Search results for: diversity and business performance

Authors: Si-Gwan Kim

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In Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN), there may not exist an end-to-end path between source and destination at the time of message transmission. Employing ‘Store Carry and Forward’ delivery mechanism for message transmission in such networks usually incurs long message delays. In this paper, we present the modified Binary Spray and Wait (BSW) routing protocol that enhances the performance of the original one. Our proposed algorithm adjusts the number of forward messages depending on the number of neighbor nodes. By using beacon messages periodically, the number of neighbor nodes can be managed. The simulation using ONE simulator results shows that our modified version gives higher delivery ratio and less latency as compared to BSW.

Keywords: delay tolerant networks, store carry and forward, one simulator, binary spray and wait

Procedia PDF Downloads 126

Authors: Hireni Mankodi

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The textile preforms for thermoplastic composite play a key role in providing the mechanical properties and gives the idea about preparing combination of yarn from Glass, Basalt, Carbon as reinforcement and PP, PET, Nylon as thermoplastic matrix at yarn stage for preforms to improve the quality and performance of laminates. The main objectives of this work are to develop the hybrid yarn using different yarn manufacturing process and prepare different performs using hybrid yarns. It has been observed that the glass/pp combination give homogeneous distribution in yarn. The proportion varied to optimize the glass/pp composition. The different preform has been prepared with combination of hybrid yarn, PP, glass combination. Further studies will investigate the effect of glass content in fabric, effect of weave, warps and filling density, number of layer plays significant role in deciding mechanical properties of thermoplastic laminates.

Keywords: thermoplastic, preform, laminates, hybrid yarn, glass

Procedia PDF Downloads 583

Authors: Felib Ayman Shawky Salem

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Experiential marketing means an unforgettable experience that remains deeply anchored in the customer's memory. Furthermore, customer satisfaction is defined as the emotional response to the experiences provided that relate to specific products or services purchased. Therefore, experiential marketing activities can influence the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty. In this context, the study aims to examine the relationship between experiential marketing, customer satisfaction and loyalty of beauty products in Konya. The results of this study showed that experiential marketing is an important indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty and that experiential marketing has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Keywords: sponsorship, marketing communication theories, marketing communication tools internet, marketing, tourism, tourism management corporate responsibility, employee organizational performance, internal marketing, internal customer experiential marketing, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, social sciences.

Procedia PDF Downloads 71

Authors: M. U. Arshid, M. A. Kamal

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The engineering design process is the activities formulation, to help an engineer raising a plan with a specified goal and performance. The engineering design process is a multi-stage course of action including the conceptualization, research, feasibility studies, establishment of design parameters, preliminary and finally the detailed design. It is a progression from the abstract to the concrete; starting with probably abstract ideas about need, and thereafter elaborating detailed specifications of the object that would satisfy the needs, identified. Engineering design issues, problems, and solutions are discussed in this paper using qualitative approach from an information structure perspective. The objective is to identify the problems, to analyze them and propose solutions by integrating; innovation, practical experience, time and resource management, communications skills, isolating the problem in coordination with all stakeholders. Consequently, this would be beneficial for the engineering community to improve the Engineering design practices.

Keywords: engineering design, engineering design issues, innovation, public sector projects

Procedia PDF Downloads 348

Authors: Netalie Shloim, Brian Brown, Siobhan Hugh-Jones, Jane Plastow, Diana Setiyawati, Anna Madill

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In June 2021, the World Health Organization launched its guidance and technical packages on community mental health services, stressing a human rights-based approach to care. This initiative stems from an increasing acknowledgment of the role mental health plays in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Nevertheless, mental health remains a relatively neglected research area and the estimates for untreated mental disorders in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) are as high as 78% for adults. Moreover, the development sector and research programs too often side-line mental health as a privilege in the face of often immediate threats to life and livelihood. As a way of addressing this problem, this study aimed to examine past or ongoing GCRF projects to see if there were opportunities where mental health impact could have been achieved without compromising a study's main aim and without overburdening a project. Projects funded by the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) were analyzed. This program was initiated in 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries. By the end of May 2020, a total of 15,279 projects were funded of which only 3% had an explicit mental health focus. A sample of 36 non-mental-health-focused projects was then sampled for diversity across research council, challenge portfolio and world region. Each of these 36 projects was coded by two coders for opportunities to embed mental health impact. To facilitate coding, the literature was inspected for dimensions relevant to LMIC settings. Three main psychological and three main social dimensions were identified: promote a positive sense of self; promote positive emotions, safe expression and regulation of challenging emotions, coping strategies, and help-seeking; facilitate skills development; and facilitate community-building; preserve sociocultural identity; support community mobilization. Coding agreement was strong on missed opportunities for mental health impact on the three social dimensions: support community mobilization (92%), facilitate community building (83%), preserve socio-cultural identity (70%). Coding agreement was reasonably strong on missed opportunities for mental health impact on the three psychological dimensions: promote positive emotions (67%), facilitate skills development (61%), positive sense of self (58%). In order of frequency, the agreed perceived opportunities from the highest to lowest are: support community mobilization, facilitate community building, facilitate skills development, promote a positive sense of self, promote positive emotions, preserve sociocultural identity. All projects were considered to have an opportunity to support community mobilization and to facilitate skills development by at least one coder. Findings provided support that there were opportunities to embed mental health impact in research across the range of development sectors and identifies what kind of missed opportunities are most frequent. Hence, mainstreaming mental health has huge potential to tackle the lack of priority and funding it has attracted traditionally. The next steps are to understand the barriers to mainstreaming mental health and to work together to overcome them.

Keywords: GCRF, mental health, psychosocial wellbeing, LMIC

Procedia PDF Downloads 176

Authors: Liang-Ta Cheng, Ching-Yu Yang

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Based on fast discrete cosine transform (FDCT), the authors present a high capacity and high perceived quality method for electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. By using a simple adjusting policy to the 1-dimentional (1-D) DCT coefficients, a large volume of secret message can be effectively embedded in an ECG host signal and be successfully extracted at the intended receiver. Simulations confirmed that the resulting perceived quality is good, while the hiding capability of the proposed method significantly outperforms that of existing techniques. In addition, our proposed method has a certain degree of robustness. Since the computational complexity is low, it is feasible for our method being employed in real-time applications.

Keywords: data hiding, ECG steganography, fast discrete cosine transform, 1-D DCT bundle, real-time applications

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Siavash Mirahmadizoghi, Steven Bell, David Simpson

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In this work a new independent component analysis (ICA) based method for noise reduction in evoked potentials is evaluated on for auditory late responses (ALR) captured with a 63-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) from 10 normal-hearing subjects. The performance of the new method is compared with a single channel alternative in terms of signal to noise ratio (SNR), the number of channels with an SNR above an empirically derived statistical critical value and an estimate of the effect of attention on the major components in the ALR waveform. The results show that the multichannel signal processing method can significantly enhance the quality of the ALR signal and also detect the effect of the attention on the ALR better than the single channel alternative.

Keywords: auditory late response (ALR), attention, EEG, independent component analysis (ICA), multichannel signal processing

Procedia PDF Downloads 505

Authors: Hasan Aydogan

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The changes in the performance, emission and combustion characteristics of bioethanol-safflower biodiesel and diesel fuel blends used in a common rail diesel engine were investigated in this experimental study. E20B20D60 (20% bioethanol, 20% biodiesel, 60% diesel fuel by volume), E30B20D50, E50B20D30 and diesel fuel (D) were used as fuel. The tests were performed at full throttle valve opening and variable engine speeds. The results of the tests showed decreases in engine power, engine torque, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and smoke density values with the use of bioethanol-biodiesel and diesel fuel blends, whereas, increases were observed in nitrogen oxide (NOx) and brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) values. When combustion characteristics were examined, it was seen that the values were close to one another.

Keywords: bioethanol, biodiesel, safflower, combustion characteristics

Procedia PDF Downloads 526

Authors: Manana Lobzhanidze, Marine Kobalava, Lali Chikviladze

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The global pandemic crisis has had a significant impact on educational migration, substantially limiting young people’s access to education abroad. Therefore, it became necessary to study the economic, demographic, social, cultural and other factors associated with educational migration, to identify the economic and political challenges of educational migration and to develop recommendations. The aim of the research is to study the effects of the atypical crisis on educational migration and to make recommendations on effective migration opportunities based on the identification of economic and policy challenges in this area. Bibliographic research is used to assess the effects of the impact of the atypical crisis on educational migration presented in the papers of various scholars. Against the background of the restrictions imposed during the COVID19 pandemic, migration rates have been analyzed, endogenous and exogenous factors affecting educational migration have been identified. Quantitative and qualitative research of students and graduates of TSU Economics and Business Faculty is conducted, the results have been processed by SPSS program, the factors hindering educational migration and the challenges have been identified. The Internet and digital technologies have been shown to play a vital role in alleviating the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, however, lack of Internet access and limited financial resources have played a disruptive role in the educational migration process. The analysis of quantitative research materials revealed the problems of educational migration caused by the atypical crisis, while some issues were clarified during the focus group meetings. The following theoretical-methodological approaches were used during the research: a bibliographic research, analysis, synthesis, comparison, selection-grouping are used; Quantitative and qualitative research has been carried out, the results have been processed by SPSS program. The article presents the consequences of the atypical crisis for educational migration, identifies the main economic and policy challenges in the field of educational migration, and develops appropriate recommendations to overcome them.

Keywords: educational migration, atypical crisis, economic-political challenges, educational migration factors

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Po-Sun Ho, Chun-Wei Chen

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This work demonstrated a “sunlight-activated” graphene-heterostructure transparent electrode in which photogenerated charges from a light-absorbing material are transferred to graphene, resulting in the modulation of electrical properties of the graphene transparent electrode caused by a strong light–matter interaction at graphene-heterostructure interfaces. A photoactive graphene/TiOx-heterostructure transparent cathode was used to fabricate an n-graphene/p-Si Schottky junction solar cell, achieving a record-high power conversion efficiency (>10%). The photoactive graphene-heterostructure transparent electrode, which exhibits excellent tunable electrical properties under sunlight illumination, has great potential for use in the future development of graphene-based photovoltaics and optoelectronics.

Keywords: graphene, transparent electrode, graphene/Si Schottky junction, solar cells

Procedia PDF Downloads 312

Authors: Kaewmart Pongakkasira

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This study investigated how different levels of pixelation affect face detection in natural scenes. Eye movements and reaction times, while observers searched for faces in natural scenes rendered in different ranges of pixels, were recorded. Detection performance for coarse visual detail at lower pixel size (3 x 3) was better than with very blurred detail carried by higher pixel size (9 x 9). The result is consistent with the notion that face detection relies on gross detail information of face-shape template, containing crude shape structure and features. In contrast, detection was impaired when face shape and features are obscured. However, it was considered that the degradation of scenic information might also contribute to the effect. In the next experiment, a more direct measurement of the effect of pixelation on face detection, only the embedded face photographs, but not the scene background, will be filtered.

Keywords: eye movements, face detection, face-shape information, pixelation

Procedia PDF Downloads 318

Authors: Ayman M. Mansour, Bilal Hawashin, Mohammed A. Mansour

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In this paper, we propose a cooperative learning mechanism in a multi-agent intelligent system. The basic idea is that intelligent agents are capable of collaborating with one another by sharing their knowledge. The agents will start collaboration by providing their knowledge rules to the other agents. This will allow the most important and insightful detection rules produced by the most experienced agent to bubble up for the benefit of the entire agent community. The updated rules will lead to improving the agents’ decision performance. To evaluate our approach, we designed a five–agent system and implemented it using JADE and FuzzyJess software packages. The agents will work with each other to make a decision about a suspicious medical case. This system provides quick response rate and the decision is faster than the manual methods. This will save patients life.

Keywords: intelligent, multi-agent system, cooperative, fuzzy, learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 688

Authors: Nidhi Choudhary, Silke A. Peeters, Ciaran T. Lennon, Dmytro Besprozvannyy, Harm C. M. Knoops, Robert H. Hadfield

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Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) have become leading devices in quantum optics and photonics, known for their exceptional efficiency in detecting single photons from ultraviolet to mid-infrared wavelengths with minimal dark counts, low noise, and reduced timing jitter. Recent advancements in materials science focus attention on refractory metal thin films such as NbN and NbTiN to enhance the optical properties and superconducting performance of SNSPDs, opening the way for next-generation detectors. These films have been deposited by several different techniques, such as atomic layer deposition (ALD), plasma pro-advanced plasma processing (ASP) and magnetron sputtering. The fabrication flexibility of these films enables precise control over morphology, crystallinity, stoichiometry and optical properties, which is crucial for optimising the SNSPD performance. Hence, it is imperative to study the optical and superconducting properties of these materials across a wide range of wavelengths. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the optical and superconducting properties of some important materials in this category (NbN, NbTiN) by different deposition methods. Using Variable angle ellipsometry spectroscopy (VASE), we measured the refractive index, extinction, and absorption coefficient across a wide wavelength range (200-1700 nm) to enhance light confinement for optical communication devices. The critical temperature and sheet resistance were measured using a four-probe method in a custom-built, cryogen-free cooling system with a Sumitomo RDK-101D cold head and CNA-11C compressor. Our results indicate that ALD-deposited NbN shows a higher refractive index and extinction coefficient in the near-infrared region (~1500 nm) than sputtered NbN of the same thickness. Further, the analysis of the optical properties of plasma pro-ASP deposited NbTiN was performed at different substrate bias voltages and different thicknesses. The analysis of substrate bias voltage indicates that the maximum value of the refractive index and extinction coefficient observed for the substrate biasing of 50-80 V across a substrate bias range of (0 V - 150 V). The optical properties of sputtered NbN films are also investigated in terms of the different substrate temperatures during deposition (100 °C-500 °C). We find the higher the substrate temperature during deposition, the higher the value of the refractive index and extinction coefficient has been observed. In all our superconducting thin films ALD-deposited NbN films possess the highest critical temperature (~12 K) compared to sputtered (~8 K) and plasma pro-ASP (~5 K).

Keywords: optical communication, thin films, superconductivity, atomic layer deposition (ALD), niobium nitride (NbN), niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN), SNSPD, superconducting detector, photon-counting.

Procedia PDF Downloads 34

Authors: Parham Bakhtiari

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George Crumb's Makrokosmos Volumes are considered significant pieces in twentieth-century piano music and showcase the extensive use of different tones and extended techniques on the piano. Crumb's works are known for making references, particularly to music from previous eras which the visual, aural, and numerical characteristics are symbolic in nature. Crumb created a list of symbols and shortened letters to clarify his unique directions to those who performed his compositions. The pianists who prepare to play Makrokosmos must dedicate time to study and analyze Crumb's markings diligently to accurately capture the composer's wishes. The aim of this paper is to provide a collection for pianists looking to perform George Crumb's compositions known as Makrokosmos Volumes. The research traits of unconventional playing techniques and discussions on the music explored by the composer are being described.

Keywords: music, piano, Crumb, Makrokosmos, performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 52

Authors: Margarida Plana

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One of the most important energy challenge of the European policies is the transition to a Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) model. A NZEB is a new concept of building that has the aim of reducing both the energy consumption and the carbon emissions to nearly zero of the course of a year. To achieve this nearly zero consumption, apart from being buildings with high efficiency levels, the energy consumed by the building has to be produced on-site. This paper is focused on presenting the results of the analysis developed on basis of real projects’ data in order to quantify the impact of end-users behavior. The analysis is focused on how the behavior of building’s occupants can vary the achievement of the energy savings targets and how they can be limited. The results obtained show that on this kind of project, with very high energy performance, is required to limit the end-users interaction with the system operation to be able to reach the targets fixed.

Keywords: end-users impacts, energy efficiency, energy savings, NZEB model

Procedia PDF Downloads 375

Authors: H. Cha, J. Kim, D. Kim, J. Shin, K. Lee

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Since 1980's, the rapid economic growth resulted in so many aged apartment buildings in South Korea. Nevertheless, there is insufficient maintenance practice of buildings. In this study, to facilitate the building maintenance the authors classified the building defects into three levels according to their level of performance and developed a mobile application tool based on each level's appropriate feedback. The feedback structure consisted of 'Maintenance manual phase', 'Online feedback phase', 'Repair work phase of the specialty contractors'. In order to implement each phase the authors devised the necessary database for each phase and created a prototype system that can develop on its own. The authors expect that the building users can easily maintain their buildings by using this application.

Keywords: building defect, maintenance practice, mobile application, system algorithm

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: Attila Vámosi, Tamás Mankovits, Dávid Huri, Imre Kocsis, Tamás Szabó

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Non-linear FEM calculations are indispensable when important technical information like operating performance of a rubber component is desired. Rubber bumpers built into air-spring structures may undergo large deformations under load, which in itself shows non-linear behavior. The changing contact range between the parts and the incompressibility of the rubber increases this non-linear behavior further. The material characterization of an elastomeric component is also a demanding engineering task. The shape optimization problem of rubber parts led to the study of FEM based calculation processes. This type of problems was posed and investigated by several authors. In this paper the time demand of certain calculation methods are studied and the possibilities of time reduction is presented.

Keywords: rubber bumper, data acquisition, finite element analysis, support vector regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 474

Authors: Sonia Zulfiqar, Daniele Mantione, Muhammad Ilyas Sarwar, Alexander Rothenberger, David Mecerreyes

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Climate change due to escalating carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is an issue of paramount importance that needs immediate attention. CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) is a promising route to mitigate climate change and adsorption is the most widely recognized technology owing to possible energy savings relative to the conventional absorption techniques. In this conference, the potential of a new family of solid sorbents for CO2 capture and separation will be presented. Novel pyridinium containing poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) were synthesized with varying anions i.e bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide and hexafluorophosphate. The resulting polymers were characterized using NMR, XRD, TGA, BET surface area and microscopic techniques. Furthermore, CO2 adsorption measurements at two different temperatures were also carried out and revealed great potential of these PILs as CO2 scavengers.

Keywords: climate change, CO2 capture, poly(ionic liquid)s, CO2/N2 selectivity

Procedia PDF Downloads 373

Authors: Thalia Viveros-Uehara

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The virtues of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are explored widely in the academic literature. However, few studies address its link to human rights, per se; specifically, the right to a safe, clean and healthy environment. Fewer still are the research works in this area that relate to developing countries, where a number of areas are biodiversity hotspots. In Mexico, despite the rise and evolution of CSR schemes, grave episodes of pollution persist, especially those caused by the mining industry. These cases set up the question of the correspondence between the current CSR practices of mining companies in the country and their responsibility to respect the right to a safe, clean and healthy environment. The present study approaches precisely such a bridge, which until now has not been fully tackled in light of Mexico's 2011 constitutional human rights amendment and the United Nation's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UN Guiding Principles), adopted by the Human Rights Council in 2011. To that aim, it initially presents a contextual framework; it then explores qualitatively the adoption of human rights’ language in the CSR strategies of the three main mining companies in Mexico, and finally, it examines their standing with respect to the UN Guiding Principles. The results reveal that human rights are included in the RSE strategies of the analysed businesses, at least at the rhetoric level; however, they do not embrace the right to a safe, clean and healthy environment as such. Moreover, we conclude that despite the finding that corporations publicly express their commitment to respect human rights, some operational weaknesses that hamper the exercise of such responsibility persist; for example, the systematic lack of human rights impact assessments per mining unit, the denial of actual and publicly-known negative episodes on the environment linked directly to their operations, and the absence of effective mechanisms to remediate adverse impacts.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, environmental impacts, human rights, right to a safe, clean and healthy environment, mining industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 330

Authors: Homin Kim, Hyungjo Byun, Jinyoung Do, Yongil Lee, Hyunho Shin, Seungbae Lee

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Engine room of mobile hydraulic vehicle is densely packed with an engine and many hydraulic components mostly generating heat and sound. Though hydraulic oil cooler, ATF cooler, and axle oil cooler etc. are added to vehicle cooling system of mobile vehicle, the overheating may cause downgraded performance and frequent failures. In order to improve thermal and acoustic environment of engine room, the computational approaches by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Boundary Element Method (BEM) are used together with necessary modal analysis of belt-driven system. The engine room design layout and process, which satisfies the design objectives of sound power level and temperature levels of radiator water, charged air cooler, transmission and hydraulic oil coolers, is discussed.

Keywords: acoustics, CFD, engine room design, mobile hydraulics

Procedia PDF Downloads 327

Authors: Z. H. Shi, T. J. Dou, H. Zhang, H. X. Huang, N. Zeng

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The contamination of significant quantities of soils and sediments with uranium and other actinide elements as a result of nuclear activity poses many environmental risks. The electrokinetic process is one of the most promising remediation techniques for sludge, sediment, and saturated or unsaturated soils contaminated with heavy metals and radionuclides. However, secondary waste is a major concern for soil contaminated with nuclides. To minimize the generation of secondary wastes, this study used the anion and cation exchange membranes to improve the performance of the experimental apparatus. Remediation experiments of uranium-contaminated soil were performed with different agents. The results show that using acetic acid and EDTA as chelating agents clearly enhances the migration ability of the uranium. The ion exchange membranes (IEMs) used in the experiments not only reduce secondary wastes, but also, keep the soil pH stable.

Keywords: electrokinetic remediation, ion exchange membranes, soil, uranium

Procedia PDF Downloads 354

Authors: Vidya Meshram, Shrinivas Surpam, Akshay Kokode, Laxman Shedmake, Ramesh Parchake

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Tribal dance form is an integral part of the tribal culture as they represent the traditional culture of the tribal community. This article provide the reasons for the need to preserve the tribal dance form of Indian tribal people as a part of the cultural heritage. This article describe our experience of co-ordination of three organization to conduct a dance performance of Gond Tribe artists in the Mumbai City. This is the part of the promotion of tribal artist at big platform, although the preservation and awareness of tribal dance form in the metro cities. This is an example of an exceptional Inter-Organizational Cooperation between Kosodum Welfare Private Limited, GondwanaJangomDhemsaRelaNrutya Dal &GondwanaMitraMandal, Mumbai, for the preservation of tribal dance form.

Keywords: tribal, art, culture, preservation

Procedia PDF Downloads 174

Authors: Slawomir Lasota, Tomasz Kajdanowicz

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This research examines the application of predictive modelling and optimization algorithms to improve production efficiency in smart factories. Utilizing gradient boosting and neural networks, the study builds robust KPI estimators to predict production outcomes based on real-time data. Optimization methods, including Bayesian optimization and gradient-based algorithms, identify optimal process configurations that maximize availability, efficiency, and quality KPIs. The paper highlights the modular architecture of a recommender system that integrates predictive models, data visualization, and adaptive automation. Comparative analysis across multiple production processes reveals significant improvements in operational performance, laying the foundation for scalable, self-regulating manufacturing systems.

Keywords: predictive modeling, optimization, smart factory, efficiency

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Authors: Nora Arbaoui, Rachid Tadili, Ilham Ihoume

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Climate change and its effects on low external temperatures in winter require great consumption of energy to improve the greenhouse microclimate and increase agricultural production. To reduce the amount of energy consumed, a solar system has been developed to heat an agricultural greenhouse. This system is based on a transfer fluid that will circulate inside the greenhouse through a solar copper coil positioned on the roof of the greenhouse. This thermal energy accumulated during the day will be stored to be released during the night to improve the greenhouse’s microclimate. The use of this solar heating system has resulted in an average increase in the greenhouse’s indoor temperature of 8.3°C compared to the outdoor environment. This improved temperature has created a more favorable climate for crops and has subsequently had a positive effect on their development, quality, and production.

Keywords: solar system, agricultural greenhouse, heating, cooling, storage, drying

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Ahmad S. Darwish, Tarek Lemaoui, Hanifa Taher, Inas M. AlNashef, Fawzi Banat

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This research reports a systematic top-down approach for designing neoteric hydrophobic solvents –particularly, deep eutectic solvents (DES) and ionic liquids (IL)– as furfural extractants from aqueous media for the application of sustainable biomass conversion. The first stage of the framework entailed screening 32 neoteric solvents to determine their efficacy against toluene as the application’s conventional benchmark for comparison. The selection criteria for the best solvents encompassed not only their efficiency in extracting furfural but also low viscosity and minimal toxicity levels. Additionally, for the DESs, their natural origins, availability, and biodegradability were also taken into account. From the screening pool, two neoteric solvents were selected: thymol:decanoic acid 1:1 (Thy:DecA) and trihexyltetradecyl phosphonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [P₁₄,₆,₆,₆][NTf₂]. These solvents outperformed the toluene benchmark, achieving efficiencies of 94.1% and 97.1% respectively, compared to toluene’s 81.2%, while also possessing the desired properties. These solvents were then characterized thoroughly in terms of their physical properties, thermal properties, critical properties, and cross-contamination solubilities. The selected neoteric solvents were then extensively tested under various operating conditions, and an exceptional stable performance was exhibited, maintaining high efficiency across a broad range of temperatures (15–100 °C), pH levels (1–13), and furfural concentrations (0.1–2.0 wt%) with a remarkable equilibrium time of only 2 minutes, and most notably, demonstrated high efficiencies even at low solvent-to-feed ratios. The durability of the neoteric solvents was also validated to be stable over multiple extraction-regeneration cycles, with limited leachability to the aqueous phase (≈0.1%). Moreover, the extraction performance of the solvents was then modeled through machine learning, specifically multiple non-linear regression (MNLR) and artificial neural networks (ANN). The models demonstrated high accuracy, indicated by their low absolute average relative deviations with values of 2.74% and 2.28% for Thy:DecA and [P₁₄,₆,₆,₆][NTf₂], respectively, using MNLR, and 0.10% for Thy:DecA and 0.41% for [P₁₄,₆,₆,₆][NTf₂] using ANN, highlighting the significantly enhanced predictive accuracy of the ANN. The neoteric solvents presented herein offer noteworthy advantages over traditional organic solvents, including their high efficiency in both extraction and regeneration processes, their stability and minimal leachability, making them particularly suitable for applications involving aqueous media. Moreover, these solvents are more environmentally friendly, incorporating renewable and sustainable components like thymol and decanoic acid. This exceptional efficacy of the newly developed neoteric solvents signifies a significant advancement, providing a green and sustainable alternative for furfural production from biowaste.

Keywords: sustainable biomass conversion, furfural extraction, ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents

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Authors: Cindy Carvalho

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Leaders play a crucial role in shaping employee behavior through their communication. Language is a powerful tool used by leaders to influence perceptions, frame actions, and shape organizational culture. While euphemisms and metaphors are widely used, their impact on unethical behaviors in organizational settings remains underexplored. This study investigates how euphemistic and aggressive (military) language in leaders’ speeches can influence employees’ perceptions and encourage unethical behaviors. Two studies were conducted using a between-subjects design where 200 participants for the first study and 280 participants for the second study, recruited through Prolific, were exposed to either a euphemistic or aggressive (military) version of a hypothetical CEO’s speech. They evaluated their perception of the CEO and the company’s attractiveness. In the second part, participants were presented with three vignettes describing each different daily business situation tainted with ethical issues and they were asked how likely they would engage in such behavior. The type of speech impacted the perceptions of the CEO, with the military version leading to participants judging the CEO as less trustworthy, fair, and moral. However, no significant difference in moral judgment or organizational perception was observed. Interestingly, younger participants and female participants rated the CEO more negatively compared to older and male counterparts. The findings suggest that language framing influences perceptions of leadership but may have a limited immediate impact on ethical decision-making. The study's limitations include hypothetical context, isolated focus on language, and lack of incentives. Incentives push participants to consider their responses carefully and align them with perceived norms, reducing biases like social desirability. Future research should examine real-world settings and consider factors such as age, gender, and experience to understand unethical behavior in organizations better.

Keywords: leadership communication, language framing, ethical behavior, euphemism

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Authors: Skyler Kim

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An early diagnosis of leukemia has always been a challenge to doctors and hematologists. On a worldwide basis, it was reported that there were approximately 350,000 new cases in 2012, and diagnosing leukemia was time-consuming and inefficient because of an endemic shortage of flow cytometry equipment in current clinical practice. As the number of medical diagnosis tools increased and a large volume of high-quality data was produced, there was an urgent need for more advanced data analysis methods. One of these methods was the AI approach. This approach has become a major trend in recent years, and several research groups have been working on developing these diagnostic models. However, designing and implementing a leukemia diagnostic system in real clinical environments based on a deep learning approach with larger sets remains complex. Leukemia is a major hematological malignancy that results in mortality and morbidity throughout different ages. We decided to select acute lymphocytic leukemia to develop our diagnostic system since acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common type of leukemia, accounting for 74% of all children diagnosed with leukemia. The results from this development work can be applied to all other types of leukemia. To develop our model, the Kaggle dataset was used, which consists of 15135 total images, 8491 of these are images of abnormal cells, and 5398 images are normal. In this paper, we design and implement a leukemia diagnostic system in a real clinical environment based on deep learning approaches with larger sets. The proposed diagnostic system has the function of detecting and classifying leukemia. Different from other AI approaches, we explore hybrid architectures to improve the current performance. First, we developed two independent convolutional neural network models: VGG19 and ResNet50. Then, using both VGG19 and ResNet50, we developed a hybrid deep learning architecture employing transfer learning techniques to extract features from each input image. In our approach, fusing the features from specific abstraction layers can be deemed as auxiliary features and lead to further improvement of the classification accuracy. In this approach, features extracted from the lower levels are combined into higher dimension feature maps to help improve the discriminative capability of intermediate features and also overcome the problem of network gradient vanishing or exploding. By comparing VGG19 and ResNet50 and the proposed hybrid model, we concluded that the hybrid model had a significant advantage in accuracy. The detailed results of each model’s performance and their pros and cons will be presented in the conference.

Keywords: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, hybrid model, leukemia diagnostic system, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Evelyn Kropfreiter, Roland Bernhard

Abstract:

There has been an increased interest in school-based whole-child development in the Austrian education system in the last few years. Although there is a consensus among academics that teachers' beliefs are an essential component of their professional competence, there are hardly any studies in the German-speaking world examining teachers' beliefs about school-based character education. To close this gap, we are conducting a mixed methods study combining qualitative interviews and a questionnaire in Austria (doctoral thesis at the University of Salzburg). In this paper, we present preliminary insights into the quantitative strand of the project. In contrast to German-speaking countries, the Anglo-Saxon world has a long tradition of explicit character education in schools. There has been a rising interest in approaches focusing on a neo-Aristotelian form of character education in England. The Jubilee Centre strongly influences the "renaissance" of papers on neo-Aristotelian character education for Character and Virtues, founded in 2012. The quantitative questionnaire study (n = 264) is an online survey of teachers and school principals conducted in four different federal states in spring 2023. Most respondents (n = 264) from lower secondary schools (AHS-Unterstufe and Mittelschule) believe that character education in schools for 10-14-year-olds is more important for society than good exam results. Many teachers state that they consider themselves prepared to promote their students' personal development and life skills through their education and to attend further training courses. However, there are many obstacles in the education system to ensure that a comprehensive education reaches the students. Many teachers state that they consider themselves prepared to promote their students' character strengths and life skills through their education and to attend further training courses. However, there are many obstacles in the education system to ensure that a comprehensive education reaches the students. Among the most cited difficulties, teachers mention the time factor associated with an overcrowded curriculum and a strong focus on performance, which often leaves them needing more time to keep an eye on nurturing the whole person. The fact that character education is not a separate subject, and its implementation needs to be monitored also makes it challenging to implement it in everyday school life. Austrian teachers prioritize moral virtues such as compassion and honesty as character strengths in everyday school life and resilience and commitment in the next place. Our results are like those reported in other studies on teacher's beliefs about character education. They indicate that Austrian teachers want to teach character in their schools but see systemic constraints such as the curriculum, in which personality roles play a subordinate role, and the focus on performance testing in the school system and the associated lack of time as obstacles to fostering more character development in students.

Keywords: character education, life skills, teachers' beliefs, virtues

Procedia PDF Downloads 85

Authors: M. Akif Ceviz, Alirıza Kaleli, Erdoğan Güner

Abstract:

LPG pressure regulator is a device which is used to change the phase of LPG from liquid to gas by decreasing the pressure. During the phase change, it is necessary to supply the latent heat of LPG to prevent excessive low temperature. Engine coolant is circulated in the pressure regulator for this purpose. Therefore, pressure regulator is a type of heat exchanger that should be designed for different engine operating conditions. The design of the regulator should ensure that the flow of LPG is in gaseous phase to the injectors during the engine steady state and transient operating conditions. The pressure regulators in the LPG gaseous injection systems currently used can easily change the phase of LPG, however, there is no any control on the LPG temperature in conventional LPG injection systems. It is possible to increase temperature excessively. In this study, a control unit has been tested to keep the LPG temperature in a band. Result of the study showed that the engine performance characteristics can be increased by using the system.

Keywords: temperature, pressure regulator, LPG, PID

Procedia PDF Downloads 516

Authors: Hae-Yeoun Lee

Abstract:

Reversible watermarking that not only protects the copyright but also preserve the original quality of the digital content have been intensively studied. In particular, the demand for reversible watermarking has increased. In this paper, we propose a reversible watermarking scheme based on interpolation-error shifting and error precompensation. The intensity of a pixel is interpolated from the intensities of neighbouring pixels, and the difference histogram between the interpolated and the original intensities is obtained and modified to embed the watermark message. By restoring the difference histogram, the embedded watermark is extracted and the original image is recovered by compensating for the interpolation error. The overflow and underflow are prevented by error precompensation. To show the performance of the method, the proposed algorithm is compared with other methods using various test images.

Keywords: reversible watermarking, high capacity, high quality, interpolated error shifting, error precompensation

Procedia PDF Downloads 325