Search results for: point effect

Authors: Meseret Teshome

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This study has the objective of assessing the effect of kaizen (5S, Muda elimination and Quality Control Circle (QCC) on employees’ affective attitude (job satisfaction, commitment and job stress) in Kombolcha Textile Share Company. A conceptual model was developed to describe the relationship between Kaizen and Employees’ Affective Attitude (EAA) factors. The three factors of Employee Affective Attitude were measured using questionnaire derived from other validated questionnaire. In the data collection to conduct this study; questionnaire, unstructured interview, written documents and direct observations are used. To analyze the data, SPSS and Microsoft Excel were used. In addition, the internal consistency of similar items in the questionnaire instrument was measured for their equivalence by using the cronbach’s alpha test. In this study, the effect of 5S, Muda elimination and QCC on job satisfaction, commitment and job stress in Kombolcha Textile Share Company is assessed and factors that reduce employees’ job satisfaction with respect to kaizen implementation are identified. The total averages of means from the questionnaire are 3.1 for job satisfaction, 4.31 for job commitment and 4.2 for job stress. And results from interview and secondary data show that kaizen implementation have effect on EAA. In general, based on the thesis results it was concluded that kaizen (5S, muda elimination and QCC) have positive effect for improving EAA factors at KTSC. Finally, recommendations for improvement are given based on the results.

Keywords: kaizen, job satisfaction, job commitment, job stress

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Authors: A. Ramalho, L. Romeiro, R. Ventura, A. Suleman

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A real-time path planning framework for Unmanned Air Vehicles, and in particular multi-rotors is proposed. The framework is designed to provide feasible trajectories from the current UAV position to a goal state, taking into account constraints such as obstacle avoidance, problem kinematics, and vehicle limitations such as maximum speed and maximum acceleration. The framework computes feasible paths online, allowing to avoid new, unknown, dynamic obstacles without fully re-computing the trajectory. These features are achieved using an iterative process in which the robot computes and optimizes the trajectory while performing the mission objectives. A first trajectory is computed using a modified Rapidly-Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm, that provides trajectories that respect a maximum curvature constraint. The trajectory optimization is accomplished using the Interior Point Optimizer (IPOPT) as a solver. The framework has proven to be able to compute a trajectory and optimize to a locally optimal with computational efficiency making it feasible for real-time operations.

Keywords: interior point optimization, multi-rotors, online path planning, rapidly exploring random trees, trajectory optimization

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Authors: Alim Asamatdinov

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Superabsorbent polymer hydrogels can swell to absorb huge volumes of water or aqueous solutions. This property has led to many practical applications of these new materials, particularly in agriculture for improving the water retention of soils and the water supply of plants. This article reviews the methods of polymeric hydrogels, measurements and treatments of their properties, as well as their effects on soil and on plant growth. The thermodynamic approach used to describe the swelling behaviour of polymer networks proves to be quite helpful in modelling the hydrogel efficiency of water-absorbing additives. The paper presents the results of a study of the physical and chemical properties of hydrogels based on of the production of "Nitron" (Polyacrylonitrile) wastes fibre and salts of the 3-rd transition metals and formalin. The developed hydrogels HG-Al, HG-Cr and HG-formalin have been tested for water holding the capacity of sand. Such a conclusion was also confirmed by data from the method of determining the wilting point by vegetative thumbnails. In the entering process using a dose of 0.1% of the swelling polymeric hydrogel in sand with a culture of barley the difference between the wilting point in comparison with the control was negligible. This indicates that the moisture which was contained in the hydrogel is involved in moisture availability for plant growth, to the same extent as that in the capillaries.

Keywords: hydrogel, chemical, polymer, sandy, colloid

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Authors: Stella C. Okenu, Stephen O. Adikwu, Martins E. Okoro

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The geothermal energy resource potential of the Lower Benue Trough (LBT) in Nigeria was evaluated in this study using spectral analysis of high-resolution aeromagnetic (HRAM) data. The reduced to the equator aeromagnetic data was divided into sixteen (16) overlapping blocks, and each of the blocks was analyzed to obtain the radial averaged power spectrum which enabled the computation of the top and centroid depths to magnetic sources. The values were then used to assess the Curie Point Depth (CPD), geothermal gradients, and heat flow variations in the study area. Results showed that CPD varies from 7.03 to 18.23 km, with an average of 12.26 km; geothermal gradient values vary between 31.82 and 82.50°C/km, with an average of 51.21°C/km, while heat flow variations range from 79.54 to 206.26 mW/m², with an average of 128.02 mW/m². Shallow CPD zones that run from the eastern through the western and southwestern parts of the study area correspond to zones of high geothermal gradient values and high subsurface heat flow distributions. These areas signify zones associated with anomalous subsurface thermal conditions and are therefore recommended for detailed geothermal energy exploration studies.

Keywords: geothermal energy, curie-point depth, geothermal gradient, heat flow, aeromagnetic data, LBT

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Authors: H. B. Tibar, Z. Y. Jiang

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In this study, the influence of rolling process parameters such as the work roll cross angle and work roll shifting value on the strip shape and profile of aluminum have been investigated under dry conditions at a speed ratio of 1.3 using Hille 100 experimental mill. The strip profile was found to improve significantly with increase in work roll cross angle from 0^o to 1^o, with an associated decrease in rolling force. The effect of roll shifting (from 0 to 8mm) was not as significant as the roll cross angle. However, an increase in work roll shifting value achieved a similar decrease in rolling force as that of work roll cross angle. The effect of work roll shifting was also found to be maximum at an optimum roll speed of 0.0986 m/s for the desired thickness. Of all these parameters, the most significant effect of the strip shape profile was observed with variation of work roll cross angle. However, the rolling force can be a significantly reduced by either increasing the the work roll cross angle or work roll shifting.

Keywords: rolling speed ratio, strip shape, work roll cross angle, work roll shifting

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Authors: M. Nasiri

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Aim: Considering the hypoglisimic ad hipolipidimic effect of the fenugreek seed and aerobic exercise training, this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of fenugreek and aerobic exercise training on insulin resistance in women with type 2 diabetes. Methodology: 32 patients with type II diabetes were selected and randomly divided into four groups: control, fenugreek, training and fenugreek - training. Fenugreek groups used 10 grams of fenugreek seeds daily for eight weeks on two occasions before noon and evening meal. Training of groups is also performed a regular program of aerobic exercise 65-55% of maximum heart rate (4 days per week).Two days before and after the training period, blood samples were taken from their brachial veins in a fasting state (12 hours prior to the test) in a sitting position. The data was analyzed used of t-independent and ANOVA at a significance level of α < 0.05. Results: Intra-group changes in all experimental groups showed that significant decrease insulin resistance, and the difference between groups showed significant difference between the groups of fenugreek - training than other groups there. Conclusions: According to the research findings to fenugreek combined with aerobic exercise more beneficial effect on the inhibition of insulin resistance in women with diabetes are recommended to them.

Keywords: fenugreek, training, insulin resistance, diabetes

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Authors: Pankaj Kumar

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Rapid global changes resulted in unfavorable hydrological, ecological, and environmental changes and cumulatively affected natural resources. As a result, the local communities become vulnerable to water stress, poor hygiene, the spread of diseases, food security, etc.. However, the central point for this vulnerability revolves around water resources and the way people interrelate with the hydrological system. Also, most of the efforts to minimize the adverse effect of global changes are centered on the mitigation side. Hence, countries with poor adaptive capacities and poor governance suffer most in case of disasters. However, several transdisciplinary numerical tools are well designed and are capable of answering “what-if questions” through scenario analysis using a system approach. This study has predicted the future water environment in Marikina River in the National Capital Region, Metro Manila of Philippines, using Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP), an integrated water resource management tool. Obtained results can answer possible adaptation measures along with their associated uncertainties. It also highlighted various challenges for the policy planners to design adaptation countermeasures as well as to track the progress of achieving SDG 6.0.

Keywords: water quality, Philippines, climate change adaptation, hydrological simulation, wastewater management, weap

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Authors: M. Wigwe, J. G Akpa, E. N Wami

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Mathematical models of the absorber of a glycol dehydration facility was developed using the principles of conservation of mass and energy. Models which predict variation of the water content of gas in mole fraction, variation of gas and liquid temperatures across the parking height were developed. These models contain contributions from bulk and diffusion flows. The effect of diffusion on the process occurring in the absorber was studied in this work. The models were validated using the initial conditions in the plant data from Company W TEG unit in Nigeria. The results obtained showed that the effect of diffusion was noticed between z=0 and z=0.004 m. A deviation from plant data of 0% was observed for the gas water content at a residence time of 20 seconds, at z=0.004 m. Similarly, deviations of 1.584% and 2.844% were observed for the gas and TEG temperatures.

Keywords: separations, absorption, simulation, dehydration, water content, triethylene glycol

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Authors: Benallou Yassine, Amara Kadda, Bouazza Boubakar, Soudini Belabbes, Arbouche Omar, M. Zemouli

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The study of the pressure effect on the materials, their functionality and their properties is very important, insofar as it provides the opportunity to identify others applications such the optical properties in the alkaline earth chalcogenides, as like the SrS. Here we present the first-principles calculations which have been performed using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave method (FP-LAPW) within the Generalized Gradient Approximation developed by Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhor for solids (PBEsol). The calculated structural parameters like the lattice parameters, the bulk modulus B and their pressure derivative B' are in reasonable agreement with the available experimental and theoretical data. In addition, the elastic properties such as elastic constants (C11, C12, and C44), the shear modulus G, the Young modulus E, the Poisson’s ratio ν and the B/G ratio are also given. The treatments of exchange and correlation effects were done by the Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson (TB-mBJ) potential for the electronic. The pressure effect on the electronic properties was visualized by calculating the variations of the gap as a function of pressure. The obtained results are compared to available experimental data and to other theoretical calculations

Keywords: SrS, GGA-PBEsol+TB-MBJ, density functional, Perdew–Burke–Ernzerhor, FP-LAPW, pressure effect

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Authors: Ekaterina M. Myasnikova, Andrey A. Makashov, Alexander V. Spirov

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First manifestation of a segmentation pattern in the early Drosophila development is the formation of expression domains (along with the main embryo axis) of genes belonging to the trunk gene class. Highly variable expression of genes from gap family in early Drosophila embryo is strongly reduced by the start of gastrulation due to the gene cross-regulation. The dynamics of gene expression is described by a gene circuit model for a system of four gap genes. It is shown that for the formation of a steep and stationary border by the model it is necessary that there existed a nucleus (modeling point) in which the gene expression level is constant in time and hence is described by a stationary equation. All the rest genes expressed in this nucleus are in a dynamic equilibrium. The mechanism of border formation associated with the existence of a stationary nucleus is also confirmed by the experiment. An important advantage of this approach is that properties of the system in a stationary nucleus are described by algebraic equations and can be easily handled analytically. Thus we explicitly characterize the cross-regulation properties necessary for the robustness and formulate the conditions providing this effect through the properties of the initial input data. It is shown that our formally derived conditions are satisfied for the previously published model solutions.

Keywords: drosophila, gap genes, reaction-diffusion model, robustness

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Authors: Piotr Kacejko, Mariusz Duk, Miroslaw Wendeker

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This paper presents an adaptive controller to track the maximum power point of a photovoltaic modules (PV) under fast irradiation change on the city-bus roof. Photovoltaic systems have been a prominent option as an additional energy source for vehicles. The Municipal Transport Company (MPK) in Lublin has installed photovoltaic panels on its buses roofs. The solar panels turn solar energy into electric energy and are used to load the buses electric equipment. This decreases the buses alternators load, leading to lower fuel consumption and bringing both economic and ecological profits. A DC–DC boost converter is selected as the power conditioning unit to coordinate the operating point of the system. In addition to the conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic panel, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method also plays a main role to harvest most energy out of the sun. The MPPT unit on a moving vehicle must keep tracking accuracy high in order to compensate rapid change of irradiation change due to dynamic motion of the vehicle. Maximum power point track controllers should be used to increase efficiency and power output of solar panels under changing environmental factors. There are several different control algorithms in the literature developed for maximum power point tracking. However, energy performances of MPPT algorithms are not clarified for vehicle applications that cause rapid changes of environmental factors. In this study, an adaptive MPPT algorithm is examined at real ambient conditions. PV modules are mounted on a moving city bus designed to test the solar systems on a moving vehicle. Some problems of a PV system associated with a moving vehicle are addressed. The proposed algorithm uses a scanning technique to determine the maximum power delivering capacity of the panel at a given operating condition and controls the PV panel. The aim of control algorithm was matching the impedance of the PV modules by controlling the duty cycle of the internal switch, regardless of changes of the parameters of the object of control and its outer environment. Presented algorithm was capable of reaching the aim of control. The structure of an adaptive controller was simplified on purpose. Since such a simple controller, armed only with an ability to learn, a more complex structure of an algorithm can only improve the result. The presented adaptive control system of the PV system is a general solution and can be used for other types of PV systems of both high and low power. Experimental results obtained from comparison of algorithms by a motion loop are presented and discussed. Experimental results are presented for fast change in irradiation and partial shading conditions. The results obtained clearly show that the proposed method is simple to implement with minimum tracking time and high tracking efficiency proving superior to the proposed method. This work has been financed by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development, PBS, under Grant Agreement No. PBS 2/A6/16/2013.

Keywords: adaptive control, photovoltaic energy, city bus electric load, DC-DC converter

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Authors: Emre Alan, Yusuf Yamanturk, Gokay Bas

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Non-grain oriented electrical steels are high silicon containing steels in which the direction of magnetism is intended the same in any direction of the material. Major applications of non-grain-oriented electrical steels are electrical motors, generators, etc. where low magnetic losses are required. Selection of proper hot rolling process parameters is an important factor in order to produce a material that has desired magnetic properties. In this study, the effect of finishing and coiling temperatures on magnetic properties of Fe-3%Si non-grain oriented electrical steels will be investigated. Additionally, the effect of slab reheating temperature at same entry finishing temperature will be investigated by means of reduction in roughing mill pass number from 1-5 to 1-3.

Keywords: electrical steels, hot rolling, magnetic properties, roughing mill

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Authors: T. Nakpun, T. Kanjanarach, T. Kittisopee

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Turnover of community pharmacist can affect continuity of patient care and most importantly the quality of care and also the costs of a pharmacy. It was hypothesized that organizational resources, job characteristics, and social supports had direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention, and indirect effect on pharmacist turnover intention via pharmacist engagement. This research aimed to study influencing factors on pharmacist engagement and pharmacist turnover intention by testing the proposed structural hypothesized model to explain the relationship among organizational resources, job characteristics, and social supports that effect on pharmacist turnover intention and pharmacist engagement in Thai community pharmacists. A cross sectional study design with self-administered questionnaire was conducted in 209 Thai community pharmacists. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling technique with analysis of a moment structures AMOS program. The final model showed that only organizational resources had significant negative direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention (β =-0.45). Job characteristics and social supports had significant positive relationship with pharmacist engagement (β = 0.44, and 0.55 respectively). Pharmacist engagement had significant negative relationship with pharmacist turnover intention (β = - 0.24). Thus, job characteristics and social supports had significant negative indirect effect on turnover intention via pharmacist engagement (β =-0.11 and -0.13, respectively). The model fit the data well (χ2/ degree of freedom (DF) = 2.12, the goodness of fit index (GFI)=0.89, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.94 and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07). This study can be concluded that organizational resources were the most important factor because it had direct effect on pharmacist turnover intention. Job characteristics and social supports were also help decrease pharmacist turnover intention via pharmacist engagement.

Keywords: community pharmacist, influencing factor, turnover intention, work engagement

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Authors: Anna Petr Safrankova, Karla Hrbackova

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The education of socially disadvantaged students is in the long term spotlight of many pedagogical researches in both Czech and foreign environment. These researches among others investigate this topic from the point of view of individual compensatory measure which tries to overcome or remove the social disadvantage. The focus of the study is to highlight the important role of teachers in the education of this specific group of students, among others in terms of their (teachers´) pre-graduate training. The aim of the study is to point out the importance of teachers´ self-efficacy. The study is based on the assumption that the teacher's self-efficacy may significantly affect the teacher's perception of a particular group of students and thereby affect the education of the students. The survey involved 245 teachers from the two regions in the Czech Republic. In the research were used TES questionnaire (with the dimensions personal teaching efficacy – PTE and general teaching efficacy – GTE) by Gibson and Dembo and the semantic differential (containing 12 scales with bipolar adjectives) which investigated the components of teachers' attitudes toward socially disadvantaged students. It was found that teachers’ self-efficacy significantly affects the teachers’ perception of the group of socially disadvantaged students. Based on this finding we believe that it is necessary to work with this concept (prepare teachers to educate this specific group of students) already during higher education and especially during the pre-graduate teachers training.

Keywords: teachers, socially disadvantaged students, semantic differential, teachers self-efficacy

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Authors: Farina Yasmin

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Motivation is an important issue in an EFL setting where very little exposure to English in everyday life is clearly evident. In Bangladesh, English is taught as a foreign language. Language teachers cannot effectively teach a language if they do not understand the relationship between motivation and its effect on foreign language learning. The main purpose of this research is to explore the fact why HSC students are less motivated towards English language learning, what factors are affecting motivation, how to motivate them and the role of motivation in their success. The research questions were (a) what are the reasons of lack of motivation? and (b) what are the impacts of motivation on English language learning? The study was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The data was collected via pretest - posttest, interviews, and a questionnaire on the five point Likert scale. Triangulation of the data was made for the validity of the research. The population of this research consisted of 50 HSC level students from Jatir Janak Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Government College, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The data was analyzed with means, comparison and t-test. The results showed that there is a strong relation between motivation and success in foreign language learning. Finally, some pedagogical implications and suggestions were presented to arouse the students’ motivation to learn English.

Keywords: EFL, HSC, motivation, success

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Authors: Stephen Wagman

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This paper identifies three common structures in English sentences that are important for understanding academic texts, regardless of the characteristics or background of the readers or whether they are reading English as a second or a foreign language. Adapting a model from the Humanities, the explication of texts used in literary studies, the paper analyses sample sentences to reveal structures that enable the reader not only to decide which words are necessary for understanding the main ideas but to make the decision without knowing the meaning of the words. By their very syntax noun structures point to the key word for understanding them. As a rule, the key noun is followed by easily identifiable prepositions, relative pronouns, or verbs and preceded by single adjectives. With few exceptions, the modifiers are unnecessary for understanding the idea of the sentence. In addition, sentences are often structured by lists in which the items frequently consist of parallel groups of words. The principle of a list is that all the items are similar in meaning and it is not necessary to understand all of the items to understand the point of the list. This principle is especially important when the items are long or there is more than one list in the same sentence. The similarity in meaning of these items enables readers to reduce sentences that are hard to grasp to an understandable core without excessive use of a dictionary. Finally, the idea of subordination and the identification of the subordinate parts of sentences through connecting words makes it possible for readers to focus on main ideas without having to sift through the less important and more numerous secondary structures. Sometimes a main idea requires a subordinate one to complete its meaning, but usually, subordinate ideas are unnecessary for understanding the main point of the sentence and its part in the development of the argument from sentence to sentence. Moreover, the connecting words themselves indicate the functions of the subordinate structures. These most frequently show similarity and difference or reasons and results. Recognition of all of these structures can not only enable students to read more efficiently but to focus their attention on the development of the argument and this rather than a multitude of unknown vocabulary items, the repetition in lists, or the subordination in sentences are the one necessary element for comprehension of academic articles.

Keywords: development of the argument, lists, noun structures, subordination

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Authors: Vahid Bairami Rad

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The intelligentization of agricultural fields can control the temperature, humidity, and variables affecting the growth of agricultural products online and on a mobile phone or computer. Smarting agricultural fields and gardens is one of the best and best ways to optimize agricultural equipment and has a 100 percent direct effect on the growth of plants and agricultural products and farms. Smart farms are the topic that we are going to discuss today, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. Agriculture is becoming smarter every day. From large industrial operations to individuals growing organic produce locally, technology is at the forefront of reducing costs, improving results and ensuring optimal delivery to market. A key element to having a smart agriculture is the use of useful data. Modern farmers have more tools to collect intelligent data than in previous years. Data related to soil chemistry also allows people to make informed decisions about fertilizing farmland. Moisture meter sensors and accurate irrigation controllers have made the irrigation processes to be optimized and at the same time reduce the cost of water consumption. Drones can apply pesticides precisely on the desired point. Automated harvesting machines navigate crop fields based on position and capacity sensors. The list goes on. Almost any process related to agriculture can use sensors that collect data to optimize existing processes and make informed decisions. The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the center of this great transformation. Internet of Things hardware has grown and developed rapidly to provide low-cost sensors for people's needs. These sensors are embedded in IoT devices with a battery and can be evaluated over the years and have access to a low-power and cost-effective mobile network. IoT device management platforms have also evolved rapidly and can now be used securely and manage existing devices at scale. IoT cloud services also provide a set of application enablement services that can be easily used by developers and allow them to build application business logic. Focus on yourself. These development processes have created powerful and new applications in the field of Internet of Things, and these programs can be used in various industries such as agriculture and building smart farms. But the question is, what makes today's farms truly smart farms? Let us put this question in another way. When will the technologies associated with smart farms reach the point where the range of intelligence they provide can exceed the intelligence of experienced and professional farmers?

Keywords: food security, IoT automation, wireless communication, hybrid lifestyle, arduino Uno

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Authors: Xiaohua Zhu, Lingling Ma, Yongguang Zhao

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Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a key structural characteristic of crops and plays a significant role in precision agricultural management and farmland ecosystem modeling. However, LAI retrieved from different resolution data contain a scaling bias due to the spatial heterogeneity and model non-linearity, that is, there is scale effect during multi-scale LAI estimate. In this article, a typical farmland in semi-arid regions of Chinese Inner Mongolia is taken as the study area, based on the combination of PROSPECT model and SAIL model, a multiple dimensional Look-Up-Table (LUT) is generated for multiple crops LAI estimation from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral data. Based on Taylor expansion method and computational geometry model, a scale transfer model considering both difference between inter- and intra-class is constructed for scale effect analysis of LAI inversion over inhomogeneous surface. The results indicate that, (1) the LUT method based on classification and parameter sensitive analysis is useful for LAI retrieval of corn, potato, sunflower and melon on the typical farmland, with correlation coefficient R2 of 0.82 and root mean square error RMSE of 0.43m2/m-2. (2) The scale effect of LAI is becoming obvious with the decrease of image resolution, and maximum scale bias is more than 45%. (3) The scale effect of inter-classes is higher than that of intra-class, which can be corrected efficiently by the scale transfer model established based Taylor expansion and Computational geometry. After corrected, the maximum scale bias can be reduced to 1.2%.

Keywords: leaf area index (LAI), scale effect, UAV-based hyperspectral data, look-up-table (LUT), remote sensing

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Authors: Siavash Mirahmadizoghi, Steven Bell, David Simpson

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

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

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Authors: Kaewmart Pongakkasira

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

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

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Authors: Nor-Edine Abriak, Mouhamadou Amar, Mahfoud Benzerzour

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The transition to a more sustainable economy is directed by a reduction in the consumption of raw materials in equivalent production. The recovery of byproducts and especially the dredged sediment as mineral addition in cements matrix represents an alternative to reduce raw material consumption and construction sector’s carbon footprint. However, the efficient use of sediment requires adequate and optimal treatment. Several processing techniques have so far been applied in order to improve some physicochemical properties. The heat treatment by calcination was effective in removing the organic fraction and activates the pozzolanic properties. In this article, the effect of the optimized heat treatment of marine sediments in the physico-mechanical and environmental properties of mortars are shown. A finding is that the optimal substitution of a portion of cement by treated sediments by calcination at 750 °C helps to maintain or improve the mechanical properties of the cement matrix in comparison with a standard reference mortar. The use of calcined sediment enhances mortar behavior in terms of mechanical strength and durability. From an environmental point of view and life cycle, mortars formulated containing treated sediments are considered inert with respect to the inert waste storage facilities reference (ISDI-France).

Keywords: sediment, calcination, cement, reuse

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Authors: Phuriwat Laomethakorn, Siritron Samosorn, Ramida Watanapokasin

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Cancer metastasis is the major cause of cancer-related death. Therefore searching for a compound that could inhibit cancer metastasis is necessary. 13-Butoxyberberine bromide is a berberine derivative that has not been reported an anti-metastatic effect on skin cancer cells. This study aimed to investigate the anti-metastatic effect of 13-butoxyberberine bromide on skin cancer A431 cells. The effect of 13-butoxyberberine bromide on A431 cell viability was examined by MTT assay. Suppression of cell migration and invasion in A431 cells were determined by wound healing assay, transwell migration assay, and transwell invasion assay. Metastasis proteins were determined by western blotting. The results demonstrated that 13-butoxyberberine bromide decreased A431 cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, sub-toxic concentrations of 13-butoxyberberine bromide suppressed cell migration and invasion in A431 cells. In addition, 13-butoxyberberine bromide showed anti-metastatic effects by down-regulated MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression. These findings may be useful in the development of 13-butoxyberberine bromide as an anti-metastatic drug in the future.

Keywords: 13-butoxyberberine bromide, metastasis, skin cancer, MMP

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Authors: Juan Carlos Quiñones

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Time has passed since the industrial design has put murder on a mass-production basis. The industrial design applies methods from different disciplines with a strategic approach, to place humans at the centers of the design process and to deliver solutions that are meaningful and desirable for users and for the market. This analysis summarizes some of the discussions that occurred in the 6th International Forum of Design as a Process, June 2016, Valencia. The aims of this conference were finding new linkages between systems and design interactions in order to define the social consequences. Through knowledge management we are able to transform the intangible aspect by using design as a transforming function capable of converting intangible knowledge into tangible solutions (i.e. products and services demanded by society). Industrial designers use knowledge consciously as a starting point for the ideation of the product. The handling of the intangible becomes more and more relevant over time as different methods emerge for knowledge extraction and subsequent organization. The different methodologies applied to the industrial design discipline and the evolution of the same discipline methods underpin the cultural and scientific background knowledge as a starting point of thought as a response to the needs; the whole thing coming through the instrument of creativity for the achievement of the proper and necessary balance between intuition and reason, design and science.

Keywords: creative process, creativity, industrial design, intangible

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Authors: Man Chung Chu

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In the dynamic family interaction, parental self-efficacy is connected with parent-child attachment. Parental self-efficacy and its corresponding behavior played an influential role in the lifespan development of the child. Recently, Mindful parenting is popularly addressed as it lightens parents’ awareness to their own thoughts feelings and behaviors by adapting a nonjudgmental attitude in the present moment being with the child. The effectiveness of mindful parent is considerably significant in enhancing parent-child relationship as well as family functioning. Parenting in early developmental stage is always challenging and essential for later growth, however, literature is rarely exploring the mediation of mindful parenting on the effect of parent self-efficacy on parent-child attachment in preschoolers’ families. The mediation effect of the research shed light on how mindful parenting should head, where parental self-efficacy training should be incorporated together with mindful family program in attempt to yield the best outcome in the family of young-aged children. Two hundred and eight (208) parents, of two to six years old children, were participated in the study and results supported the significance in the mediator effect of mindful parenting in both facets, i.e. Parent-focused - ‘Mindful Discipline’ and Child-focused – ‘Being in the moment with the child’ where parental self-efficacy is a significant predictor of mindful parenting. The implication of the result suggests that mindful parenting would be a therapeutic framework in promoting family functioning and child’s well-being, it would also be a ‘significant helping hand’ in maintaining continuous secure attachment relationship and growing their mindful children in a family.

Keywords: mediation effect, mindful parenting, parental self efficacy, parent-child attachment, preschoolers

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Authors: Satya Girish Goparaju

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It is said that the pyramid of Needs is not an invention by Maslow but only a graphical representation of his theory. It is also interesting to note how business management schools have adopted this interpreted theory to organizational behavior and marketing subjects. Against this background, this article attempts to raise the point that the hierarchy of needs proposed by Abraham Maslow need not necessarily be represented in a pyramid, but a linear model would be more eligible in the present times. To propose this point, this article presents needs a comparative study of ‘self-actualization’ (the apex of the pyramid) in organizational behavior and branding contexts, respectively. This article tries to shed light on the original theory proposed by Maslow, which stated that self-actualization is attained through living one’s life completely and not by satisfying individual needs. Therefore, in an organizational behavior perspective, it can be understood that self-actualization is irrelevant as an employee’s life is not the work and the satisfied needs in a workplace will only make the employee perform better. In the same way, a brand does not sell products to satisfy all needs of a consumer and does not have a role directly in attaining self-actualization. For the purpose of this study, select employees of a branding agency will participate in responding to a questionnaire to answer both as employees of an organization and also as consumers of a global smartphone brand. This study aims to deconstruct the interpretations that have been widely accepted by both organizational behavior and branding professionals.

Keywords: branding, marketing, needs, organizational behavior, psychology

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Authors: Chiling Chen, Chiaoying Chou, Siyang Wu

Abstract:

Taiwan locates at the west of Pacific Ocean and intersects between continental and marine climate. Typhoons frequently strike Taiwan and come with meteorological disasters, i.e., heavy flooding, landslides, loss of life and properties, etc. Global climate change brings more extremely meteorological disasters. So, develop techniques to improve disaster prevention and mitigation is needed, to improve rescue processes and rehabilitations is important as well. In this study, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are applied to take instant images for improving the disaster investigation and rescue processes. Paddy rice fields in the central Taiwan are the study area. There have been attacked by heavy rain during the monsoon season in June 2016. UAV images provide the high ground resolution (3.5cm) with 3D Point Clouds to develop image discrimination techniques and digital surface model (DSM) on rice lodging. Firstly, image supervised classification with Maximum Likelihood Method (MLD) is used to delineate the area of rice lodging. Secondly, 3D point clouds generated by Pix4D Mapper are used to develop DSM for classifying the lodging levels of paddy rice. As results, discriminate accuracy of rice lodging is 85% by image supervised classification, and the classification accuracy of lodging level is 87% by DSM. Therefore, UAVs not only provide instant images of agricultural damage after the meteorological disaster, but the image discriminations on rice lodging also reach acceptable accuracy (>85%). In the future, technologies of UAVs and image discrimination will be applied to different crop fields. The results of image discrimination will be overlapped with administrative boundaries of paddy rice, to establish GIS-based assist system on agricultural damage discrimination. Therefore, the time and labor would be greatly reduced on damage detection and monitoring.

Keywords: Monsoon, supervised classification, Pix4D, 3D point clouds, discriminate accuracy

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Authors: Sang Hoon Lee, Tae Il Lee, Su Jeong Lee, Jae Min Myoung

Abstract:

In order to manufacture short gap single Si nanowire (NW) field effect transistor (FET) by imprinting and transferring method, we introduce the method using Al2O3 sacrificial layer. The diameters of cylindrical Si NW addressed between Au electrodes by dielectrophoretic (DEP) alignment method are controlled to 106, 128, and 148 nm. After imprinting and transfer process, cylindrical Si NW is embedded in PVP adhesive and dielectric layer. By curing transferred cylindrical Si NW and Au electrodes on PVP-coated p++ Si substrate with 200nm-thick SiO2, 3μm gap Si NW FET fabrication was completed. As the diameter of embedded Si NW increases, the mobility of FET increases from 80.51 to 121.24 cm2/V•s and the threshold voltage moves from –7.17 to –2.44 V because the ratio of surface to volume gets reduced.

Keywords: Al2O3 sacrificial transfer layer, cylindrical silicon nanowires, dielectrophorestic alignment, field effect transistor

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Authors: Syahidah N. Zulkifli, Herlina A. Rahim, Nurul A. M. Subha

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Sustaining water quality is critical in order to avoid any harmful health consequences for end-user consumers. The detection of microbial impurities at the household level is the foundation of water security. Water quality is now monitored only at water utilities or infrastructure, such as water treatment facilities or reservoirs. This research provides a first-hand scientific understanding of microbial composition presence in Malaysia’s household point-of-use (POUs) water supply influenced by seasonal fluctuations, standstill periods, and flow dynamics by using the NIR-Raman spectroscopic technique. According to the findings, 20% of water samples were contaminated by pathogenic bacteria, which are Legionella and Salmonella cells. A comparison of the spectra reveals significant signature peaks (420 cm⁻¹ to 1800 cm⁻¹), including species-specific bands. This demonstrates the importance of regularly monitoring POUs water quality to provide a safe and clean water supply to homeowners. Conventional Raman spectroscopy, up-to-date, is no longer suited for real-time monitoring. Therefore, this study introduced an alternative micro-spectrometer to give a rapid and sustainable way of monitoring POUs water quality. Assessing microbiological threats in water supply becomes more reliable and efficient by leveraging IoT protocol.

Keywords: microbial contaminants, water quality, water monitoring, Raman spectroscopy

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Authors: Keping Zuo, Foad Kabinejadian, Gideon Praveen Kumar Vijayakumar, Fangsen Cui, Pei Ho, Hwa Liang Leo

Abstract:

Carotid artery stenting (CAS) is the standard procedure for patients with severe carotid stenosis at high risk for carotid endarterectomy (CAE). A major drawback of CAS is the higher incidence of procedure-related stroke compared with traditional open surgical treatment for carotid stenosis - CEA, even with the use of the embolic protection devices (EPD). As the currently available bare metal stents cannot address this problem, our research group developed a novel preferential covered-stent for carotid artery aims to prevent friable fragments of atherosclerotic plaques from flowing into the cerebral circulation, and yet maintaining the flow of the external carotid artery. The preliminary animal studies have demonstrated the potential of this novel covered-stent design for the treatment of carotid atherosclerotic stenosis. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of membrane coating on the stent flexibility in order to improve the clinical performance of our novel covered stents. A total of 21 stents were evaluated in this study: 15 self expanding bare nitinol stents and 6 PTFE-covered stents. 10 of the bare stents were coated with 11%, 16% and 22% Polyurethane(PU), 4%, 6.25% and 11% EE, as well as 22% PU plus 5 μm Parylene. Different laser cutting designs were performed on 4 of the PTFE covert stents. All the stents, with or without the covered membrane, were subjected to a three-point flexural test. The stents were placed on two supports that are 30 mm apart, and the actuator is applying a force in the exact middle of the two supports with a loading pin with radius 2.5 mm. The loading pin displacement change, the force and the variation in stent shape were recorded for analysis. The flexibility of the stents was evaluated by the lumen area preservation at three displacement bending levels: 5mm, 7mm, and 10mm. All the lumen areas in all stents decreased with the increase of the displacement from 0 to 10 mm. The bare stents were able to maintain 0.864 ± 0.015, 0.740 ± 0.025 and 0.597 ± 0.031of original lumen area at 5 mm, 7 mm and 10mm displacement respectively. For covered stents, the stents with EE coating membrane showed the best lumen area preservation (0.839 ± 0.005, 0.7334 ± 0.043 and 0.559 ± 0.014), whereas, the stents with PU and Parylene coating were only 0.662, 0.439 and 0.305. Bending stiffness was also calculated and compared. These results provided optimal material information and it was crucial for enhancing clinical performance of our novel covered stents.

Keywords: carotid artery, covered stent, nonlinear, hyperelastic, stress, strain

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Authors: Marie E. Docken

Abstract:

At some point in the lifecycle of a country, patterns of political and social unrest of varying degrees are observed. Events involving public disorder or civil disobedience may produce effects that range a wide spectrum of varying outcomes, depending on the level of unrest. Many previous studies, primarily theoretical in nature, have attempted to measure public disorder in answering why or how it occurs in society by examining causal factors or underlying issues in the social or political position of a population. The main objective in doing so is to understand how these activities evolve or seek some predictive capability for the events. In contrast, this research involves the fusion of analytics and social studies to provide more knowledge of the public disorder and civil disobedience intensity in populations. With a greater understanding of the magnitude of these events, it is believed that we may learn how they relate to extreme actions such as mass migration or violence. Upon establishing a model for measuring civil unrest based upon empirical data, a case study on various Latin American countries is performed. Interpretations of historical events are combined with analytical results to provide insights regarding the magnitude and effect of social and political activism.

Keywords: public disorder, civil disobedience, Latin America, metrics, data analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 147