Search results for: statistical area

Authors: Yasir Hassan Satti Mohammed

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The wheat cleaner was designed, manufactured, and tested in the workshop of the department of agricultural engineering, faculty of agricultural sciences, university of Dongola, the northern state of Sudan, for the purpose of enhancing productivity for small-scale-farmers who used to plant their saved wheat seeds every season with all risk of weed infestation and low viability. A one-season field experiment was then conducted according to the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) experimental design in the demonstration farm of Dongola research station using clean seeds and unclean seeds of a local wheat variety (Imam); two different planting methods were also adopted in the experiment. One is the traditional seed drilling within the recommended seed rate (50 kg.feddan⁻¹), whereas the other was the precision seeding method using half of the recommended seed rate (25 kg.feddan⁻¹). The effect of seed type and planting method on field parameters were investigated, and the data was then analyzed using a computer application SAS system version 9.3. The results revealed significant (P ≥ 0.05) and highly significant (P ≥ 0.01) differences between treatments. The precision seeding method with clean seeds increased the number of kernels per spike (KS), tillers per plant (TPP), one thousand kernels mass (TKM), the biomass of wheat (BWT), and total yield (TOY), whereas weeds per area (WSM), the biomass of weeds (BWD) and weight of weed seeds were apparently decreased compared to seed drilling with unclean seed. Wheat seed cleaner could be of great benefit for small-scale wheat farmers in Sudan who cannot afford the cleaned seeds commercially provided by the local government.

Keywords: wheat cleaner, precision seeding, seed drilling method, small-scale farmers

Procedia PDF Downloads 92

Authors: Boldin Roman, Liliana Analía Diaz

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As the hydrogen economy continues to expand, reducing energy consumption and emissions while stimulating economic growth, the development of efficient and cost-effective hydrogen production technologies is critical. Among various methods, anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis stands out due to its potential for using non-noble metal catalysts. The exploration and enhancement of non-noble metal catalysts, such as NiFe-type catalysts, are pivotal for the advancement of AEM technology, ensuring its commercial viability and environmental sustainability. NiFe-type catalysts were synthesized through electrodeposition and characterized both electrochemically and physico-chemically. Various supports, including Ni foam and Ni mesh, were used as porous transport layers (PTLs) to evaluate the effective catalyst thickness and the influence of the PTL in a 5 cm² AEM electrolyzer. This methodological approach allows for a detailed assessment of catalyst performance under operational conditions typical of industrial hydrogen production. The study revealed that electrodeposited non-noble multi-metallic catalysts maintain stable performance as anodes in AEM water electrolysis. NiFe-type catalysts demonstrated superior activity, with the NiFeCoP alloy outperforming others by delivering the lowest overpotential and the highest current density. Furthermore, the use of different PTLs showed significant effects on the electrochemical behavior of the catalysts, indicating that PTL selection is crucial for optimizing performance and efficiency in AEM electrolyzers. Conclusion: The research underscores the potential of non-noble metal catalysts in enhancing efficiency and reducing the costs of AEM electrolysers. The findings highlight the importance of catalyst and PTL optimization in developing scalable and economically viable hydrogen production technologies. Continued innovation in this area is essential for supporting the growth of the hydrogen economy and achieving sustainable energy solutions.

Keywords: AEMWE, electrocatalyst, hydrogen production, water electrolysis.

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Authors: Dovilė Bačėninaitė, Karina Džermeikaitė, Justinas Kirvela, Ramūnas Antanaitis

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Bacteria are often present in the mouth of cattle. Some of them can cause abscesses. Starting with severe swelling of the mouth, muscle spasm, or locked jaw, it can lead to inability to open its mouth, move the neck, cause pain while eating. While the calf is unable to eat properly, it becomes more susceptible to infectious diseases, lower weight gain can be observed. Abscesses can be considered as a continuum of oral disease, whereby early stages of the lumpy jaw could proceed from gingivitis to periodontal disease. In the event of tissue damage, bacteria can enter the bloodstream, even cause sepsis. The most common lesions occur when animals eat sharp grass, coarse fodder, sharp, piercing foreign bodies (this is especially common for calves when they are trying to eat inedible objects). A crossbred Holstein calf presented with a history of proliferative outgrowth in the mandibular region. On clinical examination, needle aspiration, mandibular swelling revealed sticky, white curd-like fluid containing. Pus bacteriology revealed gram-negative cocci. They were sensitive to amoxicillin, cephalexin, enrofloxacin, ceftiofur. Blood morphology was in physiological ranges. The calf was treated surgically. The growth was excised, the puss drained and the wound was flushed with potassium permanganate solution (0,01%). A week after clinical surgery examination was performed. The swelling was decreased. Superficial bacterial infections are often associated with poor hygiene, which should be improved before treatment is commenced. Clipping away dirty hair and gently washing affected areas of skin daily with solutions such as povidone-iodine, potassium permanganate is effective. Appropriate antibiotic therapy, based on sensitivity testing, may be used where there is evidence of systemic illness.

Keywords: calf, abscess, lumpy jaw, pus, Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, Actinobacillus, infection

Procedia PDF Downloads 268

Authors: ZhenlinJu, Christopher P. Vellano, RehanAkbani, Yiling Lu, Gordon B. Mills

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The epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a process by which epithelial cells acquire mesenchymal characteristics, such as profound disruption of cell-cell junctions, loss of apical-basolateral polarity, and extensive reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton to induce cell motility and invasion. A hallmark of EMT is its capacity to promote metastasis, which is due in part to activation of several transcription factors and subsequent downregulation of E-cadherin. Unfortunately, current approaches have yet to uncover robust protein marker sets that can classify tumors as possessing strong EMT signatures. In this study, we utilize reverse phase protein array (RPPA) data and consensus clustering methods to successfully classify a subset of cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (CESC) tumors into an EMT protein signaling group (EMT group). The overall survival (OS) of patients in the EMT group is significantly worse than those in the other Hormone and PI3K/AKT signaling groups. In addition to a shrinkage and selection method for linear regression (LASSO), we applied training/test set and Monte Carlo resampling approaches to identify a set of protein markers that predicts the EMT status of CESC tumors. We fit a logistic model to these protein markers and developed a classifier, which was fixed in the training set and validated in the testing set. The classifier robustly predicted the EMT status of the testing set with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.975 by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. This method not only identifies a core set of proteins underlying an EMT signature in cervical cancer patients, but also provides a tool to examine protein predictors that drive molecular subtypes in other diseases.

Keywords: consensus clustering, TCGA CESC, Silhouette, Monte Carlo LASSO

Procedia PDF Downloads 461

Authors: A. Delimitsou, C. Gouedard, E. Konstanta, A. Koletis, S. Patera, E. Manou, K. Spaho, S. Murray

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Background: There remains a lack of International Standard Control Reference materials for Next Generation Sequencing-based approaches or device calibration. We have designed and validated dsDNA biomimetic reference materials for targeted such approaches incorporating proprietary motifs (patent pending) for device/test calibration. They enable internal single-sample calibration, alleviating sample comparisons to pooled historical population-based data assembly or statistical modelling approaches. We have validated such an approach for BRCA Copy Number Variation analytics using iQRS™-CNVSUITE versus Mixed Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification. Methods: Standard BRCA Copy Number Variation analysis was compared between mixed ligation-dependent probe amplification and next generation sequencing using a cohort of 198 breast/ovarian cancer patients. Next generation sequencing based copy number variation analysis of samples spiked with iQRS™ dsDNA biomimetics were analysed using proprietary CNVSUITE software. Mixed ligation-dependent probe amplification analyses were performed on an ABI-3130 Sequencer and analysed with Coffalyser software. Results: Concordance of BRCA – copy number variation events for mixed ligation-dependent probe amplification and CNVSUITE indicated an overall sensitivity of 99.88% and specificity of 100% for iQRS™-CNVSUITE. The negative predictive value of iQRS-CNVSUITE™ for BRCA was 100%, allowing for accurate exclusion of any event. The positive predictive value was 99.88%, with no discrepancy between mixed ligation-dependent probe amplification and iQRS™-CNVSUITE. For device calibration purposes, precision was 100%, spiking of patient DNA demonstrated linearity to 1% (±2.5%) and range from 100 copies. Traditional training was supplemented by predefining the calibrator to sample cut-off (lock-down) for amplicon gain or loss based upon a relative ratio threshold, following training of iQRS™-CNVSUITE using spiked iQRS™ calibrator and control mocks. BRCA copy number variation analysis using iQRS™-CNVSUITE™ was successfully validated and ISO15189 accredited and now enters CE-IVD performance evaluation. Conclusions: The inclusion of a reference control competitor (iQRS™ dsDNA mimetic) to next generation sequencing-based sequencing offers a more robust sample-independent approach for the assessment of copy number variation events compared to mixed ligation-dependent probe amplification. The approach simplifies data analyses, improves independent sample data analyses, and allows for direct comparison to an internal reference control for sample-specific quantification. Our iQRS™ biomimetic reference materials allow for single sample copy number variation analytics and further decentralisation of diagnostics to single patient sample assessment.

Keywords: validation, diagnostics, oncology, copy number variation, reference material, calibration

Procedia PDF Downloads 63

Authors: Abdullah S. Alghamdi, Khaled Alghamdi, Richard O. Jenkins, Parvez I. Haris

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Background: Quantity and quality of sleep have been reported to be significant risk factors for obesity and development of metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The relationship between diabetes and sleep quantity was reported to be U-shaped, which means increased or decreased sleeping hours can increase the risk of diabetes. The plasma glucagon levels were found to continuously decrease during night-time sleep in healthy individuals, independently of blood glucose and insulin levels. The disturbance of the circadian rhythm is also important and has been linked with an increased the chance of diabetes incidence. There is a lack of research on sleep patterns on Saudis with T2DM and how this is affected by Ramadan fasting. Aim: To assess the sleeping patterns of Saudis with T2DM (before, during, and after Ramadan), using two different techniques and relate this to their HbA1c levels. Method: This study recruited 82 Saudi with T2DM, who chose to fast during Ramadan, from the Endocrine and Diabetic Centre of Al Iman General Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ethical approvals for the study were obtained from De Montfort University and Saudi Ministry of Health. Their sleeping patterns were assessed by a self-administered questionnaire (before, during, and after Ramadan). The assessment included the daily total sleeping hours (DTSH), and total night-time sleeping hours (TNTSH) of the participants. In addition, sleeping patterns of 36 patients, randomly selected from the 82 participants, were further tracked during and after Ramadan by using Fitbit Flex 2™ accelerometer. Blood samples were collected in each period for measuring HbA1c. Results: Questionnaire analysis revealed that the sleeping patterns significantly changed between the periods, with shorter hours during Ramadan (P < 0.001 for DTSH, and P < 0.001 for TNTSH). These findings were confirmed by the Fitbit data, which also indicated significant shorter sleeping hours for the DTSH, and the TNTSH during Ramadan (P < 0.001 and P < 0.001, respectively). Although there were no significant correlations between the questionnaire and Fitbit data, the TNTSH were shorter among the participants in all periods by both techniques. The mean HbA1c significantly varied between periods, with lowest level during Ramadan. Although the statistical tests did not show significant variances in the mean HbA1c between the groups of participants regarding their hours of sleeping, the lowest mean HbA1c was observed in the group of participants who slept for 6-8 hours and had longer night-time sleeping hours. Conclusion: A short sleep duration, and absence of night-time sleep were significantly observed among the majority of the study population during Ramadan, which could suppress the full benefits of Ramadan fasting for diabetic patients. This study showed that there is a good agreement between the findings of the questionnaire and the Fitbit device for evaluating sleeping patterns in a Saudi population. A larger study is needed in the future to investigate the impact of Ramadan fasting on sleep quality and quantity and its relationship with health and disease.

Keywords: Diabetes, Fasting, Fitbit, HbA1c, IPAQ, Ramadan, Sleep

Procedia PDF Downloads 110

Authors: D. Dannehl, Z. Taylor, J. Suhl, L. Miranda, R., Ulrichs, C., Salazar, E. Fitz-Rodriguez, I. Lopez-Cruz, A. Rojano-Aguilar, G. Navas-Gomez, U. Schmidt

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Growing environmental and sustainability concerns have driven continual modernization of horticultural practices, especially for urban farming. Controlled environment and soilless production methods are increasing in popularity because of their efficient resource use and intensive cropping capabilities. However, some popular substrates used for hydroponic cultivation, particularly rock wool, represent a large environmental burden in regard to their manufacture and disposal. Substrate-less hydroponic systems are effective in producing short cropping cycle plants such as lettuce or herbs, but less information is available for the production of plants with larger root-systems and longer cropping times. Here, we investigated the viability of a hybrid aeroponic/nutrient film technique (AP/NFT) system for the cultivation of greenhouse tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum ‘Panovy’). The plants grown in the AP/NFT system had a more compact phenotype, accumulated more Na⁺ and less P and S than the rock wool grown counterparts. Due to forced irrigation interruptions, we propose that the differences observed were cofounded by the differing severity of water-stress for plants with and without substrate. They may also be caused by a higher root zone temperature predominant in plants exposed to AP/NFT. However, leaf area, stem diameter, and number of trusses did not differ significantly. The same was found for leaf pigments and plant photosynthetic efficiency. Overall, the AP/NFT system appears to be viable for the production of greenhouse tomato, enabling the environment to be relieved by way of lessening rock wool usage.

Keywords: closed aeroponic systems, fruit quality, nutrient dynamics, substrate waste reduction, urban farming systems, water savings

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Authors: Jikhil Joseph, Satish Kumar S R.

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Cold-formed steel frames are preferable for framed constructions due to its low seismic weights and results into low seismic forces, but on the contrary, significant lateral deflections are expected under seismic/wind loading. The various factors affecting the lateral stiffness of steel frames are the stiffness of connections, beams and columns. So, by increasing the stiffness of beam, column and making the connections rigid will enhance the lateral stiffness. The present study focused on Structural elements made of rectangular hollow sections and fastened with screwed in-plane moment connections for the building frames. The self-drilling screws can be easily drilled on either side of the connection area with the help of gusset plates. The strength of screwed connections can be made 1.2 times the connecting elements. However, achieving high stiffness in connections is also a challenging job. Hence in addition to beam and column stiffness’s the connection stiffness are also going to be a governing parameter in the lateral deflections of the frames. SAP 2000 Non-linear static analysis has been planned to study the seismic behavior of steel frames. The SAP model will be consisting of nonlinear spring model for the connection to account the semi-rigid connections and the nonlinear hinges will be assigned for beam and column sections according to FEMA 273 guidelines. The reliable spring and hinge parameters will be assigned based on an experimental and analytical database. The non-linear static analysis is mainly focused on the identification of various hinge formations and the estimation of lateral deflection and these will contribute as an inputs for the direct displacement-based Seismic design. The research output from this study are the modelling techniques and suitable design guidelines for the performance-based seismic design of cold-formed steel frames.

Keywords: buckling, cold formed steel, nonlinear static analysis, screwed connections

Procedia PDF Downloads 173

Authors: Mauro Cristeche

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This paper approaches the intervention of the American State in the social arena and the modeling of the rights system from the Argentinian experience, by observing the characteristics of its federal budgetary system, the evolution of social public spending and welfare programs in recent years, labor and poverty statistics, and the changes on the labor market structure. The analysis seeks to combine different methodologies and sources: in-depth interviews with specialists, analysis of theoretical and mass-media material, and statistical sources. Among the results, it could be mentioned that the tendency to state interventionism (what has been called ‘nationalization of social life’) is quite evident in the United States, and manifests itself in multiple forms. The bibliography consulted, and the experts interviewed pointed out this increase of the state presence in historical terms (beyond short-term setbacks) in terms of increase of public spending, fiscal pressure, public employment, protective and control mechanisms, the extension of welfare policies to the poor sectors, etc. In fact, despite the significant differences between both countries, the United States and Argentina have common patterns of behavior in terms of the aforementioned phenomena. On the other hand, dissimilarities are also important. Some of them are determined by each country's own political history. The influence of political parties on the economic model seems more decisive in the United States than in Argentina, where the tendency to state interventionism is more stable. The centrality of health spending is evident in America, while in Argentina that discussion is more concentrated in the social security system and public education. The biggest problem of the labor market in the United States is the disqualification as a consequence of the technological development while in Argentina it is a result of its weakness. Another big difference is the huge American public spending on Defense. Then, the more federal character of the American State is also a factor of differential analysis against a centralized Argentine state. American public employment (around 10%) is comparatively quite lower than the Argentinian (around 18%). The social statistics show differences, but inequality and poverty have been growing as a trend in the last decades in both countries. According to public rates, poverty represents 14% in The United States and 33% in Argentina. American public spending is important (welfare spending and total public spending represent around 12% and 34% of GDP, respectively), but a bit lower than Latin-American or European average). In both cases, the tendency to underemployment and disqualification unemployment does not assume a serious gravity. Probably one of the most important aspects of the analysis is that private initiative and public intervention are much more intertwined in the United States, which makes state intervention more ‘fuzzy’, while in Argentina the difference is clearer. Finally, the power of its accumulation of capital and, more specifically, of the industrial and services sectors in the United States, which continues to be the engine of the economy, express great differences with Argentina, supported by its agro-industrial power and its public sector.

Keywords: state intervention, welfare policies, labor market, system of rights, United States of America

Procedia PDF Downloads 126

Authors: Muhammad Waheed Mushtaq, Shahid bashir, Atta Ur Rehman

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In the past decade, the growing demand for capital and the increased utilization of supercapacitors reflect advancements in energy-producing systems and energy storage devices. Metal oxides and ferrites have emerged as promising candidates for supercapacitors and batteries. In our current study, we synthesized Lithium manganese nanoferrite, denoted as LixMnxFe₂O₄, using the hydrothermal technique. Subsequently, we treated it with sodium dodecyl benzene sulphonate (SDBS) surfactant to create nanocomposites of Lithium manganese nano ferrite (LMFe) with poly pyrrole (LixMnxFe₂O₄-PPY). We employed Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) to confirm the crystalline nature and spinel phase structure of LMFe nanoparticles, which exhibited a single-phase crystal structure, indicating sample purity. To assess the surface topography, morphology, and grain size of both synthesized LixMnxFe₂O₄ and LixMnxFe₂O₄-PPY, we used atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The average particle size of pure ferrite was found to be 54 nm, while that of its nanocomposite was 71 nm. Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis confirmed the presence of all required elements, including Li, Mn, Fe, and O, in the appropriate proportions. Saturation magnetization (32.69 emu), remanence (Mr), and coercive force (Hc) were measured using a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM). To assess the electrochemical performance of the material, we conducted Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) measurements for both pure LMFe and LMFe-PPY. The CV results for LMFe-PPY demonstrated that specific capacitance decreased with increasing scan rate while the area of the current-voltage loop increased. These findings are promising for the development of supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).

Keywords: lithium manganese ferrite, poly pyrrole, nanocomposites, cyclic voltammetry, cathode

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Authors: Sandra Rigot, Samira Demaria, Frederic Lemaire

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The starting point of this research is the contemporary capitalist paradox: there is a real scarcity of long term investment despite the boom of potential long term investors. This gap represents a major challenge: there are important needs for long term financing in developed and emerging countries in strategic sectors such as energy, transport infrastructure, information and communication networks. Moreover, the recent financial and sovereign debt crises, which have respectively reduced the ability of financial banking intermediaries and governments to provide long term financing, questions the identity of the actors able to provide long term financing, their methods of financing and the most appropriate forms of intermediation. The issue of long term financing is deemed to be very important by the EU Commission, as it issued a 2013 Green Paper (GP) on long-term financing of the EU economy. Among other topics, the paper discusses the impact of the recent regulatory reforms on long-term investment, both in terms of accounting (in particular fair value) and prudential standards for banks. For banks, prudential and accounting standards are also crucial. Fair value is indeed well adapted to the trading book in a short term view, but this method hardly suits for a medium and long term portfolio. Banks’ ability to finance the economy and long term projects depends on their ability to distribute credit and the way credit is valued (fair value or amortised cost) leads to different banking strategies. Furthermore, in the banking industry, accounting standards are directly connected to the prudential standards, as the regulatory requirements of Basel III use accounting figures with prudential filter to define the needs for capital and to compute regulatory ratios. The objective of these regulatory requirements is to prevent insolvency and financial instability. In the same time, they can represent regulatory constraints to long term investing. The balance between financial stability and the need to stimulate long term financing is a key question raised by the EU GP. Does fair value accounting contributes to short-termism in the investment behaviour? Should prudential rules be “appropriately calibrated” and “progressively implemented” not to prevent banks from providing long-term financing? These issues raised by the EU GP lead us to question to what extent the main regulatory requirements incite or constrain banks to finance long term projects. To that purpose, we study the 292 responses received by the EU Commission during the public consultation. We analyze these contributions focusing on particular questions related to fair value accounting and prudential norms. We conduct a two stage content analysis of the responses. First, we proceed to a qualitative coding to identify arguments of respondents and subsequently we run a quantitative coding in order to conduct statistical analyses. This paper provides a better understanding of the position that a large panel of European stakeholders have on these issues. Moreover, it adds to the debate on fair value accounting and its effects on prudential requirements for banks. This analysis allows us to identify some short term bias in banking regulation.

Keywords: basel 3, fair value, securitization, long term investment, banks, insurers

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Authors: Ademola Azeez

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Background: This study is a two year review of requests pattern for Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), in a Nigerian tertiary health care institution. Prostate specific antigen was first described about 44 years ago but is still in use today for, diagnosis, monitoring, screening and prognosis of prostatic carcinoma though not-very specific as was widely believed. Prostate cancer is an increasingly important public health problem among adult men worldwide. Nigeria, which was formerly regarded as a low-incidence area by several authors is now witnessing a steep rise in the occurrence of this disease. This has been suggested to be due to increasing availability of screening tests and diagnostic facilities and not necessarily because of increased incidence of the diseases. Many notable Nigerians have died due to this dreaded disease. Methods: All plasma samples for PSA from January 2021-December 2022 were analyzed weekly by abbot autoanalyser, chemiluminescence assay method. Bio-data from request form were collated and analyzed. A total of 385 requests were received for the period under review. Result: There was an increase of request from inception to the last year of review. Smoked food, consumption of local herb and alcohol in order of importance, respectively, appears to be prominent factor in patient requested for PSA. The mean age was 67.years; the youngest was 29, while the oldest was 93years. Age 70 has the highest frequency of 8.5% .Mean PSA was 12.9ng/ml. There was a positive correlation between age and PSA (R=0.255, P < 0.05).Significant increase in PSA with age were reported. Men who retired from active jobs constitute the highest request for PSA test. Conclusion: There was an increasing trend in the proportion of requests with values outside the reference interval especially in patients diagnosed of benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostate cancer, while some routine test for PSA were elevated for the first time .This is in line with earlier report of increasing incidence of prostate cancer in Nigeria despite the increasing knowledge of healthy lifestyle.

Keywords: pattern, PSA, tertiary institution, Nigeria

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Authors: Kita R. Ashman, Anthony R. Rendall, Matthew R. E. Symonds, Desley A. Whisson

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Forest cover is decreasing globally, chiefly due to the conversion of forest to agricultural landscapes. In contrast, the area under plantation forestry is increasing significantly. For wildlife occupying landscapes where native forest is the dominant land cover, plantations generally represent a lower value habitat; however, plantations established on land formerly used for pasture may benefit wildlife by providing temporary forest habitat and increasing connectivity. This study investigates the influence of landscape, site, and climatic factors on koala population density in far south-west Victoria where there has been extensive plantation establishment. We conducted koala surveys and habitat characteristic assessments at 72 sites across three habitat types: plantation, native vegetation blocks, and native vegetation strips. We employed a hierarchical modeling framework for estimating abundance and constructed candidate multinomial N-mixture models to identify factors influencing the abundance of koalas. We detected higher mean koala density in plantation sites (0.85 per ha) than in either native block (0.68 per ha) or native strip sites (0.66 per ha). We found five covariates of koala density and using these variables, we spatially modeled koala abundance and discuss factors that are key in determining large-scale distribution and density of koala populations. We provide a distribution map that can be used to identify high priority areas for population management as well as the habitat of high conservation significance for koalas. This information facilitates the linkage of ecological theory with the on-ground implementation of management actions and may guide conservation planning and resource management actions to consider overall landscape configuration as well as the spatial arrangement of plantations adjacent to the remnant forest.

Keywords: abundance modelling, arboreal mammals plantations, wildlife conservation

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Authors: N. Porzionato, M. Mantiñan, E. Bussi, S. Grinberg, R. Gutierrez, G. Curutchet

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This work sets out to debate the tensions involved in the processes of contamination and self-purification in the urban space, particularly in the streams that run through the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. For much of their course, those streams are piped; their waters do not come into contact with the outdoors until they have reached deeply impoverished urban areas with high levels of environmental contamination. These are peripheral zones that, until thirty years ago, were marshlands and fields. They are now densely populated areas largely lacking in urban infrastructure. The Cárcova neighborhood, where this project is underway, is in the José León Suárez section of General San Martín country, Buenos Aires province. A stretch of José León Suarez canal crosses the neighborhood. Starting upstream, this canal carries pollutants due to the sewage and industrial waste released into it. Further downstream, in the neighborhood, domestic drainage is poured into the stream. In this paper, we formulate a hypothesis diametrical to the one that holds that these neighborhoods are the primary source of contamination, suggesting instead that in the stretch of the canal that runs through the neighborhood the stream’s waters are actually cleaned and the sediments accumulate pollutants. Indeed, the stretches of water that runs through these neighborhoods act as water processing plants for the metropolis. This project has studied the different organic-load polluting contributions to the water in a certain stretch of the canal, the reduction of that load over the course of the canal, and the incorporation of pollutants into the sediments. We have found that the surface water has considerable ability to self-purify, mostly due to processes of sedimentation and adsorption. The polluting load is accumulated in the sediments where that load stabilizes slowly by means of anaerobic processes. In this study, we also investigated the risks of sediment management and the use of the processes studied here in controlled conditions as tools of environmental restoration.

Keywords: bioremediation, pollutants, sediments, urban streams

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Authors: Mehrangiz Rezaee, Zabih Charrahi

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In the last decade, with increasing tourism destinations and tourism growth, we are witnessing the widespread impacts of tourism on the economy, environment and society. Tourism and its related economy are now undergoing a transformation and as one of the key pillars of business economics, it plays a vital role in the world economy. Activities related to tourism and providing services appropriate to it in an area, like many economic sectors, require the necessary context on its origin. Given the importance of tourism industry and tourism potentials of Yazd province in Iran, it is necessary to use a proper procedure for prioritizing different areas for proper and efficient planning. One of the most important goals of planning is foresight and creating balanced development in different geographical areas. This process requires an accurate study of the areas and potential and actual talents, as well as evaluation and understanding of the relationship between the indicators affecting the development of the region. At the global and regional level, the development of tourist resorts and the proper distribution of tourism destinations are needed to counter environmental impacts and risks. The main objective of this study is the sustainable development of suitable tourism areas. Given that tourism activities in different territorial areas require operational zoning, this study deals with the evaluation of territorial tourism using concepts such as land use, fitness and sustainable development. It is essential to understand the structure of tourism development and the spatial development of tourism using land use patterns, spatial planning and sustainable development. Tourism spatial planning implements different approaches. However, the development of tourism as well as the spatial development of tourism is complex, since tourist activities can be carried out in different areas with different purposes. Multipurpose areas have great important for tourism because it determines the flow of tourism. Therefore, in this paper, by studying the development and determination of tourism suitability that is related to spatial development, it is possible to plan tourism spatial development by developing a model that describes the characteristics of tourism. The results of this research determine the suitability of multi-functional territorial tourism development in line with spatial planning of tourism.

Keywords: land use change, spatial planning, sustainability, territorial tourist, Yazd

Procedia PDF Downloads 178

Authors: Vagisha Rawal, Anupam V. Sharma, Tarun Kumar Vats, Ashok Kumar Singh

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The antifeedant activity of methanol and hexane extract of leaves and seeds of Datura innoxia (Mill.) (Solanaceae) was evaluated against the 5th instar Spodoptera litura (F.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) larvae in choice and no-choice leaf disc bioassays under laboratory conditions. These larvae when given a choice between the ‘control’ and ‘treated’ leaf discs in choice bioassays, consumed significantly (p ˂ 0.05) greater area of the ‘control’ leaf discs compared to those treated with the crude extracts of leaves and seeds of D. innoxia. The Antifeedant Index (AFI) for 5% concentration of the hexane extract of Datura seeds (DSHE) was 43.3% and 38.5% for methanol extract of Datura seeds (DSME). On the other hand, these values were 34.1% for the hexane extract of Datura leaves (DLHE), and 31.0% for the methanol extract of Datura leaves (DLME), respectively. In no-choice bioassays also, there was a significant (p˂0.05) reduction in the larval consumption of ‘treated’ leaf discs compared to the ‘control’ leaf discs. Maximum AFI was recorded at 5% concentration of the extracts of both the leaves and seeds with 47.7% for DSHE against 40.0% (DSME) and 39.4% for DLHE compared with 38.4% (DLME). Moreover, DSHE was found to have the maximum antifeedant effect irrespective of its concentration in comparison to the other crude extracts of leaves or seeds of D. innoxia. It is evident from these results that the crude methanol and hexane extracts of leaves and seeds of D. innoxia exhibited potent antifeedant activity against the 5th instar S. litura larvae. Also, the use of the bioactive compound(s) present in these extracts can prove to be an effective, eco-friendly, viable and sustainable component that can be integrated in IPM programs for the management of this economically important polyphagous insect pest in the Indian subcontinent.

Keywords: antifeedant activity, antifeedant index, datura innoxia, spodoptera litura

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Authors: Mohammed S. Mohammed, Asmaa M. S. Mohammed

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Background: To achieve the quality of cancer care, the oncologic academic programs should be continuously developed with establishing new ones. We highlighted three disciplines, Clinical nutrition, medical biophysics and radiobiology and Psycho-oncology programs; without a doubt, the Egyptian National Cancer Institute, in ‎the accreditation era, will be establishing them ‎ due to their importance in improving the skills of cancer practitioners. Methods: The first suggested program in Clinical Nutrition that is dealing with the assessment of the patient's well-being before, during and after treatment to avoid the defects in the metabolism resulting from the cancer disease and its treatment by giving the supplements in the patient's diet. The second program is Medical Biophysics and Radiobiology, which there's no denying that it ‎is ‎provided ‎in Cairo University as a good program in the faculty of science but lacks the clinical ‎practice. Hence, it is probably better to establish this program in our institute to ‎improve the ‎practitioner skills and introduce a tailored radiation therapy regimen for every patient according to ‎their characteristic profile.‎ While patients are receiving their treatment, the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder arises, so the importance of the third program, Psycho-Oncology, is clearly obtained. This program is concerned with the psychological, social, behavioral, and ethical aspects of cancer. The area of multi-disciplinary interest has boundaries with the major specialties in oncology: the clinical disciplines (surgery, medicine, pediatrics, and radiotherapy), epidemiology, immunology, endocrinology, biology, pathology, bioethics, palliative care, rehabilitation medicine, clinical trials research and decision making, as well as psychiatry and psychology. Results: It is a prospective academic plan which is compatible with the institutional vision and its strategic plan. Conclusion: In this context, evaluating and understanding the suggested academic programs has become a mandatory part of cancer care. And it is essential to be provided by the NCI.

Keywords: clinical nutrition, psycho-oncology, medical biophysics and radiobiology, medical education

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Authors: Sumit Roy

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A clear understanding of pedestrian behaviour at road crossing at intersections is needed for providing necessary infrastructure and also for enhancing pedestrian safety at any intersection. Pedestrian road crossing behaviour is studied at Motijheel and Kakrail intersections where Motijheel intersection is a controlled roundabout, and Kakrail intersection is a signalized intersection. Around 60 people at each intersection were interviewed for a questionnaire survey and video recording at different time of a day was done for observation at each intersection. In case of Motijeel intersection, we got pedestrian road crossings were much higher than Kakrail intersection. It is because the number of workplaces here is higher than Kakrail. From questionnaire survey, it is found that 80% of pedestrians crosses at intersection to avail buses and their loading and unloading locations are at intersection, whereas at Kakrail intersection only 25% pedestrian crosses the road for buses as buses do not slow down here. At Motijheel intersection 25 to 40% of pedestrians choose to jump over the barricade for crossing instead of using overbridge for saving time and labour. On the other hand, the pedestrians using overbridge told that they use overbridge for safety. Moreover, pedestrian crosses at the same pace for both red and green interval with vehicle movement in the range of 12.5 to 14.5 km/h and gaps between vehicle were more than 4 m. Here pedestrian crossing speed varies from 3.5 to 7.2 km/h. In Kakrail intersection the road crossing situation can be classified into 4 categories. In case of red time, pedestrians do not wait to cross the road, and crossing speed varies from 3.5 to 7.2 km/h. When vehicle speed varies from 5.4 to 7.4 km/h, and gaps between vehicle vary from 1.5 to 2 m, most of the pedestrians initially choose to wait and try to cross the road in group with crossing speed 2.7 to 3.5 km/h. When vehicle speed varies from 10.8 to 18 km/h, and gaps between vehicles varies from 2 to 3 m most of the people waits and cross the road in group with crossing speed 3.5 to 5.4 km/h. When vehicle speed varies from 25.2 to 32.4 km/h and gaps between vehicles vary from 4 to 6 m most of the pedestrians choose to wait until red time. In Kakrail intersection 87% of people said that they cross the road with risk and 60% of pedestrians told that it is risky to get on and off the bus at this intersection. Planned location of loading and unloading area for buses can improve the pedestrian road crossing behaviour at intersections.

Keywords: crossing speed, pedestrian behaviour, road crossing, use of overbridge

Procedia PDF Downloads 173

Authors: Merouane Salhi, Mohamed Roudane, Abdelkader Kirad

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In this work, we present a new form of characteristics method, which is a technique for solving partial differential equations. Typically, it applies to first-order equations; the aim of this method is to reduce a partial differential equation to a family of ordinary differential equations along which the solution can be integrated from some initial data. This latter developed under the real gas theory, because when the thermal and the caloric imperfections of a gas increases, the specific heat and their ratio do not remain constant anymore and start to vary with the gas parameters. The gas doesn’t stay perfect. Its state equation change and it becomes for a real gas. The presented equations of the characteristics remain valid whatever area or field of study. Here we need have inserted the developed Prandtl Meyer function in the mathematical system to find a new model when the effect of stagnation pressure is taken into account. In this case, the effects of molecular size and intermolecular attraction forces intervene to correct the state equation, the thermodynamic parameters and the value of Prandtl Meyer function. However, with the assumptions that Berthelot’s state equation accounts for molecular size and intermolecular force effects, expressions are developed for analyzing the supersonic flow for thermally and calorically imperfect gas. The supersonic parameters depend directly on the stagnation parameters of the combustion chamber. The resolution has been made by the finite differences method using the corrector predictor algorithm. As results, the developed mathematical model used to design 2D minimum length nozzles under effect of the stagnation parameters of fluid flow. A comparison for air with the perfect gas PG and high temperature models on the one hand and our results by the real gas theory on the other of nozzles shapes and characteristics are made.

Keywords: numerical methods, nozzles design, real gas, stagnation parameters, supersonic expansion, the characteristics method

Procedia PDF Downloads 239

Authors: Francesca Radice

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Domestic and sexual violence provokes, on average in Australia, one female death per week due to intimate violence behaviours. 83% of couples meet online, and intercepting domestic and sexual violence at this level would be beneficial. It has been observed that violent or coercive behaviour has been apparent from initial conversations on dating apps like Tinder. Child pornography, stalking, and coercive control are some criminal offences from dating apps, including women murdered after finding partners through Tinder. Police databases and predictive policing are novel approaches taken to prevent crime before harm is done. This research will investigate how police databases can be used in a privacy-preserving way to characterise users in terms of their potential for violent crime. Using the COPS database of NSW Police, we will explore how the past criminal record can be interpreted to yield a category of potential danger for each dating app user. It is up to the judgement of each subscriber on what degree of the potential danger they are prepared to enter into. Sentiment analysis is an area where research into natural language processing has made great progress over the last decade. This research will investigate how sentiment analysis can be used to interpret interchanges between dating app users to detect manipulative or coercive sentiments. These can be used to alert law enforcement if continued for a defined number of communications. One of the potential problems of this approach is the potential prejudice a categorisation can cause. Another drawback is the possibility of misinterpreting communications and involving law enforcement without reason. The approach will be thoroughly tested with cross-checks by human readers who verify both the level of danger predicted by the interpretation of the criminal record and the sentiment detected from personal messages. Even if only a few violent crimes can be prevented, the approach will have a tangible value for real people.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, data mining, predictive policing, virtual manipulation

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Authors: Anteneh Berhane Yeyi, Tefera Belachew

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Any woman who could become pregnant is at risk of having a baby with neural tube defects (NTDs). A spontaneous aborted women with immediately preceding pregnancy may have an increased risk of develop NTDs. Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of micronutrient deficiencies, including folate and iron deficiency. Currently, in Ethiopia, NTDs is emerged as a public health concern. Even if Ethiopia, has implement different strategies for reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, there is no room in the health care system and lack of integration for preventing the risk of NTDs for those women who aborted spontaneously and women who discontinue long acting contraception to become pregnant. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of preconception picture-based nutrition education on knowledge and adherence to iron-folic acid supplement (IFAS) intake to reduce the risk of developing neural tube defects (NTDs) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) among women who had a planned to pregnancy in Ethiopia, a country with a high burden of NTDs. Methodology: This study was conducted in Eastern Ethiopia. A double blinded parallel randomized controlled trial design was employed among women in the age group of 18-45 years who requested to interrupt modern contraceptive who have an intention to be pregnant and women with spontaneous abortion who refused to take a contraceptive. The interventional arm (n=122) received a preconception picture-based nutrition education with iron-folic acid supplement, and the control arm (n=122) received only preconception IFAS. In this study male partners were participated. Result: After three months of intervention the proportion of adherence to IFAS was 23% (n=56). With regard to adherence within the groups, 42.6% (n=52) in the intervention group and 3.3% (n=4) in the control group and the intervention group were significantly higher than in control group. In the intervention group the proportion of adherence to IFAS intake among participants increased by 40.1% and there were statistically difference (P<0.0001). The difference in difference between the two groups of adherence to IFAS intake was 37.6% and there were a statistical significance (P<0.0001). Level of knowledge between the groups did differ before and after intervention (P= 0.87 Vs P<0.0001). The overall the mean change in knowledge Mean (+SE) between group was 0.9 (+3.04 SE) and there were significant differences between two groups (P<0.001). Conclusion: In general this intervention is effective toward adherence to IFAS and a critical milestone to improve maternal health and reduce the neonate mortality due to NTDs and other advert effect of pregnancy and birth outcomes. This intervention is very short, simple, and cost effective and has potential for adaptation, feasible development to large-scale implementation in the existing health care system. Furthermore, this type of interventional approach has the potential to reduce the country's ANC program dropout rates and increase male partner’s participation on reproductive health.

Keywords: NTDs, IFAS, WRA, Ethiopia

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Authors: Mustafa Metin Donma

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Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is characterized by a series of biochemical, physiological and anthropometric indicators and is a life-threatening health problem due to its close association with chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The syndrome deserves great interest both in adults and children. Central obesity is the indispensable component of MetS. Particularly, children, who are morbidly obese have a great tendency to develop the disease, because they are under the threat in their future lives. Preventive measures at this stage should be considered. For this, investigators seek for an informative scale or an index for the purpose. So far, several, but not many suggestions come into the stage. However, the diagnostic decision is not so easy and may not be complete particularly in the pediatric population. The aim of the study was to develop a MetS index capable of predicting MetS, while children are at the morbid obesity stage. This study was performed on morbid obese (MO) children, which were divided into two groups. Morbid obese children, who do not possess MetS criteria comprised the first group (n=44). The second group was composed of children (n=42) with MetS diagnosis. Parents were informed about the signed consent forms, which are required for the participation of their children in the study. The approval of the study protocol was taken from the institutional ethics committee of Tekirdag Namik Kemal University. Helsinki Declaration was accepted prior to and during the study. Anthropometric measurements including weight, height, waist circumference (WC), hip C, head C, neck C, biochemical tests including fasting blood glucose (FBG), insulin (INS), triglycerides (TRG), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and blood pressure measurements (systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP)) were performed. Body fat percentage (BFP) values were determined by TANITA’s Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis technology. Body mass index and MetS indices were calculated. The equations for MetS index (MetSI) and advanced Donma MetS index (ADMI) were [(INS/FBG)/(HDL-C/TRG)]*100 and MetSI*[(SBP+DBP/Height)], respectively. Descriptive statistics including median values, compare means tests, correlation-regression analysis were performed within the scope of data evaluation using the statistical package program, SPSS. Statistically significant mean differences were determined by a p value smaller than 0.05. Median values for MetSI and ADMI in MO (MetS-) and MO (MetS+) groups were calculated as (25.9 and 36.5) and (74.0 and 106.1), respectively. Corresponding mean±SD values for BFPs were 35.9±7.1 and 38.2±7.7 in groups. Correlation analysis of these two indices with corresponding general BFP values exhibited significant association with ADMI, close to significance with MetSI in MO group. Any significant correlation was found with neither of the indices in MetS group. In conclusion, important associations observed with MetS indices in MO group were quite meaningful. The presence of these associations in MO group was important for showing the tendency towards the development of MetS in MO (MetS-) participants. The other index, ADMI, was more helpful for predictive purpose.

Keywords: body fat percentage, child, index, metabolic syndrome, obesity

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Authors: Yibeltal T. Bayou, Yohana S. Mashalla, Gloria Thupayagale-Tshweneagae

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Background: According to the World Health Organization, caesarean section delivery rates of more than 10-15% caesarean section deliveries in any specific geographic region in the world are not justifiable. The aim of the study was to describe the level and analyse determinants of caesarean section delivery in Addis Ababa. Methods: Data was collected in Addis Ababa using a structured questionnaire administered to 901 women aged 15-49 years through a stratified two-stage cluster sampling technique. Binary logistic regression model was employed to identify predictors of caesarean section delivery. Results: Among the 835 women who delivered their last birth at healthcare facilities, 19.2% of them gave birth by caesarean section. About 9.0% of the caesarean section births were due to mother’s request or service provider’s influence without any medical indication. The caesarean section delivery rate was much higher than the recommended rate particularly among the non-slum residents (27.2%); clients of private healthcare facilities (41.1%); currently married women (20.6%); women with secondary (22.2%) and tertiary (33.6%) level of education; and women belonging to the highest wealth quintile household (28.2%). The majority (65.8%) of the caesarean section clients were not informed about the consequences of caesarean section delivery by service providers. The logistic regression model shows that older age (30-49), secondary and above education, non-slum residence, high-risk pregnancy and receiving adequate antenatal care were significantly positively associated with caesarean section delivery. Conclusion: Despite the unreserved effort towards achieving MDG 5 through safe skilled delivery assistance among others, the high caesarean section rate beyond the recommend limit, and the finding that caesarean sections done without medical indications were also alarming. The government and city administration should take appropriate measures before the problems become setbacks in healthcare provision. Further investigations should focus on the effect of caesarean section delivery on maternal and child health outcomes in the study area.

Keywords: Addis Ababa, caesarean section, mode of delivery, slum residence

Procedia PDF Downloads 399

Authors: Ayesha Mushtaq

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Asthma is a pulmonary disease in which blockade of the airway takes place due to inflammation as a response to certain allergens. Breathing troubles, cough, and dyspnea are one of the few symptoms. Several studies have indicated a significant effect on asthma due to changes in dietary routines. Certain food items, such as oily foods and other materials, are known to cause an increase in the symptoms of asthma. Low dietary intake of fruits and vegetables may be important in relation to asthma prevalence. The objective of this study is to assess and compare the nutritional status of asthmatic and non-asthmatic patients. The significance of this study lies in the factor that it will help nutritionists to arrange a feasible dietary routine for asthmatic patients. This research was conducted at the Pulmonology Department of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science Islamabad. About thirty hundred thirty-four million people are affected by asthma worldwide. Pakistan is on the verge of being an uplifted urban population and asthma cases are increasingly high these days. Several studies suggest an increase in the Asthmatic patient population due to improper diet. This is a cross-sectional study aimed at assessing the nutritious standing of Asthmatic and non-asthmatic patients. This research took place at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad, Pakistan. The research included asthmatic and non-asthmatic patients coming to the pulmonology department clinic at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). These patients were aged between 20-60 years. A questionnaire was developed for these patients to estimate their dietary plans in these patients. The methodology included four sections. The first section was the Socio-Demographic profile, which included age, gender, monthly income and occupation. The next section was anthropometric measurements which included the weight, height and body mass index (BMI) of an individual. The next section, section three, was about the biochemical attributes, such as for biochemical profiling, pulmonary function testing (PFT) was performed. In the next section, Dietary habits were assessed by a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) through food habits and consumption pattern was assessed. The next section life style data, in which the person's level of physical activity, sleep and smoking habits were assessed. The next section was statistical analysis. All the data obtained from the study were statistically analyzed and assessed. Most of the asthma Patients were females, with weight more than normal or even obese. Body Mass Index (BMI) was higher in asthma Patients than those in non-Asthmatic ones. When the nutritional Values were assessed, we came to know that these patients were low on certain nutrients and their diet included more junk and oily food than healthy vegetables and fruits. Beverages intake was also included in the same assessment. It is evident from this study that nutritional status has a contributory effect on asthma. So, patients on the verge of developing asthma or those who have developed asthma should focus on their diet, maintain good eating habits and take healthy diets, including fruits and vegetables rather than oily foods. Proper sleep may also contribute to the control of asthma.

Keywords: BMI, nutrition, PAL, diet

Procedia PDF Downloads 74

Authors: Ch. Sridevi, S. P. Shailender Kumar, B. Gurudayal, A. Chalapathi Rao, K. Koteswara Rao, P. Srinivasulu

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System reliability and system availability evaluation plays a crucial role in ensuring the seamless operation of complex satellite data reception system with consistent performance for longer periods. This paper presents a novel approach for the same using a case study on one of the antenna systems at satellite data reception ground station in India. The methodology involves analyzing system's components, their failure rates, system's architecture, generation of logical reliability block diagram model and estimating the reliability of the system using the component level mean time between failures considering exponential distribution to derive a baseline estimate of the system's reliability. The model is then validated with collected system level field failure data from the operational satellite data reception systems that includes failure occurred, failure time, criticality of the failure and repair times by using statistical techniques like median rank, regression and Weibull analysis to extract meaningful insights regarding failure patterns and practical reliability of the system and to assess the accuracy of the developed reliability model. The study mainly focused on identification of critical units within the system, which are prone to failures and have a significant impact on overall performance and brought out a reliability model of the identified critical unit. This model takes into account the interdependencies among system components and their impact on overall system reliability and provides valuable insights into the performance of the system to understand the Improvement or degradation of the system over a period of time and will be the vital input to arrive at the optimized design for future development. It also provides a plug and play framework to understand the effect on performance of the system in case of any up gradations or new designs of the unit. It helps in effective planning and formulating contingency plans to address potential system failures, ensuring the continuity of operations. Furthermore, to instill confidence in system users, the duration for which the system can operate continuously with the desired level of 3 sigma reliability was estimated that turned out to be a vital input to maintenance plan. System availability and station availability was also assessed by considering scenarios of clash and non-clash to determine the overall system performance and potential bottlenecks. Overall, this paper establishes a comprehensive methodology for reliability and availability analysis of complex satellite data reception systems. The results derived from this approach facilitate effective planning contingency measures, and provide users with confidence in system performance and enables decision-makers to make informed choices about system maintenance, upgrades and replacements. It also aids in identifying critical units and assessing system availability in various scenarios and helps in minimizing downtime and optimizing resource allocation.

Keywords: exponential distribution, reliability modeling, reliability block diagram, satellite data reception system, system availability, weibull analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 81

Authors: J. X. Dong, C. J. An, Z. Chen, E. H. Owens, M. C. Boufadel, E. Taylor, K. Lee

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Shorelines are vulnerable to significant environmental impacts from oil spills. Stranded oil can cause potential short- to long-term detrimental effects along beaches that include injuries to the ecosystem, socio-economic and cultural resources. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) numerical modeling approach is developed to evaluate the fate and transport of spilled oil for hypothetical oiled shoreline cases under various combinations of beach geomorphology and environmental conditions. The developed model estimates the spatial and temporal distribution of spilled oil for the various test conditions, using the finite volume method and considering the physical transport (dispersion and advection), sinks, and sorption processes. The model includes a user-friendly interface for data input on variables such as beach properties, environmental conditions, and physical-chemical properties of spilled oil. An experimental mesoscale tank design was used to test the developed model for dissolved petroleum hydrocarbon within shorelines. The simulated results for effects of different sediment substrates, oil types, and shoreline features for the transport of spilled oil are comparable to those obtained with a commercially available model. Results show that the properties of substrates and the oil removal by shoreline effects have significant impacts on oil transport in the beach area. Sensitivity analysis, through the application of the one-step-at-a-time method (OAT), for the 3D model identified hydraulic conductivity as the most sensitive parameter. The 3D numerical model allows users to examine the behavior of oil on and within beaches, assess potential environmental impacts, and provide technical support for decisions related to shoreline clean-up operations.

Keywords: dissolved petroleum hydrocarbons, environmental multimedia model, finite volume method, sensitivity analysis, total petroleum hydrocarbons

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Authors: Chuyu Huang, Itsuki Minemi, Kuanlin Chen, Yuki Hirose

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It remains unclear how language speakers are able to perceive phonological contrasts that do not exist on their own. This experiment uses the vowel-length distinction in Japanese, which is phonologically contrastive and co-occurs with tonal change in some cases. For speakers whose first language does not distinguish vowel length, contrastive duration is usually misperceived, e.g., Mandarin speakers. Two alternative hypotheses for how Mandarin speakers would perceive a phonological contrast that does not exist in their language make different predictions. The stress parameter model does not have a clear prediction about the impact of tonal type. Mandarin speakers will likely be not able to perceive vowel length as well as Japanese native speakers do, but the performance might not correlate to tonal type because the prosody of their language is distinctive, which requires users to encode lexical prosody and notice subtle differences in word prosody. By contrast, cue-based phonetic models predict that Mandarin speakers may rely on pitch differences, a secondary cue, to perceive vowel length. Two groups of Mandarin speakers, including naive non-Japanese speakers and beginner learners, were recruited to participate in an AX discrimination task involving two Japanese sound stimuli that contain a phonologically contrastive environment. Participants were asked to indicate whether the two stimuli containing a vowel-length contrast (e.g., maapero vs. mapero) sound the same. The experiment was bifactorial. The first factor contrasted three syllabic positions (syllable position; initial/medial/final), as it would be likely to affect the perceptual difficulty, as seen in previous studies, and the second factor contrasted two pitch types (accent type): one with accentual change that could be distinguished with the lexical tones in Mandarin (the different condition), with the other group having no tonal distinction but only differing in vowel length (the same condition). The overall results showed that a significant main effect of accent type by applying a linear mixed-effects model (β = 1.48, SE = 0.35, p < 0.05), which implies that Mandarin speakers tend to more successfully recognize vowel-length differences when the long vowel counterpart takes on a tone that exists in Mandarin. The interaction between the accent type and the syllabic position is also significant (β = 2.30, SE = 0.91, p < 0.05), showing that vowel lengths in the different conditions are more difficult to recognize in the word-final case relative to the initial condition. The second statistical model, which compares naive speakers to beginners, was conducted with logistic regression to test the effects of the participant group. A significant difference was found between the two groups (β = 1.06, 95% CI = [0.36, 2.03], p < 0.05). This study shows that: (1) Mandarin speakers are likely to use pitch cues to perceive vowel length in a non-native language, which is consistent with the cue-based approaches; (2) an exposure effect was observed: the beginner group achieved a higher accuracy for long vowel perception, which implied the exposure effect despite the short period of language learning experience.

Keywords: cue-based perception, exposure effect, prosodic perception, vowel duration

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Authors: Vasileiou Apostolos, Theodosiou Chrysa, Tsitroulis Ioannis, Maris Fotios

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The severity of extreme phenomena is due to their ability to cause severe damage in a small amount of time. It has been observed that floods affect the greatest number of people and induce the biggest damage when compared to the total of annual natural disasters. The detection of potential flood-prone areas constitutes one of the fundamental components of the European Natural Disaster Management Policy, directly connected to the European Directive 2007/60. The aim of the present paper is to develop a new methodology that combines geographical information, fuzzy logic and multi-criteria evaluation methods so that the most vulnerable areas are defined. Therefore, ten factors related to geophysical, morphological, climatological/meteorological and hydrological characteristics of the basin were selected. Afterwards, two models were created to detect the areas pronest to flooding. The first model defined the gravitas of each factor using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the final map of possible flood spots were created using GIS and Boolean Algebra. The second model made use of the fuzzy logic and GIS combination and a respective map was created. The application area of the aforementioned methodologies was in Ardas basin due to the frequent and important floods that have taken place these last years. Then, the results were compared to the already observed floods. The result analysis shows that both models can detect with great precision possible flood spots. As the fuzzy logic model is less time-consuming, it is considered the ideal model to apply to other areas. The said results are capable of contributing to the delineation of high risk areas and to the creation of successful management plans dealing with floods.

Keywords: analytical hierarchy process, flood prone areas, fuzzy logic, geographic information system

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Authors: Juliana A. Galhardi, Daniel M. Bonotto

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Coal is an important non-renewable energy source of and can be associated with radioactive elements. In Figueira city, Paraná state, Brazil, it was recorded high uranium activity near the coal mine that supplies a local thermoelectric power plant. In this context, the radon activity (Rn-222, produced by the Ra-226 decay in the U-238 natural series) was evaluated in groundwater, river water and effluents produced from the acid mine drainage in the coal reject dumps. The samples were collected in August 2013 and in February 2014 and analyzed at LABIDRO (Laboratory of Isotope and Hydrochemistry), UNESP, Rio Claro city, Brazil, using an alpha spectrometer (AlphaGuard) adjusted to evaluate the mean radon activity concentration in five cycles of 10 minutes. No radon activity concentration above 100 Bq.L-1, which was a previous critic value established by the World Health Organization. The average radon activity concentration in groundwater was higher than in surface water and in effluent samples, possibly due to the accumulation of uranium and radium in the aquifer layers that favors the radon trapping. The lower value in the river waters can indicate dilution and the intermediate value in the effluents may indicate radon absorption in the coal particles of the reject dumps. The results also indicate that the radon activities in the effluents increase with the sample acidification, possibly due to the higher radium leaching and the subsequent radon transport to the drainage flow. The water samples of Laranjinha River and Ribeirão das Pedras stream, which, respectively, supply Figueira city and receive the mining effluent, exhibited higher pH values upstream the mine, reflecting the acid mine drainage discharge. The radionuclides transport indicates the importance of monitoring their activity concentration in natural waters due to the risks that the radioactivity can represent to human health.

Keywords: radon, radium, acid mine drainage, coal

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Authors: Sara Cumming, Julianne DiSanto, Leah Burton

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Homelessness in Canada is a persistent problem. It has been widely argued that the best tactic for eradicating homelessness is to approach social issues from a Housing First perspective—an approach that centers on quickly moving people into permanent and independent housing and then providing them additional support and services as needed. It is recognized that life skills training is both necessary and an effective way to reduce cyclical homelessness; however, there is a scarcity of research on effective ways to teach life skills; this problem was exacerbated in a pandemic context, where in-person delivery was severely restricted or no longer possible. Very little attention has been paid to the diverse cultural needs of clients in a multicultural context and the need to foster cultural knowledge/awareness in individuals to successfully contribute to the cultural safety of communities. This research attempts to fill these gaps in the literature and in practice by employing a community-engaged research (CER) approach. Academic, government, funders, front-line staff, and clients at 15 not-for-profits from across the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada, collaborated to co-create a virtual, client-centric, equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) informed life skill learning management system. We employed a triangulation methodology for this research. An environmental scan was conducted for best practices. Two separate Creative Problem Solving Sessions were held with over 100 front-line workers, managers, and executive directors who work with homeless populations. Quantitative and open-ended surveys were completed by over 200 individuals with experience with homelessness. All sections of this research aimed to discover the areas of skills that individuals need to maintain housing and to ascertain what a more client-driven EDI approach to life skills training should include. This research will showcase which life skills are deemed essential for homeless and precariously housed individuals.

Keywords: homelessness, Housing First, life skills, community engaged research

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