Search results for: Ishak Kamal Baskhayroun

Authors: Aiswarya Gopal, Kamal Bijlani, Vinoth Rengaraj, R. Jayakrishnan

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In the business world, the term “startup” is frequently ringing the bell with the high frequency of young ventures. The main dilemma of startups is the unsuccessful management of the unique risks that have to be confronted in the present world of competition and technology. This research work tried to bring out a game based methodology to improve enough real-world experience among entrepreneurs as well as management students to handle risks and challenges in the field. The game will provide experience to the player to overcome challenges like market problems, running out of cash, poor management, and product problems which can be resolved by a proper strategic approach in the entrepreneurship world. The proposed serious game works on the life cycle of a new software enterprise where the entrepreneur moves from the planning stage to secured financial stage, laying down the basic business structure, and initiates the operations ensuring the increment in confidence level of the player.

Keywords: business model, game based learning, poor management, start up

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Authors: Kamal Khan Abro, Attaullah Ansari, Mahpara Pirzada

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Hoverflies are commonly known as flower flies, sun flies or garden flies. Hoverflies are very important group of insects because their ecosystem services are diverse. They are an attractive group of insects with their striped abdomens. They are day-flying insects from small to large size, have worldwide distribution, but mostly prefer to live in relatively cold weather areas. In the world, about 6,000 species of 200 genera of two sub-families have been described. Their larvae exhibit a variety of feeding modes i.e. aphidophagous, saprophagous, zoophagous and Phytophagus, where adults are floral visitors of hundreds of different plants species. These floral resources enhance the longevity and fecundity of adult dipterous flies. Many syrphid species also have been documented as efficient crop pollinators. Aphids are commonly called plant louse, greenflies and blackflies. They are major pest of crops; about 4000 species of aphids have been described, feeding on 250 species of plants.

Keywords: host plant range, aphidophagous hoverflies, their prey aphids, Thatta Pakistan

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Authors: Somdutt Mujwar, Kamal Raj Pardasani

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Cholera pandemics are caused by facultative pathogenic Vibrio cholera bacteria persisting in the countries having warmer climatic conditions as well as the presence of large water bodies with huge amount of organic matter, it is responsible for the millions of deaths annually. Presently the available therapy for cholera is Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) with an antibiotic drug. Excessive utilization of life saving antibiotics drugs leads to the development of resistance by the infectious micro-organism against the antibiotic drugs resulting in loss of effectiveness of these drugs. Also, many side effects are also associated with the use of these antibiotic drugs. This riboswitch is explored as an alternative drug target for Vibrio cholera bacteria to overcome the problem of drug resistance as well as side effects associated with the antibiotics drugs. The bacterial riboswitch is virtually screened with 24407 legends to get possible drug candidates. The 10 ligands showing best binding with the riboswitch are selected to design a pharmacophore, which can be utilized to design lead molecules by using the phenomenon of bioisosterism.

Keywords: cholera, drug design, ligand, riboswitch, pharmacophore

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Authors: Kamal, Dinesh Kumar, J. P. Narayan, Komal Rani

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This paper presents the effects of shape of basement topography on the characteristics of the basin-generated surface (BGS) waves and associated average spectral amplification (ASA) in the 3D basins having circular surface area. Seismic responses were computed using a recently developed 3D fourth-order spatial accurate time-domain finite-difference (FD) algorithm based on parsimonious staggered-grid approximation of 3D viscoelastic wave equations. An increase of amplitude amplification and ASA towards the centre of different considered basins was obtained. Further, it may be concluded that ASA in basin very much depends on the impedance contrast, exposure area of basement to the incident wave front, edge-slope, focusing of the BGS-waves and sediment-damping. There is an urgent need of incorporation of a map of differential ground motion (DGM) caused by the BGS-waves as one of the output maps of the seismic microzonation.

Keywords: 3D viscoelastic simulation, basin-generated surface waves, maximum displacement, average spectral amplification

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Authors: T. Ganesan, M. S. Aris, I. Elamvazuthi, Momen Kamal Tageldeen

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Terms set in power purchase agreements (PPA) challenge power utility companies in balancing between the returns (from maximizing power production) and securing long term supply contracts at capped production. The production limitation set in the PPA has driven efforts to maximize profits through efficient and economic power production. In this paper, a combined industrial-scale gas turbine (GT) - absorption chiller (AC) system is considered to cool the GT air intake for reducing the plant’s heat rate (HR). This GT-AC system is optimized while considering power output limitations imposed by the PPA. In addition, the proposed formulation accounts for uncertainties in the ambient temperature using Type-2 fuzzy programming. Using the enhanced chaotic differential evolution (CEDE), the Pareto frontier was constructed and the optimization results are analyzed in detail.

Keywords: absorption chillers (AC), turbine inlet air cooling (TIC), power purchase agreement (PPA), multiobjective optimization, type-2 fuzzy programming, chaotic differential evolution (CDDE)

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Authors: Kamal Kumar Tanti, Nayan Moni Saikia, Markynti Swer

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This study aims to investigate and analyse the trends and variability of rainfall in Shillong and its nearby areas, located in Meghalaya hills of North-East India; which is geographically a neighbouring area to the wettest places of the Earth, i.e., Cherrapunji and Mawsynram. The analysis of variability and trends to annual, seasonal, monthly and daily rainfall was carried out, using the data collected from the IMD station at Shillong; thereby attempting to highlight whether rainfall in Shillong area has been increasing or decreasing over the years. Rainfall variability coefficient is utilized to compare the current rainfall trend of the area with its past rainfall trends. The present study also aims to analyse the frequency of occurrence of extreme rainfall events over the region. These studies will help us to establish a correlation between the current rainfall trend and climate change scenario of the study area.

Keywords: trends and variability of rainfall, annual, seasonal, monthly and daily rainfall, rainfall variability coefficient, extreme rainfall events, climate change, Shillong, Cherrapunji, Mawsynram

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Authors: Ahmed Shariful Alam, Abu Hena M. Mustafa Kamal, M. Abdul Rahman, M. Nasmus Sakib Khan Shabbir, Atiqul Islam

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According to the rules of quantum mechanics there is a non-vanishing probability of for an electron to tunnel through a thin insulating barrier or a thin capacitor which is not possible according to the laws of classical physics. Tunneling of electron through a thin insulating barrier or tunnel junction is a random event and the magnitude of current flowing due to the tunneling of electron is very low. As the current flowing through a Single Electron Transistor (SET) is the result of electron tunneling through tunnel junctions of its source and drain the supply voltage requirement is also very low. As a result, the power consumption across a Single Electron Transistor is ultra-low in comparison to that of a MOSFET. In this paper simulations have been done with PSPICE for an inverter built with both SETs and MOSFETs. 35mV supply voltage was used for a SET built inverter circuit and the supply voltage used for a CMOS inverter was 3.5V.

Keywords: ITRS, enhancement type MOSFET, island, DC analysis, transient analysis, power consumption, background charge co-tunneling

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Authors: Ankit Tyagi, Reet Kamal Tiwari, Naveen James

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In India, landslides are the most frequently occurring disaster in the regions of the Himalayas and the Western Ghats. The steep slopes and land use in these areas are quite apprehensive. In the recent past, many landslide hazard zonation (LHZ) works have been carried out in the Himalayas. However, the preparation of LHZ maps considering temporal factors such as seismic ground shaking, seismic amplification at surface level, and rainfall are limited. Hence this study presents a comprehensive use of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method in landslide risk assessment. In this research, we conducted both geospatial and geotechnical analysis to minimize the danger of landslides. Geospatial analysis is performed using high-resolution satellite data to produce landslide causative factors which were given weightage using the MCDM method. The geotechnical analysis includes a slope stability check, which was done to determine the potential landslide slope. The landslide risk map can provide useful information which helps people to understand the risk of living in an area.

Keywords: landslide hazard zonation, PHA, AHP, GIS

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Authors: Ahteshamul Haq, Srikant Gupta, Murshid Kamal, Irfan Ali

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This case study designs and builds a multi-objective production planning model for a hardware firm with certain & uncertain data. During the time of interaction with the manager of the firm, they indicate some of the parameters may be vague. This vagueness in the formulated model is handled by the concept of fuzzy set theory. Triangular & Trapezoidal fuzzy numbers are used to represent the uncertainty in the collected data. The fuzzy nature is de-fuzzified into the crisp form using well-known defuzzification method via graded mean integration representation method. The proposed model attempts to maximize the production of the firm, profit related to the manufactured items & minimize the carrying inventory costs in both certain & uncertain environment. The recommended optimal plan is determined via fuzzy programming approach, and the formulated models are solved by using optimizing software LINGO 16.0 for getting the optimal production plan. The proposed model yields an efficient compromise solution with the overall satisfaction of decision maker.

Keywords: production planning problem, multi-objective optimization, fuzzy programming, fuzzy sets

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Authors: Majed Zobairy, Fardin Kalvandi, Kamal Azizbaigi

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This research was carried out for evaluation of elastic, plyometric and resistance training on selected anaerobic factors in men volleyball players. For these reason 30 elite volleyball players of Sanandaj city randomly divided into 3 groups as follow: elastic training, plyometric training and resistance training. Pre-exercise tests which include vertical jumping, 50 yard speed running and scat test were done and data were recorded. Specific exercise protocol regimen was done for each group and then post-exercise tests again were done. Data analysis showed that there were significant increases in exercise test in each group. One way ANOVA analysis showed that increases in speed records in elastic group were significantly higher than the other groups (p<0/05),based on research data it seems that elastic training can be a useful method and new approach in improving functional test and training regimen.

Keywords: elastic training, plyometric training, strength training, anaerobic power

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Authors: Kamal Amarouche, Houda Benbrahim, Ismail Kassou

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Nowadays, e-commerce shopping websites have experienced noticeable growth. These websites have gained consumers’ trust. After purchasing a product, many consumers share comments where opinions are usually embedded about the given product. Research on the automatic management of opinions that gives suggestions to potential consumers and portrays an image of the product to manufactures has been growing recently. After launching the product in the market, the reviews generated around it do not usually contain helpful information or generic opinions about this product (e.g. telephone: great phone...); in the sense that the product is still in the launching phase in the market. Within time, the product becomes old. Therefore, consumers perceive the advantages/ disadvantages about each specific product feature. Therefore, they will generate comments that contain their sentiments about these features. In this paper, we present an unsupervised method to extract different product features hidden in the opinions which influence its purchase, and that combines Time Weighting (TW) which depends on the time opinions were expressed with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF). We conduct several experiments using two different datasets about cell phones and hotels. The results show the effectiveness of our automatic feature extraction, as well as its domain independent characteristic.

Keywords: opinion mining, product feature extraction, sentiment analysis, SentiWordNet

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Authors: Ikram Kamal, Mohamed Blaghen

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Pollution caused by petroleum hydrocarbons in terrestrial and aquatic environment is a common phenomenon that causes significant ecological and social problems. Biosurfactant applications in the environmental industries are promising due to their biodegradability, low toxicity and effectiveness in enhancing biodegradation and solubilization of low solubility compounds. Currently, the main application is for enhancement of oil recovery and hydrocarbon bioremediation due to their biodegradability and low critical micelle concentration (CMC). In this study we have investigated the potential of bacterial strains collected aseptically from the lagoon Marchika (water and soil) in Nador, Morocco; for the production of biosurfactants. This study also aimed to optimize the biosurfactant production process by changing the variables that influence the type and amount of biosurfactant produced by these microorganisms such as: carbon sources and also other physical and chemical parameters such as temperature and pH. Emulsification index, methylene blue test and thin layer chromatography (TLC) revealed the ability of strains used in this study to produce compounds that could emulsify gasoline. In addition a GC/MS was used to separate and identify different biosurfactants purified.

Keywords: petroleum hydrocarbons, biosurfactant, biodegradability, critical micelle concentration, lagoon Marchika

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Authors: Akansha Tyagi, Mehar S. Sidhu, Ankur Mandal, Sanjay Kapoor, Sunil Dahiya, Jan M. Rost, Thomas Pfeifer, Kamal P. Singh

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An all-reflective split and delay unit is designed for dispersion free measurement of broadband ultrashort pulses using a pair of reflective knife edge prism for splitting and recombining of the measuring pulse. It is based on symmetrical wavefront splitting of the measuring pulse having two separate arms to independently shape both split parts. We have validated our delay line with NIR –femtosecond pulse measurement centered at 800 nm using second harmonic-Interferometric frequency resolved optical gating (SH-IFROG). The delay line is compact, easy to align and provides attosecond stability and precision and thus make it more versatile for wide range of applications in ultrafast measurements. We envision that the present delay line will find applications in IR-IR controlling for high harmonic generation (HHG) and attosecond IR-XUV pump-probe measurements with solids and gases providing attosecond resolution and wide delay range.

Keywords: HHG, nonlinear optics, pump-probe spectroscopy, ultrafast metrology

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Authors: Santina Sahibon, Sivasooriar Sivaneson, Martin Giddy, Nelson Nheu, Siti Sazeelah, Choo Kok Ming, Thuhairah Abdul Rahman, Fatmawati Binti Kamal

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Introduction: Establishing population-based reference intervals (RI) are essential when evaluating laboratory test results and for method verification. Our laboratory initiated an exercise to establish RI for routine coagulation profile as part of the method verification procedure and to determine any differences in RI between three analyzers planned to be used in the laboratory. Methodology: 145 blood samples were collected and analysed for activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), prothrombin time (PT), international normalized ratio (INR), and fibrinogen] using three coagulation analysers which were CA104, CA660, and CS-2500 (Sysmex, USA). RI was established at 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles. Results: The RI for aPTT between C104, C660 and CS-2500 are (RI: 20.5-30.2 sec), (RI: 21.5-29.2 sec) and (RI: 22.7-30.3 sec) respectively. The RI for PT were (RI: 7.5-10.3 sec), (RI: 9.2- 11.1 sec) and (RI: 9.8-11.9 sec) for C104, CA660 and CS-2500 respectively. INR had an RI of (RI: 0.87- 1.16), (RI: 0.89-1.10) and (0.90-1.11) respectively on CA104, C660 and CS-2500. Fibrinogen RI was (RI: 2.04-4.62 g/L) and (2.05-4.76 g/L) on the CA660 and CS-2500, respectively. Conclusion: The RI was similar across the analytical platforms for aPTT, INR, and fibrinogen. However, CA104 showed lower RI compared to the other two analysers for PT. This highlights the potential variability in results between instruments that need to be addressed when verifying RI.

Keywords: coagulation, reference interval, APTT, PT, INR, fibrinogen

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Authors: Kamal Upadhyay, Zhou Hua, Yu Rui

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This paper aims to improve the streamline linked with the flow field and cavitation on the valve sleeve. We observed that local pressure fluctuation produces a low-pressure zone, central to the formation of vapor volume fraction within the valve chamber led to air-bubbles (or cavities). Thus, it allows simultaneously to a severe negative impact on the inner surface and lifespan of the valve sleeves. Cavitation reduction is a vitally important issue to pressure control valves. The optimization of the flow field is proposed in this paper to reduce the cavitation of valve sleeves. In this method, the inner wall of the valve sleeve is changed from a cylindrical surface to the conical surface, leading to the decline of the fluid flow velocity and the rise of the outlet pressure. Besides, the streamline is distributed inside the sleeve uniformly. Thus, the bubble generation is lessened. The fluid models are built and analysis of flow field distribution, pressure, vapor volume and velocity was carried out using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and numerical technique. The results indicate that this structure can suppress the cavitation of valve sleeves effectively.

Keywords: streamline, cavitation, optimization, computational fluid dynamics

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Authors: Aghbalou Nihad, Charki Abderafi, Saida Rahali, Reklaoui Kamal

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Maximize the benefit from the wind energy potential is the most interest of the wind power stakeholders. As a result, the wind tower size is radically increasing. Nevertheless, choosing an appropriate wind turbine for a selected site require an accurate estimate of vertical wind profile. It is also imperative from cost and maintenance strategy point of view. Then, installing tall towers or even more expensive devices such as LIDAR or SODAR raises the costs of a wind power project. Various models were developed coming within this framework. However, they suffer from complexity, generalization and lacks accuracy. In this work, we aim to investigate the ability of neural network trained using the Bayesian Regularization technique to estimate wind speed profile up to height of 100 m based on knowledge of wind speed lower heights. Results show that the proposed approach can achieve satisfactory predictions and proof the suitability of the proposed method for generating wind speed profile and probability distributions based on knowledge of wind speed at lower heights.

Keywords: bayesian regularization, neural network, wind shear, accuracy

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Authors: Kamal Heidari

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Covid-19 has borne drastic effects on different areas of society, including the education area, in that it brought virtual education to the center of attention, as an alternative to in-person education. In virtual education, the importance of flipped learning doubles, as students are supposed to take the main responsibility of teaching/learning process; and teachers play merely a facilitative/monitoring role. Given the students’ responsibility in virtual flipped learning, students’ motivation plays a pivotal role in the effectiveness of this learning method. The L2 Motivational Self-System (L2MSS) model is a currently proposed model elaborating on students’ motivation based on three sub-components: ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience. Drawing on an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research design, this study probed the effect of virtual flipped learning (via SHAD platform) on 112 gifted and non-gifted students’ motivation based on the L2 MSS. This study uncovered that notwithstanding the point that virtual flipped learning improved both gifted and non-gifted students’ motivation, it differentially affected their motivation. In other words, gifted students mostly referred to ideal L2 self, while non-gifted ones referred to ought-to L2 self and L2 learning experience aspects of motivation.

Keywords: virtual flipped learning, giftedness, motivation, L2MSS

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Authors: Tukur Daiyabu Abdulkadir, Wan Ishak Wan Ismail, Muhammad Saufi Mohd Kassim

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Seed singulation and accuracy in seed spacing are the major challenges associated with the adoption of mechanical seeder for system of rice intensification. In this research the metering system of a pneumatic planter was modified and automated for increase precision to meet the demand of system of rice intensification SRI. The chain and sprocket mechanism of a conventional vacuum planter were now replaced with an electro mechanical system made up of a set of servo motors, limit switch, micro controller and a wheel divided into 10 equal angles. The circumference of the planter wheel was determined based on which seed spacing was computed and mapped to the angles of the metering wheel. A program was then written and uploaded to arduino micro controller and it automatically turns the seed plates for seeding upon covering the required distance. The servo motor was calibrated with the aid of labVIEW. The machine was then calibrated using a grease belt and varying the servo rpm through voltage variation between 37 rpm to 47 rpm until an optimum value of 40 rpm was obtained with a forward speed of 5 kilometers per hour. A pressure of 1.5 kpa was found to be optimum under which no skip or double was recorded. Precision in spacing (coefficient of variation), miss index, multiple index, doubles and skips were investigated. No skip or double was recorded both at laboratory and field levels. The operational parameters under consideration were both evaluated at laboratory and field. Even though there was little variation between the laboratory and field values of precision in spacing, multiple index and miss index, the different is not significant as both laboratory and field values fall within the acceptable range.

Keywords: automation, calibration, pneumatic seed planter, system of rice intensification

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Authors: Sawsan Kamal Kalil El Galad, Heba Shafik Ibrahim Mohamed, Rania Ismail Moussa

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New developments in the technological world have made the internet an innovative way for individuals and families to communicate. Social media sites help in fulfilling communication needs and wants of their users. The use of social media may have an effect on the family relation either in a positive or negative manner. This study aimed to investigate the family relationships among users and non users of social media. The study followed a cross- sectional descriptive comparative research design. It was conducted on 360 employees, at Damanhour University in Elbeheira, Egypt. Brief Family Relationship Scale (BFRS) was used to collect the data of this study. The results revealed that the mean score of the social media users is slightly increased in relation to the non users of social media mean score with no significant difference between both groups. It was concluded that using social media for short time has no effect on the family relationship, sitting with family in daily base satisfy the social and emotional needs of its member and enhance family relations. Recommendations encompassed that the time spent on social media should be assessed regularly to prevent being isolated from the family members. Educational programs to increase the parent’s awareness how to deal with their children regarding social media and its risks.

Keywords: social media, family relationships, communication needs, culture

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Authors: Kamal Hammad, Alexey Fedorenko, Ivan Sergeichev

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This study uses analytical modeling, experimental testing, and explicit numerical simulations to evaluate failure and spall damage in Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) composite confinement vessels. It investigates the response of composite materials to explosive loading dynamic impact, revealing varied failure modes. Hashin damage was used to model inplane failure, while the Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT) modeled inter-laminar damage. Results show moderate agreement between simulations and experiments regarding free surface velocity and failure stresses, with discrepancies due to wire alignment imperfections and wave reverberations in the experimental test. The findings can improve design and risk-reduction strategies in high-risk scenarios, leading to enhanced safety and economic efficiency in material assessment and structural design processes.

Keywords: explicit, numerical, spall, damage, CFRP, composite, vessels, explosive, dynamic, impact, Hashin, VCCT

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Authors: Md. Kamal Uddin

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Bangladesh is trying to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Environmental Education (EE) is very vital to reaching the agenda of SDGs. However, a lack of environmental awareness and gaps in theoretical knowledge and its practices still exists in Bangladesh. Therefore, this research aims to understand the students’ perceptions of whether and how their behaviour is environment-friendly to achieve SDGs. It also addresses teachers’ perceptions of what are the shortcomings of environmental education in Bangladesh. It uses the qualitative and quantitative techniques of data collection and analysis based on in-depth interviews, surveys among different categories of participants and classroom observation. The paper finds that the level of EE and students’ awareness of the environment is inadequate. Some teachers believe that the EE is not better in Bangladesh due to the absence of practical learning of EE, lack of the motivations and actions, institutional weakness, inadequate policies, poor implementation, and cultural and traditional beliefs. Thus, this paper argues that Bangladeshi EE is not adequate to change the behaviour of the students towards the environment, which makes it difficult for the country to ensure SD. Thus, this research suggests that there is a need to revise the environmental education policy to change the behaviour and structure of the country for sustainable development.

Keywords: environmental education, sustainable development, environmental practice, environmental behaviour, Bangladesh

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Authors: Safeer Ahmad, Pratheek Sudhakran, M. Arif Kamal, Tarique Anwar

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In Healthcare facility designing, Efficient MEP services are very crucial because the built environment not only affects patients and family but also Healthcare staff and their outcomes. This paper shall cover the basics of Value engineering and its different phases that can be implemented to the MEP Designing stage for Healthcare facility optimization, also VE can improve the product cost the unnecessary costs associated with healthcare services. This paper explores Healthcare facility services and their Value engineering Job plan for the successful application of the VE technique by conducting a Workshop with end-users, designing team and associate experts shall be carried out using certain concepts, tools, methods and mechanism developed to achieve the purpose of selecting what is actually appropriate and ideal among many value engineering processes and tools that have long proven their ability to enhance the value by following the concept of Total quality management while achieving the most efficient resources allocation to satisfy the key functions and requirements of the project without sacrificing the targeted level of service for all design metrics. Detail study has been discussed with analysis been carried out by this process to achieve a better outcome, Various tools are used for the Analysis of the product at different phases used, at the end the results obtained after implementation of techniques are discussed.

Keywords: value engineering, healthcare facility, design, services

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Authors: Madiha Liaqat, Rehan Ahmed Khan, Shahid Kamal

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Multiple imputation with delta adjustment is a versatile and transparent technique for addressing univariate missing data in the presence of various missing mechanisms. This approach allows for the exploration of sensitivity to the missing-at-random (MAR) assumption. In this review, we outline the delta-adjustment procedure and illustrate its application for assessing the sensitivity to deviations from the MAR assumption. By examining diverse missingness scenarios and conducting sensitivity analyses, we gain valuable insights into the implications of missing data on our analyses, enhancing the reliability of our study's conclusions. In our study, we focused on assessing logPSA, a continuous biomarker in incomplete prostate cancer data, to examine the robustness of conclusions against plausible departures from the MAR assumption. We introduced several approaches for conducting sensitivity analyses, illustrating their application within the pattern mixture model (PMM) under the delta adjustment framework. This proposed approach effectively handles missing data, particularly loss to follow-up.

Keywords: loss to follow-up, incomplete response, multiple imputation, sensitivity analysis, prostate cancer

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Authors: Nudrat Kamal

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Scholarship exploring the development of the literary tradition of feminist utopias, especially in the sociopolitical context of Europe and North America, has been important and meaningful, but it is, in large part, still restricted to Euro-American texts. This paper will explore Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist utopia Herland (1915) with another feminist utopia written just a decade before, but in a widely different sociopolitical context: Bengali feminist writer Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s English short story Sultana’s Dream (1905). The paper will argue that both texts, despite being written in such different cultural and historical contexts, utilize and subvert the public versus private/domestic sphere dichotomy and the restricted gender roles associated with each sphere in order to conceive of specific formulations of feminist modernities that reflect the sociopolitical contexts and feminist movements both writers were writing within. By bringing Gilman’s Herland into conversation with Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream, the paper hopes to illuminate the new meanings that might emerge if the scholarship on Western feminist utopias was to open itself up to the feminist utopias written elsewhere.

Keywords: comparative literature, feminist utopias, modernity, South Asian literature, utopias

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Authors: M. I. A. Adziz, J. Sharib Sarip, M. T. Ishak, D. N. A. Tugi

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Radiation exposure to humans and the environment is caused by natural radioactive material sources. Given that exposure to people and communities can occur through several pathways, it is necessary to pay attention to the increase in naturally radioactive material, particularly in the soil. Continuous research and monitoring on the distribution and determination of these natural radionuclides' activity as a guide and reference are beneficial, especially in an accidental exposure. Surface soil/sediment samples from several locations identified around the Sembrong catchment area were taken for the study. After 30 days of secular equilibrium with their daughters, the activity concentrations of the naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) members, i.e. ²²⁶Ra, ²²⁸Ra, ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K, were measured using high purity germanium (HPGe) gamma spectrometer. The results obtained showed that the radioactivity concentration of ²³⁸U ranged between 17.13 - 30.13 Bq/kg, ²³²Th ranged between 22.90 - 40.05 Bq/kg, ²²⁶Ra ranged between 19.19 - 32.10 Bq/kg, ²²⁸Ra ranged between 21.08 - 39.11 Bq/kg and ⁴⁰K ranged between 9.22 - 51.07 Bq/kg with average values of 20.98 Bq/kg, 27.39 Bq/kg, 23.55 Bq/kg, 26.93 Bq/kg and 23.55 Bq/kg respectively. The values obtained from this study were low or equivalent to previously reported in previous studies. It was also found that the mean/mean values obtained for the four parameters of the Radiation Hazard Index, namely radium equivalent activity (Raeq), external dose rate (D), annual effective dose and external hazard index (Hₑₓ), were 65.40 Bq/kg, 29.33 nGy/h, 19.18 ¹⁰⁻⁶Sv and 0.19 respectively. These obtained values are low compared to the world average values and the values of globally applied standards. Comparison with previous studies (dry season) also found that the values for all four parameters were low and equivalent. This indicates the level of radiation hazard in the area around the study is safe for the public.

Keywords: catchment area, gamma spectrometry, naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), soil

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Authors: Siva Sankara Arudra, Kamaruzaman Baharuddin, Ir. Ahmed Fadzil Mustafa Kamal, Ir. Abdul Latif Mohamed

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The advancement of electrical and electronics technologies has rewarded the oil and gas industry with great opportunities to embed more environmentally solutions into design. Most offshore oil and gas producers have their engineering and production asset goals to promote greater use of environmentally friendly compression system technologies to eliminate hazardous emissions from conventional gas compressor drivers. Therefore, this paper comprehensively elaborates the parametric study conducted in integrating the latest electrical and electronics drives technology into the existing compression system. This study was conducted in aspects of layout, reliability & availability, maintainability, emission, and cost. An existing offshore facility that utilized gas turbines as the driver for gas compression was set as Conventional Case for this study. The Electrification Case will utilize electric motor drives as the driver for the compression system. Findings from this study indicate more advantages in driver electrification compared to conventional compression systems. The findings of this paper can be set as a benchmark for future offshore driver selection for gas compression systems of similar operating parameters and power range.

Keywords: turbomachinery, electrification, emission, compression system

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Authors: Hai-Ying Liu, Yi-Hao Chen, Shu-Yin Pang, Feng-Hua Wang, Xiao-Fang Peng, Li-Yuan Yang, Zheng-Rong Chen, Yi Chen, Bing Zhu

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Objective: Biliary atresia (BA) is characterized by progressive liver fibrosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been implicated as a key mechanism in the pathogenesis of organ fibrosis. MiR-200a has been shown to repress EMT. We aim to explore the role of miR-200a in the fibrogenesis of BA. Methods: We obtained the plasma samples and liver samples from patients with BA or controls to examine the role of miR-200a. Histological liver fibrosis was assessed using the Ishak fibrosis scores. Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was performed to detect the expression of miR-200a in plasma. We also evaluated the expression of miR-200a in liver tissues using tyramide signal amplification fluorescence in situ hybridization (TSA-FISH). The expression of EMT related proteins zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 (ZEB1), E-cadherin and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in the liver sections were detected by immunohistochemical staining. Results: We found that the expression of miR-200a was both elevated in the plasma and liver tissues from BA patients compared with the controls. The hepatic expression of ZEB1 and α-SMA were markedly increased in the liver sections from BA patients compared to the controls, whereas E-cadherin was downregulated in the BA group. Simultaneously, we noted that the hepatic expression of miR-200a, E-cadherin and α-SMA were upregulated with the progression of liver fibrosis in the BA group, while ZEB1 was downregulated with the progression of liver fibrosis in BA patients. Conclusion: These findings suggest EMT has a critical effect on the fibrotic process of BA, and the interaction between miR-200a and ZEB1 may regulate EMT and eventually influence liver fibrogenesis of BA.

Keywords: biliary atresia, liver fibrosis, MicroRNA, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1

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Authors: Eman A. Gani, Loay E. George, Faisel G. Mohammed, Kamal H. Sager

Abstract:

Digital retinal images are more appropriate for automatic screening of diabetic retinopathy systems. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of these images are poor quality that hinders further analysis due to many factors (such as patient movement, inadequate or non-uniform illumination, acquisition angle and retinal pigmentation). The retinal images of poor quality need to be enhanced before the extraction of features and abnormalities. So, the segmentation of retinal image is essential for this purpose, the segmentation is employed to smooth and strengthen image by separating the background and damaged areas from the overall image thus resulting in retinal image enhancement and less processing time. In this paper, methods for segmenting colored retinal image are proposed to improve the quality of retinal image diagnosis. The methods generate two segmentation masks; i.e., background segmentation mask for extracting the background area and poor quality mask for removing the noisy areas from the retinal image. The standard retinal image databases DIARETDB0, DIARETDB1, STARE, DRIVE and some images obtained from ophthalmologists have been used to test the validation of the proposed segmentation technique. Experimental results indicate the introduced methods are effective and can lead to high segmentation accuracy.

Keywords: retinal images, fundus images, diabetic retinopathy, background segmentation, damaged areas segmentation

Procedia PDF Downloads 403

Authors: U. S. N. Raju, Kothuri Sai Kiran, Meena G. Kamal, Vinay Nikhil Pabba, Suresh Kanaparthi

Abstract:

There is huge amount of lecture video data available for public use, and many more lecture videos are being created and uploaded every day. Searching for videos on required topics from this huge database is a challenging task. Therefore, an efficient method for video retrieval is needed. An approach for automated video indexing and video search in large lecture video archives is presented. As the amount of video lecture data is huge, it is very inefficient to do the processing in a centralized computation framework. Hence, Hadoop Framework for distributed computing for Big Video Data is used. First, step in the process is automatic video segmentation and key-frame detection to offer a visual guideline for the video content navigation. In the next step, we extract textual metadata by applying video Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology on key-frames. The OCR and detected slide text line types are adopted for keyword extraction, by which both video- and segment-level keywords are extracted for content-based video browsing and search. The performance of the indexing process can be improved for a large database by using distributed computing on Hadoop framework.

Keywords: video lectures, big video data, video retrieval, hadoop

Procedia PDF Downloads 533

Authors: Kamal Khan Abro, Nasreen Memon, Attaullah Ansari, Mahpara Pirzada, Saima Pathan

Abstract:

Jacobabad district has a hot desert climate with very hot summers and insignificant winters. The highest recorded temperature is 53.8 °C (127.0 °F), and the lowest recorded temperature is −4.9 °C (25.0 °F). Rainfall is short and mostly occurs in the monsoon season (July–September). Agriculture point of view Jacobabad district is very important district of Sindh Pakistan in which many types of crop and vegetables are cultivated annually such as Wheat, Rice, and Brassica, Cabbage, Spinach, Chili etc. which are badly attacked by many crops pest. Insects are very tiny, sensitive and most attractive mortal and most important collection of animal wildlife they play important role in biological control agent, biodiversity & agroecosystem. The brassica crop extremely infested by many different types of pest such as Aphids, Whitefly, Jassids, Thrips, Mealybug, scale insect pink worm, bollworm and borers Mealy bug, scale insect etc. These pests destroy many crops. The present study was carried out from Jacobabad district from January 2017 to April 2017.

Keywords: prevelance, green peach aphid, Jacobabad, Sindh Pakistan

Procedia PDF Downloads 291