Search results for: internet culture

Authors: Deybith Venegas-Rojas, Jens Budde, Dominik Nörz, Manfred Jücker, Hoc Khiem Trieu

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Microfluidics is a promising approach for biomedicine cell culture experiments with microfluidic bioreactors (MBR), which can provide high precision in volume and time control over mass transport and microenvironments in small-scale studies. Nevertheless, shear stress and oxygen concentration are important factors that affect the microenvironment and then the cell culture. It is presented a novel MBR design in which differences in geometry, shear stress, and oxygen concentration were studied and optimized for cell culture. The aim is to mimic the in vivo condition with biocompatible materials and continuous perfusion of nutrients, a healthy shear stress, and oxygen concentration. The design consists of a capture system of PDMS micropillars which keep cells in place, so it is not necessary any hydrogel or complicated scaffolds for cells immobilization. Besides, the design allows continuous supply with nutrients or even any other chemical for cell experimentation. Finite element method simulations were used to study and optimize the effect of parameters such as flow rate, shear stress, oxygen concentration, micropillars shape, and dimensions. The micropillars device was fabricated with microsystem technology such as soft-lithography, deep reactive ion etching, self-assembled monolayer, replica molding, and oxygen plasma bonding. Eight different geometries were fabricated and tested, with different flow rates according to the simulations. During the experiments, it was observed the effect of micropillars size, shape, and configuration for stability and shear stress control when increasing flow rate. The device was tested with several successful HepG2 3D cell cultures. With this MBR, the aforementioned parameters can be controlled in order to keep a healthy microenvironment according to specific necessities of different cell types, with no need of hydrogels and can be used for a wide range of experiments with cells.

Keywords: cell culture, micro-bioreactor, microfluidics, micropillars, oxygen concentration, shear stress

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Authors: Nadhiya N. Subramony, Jenifer Vaughan, Lesley E. Scott

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In South Africa, the World Health Organisation estimated 454000 new cases of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) infection (MTB) in 2015. Disseminated tuberculosis arises from the haematogenous spread and seeding of the bacilli in extrapulmonary sites. The gold standard for the detection of MTB in bone marrow is TB culture which has an average turnaround time of 6 weeks. Histological examinations of trephine biopsies to diagnose MTB also have a time delay owing mainly to the 5-7 day processing period prior to microscopic examination. Adding to the diagnostic delay is the non-specific nature of granulomatous inflammation which is the hallmark of MTB involvement of the bone marrow. A Ziehl-Neelson stain (which highlights acid-fast bacilli) is therefore mandatory to confirm the diagnosis but can take up to 3 days for processing and evaluation. Owing to this delay in diagnosis, many patients are lost to follow up or remain untreated whilst results are awaited, thus encouraging the spread of undiagnosed TB. The Xpert® MTB/RIF (Cepheid, Sunnyvale, CA) is the molecular test used in the South African national TB program as the initial diagnostic test for pulmonary TB. This study investigates the optimisation and performance of the Xpert® MTB/RIF on bone marrow aspirate specimens (BMA), a first since the introduction of the assay in the diagnosis of extrapulmonary TB. BMA received for immunophenotypic analysis as part of the investigation into disseminated MTB or in the evaluation of cytopenias in immunocompromised patients were used. Processing BMA on the Xpert® MTB/RIF was optimised to ensure bone marrow in EDTA and heparin did not inhibit the PCR reaction. Inactivated M.tb was spiked into the clinical bone marrow specimen and distilled water (as a control). A volume of 500mcl and an incubation time of 15 minutes with sample reagent were investigated as the processing protocol. A total of 135 BMA specimens had sufficient residual volume for Xpert® MTB/RIF testing however 22 specimens (16.3%) were not included in the final statistical analysis as an adequate trephine biopsy and/or TB culture was not available. Xpert® MTB/RIF testing was not affected by BMA material in the presence of heparin or EDTA, but the overall detection of MTB in BMA was low compared to histology and culture. Sensitivity of the Xpert® MTB/RIF compared to both histology and culture was 8.7% (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07-28.04%) and sensitivity compared to histology only was 11.1% (95% CI: 1.38-34.7%). Specificity of the Xpert® MTB/RIF was 98.9% (95% CI: 93.9-99.7%). Although the Xpert® MTB/RIF generates a faster result than histology and TB culture and is less expensive than culture and drug susceptibility testing, the low sensitivity of the Xpert® MTB/RIF precludes its use for the diagnosis of MTB in bone marrow aspirate specimens and warrants alternative/additional testing to optimise the assay.

Keywords: bone marrow aspirate , extrapulmonary TB, low sensitivity, Xpert® MTB/RIF

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Authors: Nuran Öze

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People always want to be aware of what is happening around them. The nature of man constantly triggers the need for gathering information because of curiosity. The media has emerged to save people the need for information. It is known that the media has changed with the technological developments over time, diversified and, people's information needs are provided in different ways. Today, the Internet has become an integral part of everyday life. The invasion of the Internet into everyday life practices at this level affects every aspect of life. These effects cause people to change their life practices. Technological developments have always influenced of people, the way they reach information. Looking at the history of the media, the breaking point about the dissemination of information is seen as the invention of the machine of the printing press. This adventure that started with written media has now become a multi-dimensional structure. Written, audio, visual media has now changed shape with new technologies. Especially emerging of the internet to everyday life, of course, has effects on media field. 'New media' has appeared which contains most of traditional media features in its'. While in the one hand this transformation enables captures a harmony between traditional and new media, on the other hand, new media and traditional media are rivaling each other. The purpose of this study is to examine the problematic relationship between traditional media and new media through the news reading practices of individuals. This study can be evaluated as a kind of media sociology. To reach this aim, two different field researches will be done besides literature review. The research will be conducted in Northern Cyprus. Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus is located in the Mediterranean Sea. North Cyprus is a country which is not recognized by any country except Turkey. Despite this, takes its share from all technological developments take place in the world. One of the field researches will consist of the questionnaires to be applied on media readers' news reading practices. This survey will be conducted in a social media environment. The second field survey will be conducted in the form of interviews with general editorials or news directors in traditional media. In the second field survey, in-depth interview method will be applied. As a result of these investigations, supporting sides between the new media and the traditional media and directions which contrast with each other will be revealed. In addition to that, it will try to understand the attitudes and perceptions of readers about the traditional media and the new media in this study.

Keywords: new media, news, North Cyprus, traditional media

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Authors: Johanna Perdomo, Riki Lamont, Edmund Pickering, Naomi C. Paxton, Maria A. Woodruff

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Background: Tissue Engineering (TE) has combined advanced materials, such as biomaterials, to create affordable scaffolds and dynamic systems to generate stimulation of seeded cells on these scaffolds, improving and maintaining the cellular growth process in a cell culture. However, Few TE skin products have been clinically translated, and more research is required to produce highly biomimetic skin substitutes that mimic the native elasticity of skin in a controlled manner. Therefore, this work will be focused on the fabrication of a novel mechanical system to enhance the TE treatment approaches for the reparation of damaged tissue skin. Aims: To archive this, a soft robotic device will be created to emulate different deformation of skin stress. The design of this soft robot will allow the attachment of scaffolds, which will then be mechanically actuated. This will provide a novel and highly adaptable platform for dynamic cell culture. Methods: Novel, low-cost soft robot is fabricated via 3D printed moulds and silicone. A low cost, electro-mechanical device was constructed to actuate the soft robot through the controlled combination of positive and negative air pressure to control the different state of movements. Mechanical tests were conducted to assess the performance and calibration of each electronic component. Similarly, pressure-displacement test was performed on scaffolds, which were attached to the soft robot, applying various mechanical loading regimes. Lastly, digital image correlation test was performed to obtain strain distributions over the soft robot’s surface. Results: The control system can control and stabilise positive pressure changes for long hours. Similarly, pressure-displacement test demonstrated that scaffolds with 5µm of diameter and wavy geometry can displace at 100%, applying a maximum pressure of 1.5 PSI. Lastly, during the inflation state, the displacement of silicone was measured using DIC method, and this showed a parameter of 4.78 mm and strain of 0.0652. Discussion And Conclusion: The developed soft robot system provides a novel and low-cost platform for the dynamic actuation of tissue scaffolds with a target towards dynamic cell culture.

Keywords: soft robot, tissue engineering, mechanical stimulation, dynamic cell culture, bioreactor

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Authors: Nguyen Thi Kim Thoa

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Vietnam currently has about two million five hundred deaf/hard of hearing people. Although the issue of Vietnamese Sign Language (VSL) education has received attention from the State, there are still many issues that need to be resolved, such as policies, teacher training in both knowledge and teaching methods, education programs, and textbook compilation. Furthermore, the issue of research on VSL has not yet attracted the attention of linguists. Using the quantitative description method, the article will analyze, synthesize, and compare to find methods to create signed words in VSL, such as based on external shape characteristics, operational characteristics, operating methods, and basic meanings, from which we can see the special nature of signed words, the division of word types and the morphological meaning of creating new words through sign methods. From the results of this research, the aspect of ‘visual culture’ will be clarified in Vietnamese Deaf Culture. Through that, we also develop a number of vocabulary teaching methods (such as teaching vocabulary through a group of methods of forming signed words, teaching vocabulary using mind maps, and teaching vocabulary through culture...), with the aim of further improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning VSL in Vietnam. The research results also provide deaf people in Vietnam with a scientific and effective method of learning vocabulary, helping them quickly integrate into the community. The article will be a useful reference for linguists who want to research VSL.

Keywords: Vietnamese sign language (VSL), signed word, teaching, method

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Authors: Christos Konstantopoulos, Thomas Ussmueller

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Digital low drop-out regulators, in contrast to analog counterparts, provide an architecture of sub-1 V regulation with low power consumption, high power efficiency, and system integration. Towards an optimized integration in the ultra-low-power system-on-chip Internet of Things architecture that is operated through a radio frequency energy harvesting scheme, the D-LDO regulator should constitute the main regulator that operates the master-clock and rest loads of the SoC. In this context, we present a D-LDO with linear search coarse regulation and asynchronous fine regulation, which incorporates an in-regulator clock generation unit that provides an autonomous, self-start-up, and power-efficient D-LDO design. In contrast to contemporary D-LDO designs that employ ring-oscillator architecture which start-up time is dependent on the frequency, this work presents a fast start-up burst oscillator based on a high-gain stage with wake-up time independent of coarse regulation frequency. The design is implemented in a 55-nm Global Foundries CMOS process. With the purpose to validate the self-start-up capability of the presented D-LDO in the presence of ultra-low input power, an on-chip test-bench with an RF rectifier is implemented as well, which provides the RF to DC operation and feeds the D-LDO. Power efficiency and load regulation curves of the D-LDO are presented as extracted from the RF to regulated DC operation. The D-LDO regulator presents 83.6 % power efficiency during the RF to DC operation with a 3.65 uA load current and voltage regulator referred input power of -27 dBm. It succeeds 486 nA maximum quiescent current with CL 75 pF, the maximum current efficiency of 99.2%, and 1.16x power efficiency improvement compared to analog voltage regulator counterpart oriented to SoC IoT loads. Complementary, the transient performance of the D-LDO is evaluated under the transient droop test, and the achieved figure-of-merit is compared with state-of-art implementations.

Keywords: D-LDO, Internet of Things, RF energy harvesting, voltage regulators

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Authors: Zhanara Suleimenova, Raushan Blieva, Aigerim Zhakipbekova, Inkar Tapenbayeva, Zhanar Narmuratova

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Green processes are based on innovative technologies that do not negatively affect the environment. Industrial enzymes originated from biological systems can effectively contribute to sustainable development through being isolated from microorganisms which are fermented using primarily renewable resources. Many widespread microorganisms secrete a significant amount of biocatalysts into the environment, which greatly facilitates the task of their isolation and purification. The ability to control the enzyme production through the regulation of their biosynthesis and the selection of nutrient media and cultivation conditions allows not only to increase the yield of enzymes but also to obtain enzymes with certain properties. In this regard, large potentialities are embedded in immobilized cells. Enzyme production technology in a secreted active form enabling industrial application on an economically feasible scale has been developed. This method is based on the immobilization of enzyme producers on a solid career. Immobilizing has a range of advantages: decreasing the price of the final product, absence of foreign substances, controlled process of enzyme-genesis, the ability of various enzymes' simultaneous production, etc. Design of proposed equipment gives the opportunity to increase the activity of immobilized cell culture filtrate comparing to free cells, growing in periodic culture conditions. Such technology allows giving a 10-times raise in culture productivity, to prolong the process of fungi cultivation and periods of active culture liquid generation. Also, it gives the way to improve the quality of filtrates (to make them more clear) and exclude time-consuming processes of recharging fermentative vials, that require manual removing of mycelium.

Keywords: industrial enzymes, immobilization, submerged fermentation, microscopic fungi

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Authors: Leena Alfarani

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Although mobile devices are ubiquitous on university campuses, teacher-readiness for mobile learning has yet to be fully explored in the non-western nations. This study shows that two main factors affect the adoption and use of m-learning among female teachers within a university in Saudi Arabia—resistance to change and perceived social culture. These determinants of the current use and intention to use of m-learning were revealed through the analysis of an online questionnaire completed by 165 female faculty members. This study reveals several important issues for m-learning research and practice. The results further extend the body of knowledge in the field of m-learning, with the findings revealing that resistance to change and perceived social culture are significant determinants of the current use of and the intention to use m-learning.

Keywords: blended learning, mobile learning, technology adoption, devices

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Authors: Mbah Fidelix Njong, Sabi Emile Forkwa

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Social cognition is an aspect of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store and apply information about others and social situations. It lay emphasis on how cognitive processes play in our social interactions. In this article, we try to show how culture can influence our ways of thinking about others, how we feel and interact with the world around us. Social cognitive processes involve perceiving people and how we learn about the people around us. It concerns the mental processes of remembering, thinking and attending to other people with different cultural backgrounds and how we attend to certain information about the world. Especially in an educational setting, students’ learning processes are most often than not influenced by their cultural background. We can also talk of social schemas. That’s people’s mental representation of social patterns and norms. This involves information about the societal role and the expectations of individuals within a group. These cognitive processes can also be influence by culture. There are important cultural differences in social cognition. In any social situation, two individuals may have different interpretations. Each person brings in a unique background of experiences, knowledge, social influence, feelings and cultural variations. Cultural differences can also affect how people interpret social situations. The same social behavior in one cultural setting might have completely different meaning and interpretation if observed or applied in another culture. However, as people interpret behaviors and bring out meaning from the interpretations, they act based on their beliefs about situations they are confronted with. This helps to reinforce and reproduce the cultural norms that influence their social cognition.

Keywords: social cognition, social schema, cultural influence, psychology

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Authors: Yunos Zahri, Ab Hamid R. Susanty, Ahmad Mustaffa

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This paper explores the need for a national baseline study on understanding the level of cyber security situational awareness among primary and secondary school students in Malaysia. The online survey method was deployed to administer the data collection exercise. The target groups were divided into three categories: Group 1 (primary school aged 7-9 years old), Group 2 (primary school aged 10-12 years old), and Group 3 (secondary school aged 13-17 years old). A different questionnaire set was designed for each group. The survey topics/areas included Internet and digital citizenship knowledge. Respondents were randomly selected from rural and urban areas throughout all 14 states in Malaysia. A total of 9,158 respondents participated in the survey, with most states meeting the minimum sample size requirement to represent the country’s demographics. The findings and recommendations from this baseline study are fundamental to develop teaching modules required for children to understand the security risks and threats associated with the Internet throughout their years in school. Early exposure and education will help ensure healthy cyber habits among millennials in Malaysia.

Keywords: cyber security awareness, cyber security education, cyber security, school students

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Authors: Dawit Thomas

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Feeding and weaning practices vary from culture to culture and depend on different child-rearing values. The socio-cultural dimensions that influence the acceptable infant feeding practices are varied and complex. Understanding cultural differences in beliefs and practices relating to infant feeding is important to enhance designing programs for delivering successful psychological, social, physiological and economic well-being of mothers and infants. The main purpose of this study was exploring mothers infant feeding practices in the context of Hadiyya culture. After purposively selecting Harche Huyaya Uyaya Kebele eight infant feeding mothers were selected using snowball sampling technique. The study employed interviews and focus group discussion. The study found out early initiation and prolonged breastfeeding and early complementary feeding in some instances immediately after birth. In addition, infants were not forced to wean unless the mothers encounter pressing issues like pregnancy and health related problems. Furthermore, the main weaning techniques were putting unpleasant materials on the tip of nipples and sending infants to grandparents home. The study also found out gender difference in weaning, i.e., early initiation of weaning for girls. This can be indicative of gender-based bias on weaning practice. Finally, health extension workers, office of women and children affairs and Hadiyya Zone Tourism office should organize awareness raising programs to preserve vital infant feeding practices like prolonged breastfeeding and length of weaning. In addition, the offices should raise awareness among communities on negative side effects of sending infant to grandparents home that may weaken infant-mothers attachment and create favorable ground for the development of phobia.

Keywords: feeding, infant, practices, weaning

Procedia PDF Downloads 324

Authors: Ahmet Oguz Akturk, Kemal Izci, Gurbuz Caliskan, Ismail Sahin

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Rapid developments in technology are to necessitate societies to closely follow technological developments and change themselves to adopt those developments. It is obvious that one of the areas that are impacted from technological developments is education. Analyzing preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology is crucial for both educational and professional purposes since teacher candidates are essential for educating future individual living in technological age. In this study, it is aimed to analyze preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology and some variables (e.g., gender, daily internet usage and possessed technological devices) that predicting those attitudes. In this study, relational survey model used as research method and 329 preservice teachers who are studying in a large university located at the middle part of Turkey are voluntarily participated. Results of the study showed that mostly preservice teachers displayed positive attitudes toward technology while male preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology was more positive than female preservice teachers. In order to analyze predicting factors for preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology, stepwise multiple regressions were utilized. The results of stepwise multiple regression showed that daily internet use was the most strong predicting factor for predicting preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology.

Keywords: attitudes toward technology, preservice teachers, gender, stepwise multiple regression analysis

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Authors: Hari Govindmishra, Sarabjot Singh

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The study offers an approach to understand different determinants of shopping behaviour, and the effect of ethnicity on shopping behaviour. The results reveal that the Indian culture is composite in nature and because of which there is no difference between different ethnic groups in their preference for three shopping behaviour determinants, viz., status consciousness, need for touch and companion opinion. The research model investigates the relevant relationship between these constructs by using a structural equation modelling approach, which reveals that status consciousness, need for touch and companion opinion are significant determinants of shopping behaviour. Consequently, the shopping behaviour managers have to understand the collective nature of Indian ethnic consumers in their shopping behaviour.

Keywords: ethnic groups, status consciousness, companion opinion, need for touch, shopping behaviour

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Authors: A. O. Ogunlela, T. O. Ayodele

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A fish pond recirculating system was designed and constructed. The system consists of three plastic culture tanks (1000 litres each, filled up to 850 litres). It also consists of a sedimentation tank where the water filtration was carried out and a pump tank where the treated water partially settled before being pumped to the culture tanks. A pump of ½ hp capacity was selected to pump water round the system to enhance water recirculation. Following the design of the solar array that was done, a grid support of tilt angle 36.640 was constructed to offer the system an optimum, all-year-round, intense solar energy reception, which is specific to the location of the project.

Keywords: solar energy, fish pond, recirculation system, pump tank

Procedia PDF Downloads 377

Authors: Fredrick Olatunji Ajegbomogun, Bello Modinat Morenikeji, Okorie Nancy Chituru

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Electronic information resources are highly relevant to students' academic and research needs but are grossly underutilized, despite the institutional commitment to making them available. The under-utilisation of these resources could be attributed to a low level of study behaviour coupled with a low level of computer self-efficacy. This study assessed computer self-efficacy, study behaviour, and the use of electronic information resources by students in selected polytechnics in Ogun State. A simple random sampling technique using Krejcie and Morgan's (1970) Table was used to select 370 respondents for the study. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on respondents. Data were analysed using frequency counts, percentages, mean, standard deviation, Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and multiple regression analysis. Results reveal that the internet (= 1.94), YouTube (= 1.74), and search engines (= 1.72) were the common information resources available to the students, while the Internet (= 4.22) is the most utilized resource. Major reasons for using electronic information resources were to source materials and information (= 3.30), for research (= 3.25), and to augment class notes (= 2.90). The majority (91.0%) of the respondents have a high level of computer self-efficacy in the use of electronic information resources through selecting from screen menus (= 3.12), using data files ( = 3.10), and efficient use of computers (= 3.06). Good preparation for tests (= 3.27), examinations (= 3.26), and organization of tutorials (= 3.11) are the common study behaviours of the respondents. Overall, 93.8% have good study behaviour. Inadequate computer facilities to access information (= 3.23), and poor internet access (= 2.87) were the major challenges confronting students’ use of electronic information resources. According to the PPMC results, study behavior (r = 0.280) and computer self-efficacy (r = 0.304) have significant (p 0.05) relationships with the use of electronic information resources. Regression results reveal that self-efficacy (=0.214) and study behavior (=0.122) positively (p 0.05) influenced students' use of electronic information resources. The study concluded that students' use of electronic information resources depends on the purpose, their computer self-efficacy, and their study behaviour. Therefore, the study recommended that the management should encourage the students to improve their study habits and computer skills, as this will enhance their continuous and more effective utilization of electronic information resources.

Keywords: computer self-efficacy, study behaviour, electronic information resources, polytechnics, Nigeria

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Authors: Raluca-Ioana Antonescu

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The field research of the paper stands at the intersection between Linguistics and Sociology, while the problem of the research is the importance of language in the modernization process and in a globalized society. The research objective is to prove that language is a stimulant for modernity, while it defines the tradition and the culture of a specific society. In order to examine the linguistic change of the Korean language due to the modernity and globalization, the paper tries to answer one main question, What are the changes the Korean language underwent from a traditional version of Korean, towards one influenced by modernity?, and two secondary questions, How are explored in specialized literature the relations between globalization (and modernity) and culture (focusing on language)? and What influences the Korean language? For the purpose of answering the research questions, the paper has the main premise that due to modernity and globalization, the Korean language changed its discourse construction, and two secondary hypothesis, first is that in literature there are not much explored the relations between culture and modernity focusing on the language discourse construction, but more about identity issue and commodification problems, and the second hypothesis is that the Korean language is influenced by traditional values (like Confucianism) while receiving influence also of globalization process (especially from English language). In terms of methodology, the paper will analyze the two main influences upon the Korean language, referring to traditionalism (being defined as the influence of Confucianism) and modernism (as the influence of other countries’ language and culture), and how the Korean language it was constructed and modified due to these two elements. The paper will analyze at what level (grammatical, lexical, etc.) the traditionalism help at the construction of the Korean language, and what are the changes at each level that modernism brought along. As for the results of this research, the influence of modernism changed both lexically and grammatically the Korean language. In 60 years the increase of English influence is astonishing, and this paper shows the main changes the Korean language underwent, like the loanwords (Konglish), but also the reduction of the speech levels and the ease of the register variation use. Therefore the grammatical influence of modernity and globalization could be seen at the reduction of the speech level and register variation, while the lexical change comes with the influence of English language especially, where about 10% of the Korean vocabulary is considered to be loanwords. Also the paper presents the interrelation between traditionalism and modernity, with the example of Konglish, but not only (we can consider also the Korean greetings which are translated by Koreans when they speak in other languages, bringing their cultural characteristics in English discourse construction), which makes the Koreans global, since they speak in an international language, but still local since they cannot get rid completely of their culture.

Keywords: Confucianism, globalization, language and linguistic change, modernism, traditionalism

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Authors: G. Yoga Sairam Teja, K. Harsha Vardhan, A. Vinay Kumar, K. Nithish Kumar, Ch. Shanthi Priyag

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The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has facilitated better device control and monitoring in the modern world. The constant monitoring of a patient would be drastically altered by the usage of IoT in healthcare. As we've seen in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's important to keep oneself untouched while continuously checking on the patient's heart rate and temperature. Additionally, patients with paralysis should be closely watched, especially if they are elderly and in need of special care. Our "IoT BASED PATIENT HEALTH MONITORING SYSTEM" project uses IoT to track patient health conditions in an effort to address these issues. In this project, the main board is an 8051 microcontroller that connects a number of sensors, including a heart rate sensor, a temperature sensor (LM-35), and a saline water measuring circuit. These sensors are connected via an ESP832 (WiFi) module, which enables the sending of recorded data directly to the cloud so that the patient's health status can be regularly monitored. An LCD is used to monitor the data in offline mode, and a buzzer will sound if any variation from the regular readings occurs. The data in the cloud may be viewed as a graph, making it simple for a user to spot any unusual conditions.

Keywords: IoT, ESP8266, 8051 microcontrollers, sensors

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Authors: Fariyal Mir

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The largest minority group over Pakistan lives in the farthest region of KPK, Chitral, which enclosed all its people in one closet despite their diversity. Chitral is considered a tourist hub and piece of paradise on earth. The major attraction of Chitral is the Kalash valley, which is also known as the homeland of kafir or 'weavers of the black robes'. Kalash people are counted as the primitive pagan tribe who practice culture, beliefs, and a lifestyle which dated beyond and distinct from the rest of the region. Their religious belief is known to be as 'animism', which means that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. They also believe that nature plays a highly significant and spiritual role in their daily life. As they have their different festivals like (a) Chilam Josh: celebrated in May to welcome spring, (b) Uchaw: which is observed in late August to ensure good crops of wheat, (c) Chanmos: which is being observed in December for more than two weeks, grand festival and is celebrated to welcome New Year. Their concept of purity and impurity is also very traditional and part of their religious belief as well. They used to call the man as pure 'Oshniru' (pure, holy) and woman as impure 'Chetu' (dirty, polluted, or contaminated). This study is based on ethnomethodology, which focuses on the way people make sense of their daily life. Their unique belief system connects them with the descendants of the armies of Alexander the Great, who called the Hindu Kush 'Parapamisus', meaning mountains over which eagles can fly. With time, their cultural system was molded into many ways, and the same is going on with the true beauty of Chitral in the form of conversion to Islam and adaptation of modern lifestyle. Ethnomethodology also supports this, that people are always good in their original form so they can be called the true representatives of their origin and cultural identity. It also argues that human society is based on the method of achieving and displaying not on the imposition of others' order and laws. So, everybody is obliged to respect and not to harm the beliefs and culture of all other human fellows. Some historians believe that these Kalash people are from Afghanistan and their origin is Saim which is known as Thailand, but those Kalash tribe from Afghanistan were forced to embrace Islam and only Pakistan keeps these people who own unique cultural values, ornaments and entire culture. Kalasha culture has been listed by UNESCO for consideration as World Heritage. It is necessary to save these people from the cultural invasion caused by modernity, forced religious conversion to maintain the pluralistic diversity of our country.

Keywords: Chitral, cultural identity, ethnomethodology, Kalasha culture

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Authors: Uftah Ali M. Shushni, Viola Stuppec, Ulrike Lindequist

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Because of the evolving resistance of microorganisms to existing antibiotics, there is an increasing need for new antibiotics not only in human but also in veterinary medicine. As part of our ongoing work on the secondary metabolites produced by marine fungi, the organic extract of the culture filtrate of an Ascomycetous fungus, which was found on driftwood collected from the coast of the Greifswalder Bodden, Baltic Sea, Germany displayed antimicrobial activity against some fish and human pathogenic bacteria. Bioactivity-guided column chromatographic separation led to the isolation of 6-Deoxybostrycoidin. The structure was determined from the interpretation of spectroscopic data (UV, MS, and NMR). 6-Deoxybostrycoidin exhibited in vitro activity against Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus and Flexibacter maritimus with minimal inhibitory concentrations of 25, 12.5 and 12.5 μg/ml respectively.

Keywords: marine fungi, fish pathogenic bacteria, microorganism, medicine

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Authors: Vahid Bairami Rad

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The intelligentization of agricultural fields can control the temperature, humidity, and variables affecting the growth of agricultural products online and on a mobile phone or computer. Smarting agricultural fields and gardens is one of the best and best ways to optimize agricultural equipment and has a 100 percent direct effect on the growth of plants and agricultural products and farms. Smart farms are the topic that we are going to discuss today, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Agriculture is becoming smarter every day. From large industrial operations to individuals growing organic produce locally, technology is at the forefront of reducing costs, improving results and ensuring optimal delivery to market. A key element to having a smart agriculture is the use of useful data. Modern farmers have more tools to collect intelligent data than in previous years. Data related to soil chemistry also allows people to make informed decisions about fertilizing farmland. Moisture meter sensors and accurate irrigation controllers have made the irrigation processes to be optimized and at the same time reduce the cost of water consumption. Drones can apply pesticides precisely on the desired point. Automated harvesting machines navigate crop fields based on position and capacity sensors. The list goes on. Almost any process related to agriculture can use sensors that collect data to optimize existing processes and make informed decisions. The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center of this great transformation. Internet of Things hardware has grown and developed rapidly to provide low-cost sensors for people's needs. These sensors are embedded in IoT devices with a battery and can be evaluated over the years and have access to a low-power and cost-effective mobile network. IoT device management platforms have also evolved rapidly and can now be used securely and manage existing devices at scale. IoT cloud services also provide a set of application enablement services that can be easily used by developers and allow them to build application business logic. Focus on yourself. These development processes have created powerful and new applications in the field of Internet of Things, and these programs can be used in various industries such as agriculture and building smart farms. But the question is, what makes today's farms truly smart farms? Let us put this question in another way. When will the technologies associated with smart farms reach the point where the range of intelligence they provide can exceed the intelligence of experienced and professional farmers?

Keywords: food security, IoT automation, wireless communication, hybrid lifestyle, arduino Uno

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Authors: E. Rommes, Els Toonen, Rahil Roodsaz, Suborna Camellia, Farhana Alam, Saad Khan, Jhalok Ranjon Talukder, Tanveer Hassan, Syeda Farjana Ahmed, Sabina Faiz Rashid

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In Bangladesh, a country in which adults (both parents and teachers) find it particularly hard to speak with youth about sexuality, adolescents seem to struggle with various insecurities about their sexual feelings, thoughts, behavior and physical characteristics. On the basis of a large number of interviews and focus groups with rural and urban Bangla adolescent girls and boys of lower and middle class as part of the large-scale three-year project ‘Breaking the Shame’, we have identified ten sexual themes or ‘myths’ that youth struggle with most. These encompass amongst others beliefs and insecurities on masturbation, discharge, same-sex behavior and feelings, the effects of watching porn and gender norms. We argue that the Internet is a particularly suitable medium to ‘debunk’ those myths, as youth can consult it anonymously and privately and so avoid social shame. Moreover, amongst the myths, we have identified two kinds which may need different debunking techniques. One kind of myth concerns scientifically uncontested, generally biological related information, such as the effects of having sex with a pregnant woman, questions on the effects of a penile or vaginal discharge or questions on the effects of masturbation. The second kind of myths concerns more diverse information sources and deals with e.g. religious or culturally specific norms, such as on the meaning and existence of homosexuality or gender appropriate norms of behavior in Bangladesh. For addressing both kinds of myths, expert information including a wealth of references to information resources needs to be provided, which the Internet is very suitable for. For the second kind of myths, adolescents also need to learn how to deal with sometimes conflicting norms and information sources, and they need to develop and reflect on their own opinions as part of their identity formation. On the basis of a literature review, we thus distinguish general information needs from identity formation needs, which includes the need to be able to relate information and opinions to one’s own opinions and situation. Hence, we argue that youth not only need abstract expert information to be able to debunk sexual myths, but also the option to discuss this information with other adolescents and compare their own situation and opinions with other peers, who in that way serve as ‘warm experts’ for each other. In this paper, we will describe the outcomes of our qualitative study above. In addition, we will present our findings of an intervention by presenting youth with general, uncontested information on the Internet with additional peer discussion options to compare the debunking effects on different kinds of myths.

Keywords: peer discussion, intervention, sexual myths, shame

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Authors: Goodness Thandi Ntuli

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Some cultural aspects in the African context have a tendency of uplifting women while some thrust them into the worst denigration scenarios; hence African Women Theologians refer to culture as a ‘double edged sword. Through socialization and internalization of social norms, some women become custodians of life, denying aspects of the culture that are against them and hand them down to the next generation. This indirectly contributes to the perpetuation of patriarchal tendencies wherein women themselves uphold and endorse such tendencies to their own detriment. One of the findings of the empirical research study conducted among the Zulu young women in the South African context was that, on the one hand, lobola (the bride-price) is one of the cultural practices that contribute a great deal in the vilification of women. On the other hand, a woman whose lobola has been paid is highly esteemed in the cultural context not only by society at large but also by the implicated woman who takes pride in it. Consequently, lobola becomes an ambiguous cultural practice. Thus from the postcolonial feminist perspective, this paper examines and critiques lobola practice while also disclosing and exposing its deep seated cultural reinforcement that is life denying to women. The paper elucidates the original lobola as a cultural practice before colonization and how it became commercialized during colonial times. With commercialization in the modern world, lobola has completely lost its preliminary meaning and ceased to be a life-giving cultural practice, particularly for women. It turned out to be the worst cultural practice that demeans women to the extent that it becomes suicidal to women dignity because, in marriage, they become objects or property to the men who purchased them. Women objectification in marriage does not only leave them culturally trapped in what was perceived to be a good practice, but it also leads to women abuse and gender based or domestic violence. The research has indicated that this kind of violence is escalating and has become so pervasive in the South African context that the country is rated as one of the capital cities of violence against women in the world. Therefore, this paper demonstrates how cultural practices at times indirectly contribute to this national scourge that needs to be condemned, disparaged and rejected. Women in the African context where such cultural activities are still viewed as a norm are in desperate need for true liberation from such ambiguous cultural practices that leave them in the margins in spite of the earned social status they might have achieved.

Keywords: african, ambiguity, critique, culture, feminist, lobola, postcolonial, society

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Authors: Nathalie Quinto, Danielle Solancho

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In 1986, after Marcos’ Martial Law of 1972, the Philippines revised its constitution for the fifth time, under the Aquino Administration. Extrajudicial violence was expected to be lessened, if not completely eradicated after this was passed. However, state-sponsored executions continued to persist even in the present time. There are currently identified policy gaps when it comes to extrajudicial cases, as there is no generally accepted definition of the term in the Philippines. In this paper, a triangulation method of historically published papers, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions of academics, scholars, and people who are involved in various cases found, was utilized for the methodology. This paper explores the establishment of a normalized system of state-sponsored executions in the country and why the state resorts to this kind of action. It found that due to a weak political, and social institution, a culture of extrajudicial executions was established.

Keywords: extrajudicial execution, human rights, justice, security

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Authors: Ayse Inel Manav, Nuray Simsek

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The number of people with dementia and the problems that are experienced by these people are increasing along with aging world population. This study was carried out to assess the effects of reminiscence therapy using internet videos on the cognitive condition and apathy levels of elderly people who had mild dementia and lived in nursing homes. This randomly controlled experimental study was conducted between 25 May-25 August 2016 in the nursing home, elderly care and rehabilitation centers in Adana and Seyhan, Turkey. A total of 32 individuals participated in this study, 16 in the experimental group and 16 in the control group. Data were collected using a personal information form developed on the basis of the published literature, the Standardized Mini Mental Test (SMMT) and the Apathy Rating Scale (ARS). The Clinical Research Ethics Committee's approval, written institutional permission, and the written consent of the participants were obtained before data collection. The individuals in the experimental group received reminiscence therapy using internet videos for 60 minutes one day a week for three months. During the same period, 25-30 minutes of unstructured interviews on subjects unrelated to reminiscence were carried out with individuals in the control group. The SMMT and ARS were administered before the applications in the experimental group and at the end of the third month. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and frequencies) as well as Student's t-test, the Mann-Whitney U-test, and Wilcoxon's signed ranks test. In this study, the total SMMT post-test scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). There was a difference between experimental and control groups' total SMMT post-test scores (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). The experimental group's ARS total post-test scores were higher than those of the control group (p = 0.001; p < 0.01). This study found that group reminiscence therapy using internet videos improved the cognitive functions and apathy levels of elderly individuals with mild dementia.

Keywords: apaty, cognitive testing, dementia, elderly, reminisence threapy

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Authors: Chantal Maille

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This paper is about gender-based analysis plus (GBA+), an intersectional gender policy used in Canada to assess the impact of policies and programs for men and women from different origins. It looks at Canada’s political culture to explain the nature of its gender policies. GBA+ is defined as an analysis method that makes it possible to assess the eventual effects of policies, programs, services, and other initiatives on women and men of different backgrounds because it takes account of gender and other identity factors. The ‘plus’ in the name serves to emphasize that GBA+ goes beyond gender to include an examination of a wide range of other related identity factors, such as age, education, language, geography, culture, and income. The point of departure for GBA+ is that women and men are not homogeneous populations and gender is never the only factor in defining a person’s identity; rather, it interacts with factors such as ethnic origin, age, disabilities, where the person lives, and other aspects of individual and social identity. GBA+ takes account of these factors and thus challenges notions of similarity or homogeneity within populations of women and men. Comparative analysis based on sex and gender may serve as a gateway to studying a given question, but women, men, girls, and boys do not form homogeneous populations. In the 1990s, intersectionality emerged as a new feminist framework. The popularity of the notion of intersectionality corresponds to a time when, in hindsight, the damage done to minoritized groups by state disengagement policies in concert with global intensification of neoliberalism, and vice versa, can be measured. Although GBA+ constitutes a form of intersectionalization of GBA, it must be understood that the two frameworks do not spring from a similar logic. Intersectionality first emerged as a dynamic analysis of differences between women that was oriented toward change and social justice, whereas GBA is a technique developed by state feminists in a context of analyzing governmental policies and aiming to promote equality between men and women. It can nevertheless be assumed that there might be interest in such a policy and program analysis grid that is decentred from gender and offers enough flexibility to take account of a group of inequalities. In terms of methodology, the research is supported by a qualitative analysis of governmental documents about GBA+ in Canada. Research findings identify links between Canadian gender policies and its political culture. In Canada, diversity has been taken into account as an element at the basis of gendered analysis of public policies since 1995. The GBA+ adopted by the government of Canada conveys an opening to intersectionality and a sensitivity to multiculturalism. The Canadian Multiculturalism Act, adopted 1988, proposes to recognize the fact that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian identity and heritage and constitutes an invaluable resource for the future of the country. In conclusion, Canada’s distinct political culture can be associated with the specific nature of its gender policies.

Keywords: Canada, gender-based analysis, gender policies, political culture

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Authors: Sendy Ghirardi, Pau Rausell Köster

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The European Commission increasingly pushes cultural policies towards social outcomes and local and regional authorities also call for culture-driven strategies for local development and prosperity and therefore, the measurement of cultural participation becomes increasingly more significant for evidence-based policy-making processes. Cultural participation involves various kinds of social and economic spillovers that combine social and economic objectives of value creation, including social sustainability and respect for human values. Traditionally, from the economic perspective, cultural consumption is measured by the value of financial transactions in purchasing, subscribing to, or renting cultural equipment and content, addressing the market value of cultural products and services. The main sources of data are the household spending survey and merchandise trade survey, among others. However, what characterizes the cultural consumption is that it is linked with the hedonistic and affective dimension rather than the utilitarian one. In fact, nowadays, more and more attention is being paid to the social and psychological dimensions of culture. The aim of this work is to present a comprehensive approach to measure the impacts of cultural participation and cultural users’ behaviour, combining both socio-psychological and economic approaches. The model combines contingent evaluation techniques with the individual characteristic and perception analysis of the cultural experiences to evaluate the cognitive, aesthetic, emotive and social impacts of cultural participation. To investigate the comprehensive approach to measure the impact of the cultural events on individuals, the research has been designed on the basis of prior theoretical development. A deep literature methodology has been done to develop the theoretical model applied to the web platform to measure the impacts of cultural experience on individuals. The developed framework aims to become a democratic tool for evaluating the services that cultural or policy institutions can adopt through the use of an interacting platform that produces big data benefiting academia, cultural management and policies. The Au Culture is a prototype based on an application that can be used on mobile phones or any other digital platform. The development of the AU Culture Platform has been funded by the Valencian Innovation Agency (Government of the Region of Valencia) and it is part of the Horizon 2020 project MESOC.

Keywords: comprehensive approach, cultural participation, economic dimension, socio-psychological dimension

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Authors: H. M. Avanesyan

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Economists have been discussing the importance of intangible assets for the success of organization for many years. The term intellectual capital was popularized in the 1990s by Thomas Stewart. “Intellectual capital is the knowledge, applied experience, enterprise processes and technology customer relationship and professional skills which are valuable assets to an organization.” Human capital – includes employee brainpower, competence, skills, experience and knowledge. Customer capital – includes relations and networks with partners, suppliers, distributors, and customers. The objective of the article is to assess one of the key components of organizational culture – organizational values. The focus of the survey was on assessing how intellectual capital presented in these values of the organization. In the conclusion section the article refers to underestimation of intellectual capital by the organization management and the various possible negative effects of the latter.

Keywords: human capital, intellectual capital, organizational culture, management, social identity, organization

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Authors: Cheng-Jhe Lee, Chiun-Chieh Hsu

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Due to the rapid development of the Internet and the increased availability of digital documents, the excessive information on the Internet has led to information overflow problem. In order to solve these problems for effective information retrieval, document clustering in text mining becomes a popular research topic. Clustering is the unsupervised classification of data items into groups without the need of training data. Many conventional document clustering methods perform inefficiently for large document collections because they were originally designed for relational database. Therefore they are impractical in real-world document clustering and require special handling for high dimensionality and high volume. We propose the FIHC (Frequent Itemset-based Hierarchical Clustering) method, which is a hierarchical clustering method developed for document clustering, where the intuition of FIHC is that there exist some common words for each cluster. FIHC uses such words to cluster documents and builds hierarchical topic tree. In this paper, we combine FIHC algorithm with ontology to solve the semantic problem and mine the meaning behind the words in documents. Furthermore, we use the closed frequent itemsets instead of only use frequent itemsets, which increases efficiency and scalability. The experimental results show that our method is more accurate than those of well-known document clustering algorithms.

Keywords: FIHC, documents clustering, ontology, closed frequent itemset

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Authors: Lochan Basyal

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Global Automation is an emerging technology of today’s era and is based on Internet of Things (IoT). Global automation deals with the controlling of electrical appliances throughout the world. The fabrication of this system has been carried out with interfacing an electrical control system module to Raspberry Pi. An electrical control system module includes a relay driver mechanism through which appliances are controlled automatically in respective condition. In this research project, one email ID has been assigned to Raspberry Pi, and the users from different location having different email ID can mail to Raspberry Pi on assigned email address “[email protected]” with subject heading “Device Control” with predefined command on compose email line. Also, a notification regarding current working condition of this system has been updated on respective user email ID. This approach is an innovative way of implementing smart automation system through which a user can control their electrical appliances like light, fan, television, refrigerator, etc. in their home with the use of email facility. The development of this project helps to enhance the concept of smart home application as well as industrial automation.

Keywords: control circuit, e-mail, global automation, internet of things, IOT, Raspberry Pi

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Authors: Hussen Nasir, Mohd Fitri Mansor, Noor Hidayah Abu

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Liberation of the SME market led to a dynamic competitive business environment. SMEs are considered as an engine for economic growth of most nations. SMEs must be willing to adopt the latest technology and incorporate innovation as part of their business strategies. The aim of this study is to examine the innovation practices (innovation strategy and innovation culture) towards sustaining SME’s performance and the moderating effect of intellectual capital on the relationship of innovation practices on SME’s performance. The study will identify the strongest variables that influence the SMEs performance and proposed several hypothesis toward innovation and intellectual capital. Finally, the study will propose a theoretical framework. The current study will contribute to the knowledge of important on the element of intellectual capital as well as innovation practices in the SMEs performance.

Keywords: intellectual capital, innovation practices, SMEs, performance, innovation strategy, innovation culture

Procedia PDF Downloads 471