: bionanocomposites, cellulose nanocrystals, gelatin, viscoelastic characterization

Procedia PDF Downloads 148

Authors: Amber Zahid, Fatima Naseer, Maham Atta, Fareeha Zafar

Abstract:

Corporate social authority (CSR) talk, scholarly scrutinize, open arrangement and media editorials, which have thrived in the previous not many decades according to the craving to characterize the nexus between business and social order had a tendency to center primarily on expansive corporate associations which are required to act mindfully. The enormous organizations have for a long time pulled in huge volume of expositive expression on CSR. Almost no expositive expression is presently accessible to upgrade our comprehension about the engagement of little and medium-measured endeavors (SMEs) in CSR. The SMEs, regularly characterized differently regarding turnover terrible stake quality, proprietorship structure and the amount of workers, is a noteworthy part worldwide as far as monetary ecological and the social effect they make. This paper endeavoured to extend this obvious research bay, characterized the way of SMEs the total commitments of the area to economies of both advanced and advancing countries and their part engagement in CSR. The study embraced qualitative literary works review strategy. An audit of the negligible expositive expression furnished knowledge and characterized the course of examination in this significant and underexplored region of study. SMEs were discovered to perform parts connected with group improvement, representative activities, consumerism, natural movements, and production network necessities. To defeat the imperatives going up against SMEs engagement in CSR activities the paper prescribed expanded assets, preparing programs advancement of SMEs arranged instruments and guidelines to guide appropriation and execution and government mediation systems to make the fundamental motivating forces and underpin administrations for adequate engagement.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, small and medium-sized enterprises, responsible practices, corporate citizenship

Procedia PDF Downloads 428

Authors: Armando Cartenì, Ilaria Henke

Abstract:

The perceived public transport quality is an important driver that influences both customer satisfaction and mobility choices. The competition among transport operators needs to improve the quality of the services and identify which attributes are perceived as relevant by passengers. Among the “traditional” public transport quality attributes there are, for example: travel and waiting time, regularity of the services, and ticket price. By contrast, there are some “non-conventional” attributes that could significantly influence customer satisfaction jointly with the “traditional” ones. Among these, the beauty/aesthetics of the transport terminals (e.g. rail station and bus terminal) is probably one of the most impacting on user perception. Starting from these considerations, the point stressed in this paper was if (and how munch) the travel experience of the overall travel (e.g. how long is the travel, how many transport modes must be used) influences the perception of the public transport quality. The aim of this paper was to investigate the weight of the terminal quality (e.g. aesthetic, comfort and service offered) within the overall travel experience. The case study was the extra-urban Italian bus network. The passengers of the major Italian terminal bus were interviewed and the analysis of the results shows that about the 75% of the travelers, are available to pay up to 30% more for the ticket price for having a high quality terminal. A travel experience effect was observed: the average perceived transport quality varies with the characteristic of the overall trip. The passengers that have a “long trip” (travel time greater than 2 hours) perceived as “low” the overall quality of the trip even if they pass through a high quality terminal. The opposite occurs for the “short trip” passengers. This means that if a traveler passes through a high quality station, the overall perception of that terminal could be significantly reduced if he is tired from a long trip. This result is important and if confirmed through other case studies, will allow to conclude that the “travel experience impact" must be considered as an explicit design variable for public transport services and planning.

Keywords: transportation planning, sustainable mobility, decision support system, discrete choice model, design problem

Procedia PDF Downloads 295

Authors: Demet Ozgur-Unluakin, Busenur Turkali, S. Caglar Aksezer

Abstract:

Since the age of industrialization, maintenance has always been a very crucial element for all kinds of factories and plants. With today’s increasingly developing technology, the system structure of such facilities has become more complicated, and even a small operational disruption may return huge losses in profits for the companies. In order to reduce these costs, effective maintenance planning is crucial, but at the same time, it is a difficult task because of the complexity of systems. The most important aspect of correct maintenance planning is to understand the structure of the system, not to ignore the dependencies among the components and as a result, to model the system correctly. In this way, it will be better to understand which component improves the system more when it is maintained. Undoubtedly, proactive maintenance at a scheduled time reduces costs because the scheduled maintenance prohibits high losses in profits. But the necessity of corrective maintenance, which directly affects the situation of the system and provides direct intervention when the system fails, should not be ignored. When a fault occurs in the system, if the problem is not solved immediately and proactive maintenance time is awaited, this may result in increased costs. This study proposes various maintenance methods with different efficiency measures under corrective maintenance strategy on a subsystem of a thermal power plant. To model the dependencies between the components, dynamic Bayesian Network approach is employed. The proposed maintenance methods aim to minimize the total maintenance cost in a planning horizon, as well as to find the most appropriate component to be attacked on, which improves the system reliability utmost. Performances of the methods are compared under corrective maintenance strategy. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis is also applied under different cost values. Results show that all fault effect methods perform better than the replacement effect methods and this conclusion is also valid under different downtime cost values.

Keywords: dynamic Bayesian networks, maintenance, multi-component systems, reliability

Procedia PDF Downloads 125

Authors: Hsin Hua He

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to strengthen the social cohesion of the local community by injecting the cultural and creative concept into the industrial heritage transformation. The paradigms of industrial heritage research tend to explore from the perspective of space analysis, which concerned less about the cultural regeneration and the development of local culture. The paradigms of cultural quarter research use to from the perspective of creative economy and urban planning, concerned less about the social impacts and the interaction between residents and industrial sites. This research combines these two research areas of industrial heritage and cultural quarter, and focus on the social and cultural aspects. The transformation from the industrial heritage into a cultural park not only enhances the cultural capital and the quality of residents’ lives, but also preserves the unique local values. Internally it shapes the local identity, while externally establishes the image of the city. This paper uses Westergasfabriek Cultural Park in Amsterdam as the case study, through literature analysis, field work, and depth interview to explore how the cultural regeneration transforms industrial heritage. In terms of the planners’ and residents’ point of view adopt the theory of community participation, social capital, and sense of place to analyze the social impact of the industrial heritage transformation. The research finding is through cultural regeneration policies like holding cultural activities, building up public space, social network and public-private partnership, and adopting adaptive reuse to fulfil the people’s need and desire and reach the social cohesion. Finally, the study will examine the transformation of Taiwan's industrial heritage into cultural and creative quarters. The results are expected to use the operating experience of the Amsterdam cases and provide directions for Taiwan’s industrial heritage management to meet the cultural, social, economic symbiosis.

Keywords: cultural regeneration, community participation, social capital, sense of place, industrial heritage transformation

Procedia PDF Downloads 501

Authors: Torsten Hermanns, You Wang, Stefan Janssen, Markus Niessen, Christoph Schoeler, Ulrich Thombansen, Wolfgang Schulz

Abstract:

In long pulse laser drilling of metals, it can be demonstrated that the ablation shape approaches a so-called asymptotic shape such that it changes only slightly or not at all with further irradiation. These findings are already known from ultra short pulse (USP) ablation of dielectric and semiconducting materials. The explanation for the occurrence of an asymptotic shape in long pulse drilling of metals is identified, a model for the description of the asymptotic hole shape numerically implemented, tested and clearly confirmed by comparison with experimental data. The model assumes a robust process in that way that the characteristics of the melt flow inside the arising melt film does not change qualitatively by changing the laser or processing parameters. Only robust processes are technically controllable and thus of industrial interest. The condition for a robust process is identified by a threshold for the mass flow density of the assist gas at the hole entrance which has to be exceeded. Within a robust process regime the melt flow characteristics can be captured by only one model parameter, namely the intensity threshold. In analogy to USP ablation (where it is already known for a long time that the resulting hole shape results from a threshold for the absorbed laser fluency) it is demonstrated that in the case of robust long pulse ablation the asymptotic shape forms in that way that along the whole contour the absorbed heat flux density is equal to the intensity threshold. The intensity threshold depends on the special material and radiation properties and has to be calibrated be one reference experiment. The model is implemented in a numerical simulation which is called AsymptoticDrill and requires such a few amount of resources that it can run on common desktop PCs, laptops or even smart devices. Resulting hole shapes can be calculated within seconds what depicts a clear advantage over other simulations presented in literature in the context of industrial every day usage. Against this background the software additionally is equipped with a user-friendly GUI which allows an intuitive usage. Individual parameters can be adjusted using sliders while the simulation result appears immediately in an adjacent window. A platform independent development allow a flexible usage: the operator can use the tool to adjust the process in a very convenient manner on a tablet during the developer can execute the tool in his office in order to design new processes. Furthermore, at the best knowledge of the authors AsymptoticDrill is the first simulation which allows the import of measured real beam distributions and thus calculates the asymptotic hole shape on the basis of the real state of the specific manufacturing system. In this paper the emphasis is placed on the investigation of the effect of multiple reflections on the asymptotic hole shape which gain in importance when drilling holes with large aspect ratios.

Keywords: asymptotic hole shape, intensity threshold, long pulse laser drilling, robust process

Procedia PDF Downloads 208

Authors: Cemil Atakara, Hüseyin Eryaman

Abstract:

The use of glass as an envelope of a building has been increasing in the twentieth century. For more transparency and dematerialization new glass facade types have emerged in the past two decades which depends on point fixed glazing system (PFGS). The aim of this study is to analyze of the PFGS systems which are used on the glass curtain wall according to their types, degree, architectural and structural effects. This new system is desired because it enhances the transparency of the façade and it minimizes the component of the frames or of the profiles. This PFGS led to new structural elements which use cables, rods, trusses when designing a glass building facades, this structural element called the suspended glass system with pre-stressed cable truss (SGSPCT) which has been used for the first time in 1980 in Serres building. The twenty glass buildings which are designed in different systems have been analyzed during this study. After these analyses five selected SGSPCT building analyzed deeply and one skeletal frame building selected from Lefkosa redesigned according to the analysis results. These selected buildings have been included of various cable-truss system typologies and degree. The methodology of this study is building analysis method and literature survey with the help of books, articles, magazines, drawings, internet sources and applied connection details of the glass buildings. The selected five glass buildings and case building have been detailed analyzed with their architectural drawings, photographs and details. A gridshell structure can be compared with a shell structure; it consists of discrete members connecting nodal points. As these nodal points lie on the surface of an imaginary shell, their shapes function almost identically. Difference between shell and gridshell structures can be found in the fact that, due to their free-form and thus, due to the presence of bending forces, gridshells are required to resist loading through their cross-section. This research is divided into parts. A general study about the glass building and cable-glass and grid shell system will be done in the first chapters. Structural analyses and detailed analyses with schematic drawings with the plans, sections of the selected buildings will be explained in the second part. The third part it consists of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of the SGSPCT and Grid Shell in architecture. The study consists of four chapters including the introduction chapter. The general information of the SGSPCT and glazing system has been mentioned in the first chapter. Structural features, typologies, transparency principle and analytical information on systems have been explained of the selected buildings in the second chapter. The detailed analyses of case building have been done according to their schematic drawings with the plans, sections in the third chapter. After third chapter SGSPCT discussed on to the case building and selected buildings. SGSPCT systems have been compared with their advantages and disadvantages to the other systems. Advantages of cable-truss systems and SGSPCT have been concluded that the use of glass substrates in the last chapter.

Keywords: cable truss, glass, grid shell, transparency

Procedia PDF Downloads 409

Authors: Takahiro Nishimura, Kouki Doi, Hiroshi Fujimoto

Abstract:

Touch-sensitive screens that serve as displays and input devices have been adopted in many portable terminals such as smartphones and personal media players, and the market of touch-sensitive screens has expanded greatly. One of the advantages of touch-sensitive screen is the flexibility in the graphical user interface (GUI) design, and it is imperative to design an appropriate GUI to realize an easy-to-use interface. Moreover, it is important to evaluate the relationship between pointing performance and GUI design. There is much knowledge regarding easy-to-use GUI designs for portable terminals with touch-sensitive screens, and most have focused on GUI design approaches for women or children with small hands. In contrast, GUI design approaches for users with large hands have not received sufficient attention. In this study, to obtain knowledge that contributes to the establishment of individualized easy-to-use GUI design guidelines, we conducted experiments to investigate the relationship between thumb length and pointing performance on portable terminals with touch-sensitive screens. In this study, fourteen college students who participated in the experiment were divided into two groups based on the length of their thumbs. Specifically, we categorized the participants into two groups, thumbs longer than 64.2 mm into L (Long) group, and thumbs longer than 57.4 mm but shorter than 64.2 mm into A (Average) group, based on Japanese anthropometric database. They took part in this study under the authorization of Waseda University’s ‘Ethics Review Committee on Research with Human Subjects’. We created an application for the experimental task and implemented it on the projected capacitive touch-sensitive screen portable terminal (iPod touch (4th generation)). The display size was 3.5 inch and 960 × 640 - pixel resolution at 326 ppi (pixels per inch). This terminal was selected as the experimental device, because of its wide use and market share. The operational procedure of the application is as follows. First, the participants placed their thumb on the start position. Then, one cross-shaped target in a 10 × 7 array of 70 positions appeared at random. The participants pointed the target with their thumb as accurately and as fast as possible. Then, they returned their thumb to the start position and waited. The operation ended when this procedure had been repeated until all 70 targets had each been pointed at once by the participants. We adopted the evaluation indices for absolute error, variable error, and pointing time to investigate pointing performance when using the portable terminal. The results showed that pointing performance varied with thumb length. In particular, on the lower right side of the screen, the performance of L group with long thumb was low. Further, we presented an approach for designing easy-to- use button GUI for users with long thumbs. The contributions of this study include revelation of the relationship between pointing performance and user’s thumb length when using a portable terminal in terms of accuracy, precision, and speed of pointing. We hope that these findings contribute to an easy-to-use GUI design for users with large hands.

Keywords: pointing performance, portable terminal, thumb length, touch-sensitive screen

Procedia PDF Downloads 161

Authors: Giacoma Pace

Abstract:

The research seeks to evaluate whether students with impairments can achieve enhanced academic progress by actively engaging in collaborative problem-solving activities with teachers and peers, to overcome the obstacles rooted in socio-economic disparities. Furthermore, the research underscores the significance of fostering students' self-awareness regarding their learning process and encourages teachers to adopt a more interactive teaching approach. The research also posits that reducing conventional face-to-face lessons can motivate students to explore alternative learning methods, such as collaborative teamwork and peer education within the classroom. To address socio-cultural barriers it is imperative to assess their internet access and possession of technological devices, as these factors can contribute to a digital divide. The research features a case study of a Flipped Classroom Learning Unit, administered to six third-year high school classes: Scientific Lyceum, Technical School, and Vocational School, within the city of Turin, Italy. Data are about teachers and the students involved in the case study, some impaired students in each class, level of entry, students’ performance and attitude before using Flipped Classrooms, level of motivation, family’s involvement level, teachers’ attitude towards Flipped Classroom, goal obtained, the pros and cons of such activities, technology availability. The selected schools were contacted; meetings for the English teachers to gather information about their attitude and knowledge of the Flipped Classroom approach. Questionnaires to teachers and IT staff were administered. The information gathered, was used to outline the profile of the subjects involved in the study and was further compared with the second step of the study made up of a study conducted with the classes of the selected schools. The learning unit is the same, structure and content are decided together with the English colleagues of the classes involved. The pacing and content are matched in every lesson and all the classes participate in the same labs, use the same materials, homework, same assessment by summative and formative testing. Each step follows a precise scheme, in order to be as reliable as possible. The outcome of the case study will be statistically organised. The case study is accompanied by a study on the literature concerning EFL approaches and the Flipped Classroom. Document analysis method was employed, i.e. a qualitative research method in which printed and/or electronic documents containing information about the research subject are reviewed and evaluated with a systematic procedure. Articles in the Web of Science Core Collection, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus and Science Direct databases were searched in order to determine the documents to be examined (years considered 2000-2022).

Keywords: flipped classroom, impaired, inclusivity, peer instruction

Procedia PDF Downloads 50

Authors: Matthew McArthur, Margaret Friend

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the stability of the home environment for families across the world. Potential disruptions include parent work modality (in-person vs. remote), levels of health anxiety, family routines, and caregiving. These disruptions may have interfered with the processes of early vocabulary acquisition, carrying lasting effects over the life course. Our justification for this research is as follows: First, early, stable, caregiver-child reciprocal interactions, which may have been disrupted during the pandemic, contribute to the development of the brain architecture that supports language, cognitive, and social-emotional development. Second, early vocabulary predicts several cognitive outcomes, such as numeracy, literacy, and executive function. Further, disruption in the home is associated with adverse cognitive, academic, socio-emotional, behavioral, and communication outcomes in young children. We are interested in how disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with vocabulary acquisition in children born during the first two waves of the pandemic. We are conducting a moderated online experiment to assess this question. Participants are 16 children (10F) ranging in age from 19 to 39 months (M=25.27) and their caregivers. All child participants were screened for language background, health history, and history of language disorders, and were typically developing. Parents completed a modified version of the COVID-19 Family Stressor Scale (CoFaSS), a published measure of COVID-19-related family stressors. Thirteen items from the original scale were replaced to better capture change in family organization and stability specifically related to disruptions in income, anxiety, family relations, and childcare. Following completion of the modified CoFaSS, children completed a Web-Based version of the Computerized Comprehension Task and the Receptive One Word Picture Vocabulary if 24 months or older or the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory if younger than 24 months. We report our preliminary data as a partial correlation analysis controlling for age. Raw vocabulary scores on the CCT, ROWPVT-4, and MCDI were all negatively associated with pandemic-related disruptions related to anxiety (r12=-.321; r1=-.332; r9=-.509), family relations (r12=-.590*; r1=-.155; r9=-.468), and childcare (r12=-.294; r1=-.468; r9=-.177). Although the small sample size for these preliminary data limits our power to detect significance, this trend is in the predicted direction, suggesting that increased pandemic-related disruption across multiple domains is associated with lower vocabulary scores. We anticipate presenting data on a full sample of 50 monolingual English participants. A sample of 50 participants would provide sufficient statistical power to detect a moderate effect size, adhering to a nominal alpha of 0.05 and ensuring a power level of 0.80.

Keywords: COVID-19, early vocabulary, home environment, language acquisition, multiple measures

Procedia PDF Downloads 57

Authors: Jot Prakash Kaur

Abstract:

The paper aims to showcase that with the introduction of anti-graft instruments and willingness of the governments towards their implementation, a significant change can be witnessed in the anti-corruption landscape of any country. Since the past decade anti-graft instruments have been introduced by several international non-governmental organizations with the vision of curbing corruption. Transparency International’s ‘Integrity Pact’ has been one such initiative. Integrity Pact has been described as a tool for preventing corruption in public contracting. Integrity Pact has found its relevance in a developing country like India where public procurement constitutes 25-30 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Corruption in public procurement has been a cause of concern even though India has in place a whole architecture of rules and regulations governing public procurement. Integrity Pact was first adopted by a leading Oil and Gas government company in 2006. Till May 2015, over ninety organizations had adopted Integrity Pact, of which majority of them are central government units. The methodology undertaken to understand impact of Integrity Pact on Public procurement is through analyzing information received from important stakeholders of the instrument. Government, information was sought through Right to Information Act 2005 about the details of adoption of this instrument by various government organizations and departments. Contractor, Company websites and annual reports were used to find out the steps taken towards implementation of Integrity Pact. Civil Society, Transparency International India’s resource materials which include publications and reports on Integrity Pact were also used to understand the impact of Integrity Pact. Some of the findings of the study include organizations adopting Integrity pacts in all kinds of contracts such that 90% of their procurements fall under Integrity Pact. Indian State governments have found merit in Integrity Pact and have adopted it in their procurement contracts. Integrity Pact has been instrumental in creating a brand image of companies. External Monitors, an essential feature of Integrity Pact have emerged as arbitrators for the bidders and are the first line of procurement auditors for the organizations. India has cancelled two defense contracts finding it conflicting with the provisions of Integrity Pact. Some of the clauses of Integrity Pact have been included in the proposed Public Procurement legislation. Integrity Pact has slowly but steadily grown to become an integral part of big ticket procurement in India. Government’s commitment to implement Integrity Pact has changed the way in which public procurement is conducted in India. Public Procurement was a segment infested with corruption but with the adoption of Integrity Pact a number of clean up acts have been performed to make procurement transparent. The paper is divided in five sections. First section elaborates on Integrity Pact. Second section talks about stakeholders of the instrument and the role it plays in its implementation. Third section talks about the efforts taken by the government to implement Integrity Pact in India. Fourth section talks about the role of External Monitor as Arbitrator. The final section puts forth suggestions to strengthen the existing form of Integrity Pact and increase its reach.

Keywords: corruption, integrity pact, procurement, vigilance

Procedia PDF Downloads 334

Authors: Sundaram Chandrasekaran, Seung Hyun Hur

Abstract:

Exploring strategies for oxygen vacancy engineering under mild conditions and understanding the relationship between dislocations and photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell performance are challenging issues for designing high performance PEC devices. Therefore, it is very important to understand that how the oxygen vacancies (VO) or other defect states affect the performance of the photocatalyst in photoelectric transfer. So far, it has been found that defects in nano or micro crystals can have two possible significances on the PEC performance. Firstly, an electron-hole pair produced at the interface of photoelectrode and electrolyte can recombine at the defect centers under illumination of light, thereby reducing the PEC performances. On the other hand, the defects could lead to a higher light absorption in the longer wavelength region and may act as energy centers for the water splitting reaction that can improve the PEC performances. Even if the dislocation growth of ZnO has been verified by the full density functional theory (DFT) calculations and local density approximation calculations (LDA), it requires further studies to correlate the structures of ZnO and PEC performances. Exploring the hybrid structures composed of graphene oxide (GO) and ZnO nanostructures offer not only the vision of how the complex structure form from a simple starting materials but also the tools to improve PEC performances by understanding the underlying mechanisms of mutual interactions. As there are few studies for the ZnO growth with other materials and the growth mechanism in those cases has not been clearly explored yet, it is very important to understand the fundamental growth process of nanomaterials with the specific materials, so that rational and controllable syntheses of efficient ZnO-based hybrid materials can be designed to prepare nanostructures that can exhibit significant PEC performances. Herein, we fabricated various ZnO nanostructures such as hollow sphere, bucky bowl, nanorod and triangle, investigated their pH dependent growth mechanism, and correlated the PEC performances with them. Especially, the origin of well-controlled dislocation-driven growth and its transformation mechanism of ZnO nanorods to triangles on the GO surface were discussed in detail. Surprisingly, the addition of GO during the synthesis process not only tunes the morphology of ZnO nanocrystals and also creates more oxygen vacancies (oxygen defects) in the lattice of ZnO, which obviously suggest that the oxygen vacancies be created by the redox reaction between GO and ZnO in which the surface oxygen is extracted from the surface of ZnO by the functional groups of GO. On the basis of our experimental and theoretical analysis, the detailed mechanism for the formation of specific structural shapes and oxygen vacancies via dislocation, and its impact in PEC performances are explored. In water splitting performance, the maximum photocurrent density of GO-ZnO triangles was 1.517mA/cm-2 (under UV light ~ 360 nm) vs. RHE with high incident photon to current conversion Efficiency (IPCE) of 10.41%, which is the highest among all samples fabricated in this study and also one of the highest IPCE reported so far obtained from GO-ZnO triangular shaped photocatalyst.

Keywords: dislocation driven growth, zinc oxide, graphene oxide, water splitting

Procedia PDF Downloads 291

Authors: Ali Kadivar, Kaveh Niayesh

Abstract:

The integration of green energy resources is a major focus, and the role of Medium Voltage Direct Current (MVDC) systems is exponentially expanding. However, the protection of MVDC systems against DC faults is a challenge that can have consequences on reliable and safe grid operation. This challenge reveals the need for MVDC circuit breakers (MVDC CB), which are in infancies of their improvement. Therefore will be a lack of MVDC CBs standards, including thresholds for acceptable power losses and operation speed. To establish a baseline for comparison purposes, a benchmark system for testing future MVDC CBs is vital. The literatures just give the timing sequence of each switch and the emphasis is on the topology, without in-depth study on the control algorithm of DCCB, as the circuit breaker control system is not yet systematic. A digital testing benchmark is designed for the Proof-of-concept of simulation studies using software models. It can validate studies based on real-time digital simulators and Transient Network Analyzer (TNA) models. The proposed experimental setup utilizes data accusation from the accurate sensors installed on the tested MVDC CB and through general purpose input/outputs (GPIO) from the microcontroller and PC Prototype studies in the laboratory-based models utilizing Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) equipment connected to real-time digital simulators is achieved. The improved control algorithm of the circuit breaker can reduce the peak fault current and avoid arc resignation, helping the coordination of DCCB in relay protection. Moreover, several research gaps are identified regarding case studies and evaluation approaches.

Keywords: DC circuit breaker, hardware-in-the-loop, real time digital simulation, testing benchmark

Procedia PDF Downloads 76

Authors: Bianca Koroschetz, Emma Mäenpää

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to study consumer practices and meanings of different antifouling methods in order to identify the main barriers for sustainable consumption of antifouling products in the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is considered to be an important tourism area. More than 3.5 million leisure boaters use the sea for recreational boating. Most leisure boat owners use toxic antifouling paint to keep barnacles from attaching to the hull. Attached barnacles limit maneuverability and add drag which in turn increases fuel costs. Antifouling paint used to combat barnacles causes particular problems, as the use of these products continuously adds to the distribution of biocides in the coastal ecosystem and leads to the death of marine organisms. To keep the Baltic Sea as an attractive tourism area measures need to be undertaken to stop the pollution coming from toxic antifouling paints. The antifouling market contains a wide range of environment-friendly alternative products such as a brush wash for boats, hand scrubbing devices, hull covers and boat lifts. Unfortunately, not a lot of boat owners use these environment-friendly alternatives and instead prefer the use of the traditional toxic copper paints. We ask “Why is the unsustainable consumption of toxic paints still predominant when there is a big range of environment-friendly alternatives available? What are the barriers for sustainable consumption?” Environmental psychology has concentrated on developing models of human behavior, including the main factors that influence pro-environmental behavior. The main focus of these models was directed to the individual’s attitudes, principals, and beliefs. However, social practice theory emphasizes the importance to study practices, as they have a stronger explanatory power than attitude-behavior to explain unsustainable consumer behavior. Thus, the study focuses on describing the material, meaning and competence of antifouling practice in order to understand the social and cultural embeddedness of the practice. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with boat owners using antifouling products such as paints and alternative methods. This data collection was supplemented with participant observations in marinas. Preliminary results indicate that different factors such as costs, traditions, advertising, frequency of use, marinas and application of method impact on the consumption of antifouling products. The findings have shown that marinas have a big influence on the consumption of antifouling goods. Some marinas are very active in supporting the sustainable consumption of antifouling products as for example in Stockholm area several marinas subsidize costs for using environmental friendly alternatives or even forbid toxic paints. Furthermore the study has revealed that environmental friendly methods are very effective and do not have to be more expensive than painting with toxic paints. This study contributes to a broader understanding why the unsustainable consumption of toxic paints is still predominant when a big range of environment-friendly alternatives exist. Answers to this phenomenon will be gained by studying practices instead of attitudes offering a new perspective on environmental issues.

Keywords: antifouling paint, Baltic Sea, boat tourism, sustainable consumption

Procedia PDF Downloads 190

Authors: Suphap Sikkhaphan, Muwanga Zake, Johnnie Wycliffe Frank

Abstract:

The purposes of the study included a) investigating the authentic and transformational leadership model of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals b) evaluating the relation between the authentic and transformation leadership of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals and the effectiveness of their hospitals and c) assessing the invariance test of the authentic and transformation leadership of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals. All 400 southern tambon health promoting hospital directors were enrolled into the study. Half were males (200), and another half were females (200). They were sampled via a stratified method. A research tool was a questionnaire paper containing 4 different sections. The Alpha-Cronbach’s Coefficient was equally to .98. Descriptive analysis was used for demographic data, and inferential statistics was used for the relation and invariance tests of authentic and transformational leadership of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals. The findings revealed overall the authentic and transformation leadership model of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals has the relation to the effectiveness of the hospitals. Only the factor of “strong community support” was statistically significantly related to the authentic leadership (p < .05). However, there were four latent variables statistically related to the transformational leadership including, competency and work climate, management system, network cooperation, and strong community support (p = .01). Regarding the relation between the authentic and transformation leadership of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals and the effectiveness of their hospitals, four casual variables of authentic leadership were not related to those latent variables. In contrast, all four latent variables of transformational leadership has statistically significantly related to the effectiveness of tambon health promoting hospitals (p = .001). Furthermore, only management system variable was significantly related to those casual variables of the authentic leadership (p < .05). Regarding the invariance test, the result found no statistical significance of the authentic and transformational leadership model of the directors of tambon health promoting hospitals, especially between male and female genders (p > .05).

Keywords: authentic leadership, transformational leadership, tambon health promoting hospital

Procedia PDF Downloads 437

Authors: Mikko Salminen, Simo Järvelä, Niklas Ravaja

Abstract:

One of the central models of emotional intelligence (EI) is that of Mayer and Salovey’s, which includes ability to monitor own feelings and emotions and those of others, ability to discriminate different emotions, and to use this information to guide thinking and actions. There is vast amount of previous research where positive links between EI and, for example, leadership successfulness, work outcomes, work wellbeing and organizational climate have been reported. EI has also a role in the effectiveness of work teams, and the effects of EI are especially prominent in jobs requiring emotional labor. Thus, also the organizational context must be taken into account when considering the effects of EI on work outcomes. Based on previous research, it is suggested that EI can also protect managers from the negative consequences of stress. Stress may have many detrimental effects on the manager’s performance in essential work tasks. Previous studies have highlighted the effects of stress on, not only health, but also, for example, on cognitive tasks such as decision-making, which is important in managerial work. The motivation for the current study came from the notion that, unfortunately, many stressed individuals may not be aware of the circumstance; periods of stress-induced physiological arousal may be prolonged if there is not enough time for recovery. To tackle this problem, physiological stress levels of managers were collected using recording of heart rate variability (HRV). The goal was to use this data to provide the managers with feedback on their stress levels. The managers could access this feedback using a www-based learning environment. In the learning environment, in addition to the feedback on stress level and other collected data, also developmental tasks were provided. For example, those with high stress levels were sent instructions for mindfulness exercises. The current study focuses on the relation between the measured physiological stress levels and EI of the managers. In a pilot study, 33 managers from various fields wore the Firstbeat Bodyguard HRV measurement devices for three consecutive days and nights. From the collected HRV data periods (minutes) of stress and recovery were detected using dedicated software. The effects of EI on HRV-calculated stress indexes were studied using Linear Mixed Models procedure in SPSS. There was a statistically significant effect of total EI, defined as an average score of Schutte’s emotional intelligence test, on the percentage of stress minutes during the whole measurement period (p=.025). More stress minutes were detected on those managers who had lower emotional intelligence. It is suggested, that high EI provided managers with better tools to cope with stress. Managing of own emotions helps the manager in controlling possible negative emotions evoked by, e.g., critical feedback or increasing workload. High EI managers may also be more competent in detecting emotions of others, which would lead to smoother interactions and less conflicts. Given the recent trend to different quantified-self applications, it is suggested that monitoring of bio-signals would prove to be a fruitful direction to further develop new tools for managerial and leadership coaching.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, leadership, heart rate variability, personality, stress

Procedia PDF Downloads 220

Authors: Rui Wu

Abstract:

In the volatile modern manufacturing environment, new orders randomly occur at any time, while the pre-emptive methods are infeasible. This leads to a real-time scheduling method that can produce a reasonably good schedule quickly. The dynamic Flexible Job Shop problem is an NP-hard scheduling problem that hybrid the dynamic Job Shop problem with the Parallel Machine problem. A Flexible Job Shop contains different work centres. Each work centre contains parallel machines that can process certain operations. Many algorithms, such as genetic algorithms or simulated annealing, have been proposed to solve the static Flexible Job Shop problems. However, the time efficiency of these methods is low, and these methods are not feasible in a dynamic scheduling problem. Therefore, a dynamic rule selection scheduling system based on the reinforcement learning method is proposed in this research, in which the dynamic Flexible Job Shop problem is divided into several parallel machine problems to decrease the complexity of the dynamic Flexible Job Shop problem. Firstly, the features of jobs, machines, work centres, and flexible job shops are selected to describe the status of the dynamic Flexible Job Shop problem at each decision point in each work centre. Secondly, a framework of reinforcement learning algorithm using a double-layer deep Q-learning network is applied to select proper composite dispatching rules based on the status of each work centre. Then, based on the selected composite dispatching rule, an available operation is selected from the waiting buffer and assigned to an available machine in each work centre. Finally, the proposed algorithm will be compared with well-known dispatching rules on objectives of mean tardiness, mean flow time, mean waiting time, or mean percentage of waiting time in the real-time Flexible Job Shop problem. The result of the simulations proved that the proposed framework has reasonable performance and time efficiency.

Keywords: dynamic scheduling problem, flexible job shop, dispatching rules, deep reinforcement learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 102

Authors: Gyu-Dong Kim, Wuk-Jae Yoo, Sang-Youl Lee

Abstract:

Composite structures offer numerous advantages over conventional structural systems in the form of higher specific stiffness and strength, lower life-cycle costs, and benefits such as easy installation and improved safety. Recently, there has been a considerable increase in the use of composites in engineering applications and as wraps for seismic upgrading and repairs. However, these composites deteriorate with time because of outdated materials, excessive use, repetitive loading, climatic conditions, manufacturing errors, and deficiencies in inspection methods. In particular, damaged fibers in a composite result in significant degradation of structural performance. In order to reduce the failure probability of composites in service, techniques to assess the condition of the composites to prevent continual growth of fiber damage are required. Condition assessment technology and nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques have provided various solutions for the safety of structures by means of detecting damage or defects from static or dynamic responses induced by external loading. A variety of techniques based on detecting the changes in static or dynamic behavior of isotropic structures has been developed in the last two decades. These methods, based on analytical approaches, are limited in their capabilities in dealing with complex systems, primarily because of their limitations in handling different loading and boundary conditions. Recently, investigators have introduced direct search methods based on metaheuristics techniques and artificial intelligence, such as genetic algorithms (GA), simulated annealing (SA) methods, and neural networks (NN), and have promisingly applied these methods to the field of structural identification. Among them, GAs attract our attention because they do not require a considerable amount of data in advance in dealing with complex problems and can make a global solution search possible as opposed to classical gradient-based optimization techniques. In this study, we propose an alternative damage-detection technique that can determine the degraded stiffness distribution of vibrating laminated composites made of Glass Fiber-reinforced Polymer (GFRP). The proposed method uses a modified form of the bivariate Gaussian distribution function to detect degraded stiffness characteristics. In addition, this study presents a method to detect the fiber property variation of laminated composite plates from the micromechanical point of view. The finite element model is used to study free vibrations of laminated composite plates for fiber stiffness degradation. In order to solve the inverse problem using the combined method, this study uses only first mode shapes in a structure for the measured frequency data. In particular, this study focuses on the effect of the interaction among various parameters, such as fiber angles, layup sequences, and damage distributions, on fiber-stiffness damage detection.

Keywords: stiffness detection, fiber damage, genetic algorithm, layup sequences

Procedia PDF Downloads 267

Authors: Anuj Kumar, Kummara M. Rao, Sung S. Han

Abstract:

Bone tissue engineering has emerged as a potentially alternative method for localized bone defects or diseases, congenital deformation, and surgical reconstruction. The designing and the fabrication of the ideal scaffold is a great challenge, in restoring of the damaged bone tissues via cell attachment, proliferation, and differentiation under three-dimensional (3D) biological micro-/nano-environment. In this case, hydrogel system composed of high hydrophilic 3D polymeric-network that is able to mimic some of the functional physical and chemical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and possibly may provide a suitable 3D micro-/nano-environment (i.e., resemblance of native bone tissues). Thus, this proposed hydrogel system is highly permeable and facilitates the transport of the nutrients and metabolites. However, the use of hydrogels in bone tissue engineering is limited because of their low mechanical properties (toughness and stiffness) that continue to posing challenges in designing and fabrication of tough and stiff hydrogels along with improved bioactive properties. For this purpose, in our lab, polyacrylamide-based hybrid hydrogels were synthesized by involving sodium alginate, cellulose nanocrystals and silica-based glass using one-step free-radical polymerization. The results showed good in vitro apatite-forming ability (biomineralization) and improved mechanical properties (under compression in the form of strength and stiffness in both wet and dry conditions), and in vitro osteoblastic (MC3T3-E1 cells) cytocompatibility. For in vitro cytocompatibility assessment, both qualitative (attachment and spreading of cells using FESEM) and quantitative (cell viability and proliferation using MTT assay) analyses were performed. The obtained hybrid hydrogels may potentially be used in bone tissue engineering applications after establishment of in vivo characterization.

Keywords: bone tissue engineering, cellulose nanocrystals, hydrogels, polyacrylamide, sodium alginate

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Qian Chen, Lin Xu, Ping Ju, Zhuoran Li, Yiping Yu, Yuqing Jin

Abstract:

The operation of power grid is becoming more and more complex and difficult due to its rapid development towards high voltage, long distance, and large capacity. For instance, many large-scale wind farms have connected to power grid, where their fluctuation and randomness is very likely to affect the stability and safety of the grid. Fortunately, many new-type equipments based on power electronics have been applied to power grid, such as UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controller), TCSC (Thyristor Controlled Series Compensation), STATCOM (Static Synchronous Compensator) and so on, which can help to deal with the problem above. Compared with traditional equipment such as generator, new-type controllable devices, represented by the FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission System), have more accurate control ability and respond faster. But they are too expensive to use widely. Therefore, on the basis of the comparison and analysis of the controlling characteristics between traditional control equipment and new-type controllable equipment in both time and space scale, a coordinated optimizing control method within mutil-time-space frame is proposed in this paper to bring both kinds of advantages into play, which can better both control ability and economical efficiency. Firstly, the coordination of different space sizes of grid is studied focused on the fluctuation caused by large-scale wind farms connected to power grid. With generator, FSC (Fixed Series Compensation) and TCSC, the coordination method on two-layer regional power grid vs. its sub grid is studied in detail. The coordination control model is built, the corresponding scheme is promoted, and the conclusion is verified by simulation. By analysis, interface power flow can be controlled by generator and the specific line power flow between two-layer regions can be adjusted by FSC and TCSC. The smaller the interface power flow adjusted by generator, the bigger the control margin of TCSC, instead, the total consumption of generator is much higher. Secondly, the coordination of different time sizes is studied to further the amount of the total consumption of generator and the control margin of TCSC, where the minimum control cost can be acquired. The coordination method on two-layer ultra short-term correction vs. AGC (Automatic Generation Control) is studied with generator, FSC and TCSC. The optimal control model is founded, genetic algorithm is selected to solve the problem, and the conclusion is verified by simulation. Finally, the aforementioned method within multi-time-space scale is analyzed with practical cases, and simulated on PSASP (Power System Analysis Software Package) platform. The correctness and effectiveness are verified by the simulation result. Moreover, this coordinated optimizing control method can contribute to the decrease of control cost and will provide reference to the following studies in this field.

Keywords: FACTS, multi-space-time frame, optimal control, TCSC

Procedia PDF Downloads 261

Authors: Ola Jon Mork, Irina Emily Hansen

Abstract:

The European Growth Strategy Program calls for more efficient methods for knowledge creation and innovation. This study contributes with new insights into the Singapore Innovation System; more precisely how knowledge processes are facilitated. The research material is collected by visiting the different innovation locations in Singapore and depth interview with key persons. The different innovation actors web sites and brochures have been studied. Governmental reports and figures have also been studied. The findings show that facilitation of Knowledge Processes in the Singapore Innovation System has a basic structure with three processes, which is 1) Idea capturing – 2)Technology and Business Execution – 3)Idea Realization. Dedicated innovation parks work with the most promising entrepreneurs; more precisely: finding the persons with the motivation to 'change the world'. The innovation park will facilitate these entrepreneurs for 100 days, where they also will be connected to a global network of venture capital. And, the entrepreneurs will have access to mentors from these venture companies. Research institutes parks work with the development of world leading technology. To facilitate knowledge development they connect with industrial companies which are the most promising applicators of their technology. Knowledge facilitation is the main purpose, but this cooperation/testing is also serving as a platform for funding. Probably this is cooperation is also attractive for world leading companies. Dedicated innovation parks work with facilitation of innovators of new applications and perfection of products for the end- user. These parks can be specialized in special areas, like health products and life science products. Another example of this is automotive companies giving research call for these parks to develop and innovate new products and services upon their technology. Common characteristics for the knowledge facilitation in the Singapore Innovation System are a short trial period for promising actors, normally 100 days. It is also a strong focus on training of the entrepreneurs. Presentations and diffusion of knowledge is an important part of the facilitation. Funding will be available for the most successful entrepreneurs and innovators.

Keywords: knowledge processes, facilitation, innovation, Singapore innovation web

Procedia PDF Downloads 293

Authors: Bruno Biagianti, Angela Tseng, Kathy Wannaviroj, Allison Corlett, Megan DuBois, Kyu Lee, Suma Jacob

Abstract:

Background: ASD is characterized by pervasive Sensory Processing Abnormalities (SPA) and social cognitive deficits that persist throughout the course of the illness and have been linked to functional abnormalities in specific neural systems that underlie the perception, processing, and representation of sensory information. SPA and social cognitive deficits are associated with difficulties in interpersonal relationships, poor development of social skills, reduced social interactions and lower academic performance. Importantly, they can hamper the effects of established evidence-based psychological treatments—including PEERS (Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relationship Skills), a parent/caregiver-assisted, 16-weeks social skills intervention—which nonetheless requires a functional brain capable of assimilating and retaining information and skills. As a matter of fact, some adolescents benefit from PEERS more than others, calling for strategies to increase treatment response rates. Objective: We will present interim data on CICADAS (Care Improving Cognition for ADolescents on the Autism Spectrum)—a clinician-assisted, closed-loop technology mobile application for adolescents with ASD. Via ten mobile assessments, CICADAS captures data on sensory processing abnormalities and associated cognitive deficits. These data populate a machine learning algorithm that tailors the delivery of ten neuroplasticity-based social cognitive training (NB-SCT) exercises targeting sensory processing abnormalities. Methods: In collaboration with the Autism Spectrum and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Clinic at the University of Minnesota, we conducted a fully remote, three-arm, randomized crossover trial with adolescents with ASD to document the acceptability of CICADAS and evaluate its potential as a stand-alone treatment or as a treatment enhancer of PEERS. Twenty-four adolescents with ASD (ages 11-18) have been initially randomized to 16 weeks of PEERS + CICADAS (Arm A) vs. 16 weeks of PEERS + computer games vs. 16 weeks of CICADAS alone (Arm C). After 16 weeks, the full battery of assessments has been remotely administered. Results: We have evaluated the acceptability of CICADAS by examining adherence rates, engagement patterns, and exit survey data. We found that: 1) CICADAS is able to serve as a treatment enhancer for PEERS, inducing greater improvements in sensory processing, cognition, symptom reduction, social skills and behaviors, as well as the quality of life compared to computer games; 2) the concurrent delivery of PEERS and CICADAS induces greater improvements in study outcomes compared to CICADAS only. Conclusion: While preliminary, our results indicate that the individualized assessment and treatment approach designed in CICADAS seems effective in inducing adaptive long-term learning about social-emotional events. CICADAS-induced enhancement of processing and cognition facilitates the application of PEERS skills in the environment of adolescents with ASD, thus improving their real-world functioning.

Keywords: ASD, social skills, cognitive training, mobile app

Procedia PDF Downloads 211