Search results for: global physical activity questionnaire

Authors: Orestis Κ. Efthymiou, Stavros T. Ponis

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In the last decade, a new industrial revolution seems to be emerging, supported -once again- by the rapid advancements of Information Technology in the areas of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication permitting large numbers of intelligent devices, e.g. sensors to communicate with each other and take decisions without any or minimum indirect human intervention. The advent of these technologies have triggered the emergence of a new category of hybrid (cyber-physical) manufacturing systems, combining advanced manufacturing techniques with innovative M2M applications based on the Internet of Things (IoT), under the umbrella term Industry 4.0. Even though the topic of Industry 4.0 has attracted much attention during the last few years, the attempts of providing a systematic literature review of the subject are scarce. In this paper, we present the authors’ initial study of the field with a special focus on the use and applications of Industry 4.0 principles in material handling automations and in-house logistics. Research shows that despite the vivid discussion and attractiveness of the subject, there are still many challenges and issues that have to be addressed before Industry 4.0 becomes standardized and widely applicable.

Keywords: Industry 4.0, internet of things, manufacturing systems, material handling, logistics

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Authors: G. R. Constantine, M.C.K. Thilakasiri, V.S. Mohottala, T.V. Soundaram, D.S. Rathnayake, E.G.H.E. De Silva, A.L.S. Mohamed, V.R. Weerasekara

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Orthostatic hypotension is prevalent in the elderly population, and it is an important risk factor contributing to falls in the elderly. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of orthostatic hypotension in hospitalized elderly patients, changes in blood pressure during the hospital stay, morbidities associated with it and its association with falls in the elderly. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) in a sample of 120 patients of age 65 years or above who were admitted to the medical wards. The demographic, clinical data was obtained by an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Two validated questionnaires were used to assess symptoms and effects of orthostatic hypotension and risk factors associated with falls. Orthostatic hypotension on admission and after 3 days of hospital stay was measured by bed-side mercury sphygmomanometer. Prevalence of orthostatic hypotension among the study population was 63.3%(76 patients). But no significant change in the orthostatic hypotension noted after 3 days of hospital admission (SND 0.61, SE= 5.59, p=0.27). There was no significant association found between orthostatic hypotension and its symptoms (dizziness and vertigo, vision problems, malaise, fatigue, poor concentration, neck stiffness), impact on standing or walking and non-communicable diseases. Falls were experienced by 27.5 % (33 patients) of the study population and prevalence of patients with orthostatic hypotension who had experienced falls was 25.9% (28 patients). In conclusions, orthostatic hypotension is more prevalent among elderly patients, but It wasn’t associated with symptoms, and non-communicable diseases, or as a risk factor for falls in elderly.

Keywords: orthostatic hypotension, elderly falls, emergency geriatric, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Sudheer Gupta

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Approximately 4 billion citizens of the world live on the equivalent of less than $8 a day. This segment constitutes a $5 trillion global market that remains under-served. Multinational corporations have historically tended to focus their innovation efforts on the upper segments of the economic pyramid. The academic literature has also been dominated by theories and frameworks of innovation that are valid when applied to the developed markets and consumer segments, but fail to adequately account for the challenges and realities of new product and service creation for the poor. Theories of entrepreneurship developed in the context of developed markets similarly ignore the challenges and realities of operating in developing economies that can be characterized by missing institutions, missing markets, information and infrastructural challenges, and resource constraints. Social entrepreneurs working in such contexts develop solutions differently. In this talk, we summarize lessons learnt from a long-term research project that involves data collection from a broad range of social entrepreneurs in developing countries working towards solutions to alleviate poverty, and grounded theory-building efforts. We aim to develop a better understanding of consumers, producers, and other stakeholder involvement, thus laying the foundation to build a robust theory of innovation and entrepreneurship for the poor.

Keywords: poverty alleviation, social enterprise, social innovation, development

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Authors: Jason West

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Low profitability in agriculture production along with increasing scrutiny over environmental effects is limiting food production at scale. In contrast, the mining sector offers access to resources including energy, water, transport and chemicals for food production at low marginal cost. Scalable agricultural production can benefit from the nexus of resources (water, energy, transport) offered by mining activity in remote locations. A decision support bioeconomic model for controlled environment vertical farms was used. Four submodels were used: crop structure, nutrient requirements, resource-crop integration, and economic. They escalate to a macro mathematical model. A demonstrable dynamic systems framework is needed to prove productive outcomes are feasible. We demonstrate a generalized bioeconomic macro model for controlled environment production systems in minesites using systems dynamics modeling methodology. Despite the complexity of bioeconomic modelling of resource-agricultural dynamic processes and interactions, the economic potential greater than general economic models would assume. Scalability of production as an input becomes a key success feature.

Keywords: crop production systems, mathematical model, mining, agriculture, dynamic systems

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Authors: Davood Karimipour

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Since long ago, Russia has been one of the most influential actors in regional equations in South West Asia. The geographic affinity of its vital interests with Western Asia has caused Moscow to have a high sensitivity to the balance of power in the Middle East, as its role in the Syrian crisis clearly demonstrated the importance. In recent years, Moscow has tried to use the energy diplomacy tool in maintaining the balance of power between the major powers in the region. The paper, based on the qualitative case study method, investigates how Russia’s energy diplomacy plays a role in the balance of regional forces in the Middle East, studying the country’s conduct towards Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel. The hypothesis presented that Russia, using energy tools, is trying to push the regional powers toward cooperation in order to increase the influence in the region, increase power in global markets, and controlling the US to restore power balance in the region. Its cooperation in the Iranian gas industry, the country’s relations with Saudis in the framework of OPEC, cooperation with the Turkish Kurds and the presence in the Israeli gas industry are an example of these Russian energy diplomacy initiatives in West Asia, which is the common point of the Moscow approach to South West Asia.

Keywords: Russia, balance of power, energy diplomacy, Middle East

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Authors: Muhammad Fajar Suardi, Fathimatufzzahra, Dela Isnaini Sendra

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Learning is an activity that has been used to do, especially for a student or academics. But a handful of people have not been using and maximizing their brains work and some also do not know a good brain work time in capturing the lessons, so that knowledge is absorbed is also less than the maximum. Indonesia Memory Sports Council (IMSC) is an institution which is engaged in the performance of the brain and the development of effective learning methods by using several techniques that can be used in considering the lessons and knowledge to grasp well, including: loci method, substitution method, and chain method. This study aims to determine the techniques and benefits of using the method given in learning and memorization by applying memory techniques taught by Indonesia Memory Sports Council (IMSC) to students and the difference if not using this method. This research uses quantitative research with survey method addressed to students of Indonesian Memory Sports Council (IMSC). The results of this study indicate that learn, understand and remember the lesson using the techniques of memory which is taught in Indonesia Memory Sport Council is very effective and faster to absorb the lesson than learning without using the techniques of memory, and this affects the academic achievement of students in each educational institution.

Keywords: chain method, Indonesia memory sports council, loci method, substitution method

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Authors: Lukas Stiburek, Jana Cesnekova, Josef Houstek, Jiri Zeman

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Cellular function depends on mitochondrial function and integrity that is therefore maintained by several classes of proteins possessing chaperone and/or proteolytic activities. In this work, we focused on characterization of LACE1 (lactation elevated 1) function in mitochondrial protein homeostasis maintenance. LACE1 is the human homologue of yeast mitochondrial Afg1 ATPase, a member of SEC18-NSF, PAS1, CDC48-VCP, TBP family. Yeast Afg1 was shown to be involved in mitochondrial complex IV biogenesis, and based on its similarity with CDC48 (p97/VCP) it was suggested to facilitate extraction of polytopic membrane proteins. Here we show that LACE1, which is a mitochondrial integral membrane protein, exists as part of three complexes of approx. 140, 400 and 500 kDa and is essential for maintenance of fused mitochondrial reticulum and lamellar cristae morphology. Using affinity purification of LACE1-FLAG expressed in LACE1 knockdown background we show that the protein physically interacts with mitochondrial inner membrane protease YME1L. We further show that human LACE1 exhibits significant pro-apoptotic activity and that the protein is required for normal function of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Thus, our work establishes LACE1 as a novel factor with the crucial role in mitochondrial homeostasis maintenance.

Keywords: LACE1, mitochondria, apoptosis, protease

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Authors: Iddrisu Ibrahim, Joseph Atia Ayariga, Junhuan Xu, Daniel A. Abugri, Robertson K. Boakai, Olufemi S. Ajayi

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The recalcitrance of pathogenic bacteria indicates that millions of people who are at risk of infection arising from chronic diseases, surgery, organ transplant, diabetes, and several other debilitating diseases present an aura of potentially untreatable illness due to resistance development. Antimicrobial resistance has successfully become a global health menace, and resistances are often acquired by bacteria through health-care-related incidence (HRI) orchestrated by multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extended drug-resistant pathogens (EDRP). To understand the mechanisms S. Typhimurium uses to resist CDB, we study the abundance of LPS modification, Ergosterols, Mysristic palmitic resistance, Oleic acid resistance of susceptible and resistant S. Typhimurium. Using qPCR, we also analyzed the expression of selected genes known for enabling resistance in S. Typhimurium. We found high abundance of LPS, Ergosterols, Mysristic palmitic resistance, Oleic acid resistance of and high expression of resistant genes in S. Typhimurium compared to the susceptible strain. LPS modification, Ergosterols, Mysristic palmitic resistance, Oleic acid and genes such as Fims, integrons, blaTEM are important indicators of resistance development of S. typhimurium.

Keywords: antimicrobials, resistance, Cannabidiol, Salmonella, blaTEM, fimA, Lipopolysaccharide, Ergosterols

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Authors: Hamid Karimi, Naegar Mahdavi, Hossein Tayefi Nasrabadi

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Spermatozoids production rate and its quality are more important factors in the diagnosis of infertility. Also, spematozids activity have a more important role in fertilization. Some medicinal plants as Asparagus(Asparagus officinalis) has many antioxidant component. Therefore, They can affect testes tissue to production more and high-quality spermatozoids. In this survey, Asparagus root extract is studied on spermatogenesis index in the laboratory mouse testes. Hydro-alcoholic extract of asparagus root is prepared and examined on four group of the mature male mouse. Blank group without extract, group 1,100ml/kg dose, group 2, 200 ml/kg dose and group 3, 300ml/kg dose. Then, mice are euthanized, and testes are removed. Testes are weighted, and paraffinized blocks are prepared. TDI(Tubular Differentiation Index) and SPI(Spermiation Index) are studied on histological sections by light microscope. This study results were showed that TDI and SPI in treatments groups with 200 and 300 ml/kg dose had significant enhancement (P<0.05). Consequently, Extract of Asparagus root can enhance spermatozoid production and, therefore, cause improve fertility in male laboratory mice.

Keywords: histology, spermatozoid, ASP [aragus, testes

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Authors: Sheng-Hui Lan, Shan-Ying Wu, Shu-Ching Lin, Wei-Chen Wang, Hsiao-Sheng Liu

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Autophagy is an essential mechanism to maintain cellular homeostasis through its degradation function, and the autophagy deficiency is related various diseases including tumorigenesis in several cancers. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small none coding RNAs, which regulate gene expression through degradation of mRNA or inhibition of translation. However, the relationship between autophagy deficiency and dysregulated miRNAs is still unclear. We revealed a mechanism that autophagy up-regulates miR-449a expression at the transcriptional level through activation of forkhead transcription factor family member FoxO1 and then suppresses tumorigenesis in CRC. Our data showed that the autophagic activity and miR-449a expression were lower in colorectal cancer (CRC) and has a positive correlation. We further reveal that autophagy degrades p300 expression and then suppresses acetylation of FoxO1. Under autophagic induction conditions, FoxO1 is transported from the cytoplasm to the nucleus and binds to the miR-449a promoter and then promotes miR-449a expression. In addition, either miR-449a overexpression or amiodarone-induced autophagy inhibits cell cycle progression, proliferation, colony formation migration, invasion, and tumor formation of SW480 cells. Our findings indicate that autophagy inducers may have the potential to be used for prevention and treatment of CRC through upregulation of miR-449a expression.

Keywords: autophagy, MiR-449a, FoxO1, colorectal cancer

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Authors: Shadab Bahreini

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Public transportation is one of the most important aspects of cities, which impacts various factors of the Quality of Life (QoL) of citizens. A passenger's experience is influenced by a variety of indicators in addition to the cost and safety of the trip. This article intends to investigate how QoL is affected by public transport in an urban environment by introducing a literature review of QoL and Quality of Urban Life (QoUL), investigating the intersection of QoL and public transport, and reviewing the background theory for Transport Quality of Life (TQoL). The article proposes a Public Transport Quality of Life (PTQoL) framework comprised of a set of indicators that measure how public transport impacts QoL across personal (physical and mental), socioeconomic, and environmental dimensions. The study proposes using the framework to evaluate objective or subjective factors affecting a person's QoL regarding public transport. Finally, it concludes that public transport is a key component in shaping QoL in urban environments and that policymakers and urban planners should use the PTQoL framework to make evidence-based decisions to improve public transport systems and their impact on QoL.

Keywords: public transport, quality of life, subjective and objective indicators, urban environment

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Authors: Wei Tian, Jie Liang, Hammad Naveed

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Beta-barrel membrane proteins are found in the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria, mitochondria, and chloroplasts. They carry out diverse biological functions, including pore formation, membrane anchoring, enzyme activity, and bacterial virulence. In addition, beta-barrel membrane proteins increasingly serve as scaffolds for bacterial surface display and nanopore-based DNA sequencing. Due to difficulties in experimental structure determination, they are sparsely represented in the protein structure databank and computational methods can help to understand their biophysical principles. We have developed a novel computational method to predict the 3D structure of beta-barrel membrane proteins using evolutionary coupling (EC) constraints and a reduced state space. Combined with an empirical potential function, we can successfully predict strand register at > 80% accuracy for a set of 49 non-homologous proteins with known structures. This is a significant improvement from previous results using EC alone (44%) and using empirical potential function alone (73%). Our method is general and can be applied to genome-wide structural prediction.

Keywords: beta-barrel membrane proteins, structure prediction, evolutionary constraints, reduced state space

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Authors: Lijun Wang, Zhen-Yu Chen

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A high-fat diet induces the accumulation of lipid hydroperoxides, accelerates the ageing process and causes a greater mortality in Drosophila melanogaster. The purple sweet potato is rich in antioxidant anthocyanin. The present study was to examine if supplementation of purple sweet potato anthocyanin (PSPA) could reduce the mortality of fruit flies fed a high-fat diet. Results showed that the mean lifespan of fruit fly was shortened from 56 to 35 days in a dose-dependent manner when lard in the diet increased from 0% to 20%. PSPA supplementation attenuated partially the lard-induced mortality. The maximum lifespan and 50% survival time were 49 and 27 days for the 10% lard control flies, in contrast, they increased to 57 and 30 days in the PSPA-supplemented fruit flies. PSPA-supplemented diet significantly up-regulated the mRNA of superoxide dismutase, catalase and Rpn11, compared with those in the control lard diet. In addition, PSPA supplementation could restore the climbing ability of fruit flies fed a 10% lard diet. It was concluded that the lifespan-prolonging activity of PSPA was most likely mediated by modulating the genes of SOD, CAT and Rpn11.

Keywords: purple sweet potato, anthocyanin, high-fat diet, oxidative stress

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Authors: Tanu Malik, Eusebe Gnonlonfoun, Eudes L. Anihouvi

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The rise of nutrition-related diseases, increase of health care cost, and the social perception that food could directly affect health have naturally created an environment conducive to the development of foods and beverages with an asserted health benefit. Consumer habits have turned considerably healthier in recent years and led to the demand for fortified and enhanced foods that could adequately provide health benefits beyond necessary nutrients for humans when they are consumed as part of the diet and regularly. These trends have developed a global market for functional foods, that grows annually and undoubtedly requires to be diversified. Product development appears thus as a key research priority for both the food industry and science sectors. The health benefits of these functional foods are summarized in two possible ways: either indirectly as a desired result of biogenic effect or through the direct interaction of ingested live microorganisms with the host (probiotic effect). This paper reviews functional foods and their beneficial health effects with a key focus on probiotics for the possible expansion of their use by the food industry in order to develop non-dairy based probiotics foods. Likewise, it reveals the need for more researches oriented towards an accurate understanding of the possible interaction between probiotic strains and the matrix and, on the other hand, the interaction between probiotic strains and some enzymes used during food manufacturing.

Keywords: functional foods, food industry, health benefits, probiotics

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Authors: Christos Chaschatzis, Chrysoula Karaiskou, Pantelis Angelidis, Sotirios K. Goudos, Igor Kotsiuba, Panagiotis Sarigiannidis

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Over the past few decades, the rapid growth of the global population has led to the need to increase agricultural production and improve the quality of agricultural goods. There is a growing focus on environmentally eco-friendly solutions, sustainable production, and biologically minimally fertilized products in contemporary society. Precision agriculture has the potential to incorporate a wide range of innovative solutions with the development of machine learning algorithms. YOLOv5 and YOLOv8 are two of the most advanced object detection algorithms capable of accurately recognizing objects in real time. Detecting tree diseases is crucial for improving the food production rate and ensuring sustainability. This research aims to evaluate the efficacy of YOLOv5 and YOLOv8 in detecting the symptoms of Armillaria spp. in sweet cherry trees and determining their health status, with the goal of enhancing the robustness of precision agriculture. Additionally, this study will explore Computer Vision (CV) techniques with machine learning algorithms to improve the detection process’s efficiency.

Keywords: Armillaria spp., machine learning, precision agriculture, smart farming, sweet cherries trees, YOLOv5, YOLOv8

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Authors: Fatemeh Nejati, Farah Habib, Sayeh Goudarzi

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Architecture and structure have always been closely interrelated so that they should be integrated into a unified, coherent and beautiful universe, while in the contemporary era, both structures and architecture proceed separately. The purpose of architecture is the art of creating form and space and order for human service, and the goal of the structural engineer is the transfer of loads to the structure, too. This research seeks to achieve the goal by looking at the relationship between the form of architecture and structure from its inception to the present day to the Global Identification and Management Plan. Finally, by identifying the main components of the design of the structure in interaction with the architectural form, an effective step is conducted in the Professional training direction and solutions to professionals. Therefore, after reviewing the evolution of structural and architectural coordination in various historical periods as well as how to reach the form of the structure in different times and places, components are required to test the components and present the final theory that one hundred to be tested in this regard. Finally, this research indicates the fact that the form of architecture and structure has an aesthetic link, which is influenced by a number of components that could be edited and has a regular order throughout history that could be regular. The research methodology is analytic, and it is comparative using analytical and matrix diagrams and diagrams and tools for conducting library research and interviewing.

Keywords: architecture, structural form, structural and architectural coordination, effective components, aesthetics

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Authors: Daniel M. Wolff, Patricia Gray, Rafael de la Parra Venegas

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An unsupervised machine listening system is constructed and applied to a dataset of 17,195 30-second marine hydrophone recordings. The system is then heuristically supplemented with anecdotal listening, contextual recording information, and supervised learning techniques to reduce the number of false positives. Features for classification are assembled by extracting the following data from each of the audio files: the spectral centroid, root-mean-squared values for each frequency band of a 10-octave filter bank, and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients in 5-second frames. In this way both time- and frequency-domain information are contained in the features to be passed to a clustering algorithm. Classification is performed using the k-means algorithm and then a k-nearest neighbors search. Different values of k are experimented with, in addition to different combinations of the available feature sets. Hypothesized class labels are 'primarily anthrophony' and 'primarily biophony', where the best class result conforming to the former label has 104 members after heuristic pruning. This demonstrates how a large audio dataset has been made more tractable with machine learning techniques, forming the foundation of a framework designed to acoustically monitor and gauge biological and anthropogenic activity in a marine environment.

Keywords: anthrophony, hydrophone, k-means, machine learning

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Authors: Aleksandra Majewska

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The article analyses the impact of Western sanctions on Russian rhythmic gymnastics since the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The chronological presentation of events shows how international political tensions and economic sanctions have affected the organisation of competitions, training and the careers of athletes. The article outlines the key moments and decisions that have changed the landscape of Russian sport, including the decision to change the citizenship made by some gymnasts in order to continue competing in international competitions. Russia strongly opposes participation in competitions without its flag and anthem while maintaining the view that Russian gymnasts are crucial to the prestige of rhythmic gymnastics in the world. In response to the sanctions, Russia created its own rules for rhythmic gymnastics, according to which they now compete domestically. Furthermore, this sport in Russia is strongly linked to politics, which further emphasises its importance in the national and international context. The information collected derives from numerous interviews with Russian athletes, coaches and other people, which are available only in the Russian language. The findings highlight the significant difficulties Russian athletes have faced due to their isolation in the international arena and the adaptive strategies adopted by Russia in the face of these challenges. The article makes an important contribution to understanding the consequences of global politics on the world of sport and the fate of individual athletes.

Keywords: sport, gymnastics, war in Ukraine, sanctions

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Authors: Mohammad Tefagh

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The process of globalization has transformed many social and cultural phenomena and has entered the world into a new era and arena. This phenomenon has introduced new methods, ideas, and identity interactions to human beings and has caused great changes in individual and social identity. Women have also been affected by globalization. Globalization has made the presence of women more and more effective and has caused identity changes and changes in the dimensions of identity in them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of globalization of culture on changes in the social identity of educated women in the global city of Yazd. This study will discuss identity change and identity reconstruction due to globalization. The method of this study is qualitative, and the research data is obtained through in-depth interviews with 15 Yazdi-educated women at the Ph.D. level. The method of data analysis is thematic analysis. Findings of the research show that educated Yazdi women have changed their identity due to new communication processes and globalization, including faster, easier, and cheaper communication with other women in the world near and far. Women's social identity has also changed in the face of elements of globalization in various dimensions such as national, gender, religious, and group identities. The analysis of the interviews revealed the confronting elements such as using new cultural goods and communication technologies, membership in social networks, and increasing awareness of environmental change.

Keywords: globalization, social identity, educated women, Yazd

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Authors: Sean Hall

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Nanosystems for drug delivery are not new; as medicines evolve, so too does the desire to deliver a more targeted, patient-compliant medicine. Though, historically the widespread use of nanosystems for drug delivery has been fouled by non-replicability, scalability, toxicity issues, and economics. Examples include steps of manufacture and thus cost to manufacture, toxicity for nanoparticle scaffolding, autoimmune response, and considerable technical expertise for small non-commercial yields. This, unfortunately, demonstrates the not-so-obvious chasm between science and drug formulation for regulatory approval. Regardless there is a general and global desire to improve the delivery of medicines, reduce potential side effect profiles, promote increased patient compliance, and increase and/or speed public access to medicine availability. In this paper, the author will discuss NanoCelle®, a nano-delivery platform that specifically addresses degradation and solubility issues that expands from fundamental micellar preparations. NanoCelle® has been deployed in several Australian listed medicines and is in use of several drug candidates across small molecules, with research endeavors now extending into large molecules. The author will discuss several research initiatives as they relate to NanoCelle® to demonstrate similarities seen in various drug substances; these examples will include both in vitro and in vivo work.

Keywords: NanoCelle®, micellar, degradation, solubility, toxicity

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Authors: Anna Bykalyuk, Frédéric Kuznik, Kévyn Johannes

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In this paper, the influence of a vertical plate’s thermal capacity is numerically investigated in order to evaluate the evolution of the thermal boundary layer structure, as well as the convective heat transfer coefficient and the velocity and temperature profiles. Whereas the heat flux of the heated vertical plate is evaluated under time depending boundary conditions. The main important feature of this problem is the unsteadiness of the physical phenomena. A 2D CFD model is developed with the Ansys Fluent 14.0 environment and is validated using unsteady data obtained for plasterboard studied under a dynamic temperature evolution. All the phenomena produced in the vicinity of the thermal conductive vertical plate (plasterboard) are analyzed and discussed. This work is the first stage of a holistic research on transient free convection that aims, in the future, to study the natural convection in the vicinity of a vertical plate containing Phase Change Materials (PCM).

Keywords: CFD modeling, natural convection, thermal conductive plate, time-depending boundary conditions

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Authors: Kofi Kyei, Kenchi Matsui

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Loss of vegetable products has been a major constraint in the post-harvest chain. Sources of post-harvest loss in the vegetable industry start from the time of harvesting to its handling and at the various market centers. Identifying vegetable farmers’ perceptions about post-harvest loss sources is one way of addressing this issue. In this paper, we assessed farmers’ perceptions about sources of post-harvest losses in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. We also identified the factors that influence their perceptions. To clearly understand farmers’ perceptions, we selected Sekyere-Kumawu District in the Ashanti Region. Sekyere-Kumawu District is one of the major producers of vegetables in the Region. Based on a questionnaire survey, 100 vegetable farmers growing tomato, pepper, okra, cabbage, and garden egg were purposely selected from five communities in Sekyere-Kumawu District. For farmers’ perceptions, the five points Likert scale was employed. On a scale from 1 (no loss) to 5 (extremely high loss), we processed the scores for each vegetable harvest. To clarify factors influencing farmers’ perceptions, the Pearson Correlation analysis was used. Our findings revealed that farmers perceive post-harvest loss by pest infestation as the most extreme loss. However, vegetable farmers did not perceive loss during transportation as a serious source of post-harvest loss. The Pearson Correlation analysis results further revealed that farmers’ age, gender, level of education, and years of experience had an influence on their perceptions. This paper then discusses some recommendations to minimize the post-harvest loss in the region.

Keywords: Ashanti Region, pest infestation, post-harvest loss, vegetable farmers

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Authors: Terry Teo, Sun Woh Lye, Yufei Li, Zainuddin Zakaria

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Wearable devices such as Electroencephalography (EEG) hold immense potential in the monitoring and assessment of a person’s task engagement. This is especially so in remote or online sites. Research into its use in measuring an individual's cognitive state while performing task activities is therefore expected to increase. Despite the growing number of EEG research into brain functioning activities of a person, key challenges remain in adopting EEG for real-time operations. These include limited portability, long preparation time, high number of channel dimensionality, intrusiveness, as well as level of accuracy in acquiring neurological data. This paper proposes an approach using a 4-6 EEG channels to determine the cognitive states of a subject when undertaking a set of passive and active monitoring tasks of a subject. Air traffic controller (ATC) dynamic-tasks are used as a proxy. The work found that when using the channel reduction and identifier algorithm, good trend adherence of 89.1% can be obtained between a commercially available BCI 14 channel Emotiv EPOC+ EEG headset and that of a carefully selected set of reduced 4-6 channels. The approach can also identify different levels of engagement activities ranging from general monitoring ad hoc and repeated active monitoring activities involving information search, extraction, and memory activities.

Keywords: assessment, neurophysiology, monitoring, EEG

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Authors: Zhou Xiong, Kang Shao Bo, Yang Bo

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To date, high-performance structural steel has been widely used for columns in construction practices due to its significant advantages over conventional steel. However, the same design approach with conventional steel columns is still adopted in the design of high-performance steel columns. As a result, its superior properties cannot be fully considered in design. This paper conducts a test and finite element analysis on the overall stability behaviour of welded Q460GJ steel box columns. In the test, four steel columns with different slenderness and width-to-thickness ratio were compressed under an axial compression testing machine. And finite element models were established in which material nonlinearity and residual stress distributions of test columns were included. Then, comparisons were made between test results and finite element result, it showed that finite element analysis results are agree well with the test result. It means that the test and finite element model are reliable. Then, we compared the test result with the design value calculated by current code, the result showed that Q460GJ steel box columns have the higher overall buckling capacity than the design value. It is necessary to update the design curves for Q460GJ steel columns so that the overall stability capacity of Q460GJ box columns can be designed appropriately.

Keywords: axial compression, box columns, global buckling, numerical simulations, Q460GJ steel

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Authors: Alaaeldin Hamdy Ahmed Mohammed

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Introduction: This study examines sports’ fans and non-interested public perception and recognition of the problems that have negative impacts upon the Egyptian sports, particularly football, through caricatures. Eight caricature paintings were designed to express eight problems affecting the Egyptian sports and its development. These paintings were distributed on two groups of the fans and the non-interested public. Methods: The study was limited to eight caricatures representing the eight issues which are: the impact of stopping the sports activity on athletes, the effect of clubs’ disagreement, fanaticism between the members of the ultras of different clubs, the negative impact of the mingling of politics into sports, the negative role of the clubs affects the professionalism of the promising players, the conflict between the national organization responsible for sports, the breaking in of the fans to the playgrounds, the impact of the lack of planning on the national team. The Results: The results showed that both sports fans and those who are not interested in sports recognized the problems that the caricatures refer to and criticizes exaggeration although the rate was higher for the fans. These caricatures contributed also in their recognition of the danger of the negative impact of these problems on the Egyptian sports, particularly football which is the most common at the Egyptian sports fans. Discussion: This finding echoes the conclusion that caricatures are distinctive in the adults’ facial stimuli that are either systematically exaggerated recognition of them.

Keywords: caricature, fans, football, sports

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Authors: Mehrnoosh Askarizadeh

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In an ever changeable and globalized world with new economic and global competitors competing for the same customers and resources, is increasing the pressure on organizations' competitiveness. In addition, organizations faces additional challenges due to an ever-growing amount of data and the ever-bigger challenge of analyzing that data and keeping the data secure. Successful companies are characterized by exploiting their intellectual capital in an efficient manner. Thus, the most valuable asset an organization has today has become its employees' knowledge. To enable this, there is a tool that supports easier handling and optimizes the use of knowledge, which is knowledge management. Based on the theoretical framework and careful review as well as analysis of interviews and observations resulted in six essential areas: structure, management, compensation, communication, trust and motivation. The analysis showed that the scientific articles and literature have different perspectives, different definitions and are based on different theories but the essence is that they all finally seems to arrive at the same result and conclusion, although with different viewpoints and perspectives. This is regardless of whether the focus is on management style, rewards or communication they all focus on the individual. The conclusion is that organizational culture affects knowledge management and dissemination of information, because of its direct impact on the individual. The largest and most important underlying factor why we choose to participate in improvement work or share knowledge is our motivation. Motivation is the reason for and the reason behind our actions.

Keywords: lean, lean production, knowledge management, information management, motivation

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Authors: Adnan Ahmad, Yusri Kamin, Asnol Dahar Minghat, Mohd. Khir Nordin, Dayana Farzeha, Ahmad Nabil

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The purpose of this study is to identify the teaching method practices of the practical work subject in Vocational Secondary School. This study examined the practice of Vocational Teaching Method in Automotive Practical Work. The quantitative method used the sets of the questionnaire. 283 students and 63 teachers involved from ten VSS involved in this research. Research finding showed in conducting the introduction session teachers prefer used the demonstration method and questioning technique. While in deliver the content of practical task, teachers applied group monitoring and problem-solving approach. To conclude the task of automotive practical work, teachers choose re-explain and report writing to make sure students really understand all the process of teaching. VTM-APW also involved the competency-based concept to embed in the model. Derived from factors investigated, research produced the combination of elements in teaching skills and vocational skills which could be used as the best teaching method in automotive practical work for school level. As conclusion this study has concluded that the VTM-APW model is able to apply in teaching to make an improvement with current practices in Vocational Secondary School. Hence, teachers are suggested to use this method to enhance student's knowledge in Automotive and teachers will deliver skills to the current and future workforce relevant with the required competency skilled in workplace.

Keywords: vocational teaching method, practical task, teacher preferences, student preferences

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Authors: Luís Antonio de Almeida Rodriguez, José Maria Parente de Oliveira, Ednelson Oliveira

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In the last two decades, the world’s aviation authorities have made several attempts to create consensus about a global and accepted approach for applying semantics to web services registry descriptions. This problem has led communities to face a fat and disorganized infrastructure to describe aeronautical web services. It is usual for developers to implement ad-hoc connections among consumers and providers and manually create non-standardized service compositions, which need some particular approach to compose and semantically discover a desired web service. Current practices are not precise and tend to focus on lightweight specifications of some parts of the OWL-S and embed them into syntactic descriptions (SOAP artifacts and OWL language). It is necessary to have the ability to manage the use of both technologies. This paper presents an implementation of the ontology OWL-S that describes a Brazilian Aeronautical Web Service Registry, which makes it able to publish, advertise, make multi-criteria semantic discovery aligned with the ideas of the System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Program, and invoke web services within the Air Traffic Management context. The proposal’s best finding is a generic approach to describe semantic web services. The paper also presents a set of functional requirements to guide the ontology development and to compare them to the results to validate the implementation of the OWL-S Ontology.

Keywords: aeronautical web services, OWL-S, semantic web services discovery, ontologies

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Authors: Tamanda Kamwendo

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The concept of benefit sharing has been a prominent global debate in the world, gaining traction in human research ethics. Despite its prevalence, the concept of benefit sharing is not without controversy over its meaning and justification. This is due to the fact that it lacks a broadly accepted definition and many proponents discuss benefit sharing by arguing for its necessity rather than engaging in critical intellectual engagement with technical issues such as what it implies. What is clear in the literature is that the underlying premise of benefit-sharing is that research involving underprivileged and marginalized people is currently unjust and inequitable because these people are denied access to these gains; thus, benefit-sharing arrangements are required for these research projects to be just and equitable. This paper, therefore, investigates the discourses and justifications behind the concept of benefit sharing to human participants, particularly when dealing with human genomics research. Furthermore, considering that benefit sharing is generally viewed as a transaction between research organizations and research participants, it raises ethical concerns concerning the commodification of human material and undermines the sanctity of the human genome. This is predicated on the idea that research sponsors would be compelled to deliver a minimum set of possible benefits to research participants and communities in exchange for their involvement in the study. There is, therefore, need to protect benefit-sharing practices in international health research by developing a governance legal framework. A legal framework of benefit sharing will also dispel the issue of commodification of human material where human genomic research is done.

Keywords: benefit sharing, human participants, human genomic research, ethical concerns

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Authors: Luke S. Carlos A. Thompson

Abstract:

The medical model of disability, though beneficial for the medical professional, is often exclusionary, restrictive and dehumanizing when applied to the lived experience of disability. As a result, a critique of this model was constructed called the social model of disability. Much of the language used to articulate the purpose behind the social model of disability can be summed up within the word inclusion. However, this essay asserts that inclusiveness is an incomplete aspiration. The social model, as it currently stands, does not aid in creating a society where those with impairments actually belong. Rather, the social model aids in lessening the visibility, or negative consequence of, difference. Therefore, the social model does not invite society to welcome those with physical and intellectual impairments. It simply aids society in ignoring the existence of impairment by removing explicit forms of exclusion. Rather than simple inclusion, then, this essay uses John Swinton’s concept of friendship and Jean Vanier’s understanding of belonging to better articulate the intended outcome of the social model—a society where everyone can belong.

Keywords: belong, community, differently-able, disability, exclusion, friendship, inclusion, normality

Procedia PDF Downloads 435