Search results for: risk banking technology

Authors: P. Kamphikul, P. Krachodnok, R. Wongsan

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This paper presents the gain improvement of a sector antenna for mobile phone base station by using the new technique to enhance its gain for microstrip antenna (MSA) array without construction enlargement. The curved woodpile Electromagnetic Band Gap (EBG) has been utilized to improve the gain instead. The advantages of this proposed antenna are reducing the length of MSAs array but providing the higher gain and easy fabrication and installation. Moreover, it provides a fan-shaped radiation pattern, wide in the horizontal direction and relatively narrow in the vertical direction, which appropriate for mobile phone base station. The paper also presents the design procedures of a 1x8 MSAs array associated with U-shaped reflector for decreasing their back and side lobes. The fabricated curved woodpile EBG exhibits bandgap characteristics at 2.1 GHz and is utilized for realizing a resonant cavity of MSAs array. This idea has been verified by both the Computer Simulation Technology (CST) software and experimental results. As the results, the fabricated proposed antenna achieves a high gain of 20.3 dB and the half-power beam widths in the E- and H-plane of 36.8 and 8.7 degrees, respectively. Good qualitative agreement between measured and simulated results of the proposed antenna was obtained.

Keywords: gain improvement, microstrip antenna array, electromagnetic band gap, base station

Procedia PDF Downloads 305

Authors: Prosper Tafadzwa Denhere, Ephias Ruhode, Munyaradzi Zhou

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Health Information Systems (HISs) interoperability is emerging to be the future of modern healthcare systems Enterprise Architecture (EA), where healthcare entities are seamlessly interconnected to share healthcare data. The reality that the healthcare industry has been characterised by an influx of fragmented stand-alone e-Health systems, which present challenges of healthcare information sharing across platforms, desires much attention for systems integration efforts. The lack of an EA conceptual framework resultantly crates the need for investigating an ideal solution to the objective of Health Information Systems interoperability development assessment. The study takes a qualitative exploratory approach through a design science research context. The research aims to study the various themes withdrawn from the literature that can help in the assessment of interoperable HISs development through a literature study. Themes derived from the study include HIS needs, HIS readiness, HIS constraints, and HIS technology integration elements and standards tied to the EA development architectural layers of The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) as an EA development methodology. Eventually, the themes were conceptualised into a framework reviewed by two experts. The essence of the study was to provide a framework within which interoperable EA of HISs should be developed.

Keywords: enterprise architecture, eHealth, health information systems, interoperability

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Yulia Chalri, E. T. P. Lussiana, Sarifuddin Madenda, Bambang Trisakti, Yuhilza Hanum

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Water is a natural resource needed by humans and other living creatures. The territorial water of Indonesia is 81% of the country area, consisting of inland waters and the sea. The research object is inland waters in the form of lakes and reservoirs, since 90% of inland waters are in them, therefore the water quality should be monitored. One of water quality parameters is Total Suspended Solid (TSS). Most of the earlier research did direct measurement by taking the water sample to get TSS values. This method takes a long time and needs special tools, resulting in significant cost. Remote sensing technology has solved a lot of problems, such as the mapping of watershed and sedimentation, monitoring disaster area, mapping coastline change, and weather analysis. The aim of this research is to estimate TSS of Rawa Pening lake in Central Java by using the Lansat 8 image. The result shows that the proposed method successfully estimates the Rawa Pening’s TSS. In situ TSS shows normal water quality range, and so does estimation result of segmentation method.

Keywords: total suspended solid (TSS), remote sensing, image segmentation, RGB value

Procedia PDF Downloads 403

Authors: Poramet Saeng-On

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This research aims to develop ways of lodging business management of Bang Khonthi community in Samut Songkram province that are appropriate with the cultural context of the Bang Khonthi community. Eight lodging business owners were interviewed. It was found that lodging business that are family business must be done with passion, correct understanding of self, culture, nature, Thai way of life, thorough, professional development, environmentally concerned, building partnerships with various networks both community level, and public sector and business cohorts. Public relations should be done through media both traditional and modern outlets, such as websites and social networks to provide customers convenience, security, happiness, knowledge, love and value when travel to Bang Khonthi. This will also help them achieve sustainability in business, in line with the 10 Home Stay Standard Thailand. Suggestions for operators are as follows: Operators need to improve their public relations work. They need to use technology in public relations such as the internet. Management standards must be improved. Souvenir and local products shops should be arranged in the compound. Product pricing must be set accordingly. They need to join hands to help each other. Quality of the business operation should be raised to meet the standards. Educational measures to reduce the impact caused by tourism on the community such as efforts to reduce energy consumption.

Keywords: homestay, lodging business, management, standard

Procedia PDF Downloads 438

Authors: Shaker Alsharif, Xavier Banquy

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Controlled drug delivery technology represents one of the most rapidly advancing areas of science in which chemists and chemical engineers are contributing to human health care. Such delivery systems provide numerous advantages compared to conventional dosage forms including improved efficacy, and improved patient compliance and convenience. Such systems often use synthetic polymers as carriers for the drugs. As a result, treatments that would not otherwise be possible are now in conventional use. The role of bilayered vesicles as efficient carriers for drugs, vaccines, diagnostic agents and other bioactive agents have led to a rapid advancement in the liposomal drug delivery system. Moreover, the site avoidance and site-specific drug targeting therapy could be achieved by formulating a liposomal product, so as to reduce the cytotoxicity of many potent therapeutic agents. Our project focuses on developing and building hydrogel with nanoinclusion of liposomes loaded with active compounds such as proteins and growth factors able to release them in a controlled fashion. In order to achieve that, we synthesize several liposomes of two different phospholipids concentrations encapsulating model drug. Then, formulating hydrogel with specific mechanical properties embedding the liposomes to manage the release of active compound.

Keywords: controlled release, hydrogel, liposomes, active compounds

Procedia PDF Downloads 442

Authors: F. Murilo T. Luna, Vanessa F. Oliveira, Alysson Rocha, Expedito J. S. Parente, Andre V. Bueno, Matheus C. M. Farias, Celio L. Cavalcante Jr.

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Aviation jetfuel used in aircraft gas-turbine engines is customarily obtained from the kerosene distillation fraction of petroleum (150-275°C). Mineral jetfuel consists of a hydrocarbon mixture containing paraffins, naphthenes and aromatics, with low olefins content. In order to ensure their safety, several stringent requirements must be met by jetfuels, such as: high energy density, low risk of explosion, physicochemical stability and low pour point. In this context, aviation fuels eventually obtained from biofeedstocks (which have been coined as ‘biojetfuel’), must be used as ‘drop in’, since adaptations in aircraft engines are not desirable, to avoid problems with their operation reliability. Thus, potential aviation biofuels must present the same composition and physicochemical properties of conventional jetfuel. Among the potential feedtstocks for aviation biofuel, the babaçu oil, extracted from a palm tree extensively found in some regions of Brazil, contains expressive quantities of short chain saturated fatty acids and may be an interesting choice for biojetfuel production. In this study, biojetfuel was synthesized through homogeneous transesterification of babaçu oil using methanol and its properties were compared with petroleum-based jetfuel through measurements of oxidative stability, physicochemical properties and low temperature properties. The transesterification reactions were carried out using methanol and after decantation/wash procedures, the methyl esters were purified by molecular distillation under high vacuum at different temperatures. The results indicate significant improvement in oxidative stability and pour point of the products when compared to the fresh oil. After optimization of operational conditions, potential biojetfuel samples were obtained, consisting mainly of C8 esters, showing low pour point and high oxidative stability. Jet engine tests are being conducted in an automated test bed equipped with pollutant emissions analysers to study the operational performance of the biojetfuel that was obtained and compare with a mineral commercial jetfuel.

Keywords: biojetfuel, babaçu oil, oxidative stability, engine tests

Procedia PDF Downloads 257

Authors: Naridchaya Aberdour, Joanna Kao, Anne Miller, Timothy Shore, Richard Maher, Zhixin Liu

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Background: COVID-19 has and continues to be a strain on healthcare globally, with the number of patients requiring hospitalization exceeding the level of medical support available in many countries. As chest x-rays are the primary respiratory radiological investigation, the Radiological Assessment of Lung Edema (RALE) score was used to quantify the extent of pulmonary infection on baseline imaging. Assessment of RALE score's reproducibility and associations with clinical outcome parameters were then evaluated to determine implications for patient management and prognosis. Methods: A retrospective study was performed with the inclusion of patients testing positive for COVID-19 on nasopharyngeal swab within a single Local Health District in Sydney, Australia and baseline x-ray imaging acquired between January to June 2020. Two independent Radiologists viewed the studies and calculated the RALE scores. Clinical outcome parameters were collected and statistical analysis was performed to assess RALE score reproducibility and possible associations with clinical outcomes. Results: A total of 78 patients met inclusion criteria with the age range of 4 to 91 years old. RALE score concordance between the two independent Radiologists was excellent (interclass correlation coefficient = 0.93, 95% CI = 0.88-0.95, p<0.005). Binomial logistics regression identified a positive correlation with hospital admission (1.87 OR, 95% CI= 1.3-2.6, p<0.005), oxygen requirement (1.48 OR, 95% CI= 1.2-1.8, p<0.005) and invasive ventilation (1.2 OR, 95% CI= 1.0-1.3, p<0.005) for each 1-point increase in RALE score. For each one year increased in age, there was a negative correlation with recovery (0.05 OR, 95% CI= 0.92-1.0, p<0.01). RALE scores above three were positively associated with hospitalization (Youden Index 0.61, sensitivity 0.73, specificity 0.89) and above six were positively associated with ICU admission (Youden Index 0.67, sensitivity 0.91, specificity 0.78). Conclusion: The RALE score can be used as a surrogate to quantify the extent of COVID-19 infection and has an excellent inter-observer agreement. The RALE score could be used to prognosticate and identify patients at high risk of deterioration. Threshold values may also be applied to predict the likelihood of hospital and ICU admission.

Keywords: chest radiography, coronavirus, COVID-19, RALE score

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Authors: Genady Grabarnik, Serge Yaskolko

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Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has significantly expanded its applicability with the incorporation of Large Language Models (LLMs) and become a technology with promise to automate some areas that were very difficult to automate before. The paper describes the introduction of generative Artificial Intelligence into Introductory Computer and Data Science courses and analysis of effect of such introduction. The generative Artificial Intelligence is incorporated in the educational process two-fold: For the instructors, we create templates of prompts for generation of tasks, and grading of the students work, including feedback on the submitted assignments. For the students, we introduce them to basic prompt engineering, which in turn will be used for generation of test cases based on description of the problems, generating code snippets for the single block complexity programming, and partitioning into such blocks of an average size complexity programming. The above-mentioned classes are run using Large Language Models, and feedback from instructors and students and courses’ outcomes are collected. The analysis shows statistically significant positive effect and preference of both stakeholders.

Keywords: introductory computer and data science education, generative AI, large language models, application of LLMS to computer and data science education

Procedia PDF Downloads 54

Authors: Asser S. Abdelwahab, Nabil H. Abbasy, Ragi A. Hamdy

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Marine shipping has now become one of the major worldwide contributors to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Hybrid ships technology based on multiple energy sources has taken a great scope of research to get rid of ship emissions and cut down fuel expenses. Insufficiency between power generated and the demand load to withstand the transient behavior on ships during severe climate conditions will lead to a blackout. Thus, an efficient energy management system (EMS) is a mandatory scope for achieving higher system efficiency while enhancing the lifetime of the onboard storage systems is another salient EMS scope. Considering energy storage system conditions, both the battery state of charge (SOC) and temperature represent important parameters to prevent any malfunction of the storage system that eventually degrades the whole system. In this paper, a two battery packs ratio fuzzy logic control model is proposed. The overall aim is to control the charging/discharging current while including both the battery SOC and temperature in the energy management system. The full designs of the proposed controllers are described and simulated using Matlab. The results prove the successfulness of the proposed controller in stabilizing the system voltage during both loading and unloading while keeping the energy storage system in a healthy condition.

Keywords: energy storage system, power shipboard, hybrid ship, thermal runaway

Procedia PDF Downloads 194

Authors: Fares Almomani, Majeda Khraisheh, Rahul Bhosale, Anand Kumar, Ujjal Gosh

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Septic tanks (STs) are very commonly used wastewater collection systems in the world especially in rural areas. In this study, the use of moving bed biological reactors (MBBR) for the treatment of septic tanks effluents (STE) was studied. The study was included treating septic tank effluent from one house hold using MBBRs. Significant ammonia removal rate was observed in all the reactors throughout the 180 days of operation suggesting that the MBBRs were successful in reducing the concentration of ammonia from septic tank effluent. The average ammonia removal rate at 25◦C for the reactor operated at hydraulic retention time of 5.7 hr (R1) was 0.540 kg-N/m3and for the reactor operated at hydraulic retention time of 13.3hr (R2) was 0.279 kg-N/m3. Ammonia removal rates were decreased to 0.3208 kg-N/m3 for R1 and 0.212 kg-N/m3 for R3 as the temperature of reactor was decreased to 8 ◦C. A strong correlation exists between theta model and the rates of ammonia removal for the reactors operated in continuous flow. The average ϴ values for the continuous flow reactors during the temperature change from 8°C to 20 °C were found to be 1.053±0.051. MBBR technology can be successfully used as a polishing treatment for septic tank effluent.

Keywords: septic tanks, wastewater treatment, morphology, moving biological reactors, nitrification

Procedia PDF Downloads 339

Authors: Vesta Kohlmeier, George C. Dragan, Juergen Orasche, Juergen Schnelle-Kreis, Dietmar Breuer, Ralf Zimmermann

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Aerosols from hazardous semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOC) may occur in workplace air and can simultaneously be found as particle and gas phase. For health risk assessment, it is necessary to collect particles and gases separately. This can be achieved by using a denuder for the gas phase collection, combined with a filter and an adsorber for particle collection. The study focused on the suitability of carbonaceous monolithic multi-channel denuders, so-called Novacarb™-Denuders (MastCarbon International Ltd., Guilford, UK), to achieve gas-particle separation. Particle transmission efficiency experiments were performed with polystyrene latex (PSL) particles (size range 0.51-3 µm), while the time dependent gas phase collection efficiency was analysed for polar and nonpolar SVOC (mass concentrations 7-10 mg/m3) over 2 h at 5 or 10 l/min. The experimental gas phase collection efficiency was also compared with theoretical predictions. For n-hexadecane (C16), the gas phase collection efficiency was max. 91 % for one denuder and max. 98 % for two denuders, while for diethylene glycol (DEG), a maximal gas phase collection efficiency of 93 % for one denuder and 97 % for two denuders was observed. At 5 l/min higher gas phase collection efficiencies were achieved than at 10 l/min. The deviations between the theoretical and experimental gas phase collection efficiencies were up to 5 % for C16 and 23 % for DEG. Since the theoretical efficiency depends on the geometric shape and length of the denuder, flow rate and diffusion coefficients of the tested substances, the obtained values define an upper limit which could be reached. Regarding the particle transmission through the denuders, the use of one denuder showed transmission efficiencies around 98 % for 1-3 µm particle diameters. The use of three denuders resulted in transmission efficiencies from 93-97 % for the same particle sizes. In summary, NovaCarb™-Denuders are well applicable for sampling aerosols of polar/nonpolar substances with particle diameters ≤3 µm and flow rates of 5 l/min or lower. These properties and their compact size make them suitable for use in personal aerosol samplers. This work is supported by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), research contract FP371.

Keywords: gas phase collection efficiency, particle transmission, personal aerosol sampler, SVOC

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Authors: Saad Odeh

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Thermal performance is considered to be a key measure in building sustainability. One of the technologies used in the current building sustainable design is the rooftop solar PV power generators. The application of this type of technology has expanded vastly during the last five years in many countries. This paper studies the effect of roof shading developed by the solar PV panels on dwellings’ thermal performance. The analysis in this work is performed by using two types of packages: “AccuRate Sustainability” for rating the energy efficiency of residential building design, and “PVSYST” for the solar PV power system design. The former package is used to calculate the annual heating and cooling load, and the later package is used to evaluate the power production from the roof top PV system. The analysis correlates the electrical energy generated from the PV panels to the change in the heating and cooling load due to roof shading. Different roof orientation, roof inclination, roof insulation, as well as PV panel area are considered in this study. The analysis shows that the drop in energy efficiency due to the shaded area of the roof by PV panels is negligible compared to the energy generated by these panels.

Keywords: PV panel, thermal performance, roof shading, energy efficiency

Procedia PDF Downloads 209

Authors: Esabelle Lo Yan Yam, Pheak Chhoun, Sovannary Tuot, Emily Lancsar, Siyan Yi

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Persons living with HIV (PLHIV) need lifelong antiretroviral treatment (ART) to keep their viral load suppressed to an undetectable level, maintain a healthy immune system, and reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to others. However, many factors affect PLHIV's adherence to ART, including access to antiretrovirals (ARV), stigma, lack of social support, and the burden of seeking lifelong care. Community-based care has been shown to be instrumental in the experience of PLHIV in many countries, including Cambodia. In this study based in Cambodia, a community-based ART delivery (CAD) intervention involving community action workers (CAWs) who are PLHIVs was introduced. These workers collect pre-packaged ARVs from the ART clinics and dispense them to PLHIVs in the communities. The quasi-experimental study involved approximately 2000 stable PLHIV in the intervention arm and another 2000 PLHIV in the control arm (receiving usual care). A cost-effectiveness analysis is currently conducted to complement the clinical effectiveness of the CAD intervention on the care continuum and treatment outcomes for stable PLHIV, as well as the operational effectiveness in increasing the efficiency of the ART clinics and the health system. The analysis will consider health system and societal perspectives based on primary outcomes, including retention in care, viral load suppression, and adherence to ART. Additionally, a consultation with the National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology, and STD under the Cambodia Ministry of Health will be done to discuss the conduct of a budget impact analysis that can quantify the financial impact on the government's budget when adopting the CAD intervention at the provincial and national levels. The budget impact analysis will take into consideration various scaling-up scenarios for the interventions in the country. The research will assess the cost-effectiveness of the CAD intervention to support national stakeholders in Cambodia to make an informed decision on the adoption and scaling up of the intervention in Cambodia. The results are currently being analyzed and will be available at the time of the conference.

Keywords: Cambodia, community intervention, economic evaluation, global health, HIV/AIDs, implementation research

Procedia PDF Downloads 44

Authors: Dermot O'Brien, Vasileios Christaras, Georgios Fontaras, Igor Nai Fovino, Ioannis Kounelis

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With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, and blockchain (BC) technologies, vehicles are becoming ever increasingly connected and are already transmitting substantial amounts of data to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) servers. This data could be used to help detect mileage fraud and enable more accurate vehicle emissions monitoring. This would not only help regulators but could enable applications such as permitting efficient drivers to pay less tax, geofencing for air quality improvement, as well as pollution tolling and trading platforms for transport-related businesses and EU citizens. Other applications could include traffic management and shared mobility systems. BC enables the transmission of data with additional security and removes single points of failure while maintaining data provenance, identity ownership, and the possibility to retain varying levels of privacy depending on the requirements of the applied use case. This research performs simulations of vehicles interacting with European member state authorities and European Commission BC nodes that are running hyperleger fabric and explores whether the technology is currently feasible for transport applications such as the emission monitoring use-case.

Keywords: future transportation systems, technological innovations, policy approaches for transportation future, economic and regulatory trends, blockchain

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Mohsen Rezaei Aghdam

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Recombinant DNA technology has meaningfully augmented the conventional crop improvement and has a great possibility to contribution plant breeders to encounter the augmented food request foretold for the 21st century. Predictable changes in weather and its erraticism, chiefly extreme fevers and vicissitudes in rainfall are expected to brand crop upgrading even more vital for food manufacture. Tissue attitude has been downtrodden to create genetic erraticism from which harvest plants can be better, to improve the state of health of the recognized physical and to upsurge the number of wanted germplasms obtainable to the plant breeder. This appraisal delivers an impression of the chances obtainable by the integration of vegetable biotechnology into plant development efforts and increases some of the social subjects that need to be considered in their application. Public-private companies offer chances to catalyze new approaches and investment while accelerating integrated research and development and commercial supply chain-based solutions. Novel varieties derivative by encouraged mutatgenesis are used commonly: rice in Thailand. These paper combinations obtainable data about the influence of change breeding-derived crop changes around the world, traveler magnetism the possibility of mutation upbringing as a flexible and feasible approach appropriate to any crop if that suitable objectives and selection approaches are used.

Keywords: crop, improve, genetic, agricultural

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Authors: Josee Charette

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The academic and educational success of migrant students is a current issue in education, especially in western societies such in the province of Quebec, in Canada. For people who immigrate with school-age children, the success of the family’s migratory project is often measured by the benefits drawn by children from the educational institutions of their host society. In order to support the academic achievement of their children, migrant parents try to develop practices that derive from their representations of school and related challenges inspired by the socio-cultural context of their country of origin. These findings lead us to the following question: How does strategies implemented by migrant parents to manage the representational distance between school of their country of origin and school of their host society support or not the academic and educational success of their child? In the context of a qualitative exploratory approach, we have made interviews in the French , English and Spanish languages with 32 newly immigrated parents and 10 of their children. Parents were invited to complete a network of free associations about «School in Quebec» as a premise for the interview. The objective of this paper is to present strategies implemented by migrant parents to manage the distance between their representations of schools in their country of origin and in the host society, and to explore the influence of this management on their child’s academic and educational trajectories. Data analysis led us to develop various types of strategies, such as continuity, adaptation, resources mobilization, compensation and "return to basics" strategies. These strategies seem to be part of a continuum from oppositional-conflict scenario, in which parental strategies act as a risk factor, to conciliator-integrator scenario, in which parental strategies act as a protective factor for migrant students’ academic and educational success. In conclusion, we believe that our research helps in highlighting strategies implemented by migrant parents to support their child’s academic and educational success in the host society and also helps in providing a more efficient support to migrant parents and contributes to develop a wider portrait of migrant students’ academic achievement.

Keywords: academic and educational achievement of immigrant students, family’s migratory project, immigrants parental strategies, representational distance between school of origin and school of host society

Procedia PDF Downloads 442

Authors: Atitallah Sofien, Bouyahia Olfa, Krifi farah, Missaoui Nada, Ben Rabeh Rania, Yahyaoui Salem, Mazigh Sonia, Boukthir Samir

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Introduction: Subcutaneous fat necrosis of the newborn (SCFN) is a rare acute hypodermatitis characterized by skin lesions in the form of infiltrated, hard plaques and subcutaneous nodules, with a purplish-red color, occurring between the first and sixth week of life. SCFN is generally a benign condition that spontaneously regresses without sequelae, but it can be complicated by severe hypercalcemia. Methodology: This is a retrospective case report of neonatal subcutaneous fat necrosis complicated with severe hypercalcemia and nephrocalcinosis. Results: This is a case of a female newborn with a family history of a hypothyroid mother on Levothyrox, born to non-consanguineous parents and from a well-monitored pregnancy. The newborn was delivered by cesarean section at 39 weeks gestation due to severe preeclampsia. She was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at 1 hour of life for the management of grade 1 perinatal asphyxia and immediate neonatal respiratory distress related to transient respiratory distress. Hospitalization was complicated by a healthcare-associated infection, requiring intravenous antibiotics for ten days, with a good clinical and biological response. On the 20th day of life, she developed skin lesions in the form of indurated purplish-red nodules on the back and on both arms. A SCFN was suspected. A calcium level test was conducted, which returned a result of 3 mmol/L. The rest of the phosphocalcic assessment was normal, with early signs of nephrocalcinosis observed on renal ultrasound. The diagnosis of SCFN complicated by nephrocalcinosis associated with severe hypercalcemia was made, and the condition improved with intravenous hydration and corticosteroid therapy. Conclusion: SCFN is a rare and generally benign hypodermatitis in newborns with an etiology that is still poorly understood. Despite its benign nature, SCFN can be complicated by hypercalcemia, which can sometimes be life-threatening. Therefore, it is important to conduct a thorough skin examination of newborns, especially those with risk factors, to detect and correct any potential hypercalcemia.

Keywords: subcutaneous fat necrosis, newborn, hypercalcemia, nephrocalcinosis

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Authors: Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Izabela Walasik, Katarzyna Kosińska-Kaczyńska, Olga Płaza, Kinga Żebrowska

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Introduction Adequate physical activity of a pregnant woman has been proven to decrease the risk of pregnancy complications. The knowledge of women regarding physical exercise in pregnancy is a part of conscious motherhood, while a lack of it may lead to not taking up any form of physical activity during pregnancy. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the knowledge and experience of women regarding physical activity during their latest pregnancy. Material and methodology: An anonymous questionnaire, consisting of 57 questions, was completed electronically in 2018 by women who gave birth at least once. The respondents were qualified as 'physically active during pregnancy' if they performed physical exercises such as regular walks, marching, jogging, working out at a gym, swimming, yoga, pilates, fitness, exercise-ball workouts or home gymnastics. Results: The study group consisted of 9345 women. 52% of them performed exercises during pregnancy. The main reasons for the lack of physical activity were: lack of interest in physical activity (45%), lack of energy (40%), lack of knowledge regarding proper exercise during pregnancy (34%), lack of time (27%) and medical contraindications (25%). Non-active respondents suffered from gestational hypertension (6,7% vs 9,2%; p<00,1) and gave birth prematurely (11% vs 15%; p < 001) to newborns with a lower birth weight significantly more often ( < 2500g vs > 2500g; p < 0,001). Physically active women reported suffering from pregnancy-related ailments such as fatigue, back pain or constipation significantly less often. 22% of all respondents were unable to identify reliable sources of information regarding exercise during pregnancy. A majority of the exercising women used the Internet to obtain gain information on physical activity during pregnancy (69,1%). 4% of women thought that exercising during pregnancy is forbidden, while 20% thought it is not allowed in the 3rd trimester. Physically active women had vaginal delivery more often (61% vs 55%; p < 0,05). Episiotomy was performed most often on non-active primiparous respondents (77,5% vs 71% active primiparous, p < 0,001). 13% of women felt discriminated due to their physical activity during pregnancy. 22% of respondents’ physical activity was not accepted by their environment. 39,1% of the women were told by others to stop physical exercise because it was bad for the baby’s health. Conclusion: The knowledge of Polish women regarding proper physical activity during pregnancy is insufficient, which may influence a lack of will to initiate such activity among pregnant women. Physical activity of a pregnant woman may have an impact on the course of pregnancy and birth.

Keywords: childbirth, discrimination, physical activity, pregnancy

Procedia PDF Downloads 156

Authors: Wilaisri Limphapayom

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Lime is one of the economically important produced in Thailand. The objective of this research is to increase utilization in food and cosmetic. Extraction of essential oil and pectin from lime (Citrus aurantifolia (Christm & Panz ) Swing) have been studied. Extraction of essential oil has been made by using hydro-distillation .The essential oil ranged from 1.72-2.20%. The chemical composition of essential oil composed of alpha-pinene , beta-pinene , D-limonene , comphene , a-phellandrene , g-terpinene , a-ocimene , O-cymene , 2-carene , Linalool , trans-ocimenol , Geraniol , Citral , Isogeraniol , Verbinol , and others when analyzed by using GC-MS method. Pectin extraction from lime waste , boiled water after essential oil extraction. Pectin extraction were found 40.11-65.81 g /100g of lime peel. The best extraction condition was found to be higher in yield by using ethanol extraction. The potential of this study had satisfactory results to improve lime processing system for value-added . The present study was also focused on Lime powder production as source of vitamin C or ascorbic acid and the potential of lime waste as a source of essential oil and pectin. Lime powder produced from Spray Dryer . Lime juice with 2 different level of maltodextrins DE 10 , 30 and 50% w/w was sprayed at 150 degrees celsius inlet air temperature and at 90-degree celsius outlet temperature. Lime powder with 50% maltodextrin gave the most desirable quality product. This product has vitamin C contents of 25 mg/100g (w/w).

Keywords: extraction, pectin, essential oil, lime

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Authors: Ganfeng Yu, Yuefeng Ma, Shanliang Yang

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The word discovery is a key problem in text information retrieval technology. Methods in new word discovery tend to be closely related to words because they generally obtain new word results by analyzing words. With the popularity of social networks, individual netizens and online self-media have generated various network texts for the convenience of online life, including network words that are far from standard Chinese expression. How detect network words is one of the important goals in the field of text information retrieval today. In this paper, we integrate the word embedding model and clustering methods to propose a network word discovery framework based on sentence semantic similarity (S³-NWD) to detect network words effectively from the corpus. This framework constructs sentence semantic vectors through a distributed representation model, uses the similarity of sentence semantic vectors to determine the semantic relationship between sentences, and finally realizes network word discovery by the meaning of semantic replacement between sentences. The experiment verifies that the framework not only completes the rapid discovery of network words but also realizes the standard word meaning of the discovery of network words, which reflects the effectiveness of our work.

Keywords: text information retrieval, natural language processing, new word discovery, information extraction

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Authors: Farzad Yavari, Fereydoun Ohadi

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Today, with the development and growth of technology and extreme environmental changes, organizations need to identify opportunities and create creativity and innovation in order to be able to maintain or improve their position in competition with others. In this regard, it is necessary that the resources and assets of the organization are coordinated and reviewed in accordance with the orientation of the strategy. One of the competitive advantages of the present age is knowledge management, which is to equip the organization with the knowledge of the day and disseminate among employees and use it in the development of products and services. Therefore, in the forthcoming research, the impact of dynamic capabilities components (sense, seize, and reconfiguration) has been investigated on knowledge management processes (acquisition, integration and knowledge utilization) in the MAPNA Engineering and Construction Company using a field survey and applied research method. For this purpose, a questionnaire was filled out in the form of 15 questions for dynamic components and 15 questions for measuring knowledge management components and distributed among 46 employees of the knowledge management organization. Validity of the questionnaire was evaluated through content validity and its reliability with Cronbach's coefficient. Pearson correlation test and structural equation technique were used to analyze the data. The results of the research indicate a positive significant correlation between the components of dynamic capabilities and knowledge management.

Keywords: dynamic capabilities, knowledge management, sense capability, seize capability, reconfigurable capability, knowledge acquisition, knowledge integrity, knowledge utilization

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Authors: Heena Akbar, Winnie Niumata, Danielle Gallegos

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Type 2 diabetes is a significant public health problem for Māori and Pasifika communities in Queensland, who are experiencing a higher burden of morbidity and mortality from the condition. Despite this higher burden, there are few initiatives that are culturally tailored to improve prevention and management. Modification of personal behaviors through women’s wellness programs aimed at early intervention has been shown to reduce the risk of developing complications in established type 2 diabetes and may reduce hospitalization rates from preventable complications related to this disease. The 24-week Pasifika Women’s Diabetes Wellness Program (PWDWP) was culturally co-designed and co-developed with Māori and Pasifika women with type 2 diabetes through a community-academia partnership in Queensland. Underpinned by Social Cognitive Theory and the Indigenous Pacific Health frameworks to include family culture & spirituality and integrating a collectivist and whānau (family) centered approach to self-care, the program takes into consideration the cultural shame associated with acknowledging the disease and tailors the interventions using talanoa (storytelling or conversation in a relational context) as the key strategy to come to a shared meaning for behavior change. The pilot trial is a 12-week intervention followed by a 12-week follow-up period conducted with 50 women with type 2 diabetes, 25 women who will receive the intervention and 25 women who will receive usual care. The pilot program provides in-person and virtual access to culturally supported prevention and self-management of Māori and Pasifika women with type 2 diabetes with the aim to improve healthy lifestyles and reduce late hospital presentations from diabetes-related complications for better diabetes-related outcomes. This study will test and evaluate the effectiveness of the PWDWP pilot trial in partnership with Māori & Pasifika community organizations and key stakeholders for improved glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels associated with poor management of type 2 diabetes.

Keywords: culturally co-designed intervention, Indigenous methodology, Māori and Pasifika communities, type 2 diabetes self-management

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Authors: Hanna Kroczak

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In Poland, the system of social and professional reintegration of people at risk of social exclusion is, in fact, based on the activity of social economy enterprises. Playing this significant role these entities have to cope with various problems, related to the necessity of being successful on the open market, location on the peripheral (especially rural) areas or the “socialist heritage” in social and economic relations, which is certainly not favorable for implementing the idea of activation policy. One of the main objectives of the project entitled “Innovation among people. The analysis of the innovations creation and implementation in companies and social economy enterprises operating in Poland”, was to investigate the innovativeness of Polish social economy entities as a possible way for them to be prosperous (the project was funded by the Polish National Science Centre grant on the decision DEC-2013/11/B/HS4/00691). The ethnographic research in this matter was conducted in 2015 in two parts: six three-day studies using participant observation and individual in-depth interview (IDI) techniques (in three social cooperatives and three social integration centres) and two one-month shadowings (in one social cooperative and one social integration centre). Enterprises were selected from various provinces in Poland on the basis of data from previous computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) research, where they declared that innovation management is a central element of their strategy. The ethnographic study revealed that they, indeed, create innovations and the main types of them are social and organisational innovations – but not always and not all the employees are aware of that. Moreover, it turned out that wherever the research was conducted, researchers found some similar opportunities of innovations creating process, like a “charismatic leader”, true passion and commitment not depended on the earned money or building local institutional networks, and similar threats, e.g. under-staffed offices or the great bureaucracy of some institutions. The primary conclusion for the studied entities is that being innovative is not only their challenge and opportunity for well-being at the same time, but even a necessity, something deeply rooted in their specific organisational structures. Explanations and illustrations for the statements above will be presented in the proposed paper.

Keywords: ethnographic research, innovation, Polish social economy, professional reintegration, social economy enterprises, social reintegration

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Authors: Neetika Mahajan, Awanish Shukla

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Entrepreneurship is key a driver to economic development. It opens opportunities for business startups and has potential to expand employment opportunities for many. Entrepreneurship gives ‘Purpose thriving’ approach towards society with new technologies and zeal to develop and compete in the market. There are many more advantages of entrepreneurship like freedom to scope of work and independence in setting own goals. Women contribute to nearly 50 percent of India’s population, constitute nearly 10 percent of a total number of entrepreneurs in India. Women are found to be better risk calculators, more ambitious and less prone to self-confidence. However, It is a hard fact that life has not been easy for women aspiring professional success. Gender parity is the biggest threat faced by female aspirant seeking new businesses. More challenges like socio-cultural barriers, insufficient financial assistance, etc. have been faced by the women of our country. To uplift the status of women in the society, a number of initiatives have been taken up by the Government of India. Initiatives like National Mission for Empowerment of Women by (Ministry of Women And Child Development) and SKILL INDIA aim to increase the technical skills and knowledge of women for tapping employment opportunities and self-confidence. Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD) Scheme and Mahila Coir Yojana are proposed by the Ministry of MSMEs aiming to facilitate employment opportunities for women and entrepreneurship development. This paper will aim to bring out the gaps and barriers, which are still resisting the potential women come upfront and start a new business irrespective of a number of initiatives being put by government of India. The aim is also to identify focus areas where further intervention is required and proposing suitable interventions. The methodology to take forward this research will include primary and secondary data collection from on ground survey to track various kind of challenges faced by aspirant women entrepreneurs. Insight will be put towards initiations by the government of India towards women empowerment and assistance to entrepreneurship. Scientific quantitative tools will be used to analyze collected information. The final output of the research shall focus on achieving the respective aims and objectives.

Keywords: women entrepreneurship, government programs and schemes, key challenges, economic development

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Authors: Kwang Chun, John Kemeny

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Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been a prevalent remote-sensing technology applied in the geological fields due to its high precision and ease of use. One of the major applications is to use the detailed geometrical information of underground structures as a basis for the generation of a three-dimensional numerical model that can be used in a geotechnical stability analysis such as FEM or DEM. To date, however, straightforward techniques in reconstructing the numerical model from the scanned data of the underground structures have not been well established or tested. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive approach integrating all the various processes, from LiDAR scanning to finite element numerical analysis. The study focuses on converting LiDAR 3D point clouds of geologic structures containing complex surface geometries into a finite element model. This methodology has been applied to Kartchner Caverns in Arizona, where detailed underground and surface point clouds can be used for the analysis of underground stability. Numerical simulations were performed using the finite element code Abaqus and presented by 3D computing visualization solution, ParaView. The results are useful in studying the stability of all types of underground excavations including underground mining and tunneling.

Keywords: finite element analysis, LiDAR, remote-sensing, scientific visualization, underground stability

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Authors: Jihad S. Daba, Jean-Pierre Dubois, Georges El Soury

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Fifth generation wireless networks guarantee significant capacity enhancement to suit more clients and services at higher information rates with better reliability while consuming less power. The deployment of massive multiple-input-multiple-output technology guarantees broadband wireless networks with the use of base station antenna arrays to serve a large number of users on the same frequency and time-slot channels. In this work, we evaluate the performance of massive multiple-input-multiple-output systems (MIMO) systems in 5^th generation cellular networks in terms of capacity and bit error rate. Several cases were considered and analyzed to compare the performance of massive MIMO systems while varying the number of antennas at both transmitting and receiving ends. We found that, unlike classical MIMO systems, reducing the number of transmit antennas while increasing the number of antennas at the receiver end provides a better solution to performance enhancement. In addition, enhanced orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and beam division multiple access schemes further improve the performance of massive MIMO systems and make them more reliable.

Keywords: beam division multiple access, D2D communication, enhanced OFDM, fifth generation broadband, massive MIMO

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Authors: Urvee B. Trivedi, U. D. Dalal

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As wireless communication services grow quickly; the seriousness of spectrum utilization has been on the rise gradually. An emerging technology, cognitive radio has come out to solve today’s spectrum scarcity problem. To support the spectrum reuse functionality, secondary users are required to sense the radio frequency environment, and once the primary users are found to be active, the secondary users are required to vacate the channel within a certain amount of time. Therefore, spectrum sensing is of significant importance. Once sensing is done, different prediction rules apply to classify the traffic pattern of primary user. Primary user follows two types of traffic patterns: periodic and stochastic ON-OFF patterns. A cognitive radio can learn the patterns in different channels over time. Two types of classification methods are discussed in this paper, by considering edge detection and by using autocorrelation function. Edge detection method has a high accuracy but it cannot tolerate sensing errors. Autocorrelation-based classification is applicable in the real environment as it can tolerate some amount of sensing errors.

Keywords: cognitive radio (CR), probability of detection (PD), probability of false alarm (PF), primary user (PU), secondary user (SU), fast Fourier transform (FFT), signal to noise ratio (SNR)

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Authors: Minakshi Jain, I. P. Singh

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Due to the era of outstanding technology and modern lifestyle, human beings are debasing their physical, psychological, and mental well-being. The effect of this leads to a trail of chronic diseases like anxiety, loneliness, and depression, especially in children and young adults. This is visible in individuals who suffer from clinical depression, which leads to impaired mood and distortion of cognition, particularly in children. The Members of the WHO European Region made a declaration to provisioning each child with access to healthy and safe environments by 2020, and the decision was taken at the Conference on Environment and Health in 2010 as an initiative to improve access to green spaces in cities which provides universal access for quality spaces for both social interaction and human well-being. In line with this, the paper aims to establish a prospective study on linking green spaces and CBT (Cognitive behavior therapy) in order to treat disorders with reference to children and young adults. A questionnaire was adopted to explore the possibility of green spaces as additive measures for the existing modes of therapy. The results adapted from the questionnaire show that certain species of vegetation have a significant effect in enhancing effective mental well-being.

Keywords: CBT, therapeutic gardens UCLA loneliness scale, anxiety, depression, green spaces, biophilia, environmental psychology

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Authors: Emma Serwaa Obobisa, Winifred Essaah

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Significant worldwide trends including urbanization, industrialization, globalization, and the impending digitization have all contributed to human prosperity. However, the majority of these advancements fail to take sustainability into account, which caused the earth to manifest its retaliation in many forms. Since the world is already well-advanced, mankind needs a mature development that instills sustainability in its acts. As a result, the United Nations established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which set forth guidelines for human behavior to ensure that the ecosystem and mankind coexist as a unified, autonomous system. The study investigates the role of eco-innovation, renewable energy consumption, human capital, environmental tax, and natural resources in achieving European Union countries' sustainable development goals. The results show that eco-innovation, renewable energy consumption, human capital, and environmental tax have a negative relationship with consumption-based CO₂ emissions but a positive relationship with natural resources. These findings suggest that governments in European Union countries commit to encouraging environmentally friendly technology advances and green investment. It also stresses the need to enforce regulations that regulate the activities of polluting firms in the region with strictness.

Keywords: sustainable development, Eco-innovation, renewable energy, CO₂ emissions

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Authors: Muhammad Arsalan Khan Sherwani

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The use of Volatile Corrosion Inhibitors (VCI) to protect Aboveground Storage Tank (AST) bottom plates against soil-side corrosion is one of the emerging corrosion prevention methods, specifically for tanks constructed on oily sand pad. Oily sand pad and the presence of air gaps underneath the bottom plates lead to severe corrosion and high metal thickness loss. In such cases, the cathodic protection cannot be fully considered as effective due to Cathodic Protection (CP) current shielding. These situations sometimes result in serious failures on multiple fronts, such as; containment losses, system shutdowns, extensive repairs, environmental impact and safety concerns in case of flammable fluids. Recently, East West Pipeline Department (EWPD) of Saudi Aramco has deployed this technology to one of the crude oil storage tanks, which showed high metal thickness loss during its out of service inspection. Soil-side corrosion rustled in major repairs of bottom plates and ultimately caused enormous unplanned activities in term of time as well as cost. This paper mainly focuses on the methodology of VCI installation, corrosion monitoring system and the expected results of protection.

Keywords: Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor, Soil Side Corrosion, External Corrosion, Above Grade Storage Tank

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