Search results for: accounting information quality

Authors: V. Paployan, K. Madoyan, A. Melikyan, H. Minassian

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Resonant two-photon ionization (TPI) is a valuable technique for the study of clusters due to its ultrahigh sensitivity. The comparison of the observed TPI spectra with results of calculations allows to deduce important information on the shape, rotational and vibrational temperatures of the clusters with high accuracy. In this communication we calculate the TPI cross-section for pump-probe scheme in Ag neutral cluster. The pump photon energy is chosen to be close to the surface plasmon (SP) energy of cluster in dielectric media. Since the interband transition energy in Ag exceeds the SP resonance energy, the main contribution into the TPI comes from the latter. The calculations are performed by separating the coordinates of electrons corresponding to the collective oscillations and the individual motion that allows to take into account the resonance contribution of excited SP oscillations. It is shown that the ionization cross section increases by two orders of magnitude if the energy of the pump photon matches the surface plasmon energy in the cluster.

Keywords: resonance enhancement, silver clusters, surface plasmon, two-photon ionization

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Authors: I. Kruashvili, I. Inashvili, K. Bziava, M. Lomishvili

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Seepage capillary anomalies in the active layer of soil, related to the soil water movement, often cause variation of soil hydrophysical properties and become one of the main objectives of the hydroecology. It is necessary to mention that all existing equations for computing the seepage flow particularly from soil channels, through dams, bulkheads, and foundations of hydraulic engineering structures are preferable based on the linear seepage law. Regarding the existing beliefs, anomalous seepage is based on postulates according to which the fluid in free volume is characterized by resistance against shear deformation and is presented in the form of initial gradient. According to the above-mentioned information, we have determined: Equation to calculate seepage coefficient when the velocity of transition flow is equal to seepage flow velocity; by means of power function, equations for the calculation of average and maximum velocities of seepage flow have been derived; taking into consideration the fluid continuity condition, average velocity for calculation of average velocity in capillary tube has been received.

Keywords: seepage, soil, velocity, water

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Authors: H. Nur Görkemli, Mehmet Fidan

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After the first acquaintance with internet in April 1993, number of internet users increased rapidly in Turkey. According to Turkish Statistical Institute’s 2013 data, internet usage in Turkey between 16-74 age group is 48,9%. Hospitals are one of the areas where internet is being intensively used like many other businesses. As a part of public relations application, websites are important tools for hospitals to reach a wide range of target audience within and outside the organization. With their websites, hospitals have opportunities to give information about their organization, strengthen their image, compete with their rivals, interact with shareholders, reflect their transparency and meet with new audiences. This study examines web sites of totally 31 hospitals which are located in Konya. Institutions are categorized as public and private hospitals and then three main research categories are determined: content, visual and technical. Main and sub categories are examined by using content analysis method. Results are interpreted in terms of public and private institutions.

Keywords: websites, hospital, health communication, internet, webpages

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Authors: Dorcas Matowe

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Inequality in health care for racial and ethnic minorities continues to be a growing concern for many Americans. Some of the barriers hindering the elimination of health disparities include lack of insurance, socioeconomic status (SES), and racism. This study will specifically focus on the association between some of these factors- health care access, which includes insurance coverage and frequency of doctor visits, race, ethnicity, and health status. The purpose of this study will be to address the following questions: is having health insurance associated with increased doctor visits? Are racial and ethnic minorities with health insurance more or less likely to see a doctor? Is the association between having health insurance moderated by being an ethnic minority? Given the current implications of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, this study will highlight the need to prioritize health care access for minorities and confront institutional racism. Critical Race Theory (CRT) will demonstrate how racism has reinforced these health disparities. This quantitative study design will analyze secondary data from the 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) questionnaire, a telephone survey conducted annually in all 50 states and three US territories by state health departments in conjunction with the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Non-identifying health-related data is gathered annually from over 400,000 adults 18 years and above about their health status and use of preventative services. Through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the relationship between the predictor variables of health care access, race, and ethnicity, the criterion variable of health status, and the latent variables of emotional support and life satisfaction will be examined. It is hypothesized that there will be an interaction between certain racial and ethnic minorities who went to see a doctor, had insurance coverage, experienced racism, and the quality of their health status, emotional support, and life satisfaction.

Keywords: ethnic minorities, health disparities, health access, racism

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Authors: Mahsa Ghorbani Jazin

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The insurance industry has a prominent place in the economy of every country in the world. Fire insurance policies are types of non-life insurance, which protect insureds against financial losses of fire and related risks. In this paper, factors that are affecting the demand for fire insurance in Iran have been examined. Due to this reason, information and data have been collected during the period 1989-2019. In this research, the final model was estimated. The obtained results represent that as the population and literacy rate increase, people are more willing to purchase fire insurance. On the other hand, the actual per capita income has a negative influence on the demand for this type of insurance. Also, the amount of compensation that is paid in losses can be assumed as an indirect advertisement for fire insurance and attracts people to buy this policy. Finally, the new technology in the insurance industry is examined as a new underestimated way for increasing demand, especially in Iran.

Keywords: fire insurance, demand, per capita income, literacy rate, population, compensation paid, Insurtech

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Authors: Yang Liu

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The work team has been being adopted by the CCP for special missions in a limited time. Since the 18th National Congress of CCP, the unprecedented practice of the work team has had impacts beyond the original goal of poverty alleviation, their functions in village governance have still not been well studied. As the state agents that come from the outside of the village community, this article argues that the work team is a group that represents the coexistence of political, economic, and cultural capital, which contributes to effectively empower the state, and the village cadres and the peasants. For the state, more accurate bottom-up information could be collected by the work team, and policies could be made scientifically and implemented without distortion. For the village cadres, they can learn leadership skills and share more resources owned or mobilized by the work team. For the peasants, they have more access to participate the public affairs of their village and express their claims. The multiple empowerments have greatly improved the relationship among the state, the peasants, and the village cadres since a series of reforms from 1980s to 2000s that alienated the relationship among them.

Keywords: state, village cadre, empowerment, work team, peasants

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Authors: Nor Sahida Ibrahim, Ruhaila Maskat, Aishah Ahmad

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Almost all tertiary-level students will undergo some form of training in organisations prior to their graduation. This practice provides the necessary exposure and experience to allow students to cope with actual working environment and culture in the future. Nevertheless, a particular degree of “matching” between what is expected and what can be offered between students and organisations underpins how effective and enriching the experience is. This matching of students and organisations is challenging when preferences from both parties must be satisfied. This work developed a web-based system, namely the OrganisationMatcher, which leverage on the use of preference weights to score each organisation and rank them based on “suitability”. OrganisationMatcher has been implemented on a relational database, designed using object-oriented methods and developed using PHP programming language for browser front-end access. We outline the challenges and limitations of our system and discuss future improvements to the system, specifically in the utilisation of intelligent methods.

Keywords: student industrial placement, information system, web-based, ranking

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Authors: Wen Chiat Lee, K. Kuperan Viswanathan

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Illegal, Unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing brings great losses to the economies of the fishing nations. Understanding the reasons contributing to IUU fishing is crucial in reducing it. Economic, institutional and social factors are key drivers of IIU fishing. The economic factor is the main contributor to IUU fishing. The two possible ways to curb the IUU fishing is highlighted. One way is to reduce the revenue from IUU fishing and another way is to increase the cost of IUU fishing. There are three costs of IUU fishing that can be increased namely the operating, capital and risk costs. Approaches for reducing the economic rent or profit from IUU fishing are developed and directions for reducing IUU fishing are also suggested. Improved registration of fishing vessels, preventing entry of illegal fish products and most importantly, developing co-management of fisheries are the ways forward for reducing IUU fishing. All governments in ASEAN must work in tandem with the stakeholders involved such as fishers, fishermen agencies or associations to exchange information for reducing the transaction cost of IUU fishing.

Keywords: Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, co-management, fisheries management, economic rent framework

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Authors: Abdelghani Leghouchi

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This study aims to predict the consequences associated with the propagation of the flood wave that may occur after the failure of the Taksebt dam and suggest an efficient emergency action plan (EAP) for mitigation purposes. To achieve the objectives of this study, the hydrodynamic model HEC-RAS 2D was used for the flood routing of the dam break wave, which gave an estimate of the hydraulic characteristics downstream the Taksebt dam. Geospatial analysis of the simulation results conducted in a Geographic information system (GIS) environment showed that many residential areas are considered to be in danger in case of the Taksebt dam break event. Based on the obtained results, an emergency actions plan was suggested to moderate the causalities in the downstream area at risk. Overall, the present study showed that the integration of 2D hydraulic modeling and GIS provides great capabilities in providing realistic view of the dam break wave propagation that enhances assessing the associated risks and proposing appropriate mitigation measures.

Keywords: taksebt dam, dam break, wave propagation time, HEC-RAS 2D

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Authors: Hussain Sajid, Jung-Hun Shin, Kum-Won Cho

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Image super-resolution is the most common computer vision problem with many important applications. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have promoted remarkable advances in single-image super-resolution (SR) by recovering photo-realistic images. However, high memory requirements of GAN-based SR (mainly generators) lead to performance degradation and increased energy consumption, making it difficult to implement it onto resource-constricted devices. To relieve such a problem, In this paper, we introduce an optimized and highly efficient architecture for SR-GAN (generator) model by utilizing model compression techniques such as Knowledge Distillation and pruning, which work together to reduce the storage requirement of the model also increase in their performance. Our method begins with distilling the knowledge from a large pre-trained model to a lightweight model using different loss functions. Then, iterative weight pruning is applied to the distilled model to remove less significant weights based on their magnitude, resulting in a sparser network. Knowledge Distillation reduces the model size by 40%; pruning then reduces it further by 18%. To accelerate the learning process, we employ the Horovod framework for distributed training on a cluster of 2 nodes, each with 8 GPUs, resulting in improved training performance and faster convergence. Experimental results on various benchmarks demonstrate that the proposed compressed model significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and image quality for x4 super-resolution tasks.

Keywords: single-image super-resolution, generative adversarial networks, knowledge distillation, pruning

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Authors: Somar Boubou, Tatsuo Narikiyo, Michihiro Kawanishi

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In this work, we address the problem of 3D object recognition with depth sensors such as Kinect or Structure sensor. Compared with traditional approaches based on local descriptors, which depends on local information around the object key points, we propose a global features based descriptor. Proposed descriptor, which we name as Differential Histogram of Normal Vectors (DHONV), is designed particularly to capture the surface geometric characteristics of the 3D objects represented by depth images. We describe the 3D surface of an object in each frame using a 2D spatial histogram capturing the normalized distribution of differential angles of the surface normal vectors. The object recognition experiments on the benchmark RGB-D object dataset and a self-collected dataset show that our proposed descriptor outperforms two others descriptors based on spin-images and histogram of normal vectors with linear-SVM classifier.

Keywords: vision in control, robotics, histogram, differential histogram of normal vectors

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Authors: Nurlaili E. P., Astuti M., Marsono Y., Naruki S.

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Iron is an essential nutrient with limited bioavailability. Nutritional anemia caused mainly by iron deficiency is the most recognized nutritional problem in both countries as well as affluent societies. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) has become the most important cereal crop for the improvement of human health due to the starch, protein, oil, and the majority of micronutrients, particularly in Asian countries. In this study, the iron availability and profile lipid were evaluated for the extracts from Cibeusi varieties (black rices) of ancient rice brans. Results: The quality of K, B, R, E diets groups shows the same effect on the growth of rats. This indicate that groups is as efficiently utilized by the body as E diets. Hematocrit and MCHC levels of rats fed K, B, R and E diets were not significantly (P< 0.05). MCV and MCH levels of rats K, B, R were significantly (P< 0.05) with E groups but rats K, B, R were not significantly (P< 0.05). The iron content in the serum of rats fed with K, B, R and E diets were not significantly (P< 0.05). The highest level of iron in the serum was founded in the B group. The iron content in the liver of rats fed with K, B, R and E diets were not significantly (P< 0.05). The highest level of iron in the liver was founded in the R group. HDL cholesterol levels were significantly (P< 0.05) between rats of fed B, E with K, R, but K and R were not significantly (P< 0.05). LDL cholesterol levels of rats fed K and E significantly (P< 0.05) with B and R. Conclusions: the bran of pigmented rice varieties has, with some exceptions, greater antioxidant and free-radical scavenging activities. The results also show that pigmented rice extracts acted as pro-oxidants in the lipid peroxidation assay, possibly by mechanisms described for the pro-oxidant activities of tocopherol and ascorbic. Pigmented rice bran extracts more effectively increases iron stores and reduces the prevalence of iron deficiency. And reduces cholesterol, TG and LDL cholesterol and increses HDL cholesterol.

Keywords: anemia, black rice bran extract, iron, profile lipid

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Authors: Sibele A. F. Leite, Bernno S. Leite, José Vicente H. D´Angelo, Ana Teresa P. Dell’Isola, Julio CéSar Souza

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The generation of bioenergy is one of the oldest and simplest biomass applications and is one of the safest options for minimizing emissions of greenhouse gasses and replace the use of fossil fuels. In addition, the increasing development of technologies for energy biomass conversion parallel to the advancement of research in biotechnology and engineering has enabled new opportunities for exploitation of biomass. Agricultural residues offer great potential for energy use, and Brazil is in a prominent position in the production and export of agricultural products such as banana and rice. Despite the economic importance of the growth prospects of these activities and the increasing of the agricultural waste, they are rarely explored for energy and production of new materials. Brazil products almost 10.5 million tons/year of rice husk and 26.8 million tons/year of banana stem. Thereby, the aim of this study was to analysis the potential of biomass residues for energy production and applications in new materials. Rice husk (specify the type) and banana stem (specify the type) were characterized by physicochemical analyses using the following parameters: organic carbon, nitrogen (NTK), proximate analyses, FT-IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyses (TG), calorific values and silica content. Rice husk and banana stem presented attractive superior calorific (from 11.5 to 13.7MJ/kg), and they may be compared to vegetal coal (21.25 MJ/kg). These results are due to the high organic matter content. According to the proximate analysis, biomass has high carbon content (fixed and volatile) and low moisture and ash content. In addition, data obtained by Walkley–Black method point out that most of the carbon present in the rice husk (50.5 wt%) and in banana stalk (35.5 wt%) should be understood as organic carbon (readily oxidizable). Organic matter was also detected by Kjeldahl method which gives the values of nitrogen (especially on the organic form) for both residues: 3.8 and 4.7 g/kg of rice husk and banana stem respectively. TG and DSC analyses support the previous results, as they can provide information about the thermal stability of the samples allowing a correlation between thermal behavior and chemical composition. According to the thermogravimetric curves, there were two main stages of mass-losses. The first and smaller one occurred below 100 °C, which was suitable for water losses and the second event occurred between 200 and 500 °C which indicates decomposition of the organic matter. At this broad peak, the main loss was between 250-350 °C, and it is because of sugar decomposition (components readily oxidizable). Above 350 °C, mass loss of the biomass may be associated with lignin decomposition. Spectroscopic characterization just provided qualitative information about the organic matter, but spectra have shown absorption bands around 1030 cm-1 which may be identified as species containing silicon. This result is expected for the rice husk and deserves further investigation to the stalk of banana, as it can bring a different perspective for this biomass residue.

Keywords: rice husk, banana stem, bioenergy, renewable feedstock

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Authors: Bubai Maji, Monorama Swain

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Speech is considered an essential and most natural medium for the interaction between machines and humans. However, extracting effective features for speech emotion recognition (SER) is remains challenging. The present studies show that the temporal information captured but high-level temporal-feature learning is yet to be investigated. In this paper, we present an efficient novel method using the Self-attention (SA) mechanism in a combination of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Bi-directional Gated Recurrent Unit (Bi-GRU) network to learn high-level temporal-feature. In order to further enhance the representation of the high-level temporal-feature, we integrate a Bi-GRU output with learnable weights features by SA, and improve the performance. We evaluate our proposed method on our created SITB-OSED and IEMOCAP databases. We report that the experimental results of our proposed method achieve state-of-the-art performance on both databases.

Keywords: Bi-GRU, 1D-CNNs, self-attention, speech emotion recognition

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Authors: Ahmed Kayad Abdourazak, Abderafi Souad, Zejli Driss, Idriss Abdoulkader Ibrahim

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In this paper Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used to predict the solar irradiation in Djibouti for the first Time that is useful to the integration of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) and sites selections for new or future solar plants as part of solar energy development. An ANN algorithm was developed to establish a forward/reverse correspondence between the latitude, longitude, altitude and monthly solar irradiation. For this purpose the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) data of eight Djibouti sites were used as training and testing in a standard three layers network with the back propagation algorithm of Lavenber-Marquardt. Results have shown a very good agreement for the solar irradiation prediction in Djibouti and proves that the proposed approach can be well used as an efficient tool for prediction of solar irradiation by providing so helpful information concerning sites selection, design and planning of solar plants.

Keywords: artificial neural network, solar irradiation, concentrated solar power, Lavenberg-Marquardt

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Authors: Oluwagbenga O. Isaac Orimoogunje, Omolola Helen Oshosanya

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The study examined land management in a typical watershed in southwestern Nigeria with a view to ascertaining its impact on land suitability analysis for rice cultivation and production. The study applied the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), weighted overlay analysis (WOA), multi-criteria decision-making techniques, and suitability map calculations within a Geographic Information System environment. Five main criteria were used, and these include climate, topography, soil fertility, macronutrients, and micronutrients. A consistency ratio (CR) of 0.067 was obtained for rice cultivation. The results showed that 95% of the land area is suitable for rice cultivation, with pH units ranging between 4.6 and 6.0, organic matter of 1.4–2.5 g kg-1 and base saturation of more than 80%. The study concluded that the Ofiki watershed is a potential site for large-scale rice cultivation in a sustainable capacity.

Keywords: land management, land characteristics, land suitability, rice production, watershed

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Authors: Qazi Mahdia Ghyas

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Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) has implemented in Bangladesh to ensure the good Governance. e-GP has transformed Bangladesh's procurement process electronically. But, to our best knowledge, there is no study to understand the key features of e-GP in Bangladesh. So, this study tries to identify the features of performance improvement after implementing an e-GP system that will help for further improvements. Data was collected from the PROMIS Overall Report (Central Procurement Technical Unit website) for the financial year from Q1 _July- Sep 2015-16 to Q4 _Apr- Jun 2021-22. This study did component factor analysis on KPIs and found nineteen KPIs that are statistically significant and represent time savings, efficiency, accountability, anti-corruption and compliance key features in procurement activities of e-GP. Based on the analysis, some practical measures have been recommended for better improvement of e-GP. This study has some limitations. Because of having multicollinearity issues, all the 42 KPIs (except 19) did not show a good fit for component factor analysis.

Keywords: public procurement, electronic government procurement, KPI, performance evaluation

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Authors: Abdalrahman D. Alsulaili, Sheikha Y. Aljeraiwi, Athba N. Almanaie, Raghad Y. Alhajeri, Mariam Z. Almijren

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The water accompanying oil in the oil production process is increasing and due to its increasing rates a problem with handling it occurred. Current solutions like discharging into the environment, dumping water in evaporation pits, usage in the industry and reinjection in oil reservoirs to enhance oil production are used worldwide. The water injection method has been introduced to the oil industry with a process that either immediately injects water to the reservoir or goes to the filtration process before injection all depending on the porosity of the soil. Reinjection of unfiltered effluent water with high Total Suspended Solid (TSS) and Oil in Water (O/W) into soils with low porosity cause a blockage of pores, whereas soils with high porosity do not need high water quality. Our study mainly talks about the filtration and adsorption of the water using organic media as the adsorbent. An adsorbent is a substance that has the ability to physically hold another substance in its surface. Studies were done on nutshell and date pits with different surface areas and flow rates by using a 10inch filter connected with three tanks to perform as one system for the filtration process. Our approach in the filtration process using different types of medias went as follow: starting first with crushed nutshell, second with ground nutshell, and third using carbonized date pits with medium flow rate then high flow rate to compare different results. The result came out nearly as expected from our study where both O/W and TSS were reduced from our oily water sample by using this organic material. The effect of specific area was noticed when using nutshell as the filter media, where the crushed nutshell gave us better results than ground nutshell. The effect of flow rate was noticed when using carbonized date pits as the filter media whereas the treated water became more acceptable when the flow rate was on the medium level.

Keywords: date pits, nutshell, oil water, TSS

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Authors: Pavel Boška, Jan Bomba, Tomáš Beránek, Jiří Procházka

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When using wood products bonded by polyvinyl acetate, glues such as windows are the most limiting element of degradation of the glued joint due to weather changes. In addition to moisture and high temperatures, the joint may damage the low temperature below freezing point, where dimensional changes in the material and distortion of the adhesive film occur. During the experiments, the joints were exposed to several degrees of sub-zero temperatures from 0 °C to -40 °C and then to compare how the decreasing temperature affects the strength of the joint. The experiment was performed on wood beech samples (Fagus sylvatica), bonded with PVAc with D3 resistance and the shear strength of bond was measured. The glued and treated samples were tested on a laboratory testing machine, recording the strength of the joint. The statistical results have given us information that the strength of the joint gradually decreases with decreasing temperature, but a noticeable and statistically significant change is achieved only at very low temperatures.

Keywords: adhesives, bond strength, low temperatures, polyvinyl acetate

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Authors: Mari Carmen Reyes Angeles, Dalia Michel Reyes Villeda, Ana María Herrera González

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This work reports the design and synthesis of two composite materials based on physically activated carbon and basic polyelectrolytes useful in the adsorption of textile dyes present in aqueous solutions and wastewater. The synthesis of basic polyelectrolytes poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) and poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P4VP) was made by means of free radical polymerization. The carbon made from prickly pear peel (CarTunaF) was thermally activated in the presence of combustion gases. Composite materials CarTunaF2VP and CarTunaF4VP were obtained from CarTunaF and polybasic polyelectrolytes P2VP and P4VP with a ratio of 67:33 wt. The structure of each polyelectrolyte, P2VP, and P4VP, was elucidated by means of the FTIR and 1H NMR spectrophotometric techniques. Their thermal stability was evaluated using TGA. The characterization of CarTunaF and composite materials CarTunaF2VP and CarTunaF4VP was made by means of FTIR, TGA, SEM, and N2 adsorption. The adsorptive capacities of the polyelectrolytes and the composite materials were evaluated by adsorption of direct dyes present in aqueous solutions. The polyelectrolytes removed between 90 and 100% of the dyes, and the composite materials removed between 68 and 93% of the dyes. Using the four adsorbents P2VP, P4VP, CarTuna2VP, and CarTuna4VP, it was observed that the dyes studied, Direct Blue 80, Direct Turquoise 86, and Direct Orange 26, were adsorbed in the range between 46.1 and 188.7mg∙g-1 by means of electrostatic interactions between the anionic groups in the dyes with the cationic groups in the adsorbents. By using adsorbent materials in the treatment of wastewater from the textile industry, an improvement in the quality of the water was observed by decreasing its pH, COD, conductivity, and color considerably

Keywords: adsorption, anionic dyes, composite, polyelectrolytes

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Authors: P. Zackiewicz, M. Hreczka, R. Kolano, A. Kolano-Burian

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New types of materials applied as the stators in the Permanent Magnet Brushless Direct Current motors used in the heart supporting pumps are presented. The main focus of this work is the research on the fabrication of a hybrid nine-pole soft magnetic core consisting of a soft magnetic carrier ring with rectangular notches, made from the FeSi3 strip, and nine soft magnetic poles. This soft magnetic core is made in three stages: (a) preparation of the carrier rings from soft magnetic material with the lowest possible power losses and suitable stiffness, (b) preparation of trapezoidal soft magnetic poles from Metglas 2605 SA1 type ribbons, and (c) making durable connection between the poles and the carrier ring, capable of withstanding a four-times greater tearing force than that present during normal operation of the motor pump. All magnetic properties measurements were made using Remacomp C-1200 (Magnet Physik, Germany) and 450 Gaussometer (Lake Shore, USA) and the electrical characteristics were measured using laboratory generator DF1723009TC (NDN, Poland). Specific measurement techniques used to determine properties of the hybrid cores were presented. Obtained results allow developing the fabrication technology with an account of the intended application of these cores in the stators of the low-power PMBLDC motors used in implanted heart operation supporting pumps. The proposed measurement methodology is appropriate for assessing the quality of the stators.

Keywords: amorphous materials, heart supporting pump, PMBLDC motor, soft magnetic materials

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Authors: Abigail Qian Zhou

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In today's China, the well-educated middle class, with stable jobs and above-average income, are the driving force behind its Internet society. Through the analysis of data from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey and 50 interviewees, this study investigates the current situation of this group’s specific internet usage. The findings of this study demonstrate that daily life among the members of this socioeconomic group is closely tied to the Internet. For Chinese middle class, the Internet is used to socialize and entertain self and others. It is also used to search for and share information as well as to build their identities. The empirical results of this study will provide a reference, supported by factual data, for enterprises seeking to target the Chinese middle class through online marketing efforts.

Keywords: middle class, Internet use, network behaviour, online marketing, China

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Authors: Belkis L. Cabrera

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Contemporary technological innovations have reshaped possibility, interaction, communication, engagement, education, and training. Indeed, today, a high-quality technology enhanced learning experience can be transformative as much for the learner as for the educator-trainer. As innovative technologies continue to facilitate, support, foster, and enhance collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, adaptiveness, multidisciplinarity, and communication, the field of instructional design (ID) also continues to develop and expand. Shifting its focus from media to the systematic design of instruction, or rather from the gadgets and devices themselves to the theories, models, and impact of implementing educational technology, the evolution of ID marks a restructuring of the teaching, learning, and training paradigms. However, with all of its promise, this latter component of ID remains underdeveloped. The majority of ID models are crafted and guided by learning theories and, therefore, most models are constructed around student and educator roles rather than trainer roles. Thus, when these models or systems are employed for training purposes, they usually have to be re-fitted, tweaked, and stretched to meet the training needs. This paper is concerned with the training or professional development (PD) facet of instructional design and how ID models built on teacher-to-teacher interaction and dialogue can support the creation of professional learning communities (PLCs) or communities of practice (CoPs), which can augment learning and PD experiences for all. Just as technology is changing the face of education, so too can it change the face of PD within the educational realm. This paper not only provides a new ID model but using innovative technologies such as Padlet and Thinkbinder, this paper presents a concrete example of how a traditional body-to-body, brick, and mortar learning community can be transferred and transformed into the online context.

Keywords: communities of practice, e-learning, educational reform, instructional design, professional development, professional learning communities, technology, training

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Authors: Idoia Landa Oregi, Itsaso Gonzalez Ochoantesana, Olatz Nicolas Buxens, Carlo Ferretti

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The impact of citizens in urban transformations has become increasingly important in the pursuit of creating citizen-centered cities. Citizens at the forefront of the urban transformation process are key to establishing resilient, sustainable, and inclusive cities that cater to the needs of all residents. Therefore, collecting data and information directly from citizens is crucial for the sustainable development of cities. Within this context, public participation becomes a pillar for acquiring the necessary information from citizens. Public participation in urban transformation processes establishes a more responsive, equitable, and resilient urban environment. This approach cultivates a sense of shared responsibility and collective progress in building cities that truly serve the well-being of all residents. However, the implementation of public participation practices often overlooks strategies to effectively engage citizens in the processes, resulting in non-successful participatory outcomes. Therefore, this research focuses on identifying and analyzing the critical aspects of citizen engagement during the same participatory urban transformation process in different European contexts: Ermua (Spain), Elva (Estonia) and Matera (Italy). The participatory neighborhood regeneration process is divided into three main stages, to turn social districts into inclusive and smart neighborhoods: (i) the strategic level, (ii) the design level, and (iii) the implementation level. In the initial stage, the focus is on diagnosing the neighborhood and creating a shared vision with the community. The second stage centers around collaboratively designing various action plans to foster inclusivity and intelligence while pushing local economic development within the district. Finally, the third stage ensures the proper co-implementation of the designed actions in the neighborhood. To this date, the presented results critically analyze the key aspects of engagement in the first stage of the methodology, the strategic plan, in the three above-mentioned contexts. It is a multifaceted study that incorporates three case studies to shed light on the various perspectives and strategies adopted by each city. The results indicate that despite of the various cultural contexts, all cities face similar barriers when seeking to enhance engagement. Accordingly, the study identifies specific challenges within the participatory approach across the three cities such as the existence of discontented citizens, communication gaps, inconsistent participation, or administration resistance. Consequently, key learnings of the process indicate that a collaborative sphere needs to be cultivated, educating both citizens and administrations in the aspects of co-governance, giving these practices the appropriate space and their own communication channels. This study is part of the DROP project, funded by the European Union, which aims to develop a citizen-centered urban renewal methodology to transform the social districts into smart and inclusive neighborhoods.

Keywords: citizen-centred cities, engagement, public participation, urban transformation

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Authors: M. N. Zelenin, V. S. Mikhailov, R. P. Zhivotovsky

Abstract:

It is known that residual welding deformations give negative effect to processability and operational quality of welded structures, complicating their assembly and reducing strength. Therefore, selection of optimal technology, ensuring minimum welding deformations, is one of the main goals in developing a technology for manufacturing of welded structures. Through years, JSC SSTC has been developing a theory for estimation of welding deformations and practical activities for reducing and compensating such deformations during welding process. During long time a methodology was used, based on analytic dependence. This methodology allowed defining volumetric changes of metal due to welding heating and subsequent cooling. However, dependences for definition of structures deformations, arising as a result of volumetric changes of metal in the weld area, allowed performing calculations only for simple structures, such as units, flat sections and sections with small curvature. In case of complex 3D structures, estimations on the base of analytic dependences gave significant errors. To eliminate this shortage, it was suggested to use finite elements method for resolving of deformation problem. Here, one shall first calculate volumes of longitudinal and transversal shortenings of welding joints using method of analytic dependences and further, with obtained shortenings, calculate forces, which action is equivalent to the action of active welding stresses. Further, a finite-elements model of the structure is developed and equivalent forces are added to this model. Having results of calculations, an optimal sequence of assembly and welding is selected and special measures to reduce and compensate welding deformations are developed and taken.

Keywords: residual welding deformations, longitudinal and transverse shortenings of welding joints, method of analytic dependences, finite elements method

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Authors: Mohamed Gomaa Mohamed

Abstract:

Background and purpose: Ideal posture involves a minimal amount of stress or strain on various body segments which are aligned and worked in harmony to protect the body from injury or progressive deformity. One of most common faulty posture encountered in clinical setting is forward head posture (FHP) that was considered one of the main predictors for neck pain. Furthermore, FHP may predispose to thoracic outlet syndrome, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, shoulder pain and headache. The large financial burden related to neck disorders management raises the need to improve the quality of assessment and rehabilitation of FHP. So, the purpose of the study is to compare between measurements of FHP as indicated with craniovertebral (CVA) and gaze angles assessed from dominant and non-dominant sides in football players who extensively use their dominant side and non-athletic subjects. Participants: Twenty-four subjects were divided into 12 football players and 12 non-athletic subjects. Methods: CVA and gaze angles were assessed through photogrammetric method. Photos were taken from dominant and non-dominant sides of the subjects while assuming standing position. Paired t-test was used to assess angles differences between dominant and non-dominant sides of the subjects. Since there were no statistical differences between CVA and gaze angles measured from dominant and non-dominant sides in each group, we pooled data together to become 24 measurements for each group (12 from dominant and 12 from non-dominant). Independent t-test was used to assess angles differences between football players and non-athletic subjects. Results: No significant differences were found between CVA and gaze angles measured from dominant and non-dominant sides of both groups (P>0.05). Also, there were no significant differences between CVA and gaze angles measured from football players and non-athletic subjects (P>0.05). Conclusion: FHP can be assessed from dominant or non-dominant sides interchangeably either in football players or non-athletic subjects. Furthermore, playing football has no impact on measurements of FHP when compared to non-athletic subjects.

Keywords: dominant side, forward head posture, football players, non-dominant side

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Authors: Ksenija Dumičić, Anita Čeh Časni, Irena Palić

Abstract:

This paper examines economic and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development influence on recently increasing Internet purchases by individuals for European Union member states. After a growing trend for Internet purchases in EU27 was noticed, all possible regression analysis was applied using nine independent variables in 2011. Finally, two linear regression models were studied in detail. Conducted simple linear regression analysis confirmed the research hypothesis that the Internet purchases in analysed EU countries is positively correlated with statistically significant variable Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPpc). Also, analysed multiple linear regression model with four regressors, showing ICT development level, indicates that ICT development is crucial for explaining the Internet purchases by individuals, confirming the research hypothesis.

Keywords: European union, Internet purchases, multiple linear regression model, outlier

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Authors: Melissa Vang, Raheyma Khan, Haihua Chen

Abstract:

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic has changed people's lives from all over the world. More people have turned to Twitter to engage online and discuss the COVID-19 vaccine. This study aims to present a text mining approach to identify people's attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine on Twitter. To achieve this purpose, we collected 54,268 COVID-19 vaccine tweets from September 01, 2020, to November 01, 2020, then the BERT model is used for the sentiment and topic analysis. The results show that people had more negative than positive attitudes about the vaccine, and countries with an increasing number of confirmed cases had a higher percentage of negative attitudes. Additionally, the topics discussed in positive and negative tweets are different. The tweet datasets can be helpful to information professionals to inform the public about vaccine-related informational resources. Our findings may have implications for understanding people's cognitions and feelings about the vaccine.

Keywords: BERT, COVID-19 vaccine, sentiment analysis, topic modeling

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Authors: Ellen Bautista, Rebecca M. Flueckiger, Easter Dasmarinas, Rajeev Colaco, Fulbert Alec R. Gillego, Alma M. Lozada, Cristina Bisson

Abstract:

Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM) for family planning is at least 98% effective at preventing pregnancy when all criteria are met; (1) the mother is exclusively or nearly exclusively breastfeeding, (2) the mother is amenorrheic (not menstruating), and (3) the baby is six months old or younger. LAM is particularly suited for women interested in family planning accepted by religious authorities. As a majority catholic nation, LAM is a common and accepted form of family planning in the Philippines. The USAID funded, LuzonHealth project conducted a prospective evaluation in Legazpi City to inform the enhancement of guidelines aimed at increasing LAM compliance and encouraging a second form of contraceptive once LAM protection expires. LAM compliance, reasons for non-compliance, family planning referral and uptake of secondary modern family planning methods were tracked over a nine-month period among 521 postpartum women. The evaluation found that at three months postpartum, 97% of women either met LAM criteria or had shifted to a non-LAM modern family planning method. In month six 87% of women no longer met LAM criteria and of these only 35% had shifted to an alternative modern family planning method. This means that at six-months postpartum 65% of the women in this evaluation were not protected against pregnancy through modern family planning methods. By postpartum month nine, 70% of the women had been referred to family planning counseling, yet of those referred only 34% reported using modern family planning methods. This evaluation clearly indicates scale-up of non-LAM modern family planning does not sufficiently complement the scale-down of LAM compliance. There is a need to increase client knowledge and understanding of LAM as a temporary family planning method with a strong focus on preparing to shift to another form of modern family planning once LAM protection expires. Additionally, there is great need to restructure the referral mechanism to ensure efficacy and quality of care.

Keywords: Philippines, family planning, lactational amenorrhea method, contraceptives

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Authors: Uzoma Emmanuel Igboji

Abstract:

The study investigates the effects of cash flow position on corporate performance in the manufacturing sector of Nigeria, using multiple regression techniques. The study involved a survey of five (5) manufacturing companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The data were obtained from the annual reports of the selected companies under study. The result shows that operating and financing cash flow have a significant positive relationship with corporate performance, while investing cash flow position have a significant negative relationship. The researcher recommended that the regulatory authorities should encourage external auditors of these quoted companies to use cash flow ratios in evaluating the performance of a company before expressing an independent opinion on the financial statement. The will give detailed financial information to existing and potential investors to make informed economic decisions.

Keywords: cash flow, financing, performance, operating

Procedia PDF Downloads 300