Search results for: comfort assessment

Authors: Chun-Chung Chen, Bo-Han Lee, Yu-Chi Sung

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Monitoring the status of tensioning force of stay cables is a significant issue for the assessment of structural safety of extradosed bridges. Moreover, it is known that there is a high correlation between the existing tension force and the vibration frequencies of cables. This paper presents the characteristic of frequencies of stay cables of a field extradosed bridge by using vibration-based monitoring methods. The vibration frequencies of each stay cables were measured in stages from the beginning to the completion of bridge construction. The result shows that the vibration frequency variation trend of different lengths of cables at each measured stage is different. The observed feature can help the application of the bridge long-term monitoring system and contribute to the assessment of bridge safety.

Keywords: vibration-based method, extradosed bridges, bridge health monitoring, bridge stay cables

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Mrinal Kanti Bhowmik, Debanjana Debnath Jr., Debotosh Bhattacharjee

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A facial expression is undeniably the human manners. It is a significant channel for human communication and can be applied to extract emotional features accurately. People in pain often show variations in facial expressions that are readily observable to others. A core of actions is likely to occur or to increase in intensity when people are in pain. To illustrate the changes in the facial appearance, a system known as Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is pioneered by Ekman and Friesen for human observers. According to Prkachin and Solomon, a set of such actions carries the bulk of information about pain. Thus, the Prkachin and Solomon pain intensity (PSPI) metric is defined. So, it is very important to notice that facial expressions, being a behavioral source in communication media, provide an important opening into the issues of non-verbal communication in pain. People express their pain in many ways, and this pain behavior is the basis on which most inferences about pain are drawn in clinical and research settings. Hence, to understand the roles of different pain behaviors, it is essential to study the properties. For the past several years, the studies are concentrated on the properties of one specific form of pain behavior i.e. facial expression. This paper represents a comprehensive study on pain assessment that can model and estimate the intensity of pain that the patient is suffering. It also reviews the historical background of different pain assessment techniques in the context of painful expressions. Different approaches incorporate FACS from psychological views and a pain intensity score using the PSPI metric in pain estimation. This paper investigates in depth analysis of different approaches used in pain estimation and presents different observations found from each technique. It also offers a brief study on different distinguishing features of real and fake pain. Therefore, the necessity of the study lies in the emerging fields of painful face assessment in clinical settings.

Keywords: facial action coding system (FACS), pain, pain behavior, Prkachin and Solomon pain intensity (PSPI)

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Authors: Bronwen Wade

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Over the last half-century, child welfare systems have increasingly relied on quantitative risk assessment tools, such as actuarial or predictive risk tools. These tools are developed by performing statistical analysis of how attributes captured in administrative data are related to future child maltreatment. Some scholars argue that attributes in administrative data can serve as proxies for race and that quantitative risk assessment tools reify racial bias in decision-making. Others argue that these tools provide more “objective” and “scientific” guides for decision-making instead of subjective social worker judgment. This study performs a systematic review of the literature on the impact of quantitative risk assessment tools on racial disproportionality; it examines methodological biases in work on this topic, summarizes key findings, and provides suggestions for further work. A search of CINAHL, PsychInfo, Proquest Social Science Premium Collection, and the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Collection was performed. Academic and grey literature were included. The review includes studies that use quasi-experimental methods and development, validation, or re-validation studies of quantitative risk assessment tools. PROBAST (Prediction model Risk of Bias Assessment Tool) and CHARMS (CHecklist for critical Appraisal and data extraction for systematic Reviews of prediction Modelling Studies) were used to assess the risk of bias and guide data extraction for risk development, validation, or re-validation studies. ROBINS-I (Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions) was used to assess for bias and guide data extraction for the quasi-experimental studies identified. Due to heterogeneity among papers, a meta-analysis was not feasible, and a narrative synthesis was conducted. 11 papers met the eligibility criteria, and each has an overall high risk of bias based on the PROBAST and ROBINS-I assessments. This is deeply concerning, as major policy decisions have been made based on a limited number of studies with a high risk of bias. The findings on racial disproportionality have been mixed and depend on the tool and approach used. Authors use various definitions for racial equity, fairness, or disproportionality. These concepts of statistical fairness are connected to theories about the reason for racial disproportionality in child welfare or social definitions of fairness that are usually not stated explicitly. Most findings from these studies are unreliable, given the high degree of bias. However, some of the less biased measures within studies suggest that quantitative risk assessment tools may worsen racial disproportionality, depending on how disproportionality is mathematically defined. Authors vary widely in their approach to defining and addressing racial disproportionality within studies, making it difficult to generalize findings or approaches across studies. This review demonstrates the power of authors to shape policy or discourse around racial justice based on their choice of statistical methods; it also demonstrates the need for improved rigor and transparency in studies of quantitative risk assessment tools. Finally, this review raises concerns about the impact that these tools have on child welfare systems and racial disproportionality.

Keywords: actuarial risk, child welfare, predictive risk, racial disproportionality

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Authors: Farnaz Nazem

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This paper concentrates on the sustainable traditional architecture and urban planning in hot-humid regions of Iran. In a vast country such as Iran with different climatic zones traditional builders have presented series of logical solutions for human comfort. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate traditional architecture in hot-humid climate of Iran as a sample of sustainable architecture. Iranian traditional architecture has been able to response to environmental problems for a long period of time. Its features are based on climatic factors, local construction materials of hot-humid regions and culture. This paper concludes that Iranian traditional architecture can be addressed as a sustainable architecture.

Keywords: hot-humid climate, Iran, sustainable traditional architecture, urban planning

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Authors: Yuhanis Ibrahim, Sung-Pil Lee

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This study attempts to address factors that contribute to outline public art factors assessment, memorial monument specifically. Memorial monuments hold significant and rich message whether the intention of the art is to mark and commemorate important event or to inform younger generation about the past. Public monument should relate to the public and raise awareness about the significant issue. Therefore, by investigating the impact of the existing public memorial art will hopefully shed some lights to the upcoming public art projects’ stakeholders to ensure the lucid memorial message is delivered to the public directly. Public is the main actor as public is the fundamental purpose that the art was created. Perception is framed as one of the reliable evaluation tools to assess the public art impact factors. The Malaysia National Monument was selected to be the case study for the investigation. The public’s perceptions were gathered using a questionnaire that involved (n-115) participants to attain keywords, and next Semantical Differential Methodology (SDM) was adopted to evaluate the perceptions about the memorial monument. These perceptions were then measured with Reliability Factor and then were factorised using Factor Analysis of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method to acquire concise factors for the monument assessment. The result revealed that there are four factors that influence public’s perception on the monument which are aesthetic, audience, topology, and public reception. The study concludes by proposing the factors for public memorial art assessment for the next future public memorial projects especially in Malaysia.

Keywords: factor analysis, public art, public perception, semantical differential methodology

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Authors: Makram El Bachawati, Rima Manneh, Thomas Dandres, Carla Nassab, Henri El Zakhem, Rafik Belarbi

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A vegetative roof, also called a garden roof, is a "roofing system that endorses the growth of plants on a rooftop". Garden roofs serve several purposes for a building, such as embellishing the roofing system, enhancing the water management, and reducing the energy consumption and heat island effects. Lebanon is a Middle East country that lacks the use of a sustainable energy system. It imports 98% of its non-renewable energy from neighboring countries and suffers flooding during heavy rains. The objective of this paper is to determine if the implementation of vegetative roofs is effectively better than the traditional roofs for the Lebanese context. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is performed in order to compare an existing extensive green roof to a traditional gravel-asphalted roof. The life cycle inventory (LCI) was established and modeled using the SimaPro 8.0 software, while the environmental impacts were classified using the IMPACT 2002+ methodology. Results indicated that, for the existing extensive green roof, the waterproofing membrane and the growing medium were the highest contributors to the potential environmental impacts. When comparing the vegetative to the traditional roof, results showed that, for all impact categories, the extensive green roof had the less environmental impacts.

Keywords: life cycle assessment, green roofs, vegatative roof, environmental impact

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Authors: Feng-Ming Fan, Xiu-Hui Wen

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Shortage of water resources is a crucial problem to be solved in Taiwan. However, lack of effective and mandatory regulation on water recovery and recycling leads to no effective water resource controls currently. Although existing legislation sets standards regarding water recovery, implementation and enforcement of legislation are facing challenges. In order to break through the dilemma, this study aims to find enforcement tools, improve inspection skills, develop an inspection system, to achieve sustainable development of precious water resources. The Taiwan Environmental Impact Assessment Act (EIA Act) was announced on 1994. The aim of EIA Act is to protect the environment by preventing and mitigating the adverse impact of development activity on the environment. During the EIA process, we can set standards that require enterprises to reach a certain percentage of water recycling based on different case characteristics, to promote sewage source reduction and water saving benefits. Next, we have to inspect how the enterprises handle their waste water and perform water recovery based on environmental assessment commitments, for the purpose of reviewing and measuring the implementation efficiency of water recycling and reuse, an eco-friendly measure. We invited leading experts in related fields to provide lecture on water recycling, strengthen law enforcement officials’ inspection knowledge, and write inspection reference manual to be used as basis of enforcement. Then we finalized the manual by reaching mutual agreement between the experts and relevant agencies. We then inspected 65 high-tech companies whose daily water consumption is over 1,000 tons individually, located at 3 science parks, set up by Ministry of Science and Technology. Great achievement on water recycling was achieved at an amount of 400 million tons per year, equivalent to 2.5 months water usage for general public in Taiwan. The amount is equal to 710 billion bottles of 600 ml cola, 170 thousand international standard swimming pools of 2,500 tons, irrigation water applied to 40 thousand hectares of rice fields, or 1.7 Taipei Feitsui Reservoir of reservoir storage. This study demonstrated promoting effects of environmental impact assessment commitments on water recycling, and therefore water resource sustainable development. It also confirms the value of EIA Act for environmental protection. Economic development should go hand in hand with environmental protection, and it’s a mainstream. It clearly shows the EIA regulation can minimize harmful effects caused by development activity to the environment, as well as pursuit water resources sustainable development.

Keywords: the environmental impact assessment act, water recycling environmental assessment commitment, water resource sustainable development, water recycling, water reuse

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Authors: A. S. Cheliyan, S. K. Bhattacharyya

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Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) is employed in marine vessels of the offshore oil and gas industry. It is a computer controlled system to automatically maintain a ship’s position and heading by using its own thrusters. Reliability assessment of the same can be analyzed through conventional fault tree. However, the complex behaviour like sequence failure, redundancy management and priority of failing of events cannot be analyzed by the conventional fault trees. The Dynamic Fault Tree (DFT) addresses these shortcomings of conventional Fault Tree by defining additional gates called dynamic gates. Monte Carlo based simulation approach has been adopted for the dynamic gates. This method of realistic modeling of DPS gives meaningful insight into the system reliability and the ability to improve the same.

Keywords: dynamic positioning system, dynamic fault tree, Monte Carlo simulation, reliability assessment

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Authors: Seval Kula-Kartal

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Developing students’ reading comprehension skills is an aim that is difficult to accomplish and requires to follow long-term and systematic teaching and assessment processes. In these processes, teachers need tools to provide guidance to them on what reading comprehension is and which comprehension skills they should develop. Due to a lack of clear and evidence-based frameworks defining reading comprehension skills, especially in Turkiye, teachers and students mostly follow various processes in the classrooms without having an idea about what their comprehension goals are and what those goals mean. Since teachers and students do not have a clear view of comprehension targets, strengths, and weaknesses in students’ comprehension skills, the formative feedback processes cannot be managed in an effective way. It is believed that detecting and defining influential comprehension skills may provide guidance both to teachers and students during the feedback process. Therefore, in the current study, some of the reading comprehension frameworks that define comprehension skills operationally were examined. The aim of the study is to develop a simple and clear framework that can be used by teachers and students during their teaching, learning, assessment, and feedback processes. The current study is qualitative research in which documents related to reading comprehension skills were analyzed. Therefore, the study group consisted of recourses and frameworks which made big contributions to theoretical and operational definitions of reading comprehension. A content analysis was conducted on the resources included in the study group. To determine the validity of the themes and sub-categories revealed as the result of content analysis, three educational assessment experts were asked to examine the content analysis results. The Fleiss’ Cappa coefficient revealed that there is consistency among themes and categories defined by three different experts. The content analysis of the reading comprehension frameworks revealed that comprehension skills could be examined under four different themes. The first and second themes focus on understanding information given explicitly or implicitly within a text. The third theme includes skills used by the readers to make connections between their personal knowledge and the information given in the text. Lastly, the fourth theme focus on skills used by readers to examine the text with a critical view. The results suggested that fundamental reading comprehension skills can be examined under four themes. Teachers are recommended to use these themes in their reading comprehension teaching and assessment processes. Acknowledgment: This research is supported by Pamukkale University Scientific Research Unit within the project, whose title is Developing A Reading Comprehension Rubric.

Keywords: reading comprehension, assessing reading comprehension, comprehension taxonomies, educational assessment

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Authors: Chang Su Woo, Hyun Sung Park

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Air spring system is widely accepted for railway vehicle secondary suspension to reduce and absorb the vibration and noise. The low natural frequency ensures a comfortable ride and an invariably good stiffness. In this paper, the characteristic and durability test was conducted in laboratory by using servo-hydraulic fatigue testing system to reliability evaluation of air spring for electric railway vehicle. The experimental results show that the characteristics and durability of domestically developed products are excellent. Moreover, to guarantee the adaption of air spring, the ride comfort and air pressure variation were measured in train test on subway line. Air spring developed by this study for railway vehicles can guarantee the reliability of average usage of 1 million times at 90% confidence level.

Keywords: air spring, reliability, railway, service lifetime

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Authors: Yu Li, Dongyao Wang, Xiaobao Sun, Wei Ni

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In long-term evolution (LTE), the carriers around 5GHz are planned to be utilized without licenses to further enlarge system capacity. This feature is termed licensed assisted access (LAA). The channel sensing (clean channel assessment, CCA) is required before any transmission on these unlicensed carriers, in order to make sure the harmonious co-existence of LAA with other radio access technology in the unlicensed band. Obviously, the CCA threshold is very critical, which decides whether the transmission right following CCA is delivered in time and without collisions. An improper CCA threshold may cause buffer overflow of some eNodeBs if the eNodeBs are heavily loaded with the traffic. Thus, to solve these problems, we propose an adaptive threshold adjustment method for CCA in the LAA downlink. Both the load and transmission opportunities are concerned. The trend of the LAA throughput as the threshold varies is obtained, which guides the threshold adjustment. The co-existing between LAA and Wi-Fi is particularly tested. The results from system-level simulation confirm the merits of our design, especially in heavy traffic cases.

Keywords: LTE, LAA, CCA, threshold adjustment

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Authors: Gloria Chen

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When offering conventional level-appropriate ESL classes for adults is not feasible, a multilevel adult ESL class can be formed to benefit those who need to learn English for daily function. This paper examines the rationale, the process, the contents, and the outcomes of a multilevel ESL class for adults. The action research discusses a variety of assessments, lesson plans, teaching strategies that facilitate lifelong language learning. In small towns where adult ESL learners are only a handful, often advanced students and inexperienced students have to be placed in one class. Such class might not be viewed as desirable, but with on-going assessments, careful lesson plans, and purposeful strategies, a multilevel ESL class for adults can overcome the obstacles and help learners to reach a higher level of English proficiency. This research explores some hand-on strategies, such as group rotating, cooperative learning, and modifying textbook contents for practical purpose, and evaluate their effectiveness. The data collected in this research include Needs Assessment (beginning of class term), Mid-term Self-Assessment (5 months into class term), End-of-term Student Reflection (10 months into class), and End-of-term Assessment from the Instructor (10 months into class). A descriptive analysis of the data explains the practice of this particular learning community, and reveal the areas for improvement and enrichment. This research answers the following questions: (1) How do the assessments positively help both learners and instructors? (2) How do the learning strategies prepare students to become independent, life-long English learners? (3) How do materials, grouping, and class schedule enhance the learning? The result of the research contributes to the field of teaching and learning in language, not limited in English, by (a) examining strategies of conducting a multilevel adult class, (b) involving adult language learners with various backgrounds and learning styles for reflection and feedback, and (c) improving teaching and learning strategies upon research methods and results. One unique feature of this research is how students can work together with the instructor to form a learning community, seeking and exploring resources available to them, to become lifelong language learners.

Keywords: adult language learning, assessment, multilevel, teaching strategies

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Authors: Rahma Abed, Sahbi Bahroun, Ezzeddine Zagrouba

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Due to the huge amount of data in videos, extracting the relevant frames became a necessity and an essential step prior to performing face recognition. In this context, we propose a method for extracting keyframes from videos based on face quality and deep learning for a face recognition task. This method has two steps. We start by generating face quality scores for each face image based on the use of three face feature extractors, including Gabor, LBP, and HOG. The second step consists in training a Deep Convolutional Neural Network in a supervised manner in order to select the frames that have the best face quality. The obtained results show the effectiveness of the proposed method compared to the methods of the state of the art.

Keywords: keyframe extraction, face quality assessment, face in video recognition, convolution neural network

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Authors: Aravind G., Arshinder Kaur, Pushpavanam S.

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There is a strong emphasis on shifting to electric vehicles (EVs) throughout the globe for reducing the impact on global warming following the Paris climate accord. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are predominantly used in EVs, and these can be a significant threat to the environment if not disposed of safely. Lithium is also a valuable resource not widely available. There are several research groups working on developing an efficient recycling process for LIBs. Two routes - pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes have been proposed for recycling LIBs. In this paper, we focus on life cycle assessment (LCA) as a tool to quantify the environmental impact of these recycling processes. We have defined the boundary of the LCA to include only the recycling phase of the end-of-life (EoL) of the battery life cycle. The analysis is done assuming ideal conditions for the hydrometallurgical and a combined hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical process in the inventory analysis. CML-IA method is used for quantifying the impact assessment across eleven indicators. Our results show that cathode, anode, and foil contribute significantly to the impact. The environmental impacts of both hydrometallurgical and combined recycling processes are similar across all the indicators. Further, the results of LCA are used in developing a multi-objective optimization model for the design of lithium-ion battery recycling network. Greenhouse gas emissions and cost are the two parameters minimized for the optimization study.

Keywords: life cycle assessment, lithium-ion battery recycling, multi-objective optimization, network design, reverse supply chain

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Authors: Reza Ziaie Moayad, Azam Kouhpeyma

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In-situ testing is preferred to evaluate the liquefaction potential in cohesionless soils due to high disturbance during sampling. Although new in-situ methods with high accuracy have been developed, standard penetration test, the simplest and the oldest in-situ test, is still used due to the profusion of the recorded data. This paper reviews the Iranian standard of evaluating liquefaction potential in soils (codes 525) and compares the liquefaction assessment methods based on SPT results on cohesionless soil in this standard with the international standards. To this, methods for assessing liquefaction potential which are presented by Cetin et al. (2004), Boulanger and Idriss (2014) are compared with what is presented in standard 525. It is found that although the procedure used in Iranian standard of evaluating the potential of liquefaction has not been updated according to the new findings, it is a conservative procedure.

Keywords: cohesionless soil, liquefaction, SPT, standard 525

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Authors: Selcen Nur Eri̇kci̇ Çeli̇k, Burcu İbaş Parlakyildiz, Gülay Zorer Gedi̇k

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Reducing the use of mechanical heating and cooling systems in buildings, which accounts for approximately 30-40% of total energy consumption in the world has a major impact in terms of energy conservation. Formations of buildings that have sustainable and low energy utilization, structural elements with mechanical systems should be evaluated with a holistic approach. In point of reduction of building energy consumption ratio, wall elements that are vertical building elements and have an area broadly (m2) have proposed as a regulation with a different system. In the study, designing surface heating and cooling energy with a hybrid type of modular wall system and the integration of building elements will be evaluated. The design of wall element; - Identification of certain standards in terms of architectural design and size, -Elaboration according to the area where the wall elements (interior walls, exterior walls) -Solution of the joints, -Obtaining the surface in terms of building compatible with both conceptual structural put emphasis on upper stages, these elements will be formed. The durability of the product to the various forces, stability and resistance are so much substantial that are used the establishment of ready-wall element section and the planning of structural design. All created ready-wall alternatives will be paid attention at some parameters; such as adapting to performance-cost by optimum level and size that can be easily processed and reached. The restrictions such as the size of the zoning regulations, building function, structural system, wheelbase that are imposed by building laws, should be evaluated. The building aims to intend to function according to a certain standardization system and construction of wall elements will be used. The scope of performance criteria determined on the wall elements, utilization (operation, maintenance) and renovation phase, alternative material options will be evaluated with interim materials located in the contents. Design, implementation and technical combination of modular wall elements in the use phase and installation details together with the integration of energy saving, heat-saving and useful effects on the environmental aspects will be discussed in detail. As a result, the ready-wall product with surface heating and cooling modules will be created and defined as hybrid wall and will be compared with the conventional system in terms of thermal comfort. After preliminary architectural evaluations, certain decisions for all architectural design processes (pre and post design) such as the implementation and performance in use, maintenance, renewal will be evaluated in the results.

Keywords: modular ready-wall element, hybrid, architectural design, thermal comfort, energy saving

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Authors: Jennifer A. Kowalkowski

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Production agriculture (farming) is a physically, emotionally, and cognitively stressful occupation, where workers have little control over the stressors that impact both their work and their lives. In an occupation already rife with hazards, these occupational-related stressors have been shown to increase farm workers’ risks for illness, injury, disability, and death associated with their work. Despite efforts to mitigate the negative health effects from occupational-related stress (ORS) and to promote health and well-being (HWB) among farmers in the US, marked improvements have not been attained. Social support accessed through social networks has been shown to buffer against the negative health effects from stress, yet no studies have directly examined these relationships among farmers. The purpose of this study was to use social network analysis to explore the social networks of farm owner-operators and the social supports available to them for mitigating the negative health effects of ORS. A convenience sample of 71 farm owner-operators from a Midwestern County in the US completed and returned a mailed survey (55.5% response rate) that solicited information about their social networks related to ORS. Farmers reported an average of 2.4 individuals in their personal networks and higher levels of comfort discussing ORS with female network members. Farmers also identified few connections (3.4% density) and indicated low comfort with members of affiliation networks specific to ORS. Findings from this study highlighted that farmers accessed different social networks and resources for their personal HWB than for issues related to occupational(farm-related) health and safety. In addition, farmers’ social networks for personal HWB were smaller, with different relational characteristics than reported in studies of farmers’ social networks related to occupational health and safety. Collectively, these findings suggest that farmers conceptualize personal HWB differently than farm health and safety. Therefore, the same research approaches and targets that guide occupational health and safety research may not be appropriate for personal HWB for farmers. Interventions and programming targeting ORS and HWB have largely been offered through the same platforms or mechanisms as occupational health and safety programs. This may be attributed to the significant overlap between the farm as a family business and place of residence, or that ORS stems from farm-related issues. However, these assumptions translated to health research of farmers and farm families from the occupational health and safety literature have not been directly studied or challenged. Thismay explain why past interventions have not been effective at improving health outcomes for farmers and farm families. A close examination of findings from this study raises important questions for researchers who study agricultural health. Findings from this study have significant implications for future research agendas focused on addressing ORS, HWB, and health disparities for farmersand farm families.

Keywords: agricultural health, occupational-related stress, social networks, well-being

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Authors: Fhumulani R. Ramukhwatho, Roelien du Plessis, Suzan H. H. Oelofse

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There are a growing number of scientific papers, journals and reports on household food waste, the reason being that food waste has become a significant global issue that is costing billions of Rands in resources. To reduce food waste in a sustainable manner, it requires an understanding of the generation of food waste. This paper assesses household food wastage in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality (CTMM). A total of 210 interviewed participants using face-to-face interviews based on a structured questionnaire and the actual weighing of households’ food wasted was quantified using a weighing kitchen scale. Fifty-nine percent of respondents agreed that they wasted food, while 41% thought they did not waste food at all. Households wasted an average total of 6 kg of food waste per week per household. The study concluded that households buy and prepare more food that ends up wasted.

Keywords: assessment, developing country, food waste, household

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Authors: Andrey Kashcheev, Victor Sytnikov, Mikhail Dubinin, Elena Filipeva, Dmitriy Sorokin

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Various variants of technical solutions aimed at improving the reliability of power supply to consumers of 110 kV substation are considered. For each technical solution, the results of calculation and analysis of electrical modes and short-circuit currents in the electrical network are presented. The estimation of electric energy consumption for losses within the boundaries of substation reconstruction was carried out in accordance with the methodology for determining the standards of technological losses of electricity during its transmission through electric networks. The assessment of the technical and economic feasibility of the use of HTS CL compared with the complex reconstruction of the 110 kV substation was carried out. It is shown that the use of high-temperature superconducting AC cable lines is a possible alternative to traditional technical solutions used in the reconstruction of substations.

Keywords: superconductivity, cable lines, superconducting cable, AC cable, feasibility

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Authors: Zhidong Zhang, Zhi-Chao Zhang, Georgiana Duarte

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This study explored early adolescents’ anxious and depressed syndromes in Northeast China. Specifically, the study examined anxious and depressed behaviors and the relationship to education environments. The purpose is to examine how the elements of educational environments and the early adolescents’ behaviors as independent variables influence and possibly predict the early adolescents’ anxious/depressed problems. Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA), was the instrument, used in collection of data. A stratified sampling method was utilized to collect data from 2532 participants in seven schools. The results indicated that several background variables influenced anxious/depressed problem. Specifically, age, grade, sports activities and hobbies had a relationship with the anxious/depressed variable.

Keywords: anxious/depressed problems, CBCL, empirically-based assessment, internalizing problems

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Authors: Marie-Elise Beydon, Daniel Sacristan, Isabel Ruppen

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MB02 (Alymsys®) is a candidate biosimilar to bevacizumab, which was developed against the reference product (RP) Avastin® sourced from both the European Union (EU) and United States (US). MB02 has been extensively characterized comparatively to Avastin® at a physicochemical and biological level using sensitive orthogonal state-of-the-art analytical methods. MB02 has been demonstrated similar to the RP with regard to its primary and higher-order structure, post- and co-translational profiles such as glycosylation, charge, and size variants. Specific focus has been put on the characterization of Fab-related activities, such as binding to VEGF A 165, which directly reflect the bevacizumab mechanism of action. Fc-related functionality was also investigated, including binding to FcRn, which is indicative of antibodies' half-life. The data generated during the analytical similarity assessment demonstrate the high analytical similarity of MB02 to its RP.

Keywords: analytical similarity, bevacizumab, biosimilar, MB02

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Authors: R. Dariani, S. Schmidt, R. Kasper

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Based on a non-linear single track model which describes the dynamics of vehicle, an optimal path planning strategy is developed. Real time optimization is used to generate reference control values to allow leading the vehicle alongside a calculated lane which is optimal for different objectives such as energy consumption, run time, safety or comfort characteristics. Strict mathematic formulation of the autonomous driving allows taking decision on undefined situation such as lane change or obstacle avoidance. Based on position of the vehicle, lane situation and obstacle position, the optimization problem is reformulated in real-time to avoid the obstacle and any car crash.

Keywords: autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance, optimal control, path planning

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Authors: S. Tireche, A. Tairi abdelaziz

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Environmental damage has increased steadily in recent decades: Depletion of natural resources, destruction of the ozone layer, greenhouse effect, degradation of the quality of life, land use etc. New terms have emerged as: "Prevention rather than cure" or "polluter pays" falls within the principles of common sense, their practical implementation still remains fragmented. Among the avenues to be explored, one of the most promising is certainly one that focuses on product design. Indeed, where better than during the design phase, can reduce the source of future impacts on the environment? What choices or those of design, they influence more on the environmental characteristics of products? The most currently recognized at the international level is the analysis of the life cycle (LCA) and Life Cycle Assessment, subject to International Standardization (ISO 14040-14043). LCA provides scientific and objective assessment of potential impacts of the product or service, considering its entire life cycle. This approach makes it possible to minimize impacts to the source in pollution prevention. It is widely preferable to curative approach, currently majority in the industrial crops, led mostly by a report of pollution. The "product" is to reduce the environmental impacts of a given product, taking into account all or part of its life cycle. Currently, there are emerging tools, known as eco-design. They are intended to establish an environmental profile of the product to improve its environmental performance. They require a quantity sufficient information on the product for each phase of its life cycle: raw material extraction, manufacturing, distribution, usage, end of life (recycling or incineration or deposit) and all stages of transport. The assessment results indicate the sensitive points of the product studied, points on which the developer must act.

Keywords: eco design, impact, life cycle analysis (LCA), sustainability

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Authors: Francesco Pandolfi, Georgios Baltzopoulos, Iunio Iervolino

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The impact of extreme winds on industrial assets and the built environment is gaining increasing attention from stakeholders, including the corporate insurance industry. This has led to a progressively more in-depth study of building vulnerability and fragility to wind. Wind vulnerability models are used in probabilistic risk assessment to relate a loss metric to an intensity measure of the natural event, usually a gust or a mean wind speed. In fact, vulnerability models can be integrated with the wind hazard, which consists of associating a probability to each intensity level in a time interval (e.g., by means of return periods) to provide an assessment of future losses due to extreme wind. This has also given impulse to the world- and regional-scale wind hazard studies.Another approach often adopted for the probabilistic description of building vulnerability to the wind is the use of fragility functions, which provide the conditional probability that selected building components will exceed certain damage states, given wind intensity. In fact, in wind engineering literature, it is more common to find structural system- or component-level fragility functions rather than wind vulnerability models for an entire building. Loss assessment based on component fragilities requires some logical combination rules that define the building’s damage state given the damage state of each component and the availability of a consequence model that provides the losses associated with each damage state. When risk calculations are based on numerical simulation of a structure’s behavior during extreme wind scenarios, the interaction of component fragilities is intertwined with the computational procedure. However, simulation-based approaches are usually computationally demanding and case-specific. In this context, the present work introduces the ExtReMe wind risk assESsment prototype Software, ERMESS, which is being developed at the University of Naples Federico II. ERMESS is a wind risk assessment tool for insurance applications to industrial facilities, collecting a wide assortment of available wind vulnerability models and fragility functions to facilitate their incorporation into risk calculations based on in-built or user-defined wind hazard data. This software implements an alternative method for building-specific risk assessment based on existing component-level fragility functions and on a number of simplifying assumptions for their interactions. The applicability of this alternative procedure is explored by means of an illustrative proof-of-concept example, which considers four main building components, namely: the roof covering, roof structure, envelope wall and envelope openings. The application shows that, despite the simplifying assumptions, the procedure can yield risk evaluations that are comparable to those obtained via more rigorous building-level simulation-based methods, at least in the considered example. The advantage of this approach is shown to lie in the fact that a database of building component fragility curves can be put to use for the development of new wind vulnerability models to cover building typologies not yet adequately covered by existing works and whose rigorous development is usually beyond the budget of portfolio-related industrial applications.

Keywords: component wind fragility, probabilistic risk assessment, vulnerability model, wind-induced losses

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Authors: Divya Palaniappan

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Early Childhood assessment tools must measure the quality and the appropriateness of a curriculum with respect to culture and age of the children. Preschool assessment tools lack psychometric properties and were developed to measure only few areas of development such as specific skills in music, art and adaptive behavior. Existing preschool assessment tools in India are predominantly informal and are fraught with judgmental bias of observers. The World of Discovery TM curriculum focuses on accelerating the physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development of pre-schoolers in India through various activities. The curriculum caters to every child irrespective of their dominant intelligence as per Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence which concluded "even students as young as four years old present quite distinctive sets and configurations of intelligences". The curriculum introduces a new theme every week where, concepts are explained through various activities so that children with different dominant intelligences could understand it. For example: The ‘Insects’ theme is explained through rhymes, craft and counting corner, and hence children with one of these dominant intelligences: Musical, bodily-kinesthetic and logical-mathematical could grasp the concept. The child’s progress is evaluated using an assessment tool that measures a cluster of inter-dependent developmental areas: physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development, which for the first time renders a multi-domain approach. The assessment tool is a 5-point rating scale that measures these Developmental aspects: Cognitive, Language, Physical, Social and Emotional. Each activity strengthens one or more of the developmental aspects. During cognitive corner, the child’s perceptual reasoning, pre-math abilities, hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills could be observed and evaluated. The tool differs from traditional assessment methodologies by providing a framework that allows teachers to assess a child’s continuous development with respect to specific activities in real time objectively. A pilot study of the tool was done with a sample data of 100 children in the age group 2.5 to 3.5 years. The data was collected over a period of 3 months across 10 centers in Chennai, India, scored by the class teacher once a week. The teachers were trained by psychologists on age-appropriate developmental milestones to minimize observer’s bias. The norms were calculated from the mean and standard deviation of the observed data. The results indicated high internal consistency among parameters and that cognitive development improved with physical development. A significant positive relationship between physical and cognitive development has been observed among children in a study conducted by Sibley and Etnier. In Children, the ‘Comprehension’ ability was found to be greater than ‘Reasoning’ and pre-math abilities as indicated by the preoperational stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. The average scores of various parameters obtained through the tool corroborates the psychological theories on child development, offering strong face validity. The study provides a comprehensive mechanism to assess a child’s development and differentiate high performers from the rest. Based on the average scores, the difficulty level of activities could be increased or decreased to nurture the development of pre-schoolers and also appropriate teaching methodologies could be devised.

Keywords: child development, early childhood assessment, early childhood curriculum, quantitative assessment of preschool curriculum

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Authors: Pasquali Frederique, Manfreda Chiara, Crippa Cecilia, Indio Valentina, Ianieri Adriana, De Cesare Alessandra

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Microbiological hazards can be transmitted to humans through milk. In this study, we compared the microbiome composition and presence of foodborne pathogens in organic milk (n=6), organic hay milk (n=6), standard milk (n=6) and high-quality milk (n=6). The milk samples were collected during six samplings between December 2022 to January 2023 and between April and May 2024 to take into account seasonal variations. The 24 milk samples were submitted to DNA extraction and library preparation before shotgun sequencing on the Illumina HiScan™ SQ System platform. The total sequencing output was 600 GB. In all the milk samples, the phyla with the highest relative abundances were Pseudomonadota, Bacillota, Ascomycota, Actinomycetota and Apicomplexa, while the most represented genera were Pseudomonas, Streptococcus, Geotrichum, Acinetobacter and Babesia. The alpha and beta diversity indexes showed a clear separation between the microbiome of high-quality milk and those of the other milk types. Moreover, in the high-quality milk, the relative abundance of Staphylococcus (4.4%), Campylobacter (4.5%), Bacillus (2.5%), Enterococcus (2.4%), Klebsiella (1.3%) and Escherichia (0 .7%) was significantly higher in comparison to other types of milk. On the contrary, the relative abundance of Geotrichum (0.5%) was significantly lower. The microbiome results collected in this study showed significant differences in terms of the relative abundance of bacteria genera, including foodborne pathogen species. These results should be incorporated into risk assessment models tailored to different types of milk.

Keywords: raw milk, foodborne pathogens, microbiome, risk assessment

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Authors: Varsha Hemant Patil, Swati A. Bhavsar, Abolee H. Patil

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Image quality assessment plays an important role in image evaluation. This paper aims to present an investigation of classic techniques in use for image quality assessment, especially for super-resolution imaging. Researchers have contributed a lot towards the development of super-resolution imaging techniques. However, not much attention is paid to the development of metrics for testing the performance of developed techniques. In this paper, the study report of existing image quality measures is given. The paper classifies reviewed approaches according to functionality and suitability for super-resolution imaging. Probable modifications and improvements of these to suit super-resolution imaging are presented. The prime goal of the paper is to provide a comprehensive reference source for researchers working towards super-resolution imaging and suggest a better framework for measuring the performance of super-resolution imaging techniques.

Keywords: interpolation, MSE, PSNR, SSIM, super resolution

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Authors: Jerome Dalphinis, Vishal Patel

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The Bailiwick of Jersey is an island British crown dependency situated off the coast of France. Jersey General Hospital’s emergency department sees approximately 40,000 patients a year. It’s outside the NHS, with secondary care being free at the point of care. Sedation is a continuum which extends from a normal conscious level to being fully unresponsive. Procedural sedation produces a minimally depressed level of consciousness in which the patient retains the ability to maintain an airway, and they respond appropriately to physical stimulation. The goals of it are to improve patient comfort and tolerance of the procedure and alleviate associated anxiety. Indications can be stratified by acuity, emergency (cardioversion for life-threatening dysrhythmia), and urgency (joint reduction). In the emergency department, this is most often achieved using a combination of opioids and benzodiazepines. Some departments also use ketamine to produce dissociative sedation, a cataleptic state of profound analgesia and amnesia. The response to pharmacological agents is highly individual, and the drugs used occasionally have unpredictable pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which can always result in progression between levels of sedation irrespective of the intention. Therefore, practitioners must be able to ‘rescue’ patients from deeper sedation. These practitioners need to be senior clinicians with advanced airway skills (AAS) training. It can lead to adverse effects such as dangerous hypoxia and unintended loss of consciousness if incorrectly undertaken; studies by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) have reported avoidable deaths. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, UK (RCEM) released an updated ‘Safe Sedation of Adults in the Emergency Department’ guidance in 2017 detailing a series of standards for staff competencies, and the required environment and equipment, which are required for each target sedation depth. The emergency department in Jersey undertook audit research in 2018 to assess their current practice. It showed gaps in clinical competency, the need for uniform care, and improved documentation. This spurred the development of a checklist incorporating the above RCEM standards, including contraindication for procedural sedation and difficult airway assessment. This was approved following discussion with the relevant heads of departments and the patient safety directorates. Following this, a second audit research was carried out in 2019 with 17 completed checklists (11 relocation of joints, 6 cardioversions). Data was obtained from looking at the controlled resuscitation drugs book containing documented use of ketamine, alfentanil, and fentanyl. TrakCare, which is the patient electronic record system, was then referenced to obtain further information. The results showed dramatic improvement compared to 2018, and they have been subdivided into six categories; pre-procedure assessment recording of significant medical history and ASA grade (2 fold increase), informed consent (100% documentation), pre-oxygenation (88%), staff (90% were AAS practitioners) and monitoring (92% use of non-invasive blood pressure, pulse oximetry, capnography, and cardiac rhythm monitoring) during procedure, and discharge instructions including the documented return of normal vitals and consciousness (82%). This procedural sedation checklist is a safe intervention that identifies pertinent information about the patient and provides a standardised checklist for the delivery of gold standard of care.

Keywords: advanced airway skills, checklist, procedural sedation, resuscitation

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Authors: Mohammadmehdi Torfehnejada, Serhan Senso

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Aftershock collapse capacity of Special Steel Moment Frames (SSMFs) is evaluated under aftershock earthquakes by considering building heights 8 and 12 stories. The assessment evaluates the residual collapse capacity under aftershock excitation when various levels of damage have been induced by the mainshock. For this purpose, incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) under aftershock follows the mainshock imposing the intended damage level. The study results indicate that aftershock collapse capacity of this structure may decrease remarkably when the structure is subjected to large mainshock damage. The capacity reduction under aftershock is finally related to the mainshock damage level through regression equations.

Keywords: aftershock collapse capacity, special steel moment frames, mainshock-aftershock sequences, incremental dynamic analysis, mainshock damage

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Authors: Sally Naji, Julie Gwilliam

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Climate change remains a challenging matter for the human and the built environment in the 21st century, where the need to consider adaptation to climate change in the development process is paramount. However, there remains a lack of information regarding how we should prepare responses to this issue, such as through developing organized and sophisticated tools enabling the adaptation process. This study aims to build a systematic framework approach to investigate the potentials that Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment tools (NSA) might offer in enabling both the analysis of the emerging adaptive capacity to climate change. The analysis of the framework presented in this paper aims to discuss this issue in three main phases. The first part attempts to link sustainability and climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity. It is argued that in deciding to promote sustainability in the context of climate change, both the resilience and vulnerability processes become central. However, there is still a gap in the current literature regarding how the sustainable development process can respond to climate change. As well as how the resilience of practical strategies might be evaluated. It is suggested that the integration of the sustainability assessment processes with both the resilience thinking process, and vulnerability might provide important components for addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. A critical review of existing literature is presented illustrating the current lack of work in this field, integrating these three concepts in the context of addressing the adaptive capacity to climate change. The second part aims to identify the most appropriate scale at which to address the built environment for the climate change adaptation. It is suggested that the neighborhood scale can be considered as more suitable than either the building or urban scales. It then presents the example of NSAs, and discusses the need to explore their potential role in promoting the adaptive capacity to climate change. The third part of the framework presents a comparison among three example NSAs, BREEAM Communities, LEED-ND, and CASBEE-UD. These three tools have been selected as the most developed and comprehensive assessment tools that are currently available for the neighborhood scale. This study concludes that NSAs are likely to present the basis for an organized framework to address the practical process for analyzing and yet promoting Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change. It is further argued that vulnerability (exposure & sensitivity) and resilience (Interdependence & Recovery) form essential aspects to be addressed in the future assessment of NSA’s capability to adapt to both short and long term climate change impacts. Finally, it is acknowledged that further work is now required to understand impact assessment in terms of the range of physical sectors (Water, Energy, Transportation, Building, Land Use and Ecosystems), Actor and stakeholder engagement as well as a detailed evaluation of the NSA indicators, together with a barriers diagnosis process.

Keywords: adaptive capacity, climate change, NSA tools, resilience, sustainability

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