Search results for: one degree of freedom vibration system

Authors: Peter. M. Kusen, Georg Wandrey, Christopher Probst, Dietrich Kohlheyer, Jochen Buchs, Jorg Pietruszkau

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Light as a stimulus provides the capability to develop regulation techniques for customizable gene expression. A great advantage is the extremely flexible and accurate dosing that can be performed in a non invasive and sterile manner even for high throughput technologies. Therefore, light regulation in a multiwell microbioreactor system was realized providing the opportunity to control gene expression with outstanding complexity. A light-regulated gene expression system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae was designed applying the strategy of caged compounds. These compounds are photo-labile protected and therefore biologically inactive regulator molecules which can be reactivated by irradiation with certain light conditions. The “caging” of a repressor molecule which is consumed after deprotection was essential to create a flexible expression system. Thereby, gene expression could be temporally repressed by irradiation and subsequent release of the active repressor molecule. Afterwards, the repressor molecule is consumed by the yeast cells leading to reactivation of gene expression. A yeast strain harboring a construct with the corresponding repressible promoter in combination with a fluorescent marker protein was applied in a Photo-BioLector platform which allows individual irradiation as well as online fluorescence and growth detection. This device was used to precisely control the repression duration by adjusting the amount of released repressor via different irradiation times. With the presented screening platform the regulation of complex expression procedures was achieved by combination of several repression/derepression intervals. In particular, a stepwise increase of temporally-constant expression levels was demonstrated which could be used to study concentration dependent effects on cell functions. Also linear expression rates with variable slopes could be shown representing a possible solution for challenging protein productions, whereby excessive production rates lead to misfolding or intoxication. Finally, the very flexible regulation enabled accurate control over the expression induction, although we used a repressible promoter. Summing up, the continuous online regulation of gene expression has the potential to synchronize gene expression levels to optimize metabolic flux, artificial enzyme cascades, growth rates for co cultivations and many other applications addicted to complex expression regulation. The developed light-regulated expression platform represents an innovative screening approach to find optimization potential for production processes.

Keywords: caged-compounds, gene expression regulation, optogenetics, photo-labile protecting group

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Authors: Arzu K. Harmanci Seren, Feride Eskin Bacaksiz

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The shortage of nursing personnel is considered one of the most important labour force issues in health sector of developed countries since early 1970s. International Labour Organization developed standards for working conditions of nurses in collaboration with World Health Organization with the aim of helping to solve nursing shortage problem all over the world. As a result of this collaboration, ILO Nursing Personnel Convention (C. 149), and the accompanying Recommendation (R. 157) were adopted in 1977. Turkey as a country that has a serious nurse shortage problem, has been a member of ILO since 1932, and has not signed this convention yet. This study was planned to compare some of the working standards in Convention with the present working conditions of nurses in Turkey. The data were collected by an on line survey between 19 January-16 February 2015 for this cross-sectional study. Participants were reached through social network accounts in collaboration with nursing associations. Totally 828 nurses from the 57 provinces of Turkey participated in the study. Survey was consisted of 14 open ended questions related to working conditions of nurses and 34 Likert statements related to nursing policies of the facilities they are working in. The data were analysed using the IBM SPSS 21.0 (licensed to Istanbul University) software. Descriptive and comparative statistics were performed. Most of the participants (81.5%) were staff and 18.5% of them were manager nurses. Most of them had baccalaureate (57.9%) or master (27.4%) degree in nursing. 18.5% of the participants were working in private hospitals, 34.9% of them in university hospitals and 46.6% of them were in Ministry of Health Hospitals. It was found that monthly working schedules were announced mostly 7 days ago (18%), working time of nurses was at least 8 hours (41.5%) and at most 24 hours (22.8%) in a day and had time for lunch or dinner 25.18 (SD=16.66), for resting 21.02 (SD=29.25) minutes. On the other hand, it was determined that 316 (43.2%) nurses did not have time for lunch and 61 (7.9%) of them could not find time for eating anything. It was also explored they were working 15-96 hours in a week (mean=48.28, SD=8.89 hours), 4-29 days in a month (mean=19.29, SD=5.03 days) and 597 (72%) nurses overworked changing form 1 hour to 150 hours (32.80, SD=23.42 hours) before the month in which surveys were filled. Most of the participants did not leave the job due to the sickness (47.5%) even if they felt sick. Also most of them did not leave the job due to any excuse (67.2%) or education (57.3%). This study has significance because of nurses from different provinces participated in and it provides brief information about the working conditions of nurses nationwide. It was explored that nurses in Turkey were working at worse conditions according the International Labour Organization’s recommendations.

Keywords: nurse, international labour organization, recommendations for nurses, working conditions

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Authors: Kemal Kehan, Emine Aktas Bajalan

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This study was carried out to determine the burnout levels and related factors of teachers working in primary schools affiliated to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) Ministry of National Education during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The research was conducted in descriptive cross-sectional design. The population of the research consists of 1071 teachers working in 93 primary schools in 6 central districts affiliated to the TRNC Ministry of National Education in the 2021-2022 academic year. When the sample size of the study was calculated by power analysis, it was determined that 202 teachers should be reached with 95% confidence (1-α), 95% test power (1-β) and d=0.5 effect size. Within the scope of the inclusion criteria of the research, the main sample of the study consisted of 300 teachers and the baist random sampling method was used. The data were collected using the Sociodemographic Data Form consisting of 34 questions, including the sociodemographic characteristics of the teachers and the 22-item Maslach Burnout Scale (MBS). The analysis of the data was carried out using descriptive and correlational analyzes in the SPSS 22 package program. In the study, it was determined that 65% of the teachers were women, 68% were married, 84% had a bachelor's degree, 70.33% had children, and 67.67% were dependents. Regarding how teachers evaluate the COVID-19 pandemic period; 90% of them said, “I am worried about my family's health and the risk of infection”, 80% of them, “I feel that my profession does not get the value it deserves”, 75.67% of them mentioned “My hopes for the future have started to wane”, 75.33% of them say “I am worried about my own health”. It was determined that they gave the answer of, “I am worried about the issue”. It was found that the teachers' MBS total score average was 48.63±8.01, the burnout level was moderate, and the average score they got from the sub-dimensions of the scale was also moderate. It has been found that there are negative correlations between the professional satisfaction scores of the teachers during and before the COVID-19 pandemic and the scores they received from the general and sub-dimensions of MBS. It was determined that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) between the scores of teachers diagnosed with COVID-19 from the scale and its sub-dimensions. As a result, it is suggested that social activities should be increased and professional development and promotion opportunities should be offered in order to ensure that teachers are satisfied with their work areas, to reduce their burnout levels or to prevent them completely.

Keywords: teachers, burnout, maslach burnout scale, pandemic, online education

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Authors: Ana Maria Carmen Ilie, Carmela Vaccaro

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Gas migration through wellbore failure, in particular from abandoned wells, is repeatedly identified as the highest risk mechanism. The vadose zone was subject to monitoring system close to the wellbore in Minerbio, methane storage site. The new technology has been well-developed and used with the purpose to provide reliable estimates of leakage parameters. Of these techniques, soil flux sampling at the soil surface, via the accumulation chamber method and soil flux sampling at the depths of 100cm below the ground surface, have been an important technique for characterizing the gas concentrations at the gas storage site. We present results of soil Radon Bq/m3, CO2%, CH4% and O2% concentration gases. Measurements have been taken for radon concentrations with an Durridge RAD7 Company, Inc., USA, instrument. We used for air and soil quality an Biogas ETG instrument monitoring system, with NDIR CO2, CH4 gas sensor and electrochemical O2 gas sensor. The measurements started in September-October 2015, where no outliers have been identified. The measurements have continued in March-April-July-August-September 2016, almost at the same time in the same place around the gas storage site, values measured 15 minutes for each sampling, to determine their concentration, their distribution and to understand the relationship among gases and atmospheric conditions. At a depth of 100 cm, the maximum soil radon gas concentrations were found to be 1770 ±±582 Bq/m3, the soil consists of 64.31% sand, 20.75% silt and 14.94% clay, and with 0.526 ppm of Uranium. The maximum concentration (September 2016), in soil at 100cm below the ground surface, with 83% sand, 8.96% silt and 7.89% clay, was about 0.06% CH4, and in atmosphere 0.06% CH4 at 40°C (T). In the other months the values have been on the range of 0.01% to 0.03% CH4. Since we did not have outliers in the gas storage site, soil-gas samples for isotopic analysis have not been done.

Keywords: leakage gas monitoring, lithology, soil gas, methane

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Authors: R. Pussinen, V. Jankovic, U. Herzberg, M. Cerrada-Gimenez, T. Huhtala, A. Nurmi, T. Ahtoniemi

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Targeted over-expression of human α-synuclein using viral-vector mediated gene delivery into the substantia nigra of rats and non-human primates has been reported to lead to dopaminergic cell loss and the formation of α-synuclein aggregates reminiscent of Lewy bodies. We have previously shown how AAV-mediated expression of α-synuclein is seen in the chronic phenotype of the rats over 16 week follow-up period. In the context of these findings, we attempted to further characterize this long term PD related functional and motor deficits as well as neurochemical and neuropathological changes in AAV-mediated α-synuclein transfection model in rats during chronic follow-up period. Different titers of recombinant AAV expressing human α-synuclein (A53T) were stereotaxically injected unilaterally into substantia nigra of Wistar rats. Rats were allowed to recover for 3 weeks prior to initial baseline behavioral testing with rotational asymmetry test, stepping test and cylinder test. A similar behavioral test battery was applied again at weeks 5, 9,12 and 15. In addition to traditionally used rat PD model tests, MotoRater test system, a high speed kinematic gait performance monitoring was applied during the follow-up period. Evaluation focused on animal gait between groups. Tremor analysis was performed on weeks 9, 12 and 15. In addition to behavioral end-points, neurochemical evaluation of dopamine and its metabolites were evaluated in striatum. Furthermore, integrity of the dopamine active transport (DAT) system was evaluated by using 123I- β-CIT and SPECT/CT imaging on weeks 3, 8 and 12 after AAV- α-synuclein transfection. Histopathology was examined from end-point samples at 3 or 12 weeks after AAV- α-synuclein transfection to evaluate dopaminergic cell viability and microglial (Iba-1) activation status in substantia nigra by using stereological analysis techniques. This study focused on the characterization and validation of previously published AAV- α-synuclein transfection model in rats but with the addition of novel end-points. We present the long term phenotype of AAV- α-synuclein transfected rats with traditionally used behavioral tests but also by using novel fine motor analysis techniques and tremor analysis which provide new insight to unilateral effects of AAV α-synuclein transfection. We also present data about neurochemical and neuropathological end-points for the dopaminergic system in the model and how well they correlate with behavioral phenotype.

Keywords: adeno-associated virus, alphasynuclein, animal model, Parkinson’s disease

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Authors: Ahmad Ali, Muhammad Imran Ghani, Haiyan Ding, Zhihui Cheng, Muhammad Iqbal

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Background and Aims: In recent years, protected cultivation trend, especially in the northern parts of China, spread dynamically where production area, structure, and crops diversity have expanded gradually under plastic greenhouse vegetable cropping (PGVC) system. Under this growing system, continuous monoculture with excessive synthetic fertilizers inputs are common cultivation practices frequently adopted by commercial producers. Such long-term cumulative wild exercise year after year sponsor the continuous cropping obstacles in PGVC soil, which have greatly threatened the regional soil eco-sustainability and further impose the continuous assault on soil ecological diversity leading to the exhaustion of agriculture productivity. The aim of this study was to develop new allelopathic insights by exploiting available biological resources in the favor of sustainable PGVC to illuminate the continuous obstacle factors in plastic greenhouse. Method: A greenhouse study was executed under plastic tunnel located at the Horticulture Experimental Station of the College of Horticulture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi Province, one of the prominent regions for intensive commercial PGVC in China. Post-harvest garlic residues (stalk, leaves) mechanically smashed, homogenized into powder size and incorporated at the ratio of 1:100; 3:100; 5:100 as a soil amendment in a replanted soil that have been used for continuous cucumber monoculture for 7 years (annually double cropping system in a greenhouse). Results: Incorporated C-rich garlic stalk significantly influenced the soil condition through various ways; organic matter decomposition and mineralization, moderately adjusted the soil pH, enhanced the soil nutrient availability, increased enzymatic activities, and promoted 20% more cucumber yield in short-time. Using Illumina MiSeq sequencing analysis of bacterial 16S rRNA and fungal 18S rDNA genes, the current study revealed that addition of garlic stalk/residue could also improve the microbial abundance and community composition in extensively exploited soil, and contributed in soil functionality, caused prosper changes in soil characteristics, reinforced to good crop yield. Conclusion: Our study provided evidence that addition of garlic stalk as soil fertility amendment is a feasible, cost-effective and efficient resource utilization way for renovation of degraded soil health, ameliorate soil quality components and improve ecological environment in short duration. Our study may provide a better scientific understanding for efficient crop residue management typically from allelopathic source.

Keywords: garlic stalk, microbial community dynamics, plant growth, soil amendment, soil-plant system

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Authors: Akuélé Radha Kondo, Kathrin Heitz-Tokpa, Bassirou Bonfoh, Francis Akindes

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Postgraduate supervision contributes significantly to a student’s academic career, a supervisor’s promotion, and a university’s reputation. Despite this, the length of graduation in the Côte d’Ivoire University system is beyond the normal duration, two years for a master's and three years for a PhD. The paper analyses supervision practices regarding the challenges and strategies mobilised by students, supervisors, and administration staff to manage various relationships. Using a qualitative research design, this study was conducted at three public universities in Côte d’Ivoire. Data were generated from thirty-two postgraduate students, seventeen supervisors, and four administration staff through semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using content analysis and presented thematically. Findings revealed delegated supervision and co-supervision, two types of supervision relationship practices. Students pointed out that feedback is often delayed from their supervisors in delegation supervision. However, they acknowledged receiving input and scientific guidance. All students believed that their role is to be proactive, not to wait to receive everything from the supervisor, and need to be more autonomous and hardworking. They developed strategies related to these qualities. Supervisors were considered to guide, give advice, control, motivate, provide critical feedback, and validate the work. The administration was rather absent in monitoring supervision delays. Major challenges were related to the supervision relationships and access to the research funds. The study showed that more engagement of the main supervisor, administration monitoring, and secured funding would reduce the time and increase the completion rate.

Keywords: Côte d’Ivoire, postgraduate supervision, practices, strategies

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Authors: Dorcas Ropo Abejide, Olamide Ahmed Falusi, Oladipupo Abdulazeez Yusuf Daudu, Bolaji Zuluqurineen Salihu, Muhammad Liman Muhammad

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This study evaluated the morpho-agronomic response of twenty-four (24) Nigerian Bambara groundnut landraces to water stress and genetic diversity of some selected accessions using SSR markers. The studies were carried out in the botanical garden of the Department of Plant Biology, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State, Nigeria in a randomized complete block design using three replicates. Molecular analysis using SSR primers was carried out at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan in order to characterize ten selected accessions comprising the seven most drought tolerant and three most susceptible accessions from the 24 accessions evaluated. Results revealed that water stress decreased morpho-agronomic traits such as plant height, leaf area, number of leaves per plant, seed yield, etc. A total of 22 alleles were detected by the SSR markers used with a mean number of 4 allelles. SSR markers MBamCO₃₃, Primer 65, and G358B2-D15 each detected 4 allelles, while Primer 3FR and 4FR detected 5 allelles each. The study revealed significantly high polymorphisms in 10 Loci. The mean value of polymorpic information content was 0.6997, implying the usefulness of the primers used in identifying genetic similarities and differences among the Bambara groundnut genotypes. The SSR analysis revealed a comparable pattern between genetic diversity and drought tolerance of the genotypes. The UPGMA dendrogram showed that at a genetic distance of 0.1, the accessions were grouped into three groups according to their level of tolerance to drought. The two most drought-tolerant accessions were grouped together, and the 5th and 6th most drought-tolerant accessions were also grouped together. This suggests that the genotypes grouped together may be genetically close, may possess similar genes, or have a common origin. The degree of genetic variants obtained from this profiling could be useful in Bambara groundnut breeding for drought tolerance. The identified drought tolerant Bambara groundnut landraces are important genetic resources for drought stress tolerance breeding programme of Bambara groundnut. The genotypes are also useful for germplasm conservation and global implications.

Keywords: Bambara groundnut, genetic diversity, germplasm, SSR markers, water stress

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Authors: Kenza Benali

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Over the past decade, a number of remarkable projects in urban brownfield reconversion emerged across Canada, including the reconversion of former military bases owned by the Canada Lands Company (CLC) into sustainable communities. However, unlike other developments, the regeneration project of the former Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe in Ottawa – which was announced as one of the most ambitious Smart growth projects in Canada – faced serious obstacles in terms of social acceptance by the local community, particularly urban minorities composed of Francophones, Indigenous and vulnerable groups who live near or on the Base. This turn of events led to the project being postponed and even reconsidered. Through an analysis of its press coverage, this research aims to understand the causes of this urban conflict which lasted for nearly ten years. The findings reveal that the conflict is not limited to the “standard” issues common to most conflicts related to urban mega-projects in the world – e.g., proximity issues (threads to the quality of the surrounding neighbourhoods; noise, traffic, pollution, New-build gentrification) often associated with NIMBY phenomena. In this case, the local actors questioned the purpose of the project (for whom and for what types of uses is it conceived?), its local implementation (to what extent are the local history and existing environment taken into account?), and the degree of implication of the local population in the decision-making process (with whom is the project built?). Moreover, the interests of the local actors have “jumped scales” and transcend the micro-territorial level of their daily life to take on a national and even international dimension. They defined an alternative view of how this project, considered strategic by his location in the nation’s capital, should be a reference as well as an international showcase of Canadian ambition and achievement in terms of urban sustainability. This vision promoted, actually, a territorial and national identity approach - in which some cultural values are highly significant (respect of social justice, inclusivity, ethnical diversity, cultural heritage, etc.)- as a counterweight to planners’ vision which is criticized as a normative/ universalist logic that ignore the territorial peculiarities.

Keywords: smart growth, brownfield reconversion, sustainable neighborhoods, Canada Lands Company, Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe, urban conflicts

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Authors: Henrry Vicente Rojas Asuero, Holger Manuel Benavides Muñoz

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Approximately 80% of the energy consumed worldwide is generated from fossil sources, which are responsible for the emission of a large volume of greenhouse gases. For this reason, the global trend, at present, is the widespread use of energy produced from renewable sources. This seeks safety and diversification of energy supply, based on social cohesion, economic feasibility and environmental protection. In this scenario, small hydropower systems (P ≤ 10MW) stand out due to their high efficiency, economic competitiveness and low environmental impact. Small hydropower systems, along with wind and solar energy, are expected to represent a significant percentage of the world's energy matrix in the near term. Among the various technologies present in the state of the art, relating to small hydropower systems, is the Gravitational Water Vortex Power Plant, a recent technology that excels because of its versatility of operation, since it can operate with jumps in the range of 0.70 m-2.00 m and flow rates from 1 m3/s to 20 m3/s. Its operating system is based on the utilization of the energy of rotation contained within a large water vortex artificially induced. This paper presents the study and experimental design of an optimal hydraulic structure with the capacity to induce the artificial formation of a gravitational water vortex trough a system of easy application and high efficiency, able to operate in conditions of very low head and minimum flow. The proposed structure consists of a channel, with variable base, vortex inductor, tangential flow generator, coupled to a circular tank with a conical transition bottom hole. In the laboratory test, the angular velocity of the water vortex was related to the geometric characteristics of the inductor channel, as well as the influence of the conical transition bottom hole on the physical characteristics of the water vortex. The results show angular velocity values of greater magnitude as a function of depth, in addition the presence of the conical transition in the bottom hole of the circular tank improves the water vortex formation conditions while increasing the angular velocity values. Thus, the proposed system is a sustainable solution for the energy supply of rural areas near to watercourses.

Keywords: experimental model, gravitational water vortex power plant, renewable energy, small hydropower

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Authors: Sara Nosari

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In the research field on adult education, the learning development project followed different itineraries: recently it has promoted adult transformation by practices focused on the reflexive oriented interaction. This perspective, that connects life stories and life-based methods, characterizes a transformative space between formal and informal education. Within this framework, in the Nursing Degree Courses of Turin University, it has been discussed and realized a formal reflexive path on the care work professional identity through group practices. This path compared the future care professionals with possible experiences staged by texts used with the function of a pre-tests: these texts, setting up real or believable professional situations, had the task to start a reflection on the different 'elements' of care work professional life (relationship, educational character of relationship, relationship between different care roles; or even human identity, aims and ultimate aim of care, …). The learning transformative aspect of this kind of experience-test is that it is impossible to anticipate the process or the conclusion of reflexion because they depend on two main conditions: the personal sensitivity and the specific situation. The narrated experience is not a device, it does not include any tricks to understand the answering advance; the text is not aimed at deepening the knowledge, but at being an active and creative force which takes the group to compare with problematic figures. In fact, the experience-text does not have the purpose to explain but to problematize: it creates a space of suspension to live for questioning, for discussing, for researching, for deciding. It creates a space 'open' and 'in connection' where each one, in comparing with others, has the possibility to build his/her position. In this space, everyone has to possibility to expose his/her own argumentations and to be aware of the others emerged points of view, aiming to research and find the own personal position. However, to define his/her position, it is necessary to learn to exercise character skills (conscientiousness, motivation, creativity, critical thinking, …): if these not-cognitive skills have an undisputed evidence, less evident is how to value them. The paper will reflect on the epistemological limits and possibility to 'measure' character skills, suggesting some evaluation criteria.

Keywords: transformative learning, educational role, formal/informal education, character-skills

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Authors: Md. Rakeb-Ul Islam, Daniel J. Schmidt, Jane M. Hughes

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Population connectivity plays an important role in the conservation and recovery of declining species. It affects genetic diversity, adaptive potential and resilience of species in nature. Loss of genetic variation can affect populations by limiting their ability to persist in stressful environmental conditions. Generally, freshwater fishes show higher levels of genetic structuring and subdivision among populations than those inhabiting estuarine or marine environments due to the presence of artificial (e.g. dams) and natural (e.g. mountain ranges) barriers to dispersal in freshwater ecosystems. The Australian smelt (Retropinnidae: Retropinna spp.) is a common freshwater fish species which is widely distributed throughout coastal and inland drainages in South - eastern Australia. These fish are found in a number of habitats from headwaters to lowland sites. They form large shoals in the mid to upper water column and inhabit deep slow – flowing pools as well as shallow fast flowing riffle-runs. Previously, Australian smelt consisted of two described taxa (Retropinna semoni and Retropinna tasmanica), but recently a complex of five or more species has been recognized based on an analysis of allozyme variation. In many area, they spend their entire life cycle within freshwater. Although most populations of the species are thought to be non-diadromous, it is still unclear whether individuals within coastal populations of Australian Retropinna exhibit diadromous migrations or whether fish collected from marine/estuarine environments are vagrants that have strayed out of the freshwater reaches. In this current study, the population structure and genetic differentiation of Australian smelt fish were investigated among eight rivers of South-East Queensland (SEQ), Australia. 11 microsatellite loci were used to examine genetic variation within and among populations. Genetic diversity was very high. Number of alleles ranged from three to twenty. Expected heterozygosity averaged across loci ranged from 0.572 to 0.852. There was a high degree of genetic differentiation among rivers (FST = 0.23), although low levels of genetic differentiation among populations within rivers. These extremely high levels of genetic differentiation suggest that the all smelt in SEQ complete their life history within freshwater, or, if they go to the estuary, they do not migrate to sea. This hypothesis is being tested further with a micro-chemical analysis of their otoliths.

Keywords: diadromous, genetic diversity, microsatellite, otolith

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Authors: Ramūnas Antanaitis, Lina Anskienė, Robertas Stoškus

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This study was conducted during 2021.05.01 – 2021.08.31 at the Lithuanian University of health sciences and one Lithuanian dairy farm with 500 dairy cows (55.911381565736, 21.881321760608195). Average calving – 50 cows per month. Cows (n=20) in the treatment group (TG) were fed with feed supplement Optipartum C+ 200 (Enzymes: Alfa- Amylase 57 Units; Beta-Glucanase 107 Units) from 21 days before calving till 30 days after calving with feeding rate 200g/cow/day. Cows in the control group (CG) were fed a feed ration without feed supplement. Measurements started from 6 days before calving and continued till 21 days after calving. The following indicators were registered: with the RumiWatch System: Rumination time; Eating time; Drinking time; Rumination chews; Eating chews; Drinking gulps; Bolus; Chews per minute; Chews per bolus. With SmaXtec system - the temperature, pH of the contents of cows' reticulorumens and cows' activity. According to our results, we found that feeding of cows, from 21 days before calving to 30 days after calving, with a feed supplement with alfa- amylase and beta-glucanase (Optipartum C+ 200) (with dose 200g/cow/day) can produce an increase in: 9% rumination time and eating time, 19% drinking time, 11% rumination chews, 16% eating chews,13% number of boluses per rumination, 5% chews per minute and 16% chews per bolus. We found 1.28 % lower reiticulorumen pH and 0.64% lower reticulorumen temperature in cows fed with the supplement compared with control group cows. Also, cows feeding with enzymes were 8.80% more active.

Keywords: Alfa-Amylase, Beta-Glucanase, cows, in-line, sensors

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Authors: Rafat Rob, Khaled Alotaibi, Dana Nour, Abdullah Albadrani, Abdulmohsen Mulhim

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Power systems digitization solutions provides a comprehensive smart, cohesive, interconnected network, extensive connectivity between digital assets, physical power plants, and resources to form digital economies. However, digitization has exposed the classical air gapped power plants to the rapid spread of cyber threats and attacks in the process delaying and forcing many organizations to rethink their cyber security policies and standards before they can augment their operation the new advanced digital devices. Cyber Security requirements for power systems (and industry control systems therein) demand a new approach, unique methodology, and design process that is completely different to Cyber Security measures designed for the IT systems. In practice, Cyber Security strategy, as applied to power systems, tends to be closely aligned to those measures applied for IT system purposes. The differentiator for Cyber Security in terms of power systems are the physical assets and applications used, alongside the ever-growing rate of expansion within the industry controls sector (in comparison to the relatively saturated growth observed for corporate IT systems). These factors increase the magnitude of the cyber security risk within such systems. The introduction of smart devices and sensors along the grid initiate vulnerable entry points to the systems. Every installed Smart Meter is a target; the way these devices communicate with each other may instigate a Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Attacking one sensor or meter has the potential to propagate itself throughout the power grid reaching the IT network, where it may manifest itself as a malware infiltration.

Keywords: supply chain, cybersecurity, maturity model, risk, smart grid

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Authors: Oleg Redkin, Olga Bernikova

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It is commonly accepted that every language is both pure linguistic phenomenon as well as socially significant communicative system, which exists on the basis of certain society - its collective 'native speaker'. Therefore the language evolution and features besides its own linguistic rules and regulations are also defined by the influence of a number of extra-linguistic factors. The above mentioned statement may be illustrated by the example of the Arabic language which may be characterized by the following peculiarities: - the inner logic of the Arabic language - the 'algebraicity' of its morphological paradigms and grammar rules; - association of the Arabic language with the sacred texts of Islam, its close ties with the pre-Islamic and Islamic cultural heritage - the pre-Islamic poetry and Islamic literature and science; - territorial distribution, which in recent years went far beyond the boundaries of its traditional realm due to the development of new technologies and the spread of mass media, and what is more important, migration processes; - association of the Arabic language with the so called 'Renaissance of Islam'. These peculiarities should be remembered while considering the status of the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) language or the Classical Arabic (CA) language as well as the Modern Arabic (MA) dialects in synchrony or from the diachronic point of view. Continuity of any system in diachrony on the one hand depends on the level of its ability to adapt itself to changing environment and by its internal ties on the other. Structural durability of language is characterized by its inner logic, hierarchy of paradigms and its grammar rules, as well as continuity of their implementation in acts of everyday communication. Since the Arabic language is both linguistic and social phenomenon the process of the Arabic language acquisition and study should not be focused only on the knowledge about linguistic features or development of communicative skills alone, but must be supplied with the information related to culture, history and religion of peoples of certain region that will expand and enrich competences of the target audience.

Keywords: Arabic, culture, Islam, language

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Authors: Javier Paul Montalvo Andia, Adriana Larrea Valdivia, Adolfo Pillihuaman Zambrano

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The most common lixiviant in the leaching process of copper minerals is H₂SO₄, however, the current situation requires more environmentally friendly reagents and in certain situations that have a lower consumption due to the presence of undesirable gangue as muscovite or kaolinite that can make the process unfeasible. The present work studied the leaching of an oxidized copper mineral in an aqueous solution of ammonium nitrate, in order to obtain the optimum leaching conditions of the copper contained in the malachite mineral from Peru. The copper ore studied comes from a deposit in southern Peru and was characterized by X-ray diffractometer, inductively coupled-plasma emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). The experiments were developed in batch reactor of 600 mL where the parameters as; temperature, pH, ammonium nitrate concentration, particle size and stirring speed were controlled according to experimental planning. The sample solution was analyzed for copper by atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). A simulation in the HSC Chemistry 6.0 program showed that the predominance of the copper compounds of a Cu-H₂O aqueous system is altered by the presence in the system of ammonium complexes, the compound being thermodynamically more stable Cu(NH3)₄²⁺, which predominates in pH ranges from 8.5 to 10 at a temperature of 25 °C. The optimum conditions for copper leaching of the malachite mineral were a stirring speed of 600 rpm, an ammonium nitrate concentration of 4M, a particle diameter of 53 um and temperature of 62 °C. These results showed that the leaching of copper increases with increasing concentration of the ammonium solution, increasing the stirring rate, increasing the temperature and decreasing the particle diameter. Finally, the recovery of copper in optimum conditions was above 80%.

Keywords: ammonium nitrate, malachite, copper oxide, leaching

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Authors: Anas Hallak, Latifa Seblini, Juergen Wilde

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In mechatronics or sensor technology, plastic housings are used to protect sensitive components from harmful environmental influences, such as moisture, media, or reactive substances. Connections, preferably in the form of metallic lead-frame structures, through the housing wall are required for their electrical supply or control. In this system, an insufficient connection between the plastic component, e.g., Polyamide66, and the metal surface, e.g., copper, due to the incompatibility is dominating. As a result, leakage paths can occur along with the plastic-metal interface. Since adhesive bonding has been established as one of the most important joining processes and its use has expanded significantly, driven by the development of improved high-performance adhesives and bonding techniques, this technology has been involved in metal-plastic hybrid structures. In this study, an epoxy bonding agent from DELO (DUALBOND LT2266) has been used to improve the mechanical and chemical binding between the metal and the polymer. It is an adhesion promoter with two reaction stages. In these, the first stage provides fixation to the lead frame directly after the coating step, which can be done by UV-Exposure for a few seconds. In the second stage, the material will be thermally hardened during injection molding. To analyze the two reaction stages of the primer, dynamic DSC experiments were carried out and correlated with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy measurements. Furthermore, the number of crosslinking bonds formed in the system in each reaction stage has also been estimated by a rheological characterization. Those investigations have been performed with different times of UV exposure: 12, 96 s and in an industrial preferred temperature range from -20 to 175°C. The shear viscosity values of primer have been measured as a function of temperature and exposure times. For further interpretation, the storage modulus values have been calculated, and the so-called Booij–Palmen plot has been sketched. The next approach in this study is the self-healing mechanisms in the hydride system in which the primer should flow into micro-damage such as interface, cracks, inhibit them from growing, and close them. The ability of the primer to flow in and penetrate defined capillaries made in Ultramid was investigated. Holes with a diameter of 0.3 mm were produced in injection-molded A3EG7 plates with 4 mm thickness. A copper substrate coated with the DUALBOND was placed on the A3EG7 plate and pressed with a certain force. Metallographic analyses were carried out to verify the filling grade, which showed an almost 95% filling ratio of the capillaries. Finally, to estimate the self-healing mechanism in metal-plastic hybrid systems, characterizations have been done on a simple geometry with a metal inlay developed by the Institute of Polymer Technology in Friedrich-Alexander-University. The specimens have been modified with tungsten wire which was to be pulled out after the injection molding to create a micro-hole in the specimen at the interface between the primer and the polymer. The capability of the primer to heal those micro-cracks upon heating, pressing, and thermal aging has been characterized through metallographic analyses.

Keywords: hybrid structures, self-healing, thermoplastic housing, adhesive

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Authors: Deng Qiaoshan

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With the rise of feminism in the global film industry, feminist expressions in Chinese films have also evolved, reflecting societal focus on gender issues. This article focuses on young Chinese female directors such as Yang Lina, Teng Congcong, and Yang Mingming. Their films now present richer female perspectives and consciously incorporate unique female life experiences. They highlight women's real-life struggles, portraying ’struggling’ female identities—characters facing professional failures and desire identity issues, ultimately returning to family roles. These films commonly explore the ‘mother-daughter relationship’, with some using genre storytelling for commercial appeal and others deconstructing the ‘myth of motherhood’ to reflect reality, rewriting traditional maternal roles. The ‘struggling’ female identity in these directors' films shows an aesthetic of ‘pseudo-reality’, blending realistic situations with poetic, lyrical elements, reflecting their creative traits and internal conflicts. These contradictions are closely related to the unique creative context of Chinese cinema in which they operate. Emerging under China's strict film censorship system, film industrialization, consumerist culture, and internet environment, new-generation directors face multiple demands. How to ‘survive’ amidst complex commercial requirements while creating films with a clear feminist consciousness is the fundamental dilemma faced by young Chinese female directors.

Keywords: female directors, feminism film, female dilemma, film censorship system

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Authors: Caroline Mendes, Mary McNamara, Orla Howe

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For chemotherapy, a drug delivery system should be able to specifically target cancer cells and deliver the therapeutic dose without affecting normal cells. Folate receptors (FR) can be considered key targets since they are commonly over-expressed in cancer cells and they are the molecular marker used in this study. Here, cyclodextrin (CD) has being studied as a vehicle for delivering the chemotherapeutic drug, methotrexate (MTX). CDs have the ability to form inclusion complexes, in which molecules of suitable dimensions are included within the CD cavity. In this study, β-CD has been modified using folic acid so as to specifically target the FR molecular marker. Thus, the system studied here for drug delivery consists of β-CD, folic acid and MTX (CDEnFA:MTX). Cellular uptake of folic acid is mediated with high affinity by folate receptors while the cellular uptake of antifolates, such as MTX, is mediated with high affinity by the reduced folate carriers (RFCs). This study addresses the gene (mRNA) and protein expression levels of FRs and RFCs in the cancer cell lines CaCo-2, SKOV-3, HeLa, MCF-7, A549 and the normal cell line BEAS-2B, quantified by real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR) and flow cytometry, respectively. From that, four cell lines with different levels of FRs, were chosen for cytotoxicity assays of MTX and CDEnFA:MTX using the MTT assay. Real-time PCR and flow cytometry data demonstrated that all cell lines ubiquitously express moderate levels of RFC. These experiments have also shown that levels of FR protein in CaCo-2 cells are high, while levels in SKOV-3, HeLa and MCF-7 cells are moderate. A549 and BEAS-2B cells express low levels of FR protein. FRs are highly expressed in all the cancer cell lines analysed when compared to the normal cell line BEAS-2B. The cell lines CaCo-2, MCF-7, A549 and BEAS-2B were used in the cell viability assays. 48 hours treatment with the free drug and the complex resulted in IC50 values of 93.9 µM ± 9.2 and 56.0 µM ± 4.0 for CaCo-2 for free MTX and CDEnFA:MTX respectively, 118.2 µM ± 10.8 and 97.8 µM ± 12.3 for MCF-7, 36.4 µM ± 6.9 and 75.0 µM ± 8.5 for A549 and 132.6 µM ± 12.1 and 288.1 µM ± 16.3 for BEAS-2B. These results demonstrate that MTX is more toxic towards cell lines expressing low levels of FR, such as the BEAS-2B. More importantly, these results demonstrate that the inclusion complex CDEnFA:MTX showed greater cytotoxicity than the free drug towards the high FR expressing CaCo-2 cells, indicating that it has potential to target this receptor, enhancing the specificity and the efficiency of the drug.

Keywords: cyclodextrins, cancer treatment, drug delivery, folate receptors, reduced folate carriers

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Authors: Anandkumar Rshindhe

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Patents are considered as good monopoly in India. It is a mechanism by which the inventor is encouraged to do invention and also to make available to the society at large with a new useful technology. Patent system does not provide any protection to the invention itself but to the claims (rights) which the patentee has identified in relation to his invention. Thus the patentee is granted monopoly to the extent of his recognition of his own rights in the form of utilities and all other utilities of invention are for the public. Thus we find both benefit to the inventor and the public at large that is the ultimate consumer. But developing any such technology is not free of cost. Inventors do a lot of investment in the coming out with a new technologies. One such example if of Pharmaceutical industries. These pharmaceutical Industries do lot of research and invest lot of money, time and labour in coming out with these invention. Once invention is done or process identified, in order to protect it, inventors approach Patent system to protect their rights in the form of claim over invention. The patent system takes its own time in giving recognition to the invention as patent. Even after the grant of patent the pharmaceutical companies need to comply with many other legal formalities to launch it as a drug (medicine) in market. Thus major portion in patent term is unproductive to patentee and whatever limited period the patentee gets would be not sufficient to recover the cost involved in invention and as a result price of patented product is raised very much, just to recover the cost of invent. This is ultimately a burden on consumer who is paying more only because the legislature has failed to provide for the delay and loss caused to patentee. This problem can be effectively remedied if Patent Term extension is done. Due to patent term extension, the inventor gets some more time in recovering the cost of invention. Thus the end product is much more cheaper compared to non patent term extension.The basic question here arises is that when the patent period granted to a patentee is only 20 years and out of which a major portion is spent in complying with necessary legal formalities before making the medicine available in market, does the company with the limited period of monopoly recover its investment made for doing research. Further the Indian patent Act has certain provisions making it mandatory on the part of patentee to make its patented invention at reasonable affordable price in India. In the light of above questions whether extending the term of patent would be a proper solution and a necessary requirement to protect the interest of patentee as well as the ultimate consumer. The basic objective of this paper would be to check the implications of Extending the Patent term on Indian Consumers. Whether it provides the benefits to the patentee, consumer or a hardship to the Generic industry and consumer.

Keywords: patent term extention, consumer interest, generic drug industry, pharmaceutical industries

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Authors: Kinneret Segal

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The work of a midwife is emotionally challenging, both positively and negatively. Midwives share moments of joy when a baby is welcomed into the world, and also attend difficult events of loss and trauma. The relationship that develops with the maternity is the essence of the midwife's care, and it is a fundamental source of motivation and professional satisfaction. This close relationship with the maternity may be used as a double-edged sword in cases of exposure to traumatic events at birth. Birth problems, exposure to emergencies and traumatic events, and loss can affect the professional quality of life and the Compassion satisfaction of the midwife. It seems that the issue of traumatic experiences in the work of midwives, has not been sufficiently explored. The present study examined the associations between exposure to traumatic events, personal resilience and post-traumatic symptoms, professional quality of life and organizational commitment among midwifery nurses in Israeli hospitals. 131 midwives from three hospitals in the country's center in Israel participated in this study. The data were collected during 2021 using a self-report questionnaire that examined sociodemographic characteristics, the degree of exposure to traumatic events in the delivery room, personal resilience, post-traumatic symptoms, professional quality of life, and organizational commitment. The three most difficult traumatic events for the midwives were death or fear of death of a newborn, death or fear of the death of a mother and a quiet birth. The higher the frequency of exposure to traumatic events, the more numerous and intense the onset of post-trauma symptoms. The more numerous and powerful the post-trauma symptoms, the higher the level of professional burnout and/or compassion fatigue, and the lower the level of compassion satisfaction. High levels of compassion satisfaction and/or low professional burnout were expressed in a heightened sense of organizational commitment. Personal resilience, country of birth, traumatic symptoms and organizational commitment, predicted satisfaction from compassion. Midwives are exposed to traumatic events associated with dissatisfaction and impairment of the professional quality of life that accompanies burnout and compassion fatigue. Exposure to traumatic events leads to the appearance of traumatic symptoms, a decrease in organizational commitment, and psychological and mental well-being. The issue needs to be addressed by implementing training programs, organizational support, and policies to improving well-being and quality of care among midwives.

Keywords: traumatic experirnces, midwives, quality of life, burnout, organizational commitment, personal resilience

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Authors: Md. Moniruzzaman, Thirayoot Limanond

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Being the most visible indicator, the transport system of a city points out how developed the city is. Dhaka megacity holds a mixed composition of motorized and non-motorized modes of transport and the number of vehicle figure is escalating over times. And this obviously poses associated environmental costs like air pollution, noise etc. which is degrading the quality of life in the city. Eventually sustainable transport or more importantly green transport from environmental point of view has become a prime choice to the transport professionals in order to cope up the crisis. Currently the city authority is planning to execute such sustainable transport systems that could serve the pressing demand of the present and meet the future needs effectively. This study focuses on the selection and evaluation of green transportation systems among potential alternatives on a priority basis. In this paper, Fuzzy TOPSIS - a multi-criteria decision method is presented to find out the most prioritized alternative. In the first step, Twenty-one individual specific criteria for sustainability assessment are selected. In the following step, experts provide linguistic ratings to the potential alternatives with respect to the selected criteria. The approach is used to generate aggregate scores for sustainability assessment and selection of the best alternative. In the third step, a sensitivity analysis is performed to understand the influence of criteria weights on the decision making process. The key strength of fuzzy TOPSIS approach is its practical applicability having a generation of good quality solution even under uncertainty.

Keywords: green transport, multi-criteria decision approach, urban transportation system, sustainability assessment, fuzzy theory, uncertainty

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Authors: N. Cetinkaya

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The objective of the present study is to determine the critical control points during the production, transportation and storage conditions of compound feeds to be used in the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) feed safety management system. A total of 40 feed samples were taken after 20 and 40 days of storage periods from the 10 dairy and 10 beef cattle farms following the transportation of the compound feeds from the factory. In addition, before transporting the feeds from factory immediately after production of dairy and beef cattle compound feeds, 10 from each total 20 samples were taken as 0 day. In all feed samples, chemical composition and total aflatoxin levels were determined. The aflatoxin levels in all feed samples with the exception of 2 dairy cattle feeds were below the maximum acceptable level. With the increase in storage period in dairy feeds, the aflatoxin levels were increased to 4.96 ppb only in a BS8 dairy farm. This value is below the maximum permissible level (10 ppb) in beef cattle feed. The aflatoxin levels of dairy feed samples taken after production varied between 0.44 and 2.01 ppb. Aflatoxin levels were found to be between 0.89 and 3.01 ppb in dairy cattle feeds taken on the 20^th day of storage at 10 dairy cattle farm. On the 40^th day, feed aflatoxin levels in the same dairy cattle farm were found between 1.12 and 7.83 ppb. The aflatoxin levels were increased to 7.83 and 6.31 ppb in 2 dairy farms, after a storage period of 40 days. These obtained aflatoxin values are above the maximum permissible level in dairy cattle feeds. The 40 days storage in pellet form in the HACCP feed safety management system can be considered as a critical control point.

Keywords: aflatoxin, beef cattle feed, compound feed, dairy cattle feed, HACCP

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Authors: Hossein Rezaie

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Academic institutions, esp. universities, have been known as cradles of learning and teaching great thinkers while creating the type of knowledge that is supposed to be bereft of utilitarian motives. Nonetheless, it seems that such intellectual centers have entered into a competition with each other for attracting the attention of potential clients. The traditional values of (higher) education such as nurturing criticality and fostering intellectuality in students have been replaced with strategic planning, quality assurance, performance assessment, and academic audits. Not being immune from the whims and wishes of marketization, the system of higher education in the UK has been recalibrated by policy makers to address the demand and supply of student education, academic research and other university activities on the basis of monetary factors. As an immediate example in this vein, the Russell Group in the UK, which is comprised of 24 leading UK research universities, has explicitly expressed it policy on its official website as follows: ‘Russell Group universities are global businesses competing for staff, students and funding with the best in the world’. Furthermore, certain attempts have been made to corporatize the system of HE which have been manifested in remodeling of university governing bodies on corporate lines and developing measurement scales for indicating the performance of teaching practitioners. Nevertheless, it seems that such structural changes in policies toward the system of HE have bearing on the practices of practitioners and educators as well as the identity of students who are the customers of educational services. The effects of marketization have been examined mainly in terms of students’ perceptions and motivation, institutional policies and university management. However, the teaching practitioner side seems to be an under-studied area with regard to any changes in its expectations, satisfaction and perception of professional identity in the aftermath of introducing market-wise values into HE of the UK. As a result, this research aims to investigate the possible outcomes of market-driven values on the practitioner side of HE in the UK and finally seeks to address the following research questions: 1-How is the change in the mission of HE in the UK reflected in institutional documents? 1-A- How is the change of mission represented in job adverts? 1-B- How is the change of mission represented in university prospectuses? 2-How are teaching practitioners represented regarding their roles and obligations in the prospectuses and job ads published by UK HE institutions? In order to address these questions, the researcher will analyze 30 prospectuses and job ads published by Russel Group universities by taking Critical Discourse Analysis as his point of departure and the analytical methods of genre analysis and Systemic Functional Linguistics to probe into the generic features and representation of participants, in this case teaching practitioners, in the selected corpus.

Keywords: higher education, job advertisements, marketization of higher education, prospectuses

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Authors: Sree Bash Chandra Debnath, Didier Tonneau, Carole Fauquet, Agnes Tallet, Julien Darreon

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Purpose: Inorganic scintillating dosimetry is the most recent promising technique to solve several dosimetric issues and provide quality assurance in radiation therapy. Despite several advantages, the major issue of using scintillating detectors is the Cerenkov effect, typically induced in the visible emission range. In this context, the purpose of this research work is to evaluate the performance of a novel infrared inorganic scintillator detector (IR-ISD) in the radiation therapy treatment to ensure Cerenkov free signal and the best matches between the delivered and prescribed doses during treatment. Methods: A simple and small-scale infrared inorganic scintillating detector of 100 µm diameter with a sensitive scintillating volume of 2x10-6 mm3 was developed. A prototype of the dose verification system has been introduced based on PTIR1470/F (provided by Phosphor Technology®) material used in the proposed novel IR-ISD. The detector was tested on an Elekta LINAC system tuned at 6 MV/15MV and a brachytherapy source (Ir-192) used in the patient treatment protocol. The associated dose rate was measured in count rate (photons/s) using a highly sensitive photon counter (sensitivity ~20ph/s). Overall measurements were performed in IBATM water tank phantoms by following international Technical Reports series recommendations (TRS 381) for radiotherapy and TG43U1 recommendations for brachytherapy. The performance of the detector was tested through several dosimetric parameters such as PDD, beam profiling, Cerenkov measurement, dose linearity, dose rate linearity repeatability, and scintillator stability. Finally, a comparative study is also shown using a reference microdiamond dosimeter, Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation, and data from recent literature. Results: This study is highlighting the complete removal of the Cerenkov effect especially for small field radiation beam characterization. The detector provides an entire linear response with the dose in the 4cGy to 800 cGy range, independently of the field size selected from 5 x 5 cm² down to 0.5 x 0.5 cm². A perfect repeatability (0.2 % variation from average) with day-to-day reproducibility (0.3% variation) was observed. Measurements demonstrated that ISD has superlinear behavior with dose rate (R2=1) varying from 50 cGy/s to 1000 cGy/s. PDD profiles obtained in water present identical behavior with a build-up maximum depth dose at 15 mm for different small fields irradiation. A low dimension of 0.5 x 0.5 cm² field profiles have been characterized, and the field cross profile presents a Gaussian-like shape. The standard deviation (1σ) of the scintillating signal remains within 0.02% while having a very low convolution effect, thanks to lower sensitive volume. Finally, during brachytherapy, a comparison with MC simulations shows that considering energy dependency, measurement agrees within 0.8% till 0.2 cm source to detector distance. Conclusion: The proposed scintillating detector in this study shows no- Cerenkov radiation and efficient performance for several radiation therapy measurement parameters. Therefore, it is anticipated that the IR-ISD system can be promoted to validate with direct clinical investigations, such as appropriate dose verification and quality control in the Treatment Planning System (TPS).

Keywords: IR-Scintillating detector, dose measurement, micro-scintillators, Cerenkov effect

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Authors: Tien Hui Chiang

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Along with the predominant influence of neo-liberalism, public managerialism is viewed as a panacea for curing the institutionalized weakness caused by the monopoly of the public sector. In the name of efficiency, its outcome-led approach acquires a legitimate status and, in turn, it transforms into the discourse of performativity, reformulating the souls of individual members into the form of docile bodies who are willing to demonstrate their own ability in organizational contributions. The evaluation system and the organizational reconstruction are viewed as the crucial means for achieving this mission. Inevitably, university teachers are confined within a rigid and bureaucratic setting, in which they do not have too much latitude but are subject to the commands of senior administrators. However, the notion of duality highlights the interaction between structural constraints and agency. If the actor discovers the rules or properties of social structure, he/she is able to transform structural constraints into resources for developing creative actions, conceptualized as an agency. This study was designed for examining how duality operates within this hierarchical arrangement formed by public managerialism. Fourteen informants were interviewed from February to August 2014. The findings show that the evaluation system created the culture of neo-academicalism, addressing excellence in research and, in turn, motivating academic-oriented teachers. This correspondence provided a gateway for them to win honor, dignity, and prestige in groups. However, unlike the concept of duality, this agency was operating within the institutionalized context, regulated by structural constraint. Furthermore, complying with the rule/property of social structure was able to secure their advantages.

Keywords: public managerialism, social discourse, neo-academicalism, duality, structural constraint, agency

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Authors: Mohammad Tarek Al Muallim, Ozhan Duzenli, Ceyhun Ilguy

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Passive sonar is a method for detecting acoustic signals in the ocean. It detects the acoustic signals emanating from external sources. With passive sonar, we can determine the bearing of the target only, no information about the range of the target. Target Motion Analysis (TMA) is a process to estimate the position and speed of a target using passive sonar information. Since bearing is the only available information, the TMA technique called Bearing-only TMA. Many TMA techniques have been developed. However, until now, there is not a very effective method that could be used to always track an unknown target and extract its moving trace. In this work, a design of effective Bearing-only TMA Algorithm is done. The measured bearing angles are very noisy. Moreover, for multi-beam sonar, the measurements is quantized due to the sonar beam width. To deal with this, modified gain extended Kalman filter algorithm is used. The algorithm is fine-tuned, and many modules are added to improve the performance. A special validation gate module is used to insure stability of the algorithm. Many indicators of the performance and confidence level measurement are designed and tested. A new method to detect if the target is maneuvering is proposed. Moreover, a reactive optimal observer maneuver based on bearing measurements is proposed, which insure converging to the right solution all of the times. To test the performance of the proposed TMA algorithm a simulation is done with a MATLAB program. The simulator program tries to model a discrete scenario for an observer and a target. The simulator takes into consideration all the practical aspects of the problem such as a smooth transition in the speed, a circular turn of the ship, noisy measurements, and a quantized bearing measurement come for multi-beam sonar. The tests are done for a lot of given test scenarios. For all the tests, full tracking is achieved within 10 minutes with very little error. The range estimation error was less than 5%, speed error less than 5% and heading error less than 2 degree. For the online performance estimator, it is mostly aligned with the real performance. The range estimation confidence level gives a value equal to 90% when the range error less than 10%. The experiments show that the proposed TMA algorithm is very robust and has low estimation error. However, the converging time of the algorithm is needed to be improved.

Keywords: target motion analysis, Kalman filter, passive sonar, bearing-only tracking

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Authors: Philip Semaha, Zhongfang Lei, Ziwen Zhao, Sen Liu, Zhenya Zhang, Kazuya Shimizu

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The increasing generation of saline wastewater through various industrial activities is becoming a global concern for activated sludge (AS) based biological treatment which is widely applied in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). As for the AS process, an increase in wastewater salinity has negative impact on its overall performance. The advent of conventional aerobic granular sludge (AGS) or bacterial AGS biotechnology has gained much attention because of its superior performance. The development of algal-bacterial AGS could enhance better nutrients removal, potentially reduce aeration cost through symbiotic algae-bacterial activity, and thus, can also reduce overall treatment cost. Nonetheless, the potential of salt stress to decrease biomass growth, microbial activity and nutrient removal exist. Up to the present, little information is available on saline wastewater treatment by algal-bacterial AGS. To the authors’ best knowledge, a comparison of the two AGS systems has not been done to evaluate nutrients removal capacity in the context of salinity increase. This study sought to figure out the impact of salinity on the algal-bacterial AGS system in comparison to bacterial AGS one, contributing to the application of AGS technology in the real world of saline wastewater treatment. In this study, the salt concentrations tested were 0 g/L, 1 g/L, 5 g/L, 10 g/L and 15 g/L of NaCl with 24-hr artificial illuminance of approximately 97.2 µmol m¯²s¯¹, and mature bacterial and algal-bacterial AGS were used for the operation of two identical sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) with a working volume of 0.9 L each, respectively. The results showed that salinity increase caused no apparent change in the color of bacterial AGS; while for algal-bacterial AGS, its color was progressively changed from green to dark green. A consequent increase in granule diameter and fluffiness was observed in the bacterial AGS reactor with the increase of salinity in comparison to a decrease in algal-bacterial AGS diameter. However, nitrite accumulation peaked from 1.0 mg/L and 0.4 mg/L at 1 g/L NaCl in the bacterial and algal-bacterial AGS systems, respectively to 9.8 mg/L in both systems when NaCl concentration varied from 5 g/L to 15 g/L. Almost no ammonia nitrogen was detected in the effluent except at 10 g/L NaCl concentration, where it averaged 4.2 mg/L and 2.4 mg/L, respectively, in the bacterial and algal-bacterial AGS systems. Nutrients removal in the algal-bacterial system was relatively higher than the bacterial AGS in terms of nitrogen and phosphorus removals. Nonetheless, the nutrient removal rate was almost 50% or lower. Results show that algal-bacterial AGS is more adaptable to salinity increase and could be more suitable for saline wastewater treatment. Optimization of operation conditions for algal-bacterial AGS system would be important to ensure its stably high efficiency in practice.

Keywords: algal-bacterial aerobic granular sludge, bacterial aerobic granular sludge, Nutrients removal, saline wastewater, sequencing batch reactor

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Authors: D. Heinemann, S. Schramm, S. Knabner, D. Baumgarten

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Purpose: Applying solder paste to printed circuit boards (PCB) with stencils has been the method of choice over the past years. A new method uses a jet printer to deposit tiny droplets of solder paste through an ejector mechanism onto the board. This allows for more flexible PCB layouts with smaller components. Due to the viscosity of the solder paste, air blisters can be trapped in the cartridge. This can lead to missing solder joints or deviations in the applied solder volume. Therefore, a built-in and real-time inspection of the printing process is needed to minimize uncertainties and increase the efficiency of the process by immediate correction. The objective of the current study is the design of an optimal imaging system and the development of an automatic algorithm for the detection of applied solder joints from optical from the captured images. Methods: In a first approach, a camera module connected to a microcomputer and LED strips are employed to capture images of the printed circuit board under four different illuminations (white, red, green and blue). Subsequently, an improved system including a ring light, an objective lens, and a monochromatic camera was set up to acquire higher quality images. The obtained images can be divided into three main components: the PCB itself (i.e., the background), the reflections induced by unsoldered positions or screw holes and the solder joints. Non-uniform illumination is corrected by estimating the background using a morphological opening and subtraction from the input image. Image sharpening is applied in order to prevent error pixels in the subsequent segmentation. The intensity thresholds which divide the main components are obtained from the multimodal histogram using three probability density functions. Determining the intersections delivers proper thresholds for the segmentation. Remaining edge gradients produces small error areas which are removed by another morphological opening. For quantitative analysis of the segmentation results, the dice coefficient is used. Results: The obtained PCB images show a significant gradient in all RGB channels, resulting from ambient light. Using different lightings and color channels 12 images of a single PCB are available. A visual inspection and the investigation of 27 specific points show the best differentiation between those points using a red lighting and a green color channel. Estimating two thresholds from analyzing the multimodal histogram of the corrected images and using them for segmentation precisely extracts the solder joints. The comparison of the results to manually segmented images yield high sensitivity and specificity values. Analyzing the overall result delivers a Dice coefficient of 0.89 which varies for single object segmentations between 0.96 for a good segmented solder joints and 0.25 for single negative outliers. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that the presented optical imaging system and the developed algorithm can robustly detect solder joints on printed circuit boards. Future work will comprise a modified lighting system which allows for more precise segmentation results using structure analysis.

Keywords: printed circuit board jet-printing, inspection, segmentation, solder paste detection

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Authors: Saeed Vahedikamal, Ian Hepburn

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Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are considered as one of the most promising photon detectors of the future in many Astronomical applications such as exoplanet detections. The MKID advantages stem from their single photon sensitivity (ranging from UV to optical and near infrared), photon energy resolution and high temporal capability (~microseconds). There has been substantial progress in the development of these detectors and MKIDs with Megapixel arrays is now possible. The unique capability of recording an incident photon and its energy (or wavelength) while also registering its time of arrival to within a microsecond enables an array of MKIDs to produce a four-dimensional data block of x, y, z and t comprising x, y spatial, z axis per pixel spectral and t axis per pixel which is temporal. This offers the possibility that the spectrum and brightness variation for any detected piece of space debris as a function of time might offer a unique identifier or fingerprint. Such a fingerprint signal from any object identified in multiple detections by different observers has the potential to determine the orbital features of the object and be used for their tracking. Modelling performed so far shows that with a 20 cm telescope located at an Astronomical observatory (e.g. La Palma, Canary Islands) we could detect sub cm objects at GEO. By considering a Lambertian sphere with a 10 % reflectivity (albedo of the Moon) we anticipate the following for a GEO object: 10 cm object imaged in a 1 second image capture; 1.2 cm object for a 70 second image integration or 0.65 cm object for a 4 minute image integration. We present details of our modelling and the potential instrument for a dedicated GEO surveillance system.

Keywords: space debris, orbital debris, detection system, observation, microwave kinetic inductance detectors, MKID

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