Search results for: Ming Show Wong

Authors: Touhari Fadhila, Mehaiguene Madjid, Meddi Mohamed

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This work aims to assess the quality of water dams based on the monitoring of physical-chemical parameters by the National Agency of Water Resources (ANRH) for a period of 10 years (1999-2008). Quality sheets of surface water for the four dams in the region of upper Cheliff (Ghrib, Deurdeur, Harreza, and Ouled Mellouk) show a degradation of the quality (organic pollution expressed in COD and OM) over time. Indeed, the registered amount of COD often exceeds 50 mg/ l, and the OM exceeds 15 mg/l. This pollution is caused by discharges of wastewater and eutrophication. The waters of dams show a very high salinity (TDS = 2574 mg/l in 2008 for the waters of the dam Ghrib, standard = 1500 mg/l). The concentration of nitrogenous substances (NH₄⁺, NO₂^-) in water is high in 2008 at Ouled Melloukdam. This pollution is caused by the oxidation of nitrogenous organic matter. On the other hand, we studied the relationship between the evolution of quality parameters and filling dams. We observed a decrease in the salinity and COD following an improvement of the filling state of dams, this resides in the dilution water through the contribution of rainwater. While increased levels of nitrates and phosphorus in the waters of four dams studied during the rainy season is compared to the dry period, this increase may be due to leaching from fertilizers used in agricultural soils situated in watersheds.

Keywords: surface water quality, pollution, physical-chemical parameters, upper Cheliff basin.

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Authors: X. Gu, K. L. Blackmore

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The impact factor was introduced to measure the quality of journals. Various impact measures exist from multiple bibliographic databases. In this research, we aim to provide a broader understanding of the relationship between scholarly impact and other characteristics of academic journals. Data used for this research were collected from Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory (Ulrichs), Cabell’s (Cabells), and SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) from 1999 to 2015. A master journal dataset was consolidated via Journal Title and ISSN. We adopted a two-step analysis process to study the quantitative relationships between scholarly impact and other journal characteristics. Firstly, we conducted a correlation analysis over the data attributes, with results indicating that there are no correlations between any of the identified journal characteristics. Secondly, we examined the quantitative relationship between scholarly impact and other characteristics using quartile analysis. The results show interesting patterns, including some expected and others less anticipated. Results show that higher quartile journals publish more in both frequency and quantity, and charge more for subscription cost. Top quartile journals also have the lowest acceptance rates. Non-English journals are more likely to be categorized in lower quartiles, which are more likely to stop publishing than higher quartiles. Future work is suggested, which includes analysis of the relationship between scholars and their publications, based on the quartile ranking of journals in which they publish.

Keywords: academic journal, acceptance rate, impact factor, journal characteristics

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Authors: M.H. Keshek, M.N. Omar, A.H. Amer

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Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) is considered one of the most important crops in summer season, and it is grown in most cultivated area in Egypt. Eggplant has a very limited shelf life for freshness and physiological changes occur after harvest. Nowadays, microwave drying offers an alternative way to drying agricultural products. microwave drying is not only faster but also requiring less energy consumption than conventional drying. The main objective of this research was to evaluate using the microwave oven in Eggplant drying, to determine the optimum drying time of higher drying efficiency and lower energy consumption. The eggplants slices, having a thickness of about 5, 10, 15, and 20 mm, with diameter 50±2 mm was dried using microwave oven (KOR-9G2B) using three different levels were 450, 630, and 810 Watt (50%, 70%, and 90% of 900 Watt). The results show that, the initial moisture content of the eggplant slices was around 93 % wet basis (13.28 g water/g dry matter). The results indicated that, the moisture transfer within the sample was more rapidly during higher microwave power heating (810 watt) and lower thickness (5 mm) of the eggplant slices. In addition, the results show that, the drying efficiency increases by increasing slices thickness at power levels 450, 630 and 810 Watt. The higher drying efficiency was 83.13% occurred when drying the eggplant slices 20 mm thickness in microwave oven at power 630 Watt. the higher total energy consumption per dry kilogram was 1.275 (kWh/ dry kg) occurred at used microwave 810 Watt for drying eggplant slices 5 mm thickness, and the lower total energy consumption per dry kilogram was 0.55 (kWh/ dry kg) occurred at used microwave 810 Watt for drying eggplant slices 20 mm thickness.

Keywords: microwave drying, eggplant, drying rate, drying efficiency, energy consumption

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Authors: Tsvetomira Braynova, Miglena Simonska

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The article presents the results of research on phonological processes in three and four-year-old children. For the purpose of the study, an author's test was developed and conducted among 120 children. The study included three areas of research - at the level of words (96 words), at the level of sentence repetition (10 sentences) and at the level of generating own speech from a picture (15 pictures). The test also gives us additional information about the articulation errors of the assessed children. The main purpose of the icing is to analyze all phonological processes that occur at this age in Bulgarian children and to identify which are typical and atypical for this age. The results show that the most common phonology errors that children make are: sound substitution, an elision of sound, metathesis of sound, elision of a syllable, and elision of consonants clustered in a syllable. All examined children were identified with the articulatory disorder from type bilabial lambdacism. Measuring the correlation between the average length of repeated speech and the average length of generated speech, the analysis proves that the more words a child can repeat in part “repeated speech,” the more words they can be expected to generate in part “generating sentence.” The results of this study show that the task of naming a word provides sufficient and representative information to assess the child's phonology.

Keywords: assessment, phonology, articulation, speech-language development

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Authors: Zhaohan Xie, Yining Yu, Mingliang Chen

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As research has shown a convergent tendency for aversion to AI recommendation, it is imperative to find a way to promote AI usage and better harness the technology. In the context of e-commerce, this study has found evidence that people show less avoidance of algorithms when recommending search products compared to experience products. This is due to people’s different attribution of mind to AI versus humans, as suggested by mind perception theory. While people hold the belief that an algorithm owns sufficient capability to think and calculate, which makes it competent to evaluate search product attributes that can be obtained before actual use, they doubt its capability to sense and feel, which is essential for evaluating experience product attributes that must be assessed after experience in person. The result of the behavioral investigation (Study 1, N=112) validated that consumers show low purchase intention to experience products recommended by AI. Further consumer neuroscience study (Study 2, N=26) using Event-related potential (ERP) showed that consumers have a higher level of cognitive conflict when faced with AI recommended experience product as reflected by larger N2 component, while the effect disappears for search product. This research has implications for the effective employment of AI recommenders, and it extends the literature on e-commerce and marketing communication.

Keywords: algorithm recommendation, consumer behavior, e-commerce, event-related potential, experience product, search product

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Authors: Maya Lisa Aryanti, S. S. M. Hum

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To improve students’ skill, writing is the most challenging skill to be developed. The reason is that besides helping the students to develop their skill, this activity also helps them to express themselves. This paper depicts how paraphrasing is very helpful to interpret students’ writing. Syntactic units, used tenses and meanings will indeed change once the writings were paraphrased. The objectives of this research are to reveal the inappropriate structure of syntactic units, to show what types of sentences the students often make, and to show how paraphrasing can help to infer the message. The methodology of this research is descriptive qualitative research. In addition, theories of linguistics are also included. This includes theory of Syntax to describe syntactic units and tenses and theory of Semantics to describe theories of meaning and how paraphrasing works. The theories of general linguistics, grammar and writing are also provided to support the theories of Syntax and Semantics. The results of this research are concerned with how the message is received in the end. The message written in the students’ essay is not clear because of the improper structure of syntactic units and use of incorrect of tenses. The students tend to use simple sentences, compound sentences and complex sentences with a few mistakes in their writing. In addition, they tend to create unnecessary phrases. The last point is that this research shows how paraphrase works to attain complete meaning of a sentence.

Keywords: meanings, syntactic units, tenses, syntax and semantics

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Authors: Thendiyath Roshni, Stefano Pagliara

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Block ramps (BR) or rock chutes are eco-friendly natural river restoration structures. BR are made of ramp of rocks and flows over BR develop turbulence and helps in the entrainment of ambient air. These act as natural aerators in river flow and therefore leads to oxygenation of water. As many of the hydraulic structures in rivers, hinders the natural path for aquatic habitat. However, flows over BR ascertains a natural rocky flow and ensures safe and natural movement for aquatic habitat. Hence, BR is considered as a better alternative for drop structures. As water quality is concerned, turbulent and aerated flows over BR or macro-roughness conditions improves aeration and thereby oxygenation. Hence, the objective of this paper is to study the oxygenation in the turbulent flows over BR. Experimental data were taken for a slope (S) of 27.5% for three discharges (Q = 9, 15 and 21 lps) conditions. Air concentration were measured with the help of air concentration probe for three different discharges in the uniform flow region. Oxygen concentration is deduced from the air concentration as ambient air is entrained in the flows over BR. Air concentration profiles and oxygen profiles are plotted in the uniform flow region for three discharges and found that air concentration and oxygen concentration does not show any remarkable variation in properties in the longitudinal profile in uniform flow region. An empirical relation is developed for finding the average oxygen concentration (Oₘ) for S = 27.5% in the uniform flow region for 9 < Q < 21 lps. The results show that as the discharge increases over BR, there is a reduction of oxygen concentration in the uniform flow region.

Keywords: aeration, block ramps, oxygenation, turbulent flows

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Authors: Ricardo Daziano

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In the analysis and planning of the mobility ecosystem, preferences for ride-hailing over incumbent street-hailing services need better understanding. In this paper, a seminonparametric discrete choice model that allows for flexible preference heterogeneity is fitted with data from a discrete choice experiment among adult commuters in Montreal, Canada (N=760). Participants chose among Uber, Teo (a local electric ride-hailing service that was in operation when data was collected in 2018), and a standard taxi when presented with information about cost, time (on-trip, waiting, walking), powertrain of the car (gasoline/hybrid) for Uber and taxi, and whether the available electric Teo was a Tesla (which was one of the actual features of the Teo fleet). The fitted flexible model offers several behavioral insights. Waiting time for ride-hailing services is associated with a statistically significant but low marginal disutility. For other time components, including on-ride, and street-hailing waiting and walking the estimates of the value of time show an interesting pattern: whereas in a conditional logit on-ride time reductions are valued higher, in the flexible LML specification means of the value of time follow the expected pattern of waiting and walking creating a higher disutility. At the same time, the LML estimates show the presence of important, multimodal unobserved preference heterogeneity.

Keywords: discrete choice, electric taxis, ridehailing, semiparametrics

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Authors: Ming Zhou, Taeho Park

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Early stage technologies have been particularly challenging to manage due to high degrees of their numerous uncertainties. Most research results directly out of a research lab tend to be at their early, if not the infant stage. A long while uncertain commercialization process awaits these lab results. The majority of such lab technologies go nowhere and never get commercialized due to various reasons. Any efforts or financial resources put into managing these technologies turn fruitless. High stake naturally calls for better results, which make a patenting decision harder to make. A good and well protected patent goes a long way for commercialization of the technology. Our preliminary research showed that there was not a simple yet productive procedure for such valuation. Most of the studies now have been theoretical and overly comprehensive where practical suggestions were non-existent. Hence, we attempted to develop a simple and highly implementable procedure for efficient and scalable valuation. We thoroughly reviewed existing research, interviewed practitioners in the Silicon Valley area, and surveyed university technology offices. Instead of presenting another theoretical and exhaustive research, we aimed at developing a practical guidance that a government agency and/or university office could easily deploy and get things moving to later steps of managing early stage technologies. We provided a procedure to thriftily value and make the patenting decision. A patenting index was developed using survey data and expert opinions. We identified the most important factors to be used in the patenting decision using survey ratings. The rating then assisted us in generating good relative weights for the later scoring and weighted averaging step. More importantly, we validated our procedure by testing it with our practitioner contacts. Their inputs produced a general yet highly practical cut schedule. Such schedule of realistic practices has yet to be witnessed our current research. Although a technology office may choose to deviate from our cuts, what we offered here at least provided a simple and meaningful starting point. This procedure was welcomed by practitioners in our expert panel and university officers in our interview group. This research contributed to our current understanding and practices of managing early stage technologies by instating a heuristically simple yet theoretical solid method for the patenting decision. Our findings generated top decision factors, decision processes and decision thresholds of key parameters. This research offered a more practical perspective which further completed our extant knowledge. Our results could be impacted by our sample size and even biased a bit by our focus on the Silicon Valley area. Future research, blessed with bigger data size and more insights, may want to further train and validate our parameter values in order to obtain more consistent results and analyze our decision factors for different industries.

Keywords: technology management, early stage technology, patent, decision

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Authors: Xinhuang Wu, Yousef Sardahi

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A hybrid and optimal multi-loop control structure combining linear and nonlinear control algorithms are introduced in this paper to regulate the position of a quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) driven by four brushless DC motors. To this end, a nonlinear mathematical model of the UAV is derived and then linearized around one of its operating points. Using the nonlinear version of the model, a sliding mode control is used to derive the control laws of the motor thrust forces required to drive the UAV to a certain position. The linear model is used to design two controllers, XG-controller and YG-controller, responsible for calculating the required roll and pitch to maneuver the vehicle to the desired X and Y position. Three attitude controllers are designed to calculate the desired angular rates of rotors, assuming that the Euler angles are minimal. After that, a many-objective optimization problem involving 20 design parameters and ten objective functions is formulated and solved by HypE (Hypervolume estimation algorithm), one of the widely used many-objective optimization algorithms approaches. Both stability and performance constraints are imposed on the optimization problem. The optimization results in terms of Pareto sets and fronts are obtained and show that some of the design objectives are competing. That is, when one objective goes down, the other goes up. Also, Numerical simulations conducted on the nonlinear UAV model show that the proposed optimization method is quite effective.

Keywords: optimal control, many-objective optimization, sliding mode control, linear control, cascade controllers, UAV, drones

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Authors: Mohammad Mirwais Arghandiwal, Fujita Motohiro, Wisinee Wisetjindawat

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Since 2001, the new government of Afghanistan addressed the improvement of transportation in rural areas as one of the key issues for the country development. This paper thus, aims to show the impotency of transportation in the rural area of Kabul province. A field survey in Kabul Province capital of Afghanistan has been conducted during March, 2015, and 201 questionnaires were collected from four districts named Shakar Dara, Paghman, Char Asyab, and Khak Jabar to investigate the impacts of road transportation on the people’s daily life. The districts had their road projects constructed during the last 3-5 years. The interviewees are chosen randomly from a different category of districts residences. As transportation is one of the most important factors for the development of the communities, during the survey it was very easily to observe a positive effect on the life of people. The improvement on the accessibility has had a positive impact on the land and land price. In this paper, a model is created to show the relationship between different factors and the land price improvement. In the end, a recommendation is presented on the establishment of the community council for a better use and maintenance of road projects. We emphasize on a public and private partnership at a community level in the districts during the construction period too. In addition, the communities should be encouraged on their positive role in the improvement of transportation through their participation and collaboration with the local government.

Keywords: accessibility, Afghanistan, poverty, rural area, transportation development

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Authors: H. Fraga, J. A. Santos

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Vitiviniculture in Portugal is a key socio-economic sector, with a strong connection to local traditions and culture. Despite being a relatively small country, with prevailing Mediterranean environments, Portugal comprises an exceptionally large diversity of growth conditions (Terroirs). The vineyard area in Portugal is over 190 thousand hectares, being the eleventh wine producer and ninth wine exporter worldwide. Owing to the strong impact of weather and climate conditions on grapevine physiological development, grape berry quantity and quality show important inter-annual variability. Grapevines are also susceptible to climate change, as their responses will be unavoidably different under future climates. These impacts may change wine typicity of a given region or even its viticultural suitability. The current study reveals that the projected warming and drying trends for Portugal under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5, are projected to 1) significantly shift current grapevine growing thermal conditions (e.g., heat and chill accumulation), 2) enhance water stress, 3) anticipate phenological timings and 4) modify yields. Moreover, the present study provides some hints regarding the effectiveness of mulching and irrigation as climate change adaptation measures. Our results show that the effectiveness of these adaptation measures will strongly rest on the strength of the climate change signal at a local scale, thus emphasizing the need for local-to-regional climate change assessments.

Keywords: viticulture, climate change, adaptation measures, Portugal

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Authors: Neda Orak, Mostafa Zarei

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Environmental assessment is an important session in environment management. Since various methods and techniques have been produces and implemented. Remote sensing (RS) is widely used in many scientific and research fields such as geology, cartography, geography, agriculture, forestry, land use planning, environment, etc. It can show earth surface objects cyclical changes. Also, it can show earth phenomena limits on basis of electromagnetic reflectance changes and deviations records. The research has been done on mangrove forests assessment by RS techniques. Mangrove forests quantitative analysis in Basatin and Bidkhoon estuaries was the aim of this research. It has been done by Landsat satellite images from 1975- 2013 and match to ground control points. This part of mangroves are the last distribution in northern hemisphere. It can provide a good background to improve better management on this important ecosystem. Landsat has provided valuable images to earth changes detection to researchers. This research has used MSS, TM, +ETM, OLI sensors from 1975, 1990, 2000, 2003-2013. Changes had been studied after essential corrections such as fix errors, bands combination, georeferencing on 2012 images as basic image, by maximum likelihood and IPVI Index. It was done by supervised classification. 2004 google earth image and ground points by GPS (2010-2012) was used to compare satellite images obtained changes. Results showed mangrove area in bidkhoon was 1119072 m2 by GPS and 1231200 m2 by maximum likelihood supervised classification and 1317600 m2 by IPVI in 2012. Basatin areas is respectively: 466644 m2, 88200 m2, 63000 m2. Final results show forests have been declined naturally. It is due to human activities in Basatin. The defect was offset by planting in many years. Although the trend has been declining in recent years again. So, it mentioned satellite images have high ability to estimation all environmental processes. This research showed high correlation between images and indexes such as IPVI and NDVI with ground control points.

Keywords: IPVI index, Landsat sensor, maximum likelihood supervised classification, Nayband National Park

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Authors: Zhen Li

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In contemporary China, the rise of consumer culture and feminism has facilitated the ‘She-Economy’, where Chinese women’s consumption power has been boosted along with the thriving Chinese economy. Domestic reality TV shows such as Sisters Who Make Waves (hereafter SWMW) target female audiences by bringing women's issues such as age, appearance, and balance between family and career to the discussion. Against this backdrop, this study adopted multimodal content analysis to investigate how SWMW failed to live up to the feminist goals the show had claimed and how serious women’s issues were consumed and capitalized by the consumer media culture from consumer culture and feminist perspectives. The findings reveal that while the female-themed work claims to uncover the charm that age brings to women over their thirties, it merely mentions female anxiety and uses feminism in disguise to achieve commercial success without in-depth thinking and discussion of what real-life issues women in China are tackling. They further show that the mass media-promoted modern femininity combined with consumerism deepens anxiety over aging among female audiences. The study sheds light on understanding the new development of Chinese femininity and the impact of consumer culture on feminist consciousness in contemporary China.

Keywords: consumer culture, feminism, multimodal content analysis, she-economy

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Authors: Sridhar S, Govinda Raj Mandela, Aruna Mangalpady

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In the present day scenario, Indian underground mines are moving towards full scale mechanisation for improvement of production and productivity levels. These mines are employing a wide variety of earth moving machines for the transportation of ore and overburden (waste). Low Profile Dump Trucks (LPDTs) have proven more advantageous towards improvement of production levels in underground mines through quick transportation. During the operation of LPDT, different kinds of vibrations are generated which can affect the health condition of the operator. Keeping this in view, the present research work focuses on measurement and evaluation of Hand Arm Vibrations (HAVs) from the steering system of LPDTs. The study also aims to evaluate the HAVs of different job components of a work cycle in operating LPDTs. The HAVs were measured and evaluated according to ISO 5349-2: 2001 standards, and the daily vibration exposures A(8) were calculated. The evaluated A(8) results show that LPDTs of 60 and 50 tons capacity have vibration levels more than that of the Exposure Action Value (EAV) of 2.5 m/s2 in every job component of the work cycle. Further, the results show that the vibration levels were more during empty haulage especially during descending journey when compared to other job components in all LPDTs considered for the study.

Keywords: low profile dump trucks, hand arm vibrations, exposure action value, underground mines

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Authors: Marwah Mohsin, Thomas Beach, Alan Kwan, Mahdi Ismail

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This paper describes the differences in views on sustainable development between the general public and experts in a developing country, Iraq. This paper will answer the question: How do the views of the public differ from the generally accepted view of experts in the context of sustainable urban development in Iraq? In order to answer this question, the views of both the public and the experts will be analysed. These results are taken from a public survey and a Delphi questionnaire. These will be analysed using statistical methods in order to identify the significant differences. This will enable investigation of the different perceptions between the public perceptions and the experts’ views towards urban sustainable development factors. This is important due to the fact that different viewpoints between policy-makers and the public will impact on the acceptance by the public of any future sustainable development work that is undertaken. The brief findings of the statistical analysis show that the views of both the public and the experts are considered different in most of the variables except six variables show no differences. Those variables are ‘The importance of establishing sustainable cities in Iraq’, ‘Mitigate traffic congestion’, ‘Waste recycling and separating’, ‘Use wastewater recycling’, ‘Parks and green spaces’, and ‘Promote investment’.

Keywords: urban sustainability, experts views, public views, principle component analysis, PCA

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Authors: Ali Hojati Najafabadi, Mohamad Hosein Rahmati, Seyed Ali Madanizadeh

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Governments execute energy subsidy reforms by either increasing energy prices or reducing energy price dispersion. These policies make less use of energy per plant (intensive margin), vary the total number of firms (extensive margin), promote technological progress (technology channel), and make additional resources to redistribute (resource channel). We estimate a structural dynamic firm model with endogenous technology adaptation using data from the manufacturing firms in Iran and a country ranked the second-largest energy subsidy plan by the IMF. The findings show significant dynamics and distributional effects due to an energy reform plan. The price elasticity of energy consumption in the industrial sector is about -2.34, while it is -3.98 for large firms. The dispersion elasticity, defined as the amounts of changes in energy consumption by a one-percent reduction in the standard error of energy price distribution, is about 1.43, suggesting significant room for a distributional policy. We show that the intensive margin is the main driver of energy price elasticity, whereas the other channels mostly offset it. In contrast, the labor response is mainly through the extensive margin. Total factor productivity slightly improves in light of the reduction in energy consumption if, at the same time, the redistribution policy boosts the aggregate demands.

Keywords: energy reform, firm dynamics, structural estimation, subsidy policy

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Authors: Maricarmen Herrera, Pierre Chymkowitch, Joe Robertson, Jens Eriksson, Jorrit Enserink

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tRNA genes are transcribed by RNA polymerase III. During recent years, it has become clear that tDNA transcription fluctuates during the cell cycle. However, the mechanism by which the cell cycle controls the amplitude of tDNA transcription remains unknown. We found that the cyclin Clb5 recruits the cyclin dependent kinase Cdk1 to tRNA genes to sharply increase tRNA synthesis during a brief interval in the cell cycle. We show that Cdk1 promotes the interaction of TFIIIB with TFIIIC, that it stimulates the recruitment of TFIIIC to tRNA genes, that it prevents the formation of an overly stable TFIIIB-tDNA complex and that it augments the dynamics of RNA polymerase III. Furthermore, we identify Bdp1 as a novel Cdk1 substrate, and phosphorylation of Bdp1 is required for the cell cycle-dependent increase in tDNA transcription. In addition, we show that phosphorylation of the Cdk1 substrate Nup60 mediates formation of a Nup60-Nup2 complex at tRNA genes, which is also required for cell cycle-dependent tDNA transcription. Together, our findings indicate that Cdk1 activity gates tRNA synthesis by regulating the dynamics of the TFIIIB-TFIIIC-RNAPIII complex, and that it may promote the formation of a nuclear pore microenvironment conducive to efficient tDNA transcription.

Keywords: Cdk1, cell cycle, RNAPIII machinery, tRNA

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Authors: Su-Lin Yu

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This paper will explore how gender and care discourse are intersected, reformulated and contested in American daughters’ caregiving memoirs. In particular, it will attempt to show how gender structure has worked to regulate a daughter’s response to her mother’s illness. In other words, how do certain cultural notions and class difference affect the ways in which the daughter enacts her caregiving response to her mother’s illness? What is the interrelation of female subjectivity and care practice? To understand care and gender politics in the memoirs, this paper will engage in close readings of five texts: Sandra Bullock Simith’s Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir (2015),Martha Stettinius’s Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter’s Memoir (2012), Patricia Thompson Collamer’s Grace on the Ledge: a Caregiver's Memoir, Judith Henry’s The Dutiful Daughter's Guide to Caregiving: A Practical Memoir (2015), and The Daughter's Dilemma: A Survival Guide to Caring for an Aging, Abusive Parent by Emily Wanderer Cohen (2018). By analyzing these texts, this paper will show why adult daughters become the primary caregivers, how gender norms and care practices influence a daughter’s thoughts and actions, and how it affects her self-understanding. Taken as a whole, then, the paper will provide an important examination not only of care and gender politics, but also a contribution to the intersecting discourses of illness, death, and mother-daughter relationship.

Keywords: care ethics, daughter-mother relationship, gender politics, memoirs

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Authors: Mohammad Hassan Ramezan zadeh 1 , Majid Seifi 2 , Hoda Hekmat ara 2 1Biomedical Engineering Department, Near East University, Nicosia, Cyprus 2Physics Department, Guilan University , P.O. Box 41335-1914, Rasht, Iran.

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Magnetic nano particles of ferric chloride were synthesised using a co-precipitation technique. For the optimal results, ferric chloride at room temperature was added to different surfactant with different ratio of metal ions/surfactant. The samples were characterised using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectrum to show the presence of nanoparticles, structure and morphology. Magnetic measurements were also carried out on samples using a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer. To show the effect of surfactant on size distribution and crystalline structure of produced nanoparticles, surfactants with various charge such as anionic cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), cationic sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and neutral TritonX-100 was employed. By changing the surfactant and ratio of metal ions/surfactant the size and crystalline structure of these nanoparticles were controlled. We also show that using anionic stabilizer leads to smallest size and narrowest size distribution and the most crystalline (polycrystalline) structure. In developing our production technique, many parameters were varied. Efforts at reproducing good yields indicated which of the experimental parameters were the most critical and how carefully they had to be controlled. The conditions reported here were the best that we encountered but the range of possible parameter choice is so large that these probably only represent a local optimum. The samples for our chemical process were prepared by adding 0.675 gr ferric chloride (FeCl3, 6H2O) to three different surfactant in water solution. The solution was sonicated for about 30 min until a transparent solution was achieved. Then 0.5 gr sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as a reduction agent was poured to the reaction drop by drop which resulted to participate reddish brown Fe2O3 nanoparticles. After washing with ethanol the obtained powder was calcinated in 600°C for 2h. Here, the sample 1 contained CTAB as a surfactant with ratio of metal ions/surfactant 1/2, sample 2 with CTAB and ratio 1/1, sample 3 with SDS and ratio 1/2, sample 4 SDS 1/1, sample 5 is triton-X-100 with 1/2 and sample 6 triton-X-100 with 1/1.

Keywords: iron oxide nanoparticles, stabilizer, co-precipitation, surfactant

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Authors: Yu-Ling Tsai, Chih-Jung Chang, Chia-Chen Lu, Eric Wu, Chuan-Sheng Lin, Tzu-Lung Lin, Hsin-Chih Lai

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It is urgent that novel anti-obesity measures that are safe, effective and widely available are developed for counteracting the rapidly growing obesity epidemics. In the present study, we show that a probiotic bacterium Parabacteroides goldsteinii screened through culture under the high molecular weight polysaccharides prepared from two iconic medicinal fungi, the Ganoderma lucidum and the Hirsutella sinensis, reduced body weight by ca. 20% in high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. The bacterium also decreased intestinal permeability, metabolic endotoxemia, inflammation and insulin resistance. Notably, oral administration of live, but not high temperature-killed, P. goldsteinii to HFD fed mice considerably reduces weight gain and obesity-associated metabolic disorders. A three months feeding of the mice with P. goldsteinii did not show any aberrant side effects, indicating the safety of this bacterium. Transcriptome analysis indicated that P. goldsteinii enhances immunity in resting dendritic cells, but reduces inflammation in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced dendritic cells. On top, Naïve T-cells were skewed towards regulatory T-cells after encountering with dendritic cells (DCs) pretreated with P. goldsteinii. These results indicated P. goldsteinii showed anti-inflammatory effects and can work as a potential probiotic ameliorating obesogenicity and related metabolic syndromes.

Keywords: Parabacteroides goldsteinii, gut microbiome, obesity, immune modulation

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Authors: Monika Szymańska-Czerwińsk, Kinga Zaręba-Marchewka, Krzysztof Niemczuk

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Chlamydiaceae are Gram-negative bacteria distributed worldwide in animals and humans. One of them is Chlamydia gallinacea recently discovered. Available data show that C. gallinacea is dominant chlamydial agent found in poultry in European and Asian countries. The aim of the studies was screening of poultry flocks in order to evaluate frequency of C. gallinacea shedding and genetic diversity. Sampling was conducted in different regions of Poland in 2019-2020. Overall, 1466 cloacal/oral swabs were collected in duplicate from 146 apparently healthy poultry flocks including chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and quails. Dry swabs were used for DNA extraction. DNA extracts were screened using a Chlamydiaceae 23S rRNA real-time PCR assay. To identify Chlamydia species, specific real-time PCR assays were performed. Furthermore, selected samples were used for sequencing based on ompA gene fragments and variable domains (VD1-2, VD3-4). In total, 10.3% of the tested flocks were Chlamydiaceae-positive (15/146 farms). The presence of Chlamydiaceae was confirmed mainly in chickens (13/92 farms) but also in turkey (1/19 farms) and goose (1/26 farms) flocks. Eleven flocks were identified as C. gallinacea-positive while four flocks remained unclassified. Phylogenetic analysis revealed at least 16 genetic variants of C. gallinacea. Research showed that Chlamydiaceae occur in a poultry flock in Poland. The strains of C. gallinacea as dominant species show genetic variability.

Keywords: C. gallinacea, emerging agent, poultry, real-time PCR

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Authors: Rahasanica Nariswari Pratiwi, Maulana Syaiful Haq

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The role of accounting in Islamic Banking is not only as economic reality but also as religious reality. Religious reality constructed by religious value in annual report of Islamic Bank. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to understand and analyze the existence of religious values by form of photographs in annual report, and to analyze the reason of religious values disclosure in annual report. Ontologically, this study is build on a belief that annual report is a communication media to show the ways Islamic Banks express adherence to sharia principle. The research has done by analyzing the photographs in annual report of Bank Syariah Mandiri (BSM), Bank Muamalat Indonesia (BMI), Bank Nasional Indonesia (BNI) Syariah, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) Syariah, and Bank Central Asia (BCA) Syariah in Indonesia. This study is qualitative research, was carried out within interpretive paradigm using semiotic approach. By employing semiotic analysis, this research showed that annual report of Islamic Bank in Indonesia contained religious value by the form of its photographs. The results of this study also show that photographs in annual report of Islamic Banks in this research contained religious values. Furthermore, this study concludes that Islamic banks actually expressed religious reality and make them different from the other bank’s annual report which focuses only on economic reality. This indicates Islamic Banks obidience existence about responsibility, not only to the stakeholders but also to the society and Allah.

Keywords: Islamic banking, semiotics, accounting, annual report

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Authors: Menglim Hoy, Suksun Horpibulsuk, Arul Arulrajah

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The results of laboratory investigation of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) – fly ash (FA) based geopolymer as a base material is presented in this paper. An alkaline activator, the mixture of NaOH and Na₂SiO₃, is used to synthesis RAP-FA based geopolymer. RAP-FA with water (RAP-FA blend) prepared as a control material. The strength develops and the strength against wet-dry was determined by the unconfined compression strength (UCS) test, then the microstructural properties were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test is conducted to measure its leachability of heavy metal. The results show both the RAP-FA blend and geopolymer can be used as a base course as its UCS values meet the minimum strength requirement specified by the Department of Highway, Thailand. The durability test results show the UCS of these materials increases with increasing the number of wet-dry cycles, reaching its peak at six wet-dry cycles. The XRD and SEM analyses indicate strength development of the RAP-FA blend occurs due to chemical reaction between a high Calcium in RAP with a high Silica and Alumina in FA led to producing calcium aluminate hydrate formation. The strength development of the RAP-FA geopolymer occurred resulted from the polymerization reaction. The TCLP results demonstrate there is no environmental risk of these stabilized materials. Furthermore, FA based geopolymer can reduce the leachability of heavy metal in the RAP-FA blend.

Keywords: recycled asphalt pavement, geopolymer, heavy metal, microstructure

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Authors: Batsukh Chultem, Oyunbileg Natsagdorj, Namsrai Steyrmunkh

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Many industries, tourist camps and houses, discharge aqueous effluents containing relatively high levels of heavy metals, harmful organic compounds water. Untreated effluent from these manufacturing processes has an adverse impact on the environment. A specific problem associated with waste water in the environment is accumulation in the food chain and persistence in the environment. The screening of microorganisms resistant to pollution and able to detoxification them is essential for the development of clean-up technologies. The purpose of this study is to use advanced microbiological technology products for oxidizing organic and heavy metals pollutants as a biological treatment, to reduce water pollution, which arise as a result of waste water due to day-to-day operations of industries and houses of Ulaanbaatar city and tourist camps located around the lake Hovsgol, in Hovsgol province of Mongolia. By comparing the results from tests of effective microorganism’s bio-preparation treated sewage samples and not treated sewage samples shows that the treated sewage samples pollution decreased defending on treatment period and ratio. Treated water analyses show that: the suspended solids 352 mg/l, pH 5.85-7.95, ammonium nitrate 81.25-221.2 mg NH₄/l, nitrite 0.088-0.227 mg NO₂/l, nitrate 8.5-11.5 mg NO₃/l, and orthophosphate 1.06-15.46 mg PO₄/l. Also, heavy metals were decreased and microbiological test results defined parameters, respectively show the waste water pollution was reduced.

Keywords: effective microorganims, environment, pollution, treatment

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Authors: Sally Barsoum

Abstract:

This paper is providing a significant insight into the role of satire in Egyptian politics and how it has been received from the government and viewer’s point of view. It mainly sets out to test whether Bassem Youssef’s satirical program has played a significant role in Egypt recent politics and to investigate what is the nature and extent of this role. In order to test this hypothesis, the researcher chose to critically analyze one episode of Bassem Youssef’s satirical show, El Bernameg. This paper goes further to highlight that the aims of satire is to invite citizens to analyze, criticize and question people in power and the realm of politics rather than remain as untouched subjects by combining humor with critique in order to enhance citizens’ political awareness and perhaps even political engagement. Moreover it identifies that Bassem Youssef’s satire is to use laughter as a medium to communicate his political message. By first informing the public and secondly engaging them through laughter, satire plays a very constructive political role, which have been argued finally that Bassem Youssef has indeed played an important part in the Egyptian political scene of today and this can be measured by the degree of censorship that he has been subject to and the level of international and domestic reaction towards his satirical show. At the end, this paper is suggesting that the measure of a strong government is its ability not only to accommodate satire but also to learn from it.

Keywords: political satirist, Bassem Youssef, capital broadcasting center, TV channel, muslims brotherhood regime, ONTV Egyptian TV channel

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Authors: Saba Javed, Abdul Majeed Nadeem, Imran Qaiser, Muhammad Asif Kamran, Azka Amin

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This study is designed to determine the poverty status and determinants of income diversification in rural areas of Pakistan using cross sectional data of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) for 2010-2011. The variables used for measuring income diversification are demographic indicators, poverty status, and income of households. Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty measures show that 43.1% poor and 56.9% non-poor resided in rural areas of Pakistan. A Tobit model was employed to examine the determinants of livelihood diversification among households. The result showed that age, gender, marital status, household size and province have significant impact on income diversification. The data show that non-poor and female headed household with higher family size diversify more as compared to poor, male headed household with small size of family members. The place of residence (province used as proxy for place) also plays important role for income diversification as Sindh Province was found more diversified as compared to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoon Kha (KPK). It is recommended to improve the ways of income diversification among rural household to reduce poverty among them. This can be done by more investment in education with universal access for poor and remote localities households.

Keywords: poverty, income diversification, rural Pakistan, Tobit regression model, FGT

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Authors: Mobil Kazimov, Guseyn İbragimov

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InAs-CrAs systems are synthesized by the vertical Bridgman–Stockbarger method. XRD analysis and microstructural study of InAs-CrAs composites show that CrAs metallic inclusions are uniformly distributed in the InAs matrices.

Keywords: XRD, eutectic alloy, SEM, EDX

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Authors: Desiree Di Marco

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The aim of this work is to show through the lens of art first which kind of reality was the one represented through fascist maps, and second to study the impact of the fascist regime’s cartography (FRC) on observers eye’s. In this study, it is assumed that the FRC’s representation of reality was simplified, timeless, and even a-spatial because it underrates the concept of territoriality. Cubism and Picasso’s paintings will be used as counter-examples to mystify fascist cartography’s ideological assumptions. The difference between the gaze of an observer looking at the surface of a fascist map and the gaze of someone observing a Picasso painting is impressive. Because there is always something dark, hidden, behind and inside a map, the world of fascist maps was a world built starting from the observation of a “window” that distorted reality and trapped the eyes of the observers. Moving across the map, they seem as if they were hypnotized. Cartohypnosis is the state in which the observer finds himself enslaved by the attractive force of the map, which uses a sort of “magic” geography, a geography that, by means of symbolic language, never has as its primary objective the attempt to show us reality in its complexity, but that of performing for its audience. Magical geography and hypnotic cartography in fascism blended together, creating an almost mystical, magical relationship that demystified reality to reduce the world to a conquerable space. This reduction offered the observer the possibility of conceiving new dimensions: of the limit, of the boundary, elements with which the subject felt fully involved and in which the aesthetic force of the images demonstrated all its strength. But in the early 20th century, the combination of art and cartography gave rise to new possibilities. Cubism which, more than all the other artistic currents showed us how much the observation of reality from a single point of view falls within dangerous logic, is an example. Cubism was an artistic movement that brought about a profound transformation in pictorial culture. It was not only a revolution of pictorial space, but it was a revolution of our conception of pictorial space. Up until that time, men and women were more inclined to believe in the power of images and their representations. Cubist painters rebelled against this blindness by claiming that art must always offer an alternative. Indeed the contribution of this work is precisely to show how art can be able to provide alternatives to even the most horrible regimes and the most atrocious human misfortunes. It also enriches the field of cartography because it "reassures" it by showing how much good it can be for cartography if also for other disciplines come close. Only in this way researcher can increase the chances for the cartography of a greater diffusion at the academic level.

Keywords: cartography, Picasso, fascism, culture

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Authors: Eldah Ephraim Buba, Sanusi Abubakar Sadiq

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Habitat can be degraded by tourism leisure activities for example wildlife viewing can bring abrupt stress for animals and alter their natural behaviors when tourist come too close and wildlife watching have degradation effects on the habitats as they often are accompanied by the noise and commotion created by tourist as they chase wild animals. It is observed that Jos Wild Life Park is usually congested during on-peak periods which causes littering and contamination of the environment by tourist which may lead to changes in the soil nutrient. The issue of unauthorized feeding of animals by a tourist in which the food might be dangerous and harmful to their health and making them be so aggressive is also observed. The aim of the study is to investigate the environmental impact of tourists’ activities in Jos Wild Life Park, Nigeria. The study used survey questionnaires to both tourists and the staff of the wildlife park. One hundred questionnaires were self-administered to randomly selected tourists as the visit the park and some staff. The average mean score of the response was used to show agreement or disagreement. Major findings show the negative impact of tourist’s activities to the environment as air pollution, overcrowding, and congestion, solid littering of the environment, distress to animals and alteration of the ecosystem. Furthermore, the study found the positive impact of tourists activities on the environment to be income generation through tourists activities and infrastructural development. It is recommended that the impact of tourism should be minimized through admitting the right carrying capacity and impact assessment.

Keywords: environmental, impact, investigation, tourists, activities

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