Search results for: total floating time (TFT)

Authors: Myoungsoon You, Heejung Son

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Background: In the current study, we investigated the effects of emotions induced by an infectious disease outbreak on the various protective behaviors taken during the crisis and on the perception after the crisis. The investigation was based on two psychological theories of appraisal tendency and action tendency. Methods: A total of 900 participants in South Korea who experienced the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak were sampled by a professional survey agency. To assess the influence of the emotions fear and anger, a regression approach was used. The effect of emotions on various protective behaviors and perceptions was observed using a hierarchical regression method. Results: Fear and anger induced by the infectious disease outbreak were both associated with increased protective behaviors during the crisis. However, the differences between the emotions were observed. While protective behaviors with avoidance tendency (adherence to recommendations, self-mitigation), were raised by both fear and anger, protective behaviors with approach tendency (information-seeking) were increased by anger, but not fear. Regarding the effect of emotion on the risk perception after the crisis, only fear was associated with a higher level of risk perception. Conclusions: This study confirmed the role of emotions in crisis protective behaviors and post-crisis perceptions regarding an infectious disease outbreak. These findings could enhance understanding of the public’s protective behaviors during infectious disease outbreaks and afterward risk perception corresponding to emotions. The results also suggested strategies for communicating with the public that takes into account emotions that are prominently induced by crises associated with disease outbreaks.

Keywords: crisis communication, emotion, infectious disease outbreak, protective behavior, risk perception

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Authors: A. Maruf Aytekin

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We present our approach on using continuous delivery pattern for release management. One of the key practices of agile and lean teams is the continuous delivery of new features to stakeholders. The main benefits of this approach lie in the ability to release new applications rapidly which has real strategic impact on the competitive advantage of an organization. Organizations that successfully implement Continuous Delivery have the ability to evolve rapidly to support innovation, provide stable and reliable software in more efficient ways, decrease the amount of resources need for maintenance, and lower the software delivery time and costs. One of the objectives of this paper is to elaborate a case study where IT division of Central Securities Depository Institution (MKK) of Turkey apply Continuous Delivery pattern to improve release management process.

Keywords: automation, continuous delivery, deployment, release management

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Authors: Juyeon Lee, Sungeun You

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Experiential avoidance is one’s tendency to avoid painful internal experience, unwanted adverse thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. The Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) is a measure of experiential avoidance, and the original scale consisted of 62 items with six subfactors including behavioral avoidance, distress aversion, procrastination, distraction/suppression, repression/denial, and distress endurance. The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of the MEAQ in a Korean sample. Three hundred community adults and university students aged 18 to 35 participated in an online survey assessing experiential avoidance (MEAQ and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II; AAQ-II), depression (Patient Health Questionnaire-9; PHQ-9), anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disoder-7; GAD-7), negative affect (Positive and Negative Affect Scale; PANAS), neuroticism (Big Five Inventory; BFI), and quality of life (Satisfaction with Life Scale; SWLS). Factor analysis with principal axis with direct oblimin rotation was conducted to examine subfactors of the MEAQ. Results indicated that the six-factor structure of the original scale was adequate. Eight items out of 62 items were removed due to insufficient factor loading. These items included 3 items of behavior avoidance (e.g., “When I am hurting, I would do anything to feel better”), 2 items of repression/denial (e.g., “I work hard to keep out upsetting feelings”), and 3 items of distress aversion (e.g., “I prefer to stick to what I am comfortable with, rather than try new activities”). The MEAQ was positively associated with the AAQ-II (r = .47, p < .001), PHQ-9 (r = .37, p < .001), GAD-7 (r = .34, p < .001), PANAS (r = .35, p < .001), and neuroticism (r = .24, p < .001), and negatively correlated with the SWLS (r = -.38, p < .001). Internal consistency was good for the MEAQ total (Cronbach’s α = .90) as well as all six subfactors (Cronbach’s α = .83 to .87). The findings of the study support the multidimensional feature of experiential avoidance and validity of the MEAQ in a sample of Korean adults.

Keywords: avoidance, experiential avoidance, factor structure, MEAQ

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Authors: Abbas Cheraghi

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A key predistribution scheme provides one method to distribute secret ahead of time. Blom’s scheme is a symmetric threshold key exchange protocol in cryptography. The scheme was proposed by the Swedish cryptographer Rolf Blom. In this kind of scheme, trusted authority gives each user a secret key and a public identifier, which enables any two users to create independently a shared key for communicating between each other. However, if an attacker can compromise the keys of at least Known numbers of users, he can break the scheme and reconstruct every shared key. In this paper generalized Blom’s Scheme by multivariate Lagrange interpolation formula. This scheme is a form of threshold secret sharing scheme. In this new scheme, the amount of information transmitted by the trusted authority is independent of the numbers of users. In addition, this scheme is unconditionally secure against any individual user.

Keywords: key predistribution, blom’s scheme, secret sharing, unconditional secure

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Authors: Charlotte Bose Iro-Idoro, Adebisi Folake Osore, Tajudeen Adisa Jimoh

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All changes in the office environment were and are still driven by advances in technology. The impact of computers on office work has resulted in numerous changes in office activities, procedures and the expectations from office managers and secretaries. This study investigated the level of knowledge and use of computer office application packages by secretaries and office managers in higher educational institutions in Ogun State and the implications of these on their performance enhancement. The study is an ex post facto research and adopted the survey design for the collection of data. Two hypotheses were formulated, and a questionnaire was developed and tested at 0.05 level of significance. All office managers and secretaries in the service of higher educational institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria formed the population of the study. The study was limited to federal institutions and a total of 120 office managers/secretaries were selected to form the sample such that 40 office managers/secretaries were randomly selected from each of the three Federal higher institutions in the State, that is Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro and Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta, Ogun State. Analysis of data and hypotheses tests were carried out with frequency counts, percentage and T-Test. The result indicated varying levels of awareness on office application tools with limited knowledge and use of computer application packages by office managers/secretaries. The results also showed that good knowledge and high use of office application tools enhance performance of office managers/secretaries. The study recommended that there should be maximum institutional resources and support and personal development on the part of the office managers to ensure update knowledge and maximal use of office application tools by office managers/secretaries.

Keywords: application packages, computer, office managers, performance enhancement

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Authors: Kelechi E. Ezeji

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The inclusion of relevant content in curricula of architecture schools is vital for attainment of Computer Aided Design (CAD) proficiency by graduates. Implementing this content involves, among other variables, the presence of competent tutors. Consequently, this study sought to investigate the importance of personnel recruitment for inclusion of content vital to the implementation of CAD in the curriculum for architecture education. This was with a view to developing a framework for appropriate implementation of CAD curriculum. It was focused on departments of architecture in universities in south-east Nigeria which have been accredited by National Universities Commission. Survey research design was employed. Data were obtained from sources within the study area using questionnaires, personal interviews, physical observation/enumeration and examination of institutional documents. A multi-stage stratified random sampling method was adopted. The first stage of stratification involved random sampling by balloting of the departments. The second stage involved obtaining respondents’ population from the number of staff and students of sample population. Chi Square analysis tool for nominal variables and Pearson’s product moment correlation test for interval variables were used for data analysis. With ρ < 0.5, the study found significant correlation between the number of CAD literate academic staff and use of CAD in design studio/assignments; that increase in the overall number of teaching staff significantly affected total CAD credit units in the curriculum of the department. The implications of these findings were that for successful implementation leading to attainment of CAD proficiency to occur, CAD-literacy should be a factor in the recruitment of staff and a policy of in-house training should be pursued.

Keywords: computer-aided design, education, personnel recruitment, curriculum

Procedia PDF Downloads 192

Authors: R. M. K. S. Chandana, A. P. D. G. Pathirana, N. Priyankarage, W. A. D. Nayananjalie, S. S. P. Silva

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Full fat soybean meal (FFSBM) has been used in many parts of the world together with solvent-extracted soybean meal (SBM) in livestock feeds. Although some local FFSBM is available, their use has not been assessed experimentally. This study was carried out to evaluate the use of local extruded FFSBM in broiler rations. Four treatment diets were formulated by incorporating locally produced FFSBM (0, 10, 20, and 30%) as a replacement for soybean meal (SBM) in a two-phase (starter and finisher) feeding program. Two hundred Hubbard F 15 day old broiler chicks were randomly assigned into four treatments with five replicates per each. Bodyweight gain (BWG), feed intakes (FI), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were calculated for a period of 42 days. Nutrient utilization in the form of dry matter (DM), energy, nitrogen, and fat retention were estimated by the total collection method in three weeks old broilers. At the end of the experiment, carcass weight was measured, and the dressing percentage was calculated. Data were analyzed using one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) in SAS. There was no significant effect of FFSBM on feed intakes of chicks fed different diets (p > 0.05). Birds fed the control diet, and FF10 (10% FFSBM diet) gained significantly more than that of birds fed FF20 or FF30 diets (p > 0.05). In the finisher period, control birds gained more than all the other treatment birds. FCR was poorer in bird fed higher levels of FFSBM compared to the control or FF10 birds during their early life, but that was not evident in the latter part of the experiment. Treatments did not alter (p > 0.05) the retention of DM and nitrogen, but energy utilization was lowest (p < 0.05) in birds fed with 0% FFSBM, and the highest fat digestibility was observed in birds fed with 30% FFSBM diets. Thus, it can be concluded that FFSBM can be used as a substitute for SBM in broiler rations and could be incorporated up to 10% of the diet safely with no adverse effects on broiler performances.

Keywords: body weight, broiler, digestibility, full fat soybean meal, soybean meal

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Authors: Mukesh Ravi Raushan

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Despite consideration of obesity as a deadly public health issue contributing 2.6 million deaths worldwide every year developing country like India is facing malnutrition and it is more common than in Sub-Saharan Africa. About one in every three malnourished children in the world lives in India. The paper assess the nutritional health among children using data from total number of 43737 infant and young children aged 0-59 months (µ = 29.54; SD = 17.21) of the selected households by National Family Health Survey, 2005-06. The wasting was measured by a Z-score of standardized weight-for-height according to the WHO child growth standards. The impact of education with place of residence was found to be significantly associated with the complementary food diversity score (CFDS) in India. The education of mother was positively associated with the CFDS but the degree of performance was lower in rural India than their counterpart from urban. The result of binary logistic regression on wasting with WHO seven types of recommended food for children in India suggest that child who consumed the milk product food (OR: 0.87, p<0.0001) were less likely to be malnourished than their counterparts who did not consume, whereas, in case of other food items as the child who consumed food product of seed (OR: 0.75, p<0.0001) were less likely to be malnourished than those who did not. The nutritional status among children were negatively associated with the protein containing complementary food given the child as those child who received pulse in last 24 hour were less likely to be wasted (OR: 0.87, p<0.00001) as compared to the reference categories. The frequency to feed the indexed child increases by 10 per cent the expected change in child health outcome in terms of wasting decreases by 2 per cent in India when place of residence, education, religion, and birth order were controlled. The index gets improved as the risk for malnutrition among children in India decreases.

Keywords: CFDS, food diversity index, India, logistic regression

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Authors: Hafida Merzouk

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Urinary tract infections are among the most serious public health issues in all age groups. Thus, the empirical therapy should based on local levels of resistance, as indicated in several studies from different countries, to effectively avoid the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacterial strains and recurrent infections. Numerous effective antibiotic treatments are available, but wouldbe ineffective for treating recurrent cystitis caused by a urinary tract infection, as well as the emergence of drug resistance. That iswhy the aim of this study was to highlight the antibacterial and the antioxidant activity of 11 medicinal plants used traditionally in Algeria against E. coli, the most responsible urinary tract infections. First, the extraction of total polyphenols with aqueous acetone showed variable yields. The highest yield was obtained by Asplenium trichomanes with 27%, followed by Petroselinum crispum and Ciannamomum cassia with an equal yield of 21%. Artemisia herba-alba gave the lowest yield (9%). The extracts of different plants showed variable contents of phenolic compounds. Reducing power and DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) scavenging activity revealed that most of the extracts studied had significant activity. The anti-free radical activity was very high in the extract of A splenium adiantum-nigrum compared with the other extracts studied, but Petroselinum crispum and Parietaria officinalis had the lowest reducing activity; Antibacterial activity was determined on E. coli strainsusing the diffusion, MICs (Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations) and MBCs (Minimum Bactericidal concentrations) methods. The strains tested were sensitive to most extracts studied, except Asplenium adiantum-nigrum extract, for which both strains showed resistance.

Keywords: E. coli, medicinal plants, phenolic compounds, urinary infections

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Authors: Nneka Augustina Akwu, Yougasphree Naidoo

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Molecular advancement in technology has created a means whereby the atoms and molecules (solid forms) of certain materials such as plants, can now be reduced to a range of 1-100 nanometres. Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) was carried out at room temperature (RT) 25 ± 2°C and 80°C, using the metabolites in the aqueous extracts of the leaves and stem bark of Grewia lasiocarpa as reductants and stabilizing agents. The biosynthesized AgNPs were characterized by UV-Vis spectrophotometry, attenuated total reflectance - Fourier transforms infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), Energy Dispersive X-ray fluorescence scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDXRF) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The AgNPs were biologically evaluated for antioxidant, antibacterial and cytotoxicity activities. The phytochemical and FTIR analyses revealed the presence of metabolites that act as reducing and capping agents, while the UV-Vis spectroscopy of the biosynthesized NPs showed absorption between 380-460 nm, confirming AgNP synthesis. The Zeta potential values were between -9.1 and -20.6 mV with a hydrodynamics diameter ranging from 38.3 to 46.7 nm. SEM and HRTEM analyses revealed that AgNPs were predominately spherical with an average particle size of 2- 31 nm for the leaves and 5-27 nm for the stem bark. The cytotoxicity IC50 values of the AgNPs against HeLa, Caco-2 and MCF-7 were >1 mg/mL. The AgNPs were sensitive to all strains of bacteria used, with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923) and Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922) being more sensitive to the AgNPs. Our findings propose that antibacterial and anticancer agents could be derived from these AgNPs of G. lasiocarpa, and warrant their further investigation.

Keywords: antioxidant, cytotoxicity, Grewia lasiocarpa, silver nanoparticles, Zeta potentials

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Authors: Shahan Waheed, Muhammad Waqas, Asher Feroz

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Objectives: To determine the utility of base deficit in traumatic brain injury in assessing the severity and to correlate with the conventional computed tomography scales in grading the severity of head injury. Methodology: Observational cross-sectional study conducted in a tertiary care facility from 1st January 2010 to 31st December 2012. All patients with isolated traumatic brain injury presenting within 24 hours of the injury to the emergency department were included in the study. Initial Glasgow Coma Scale and base deficit values were taken at presentation, the patients were followed during their hospital stay and CT scan brain findings were recorded and graded as per the Rotterdam scale, the findings were cross-checked by a radiologist, Glasgow Outcome Scale was taken on last follow up. Outcomes were dichotomized into favorable and unfavorable outcomes. Continuous variables with normal and non-normal distributions are reported as mean ± SD. Categorical variables are presented as frequencies and percentages. Relationship of the base deficit with GCS, GOS, CT scan brain and length of stay was calculated using Spearman`s correlation. Results: 154 patients were enrolled in the study. Mean age of the patients were 30 years and 137 were males. The severity of brain injuries as per the GCS was 34 moderate and 109 severe respectively. 34 percent of the total has an unfavorable outcome with a mean of 18±14. The correlation was significant at the 0.01 level with GCS on presentation and the base deficit 0.004. The correlation was not significant between the Rotterdam CT scan brain findings, length of stay and the base deficit. Conclusion: The base deficit was found to be a good predictor of severity of brain injury. There was no association of the severity of injuries on the CT scan brain as per the Rotterdam scale and the base deficit. Further studies with large sample size are needed to further evaluate the associations.

Keywords: base deficit, traumatic brain injury, Rotterdam, GCS

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Authors: Katherine Carl Payne, Moshe Dror

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The problem of minimum cost routing has been extensively explored in a variety of contexts. While there is a prevalence of routing applications based on least distance, time, and related attributes, exertion-based routing has remained relatively unexplored. In particular, the network structures traditionally used to construct minimum cost paths are not suited to representing exertion or finding paths of least exertion based on road gradient. In this paper, we introduce a topographical network or “topograph” that enables minimum cost routing based on the exertion metric on each arc in a given road network as it is related to changes in road gradient. We describe an algorithm for topograph construction and present the implementation of the topograph on a road network of the state of California with ~22 million nodes.

Keywords: topograph, RPE, routing, GIS

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Authors: Adegbegi Ademuyiwa Joshua, Onoagbe Iyare

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Medicinal plants have been recognized to have therapeutic effects and they may also have toxic side effects. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of extracts of Cymbopogon citratus on normal rats. Blood glucose levels of all animals were determined. Biochemical studies carried out to determine the oxidative status by measuring activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT), and in the liver, kidney and pancrease. Oral administration of ethanolic and aqueous extract of C. citratus at a doses of 200 mg/kg body weight, for a period of 30 days, caused a significant (p<0.05) reduction in blood glucose levels. Effect on hormonal profile (TSH, T3, and T4) was also determined, and was found to be significantly higher in all the administered groups when compared with control. Lipid profiles levels; Total cholesterols, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein-cholesterol and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol were significantly (p>0.05) higher for all treated rats as compared against control. SOD, catalase, GSH and Vitamin C activities in the tissues (liver, kidney and pancrease) of the rats treated with the medicinal plants were generally higher or statistical slightly similar to control. Histopathology result showed that both ethanolic and aqueous extracts (200 mg/kg body weight) of C. citratus was safer as no adverse effects were observed in the organs examined. Findings in this study showed that this plant has hypoglycemic properties and did not exert oxidative damage; in some instances, particularly in the liver, kidney and pancreas as well as its relative safety and possible use for weight gain.

Keywords: medicinal plants, blood glucose, cymbopogon citratus, hypoglycaemic, oxidative status

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Authors: H. Duggal, G. Singh, G. Singh, A. Bhalla, S. Kumar, J. S. Shahi, D. Mehta

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The total differential cross section for scattering of the 5.895 keV photons by various polymers has been measured at scattering angle of 135o. The experimental measurements were carried out using the energy dispersive setup involving annular source of the 55Fe radioisotope and a low energy germanium (LEGe) detector. The cross section values are measured for 20 polymer targets namely, Paraffin Wax, Polytetrafluoro ethylene (PTFE), Cellulose, Silicone oil, Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), Polyvinyl purrolidone (PVP), Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), Kapton, Mylar, Chitosan, Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Bakelite, Carbopol, Chlorobutyl rubber (CBR), Polyetylene glycol (PEG), Polysorbate-20, Nylon-6, Cetyl alcohol, Carboxyl methyl sodium cellulose and Sodium starch glucolate. The measurements were performed in vacuum so as to avoid scattering contribution due to air and strong absorption of low energy photons in the air column. In the present investigations, the geometrical factor and efficiency of the detector were determined by measuring the K x-rays emitted from the 22Ti and 23V targets excited by the Mn K x-rays in the same experimental set up. The measured scattering cross sections have been compared with the sum of theoretically calculated elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections. The theoretical elastic (Rayleigh) scattering cross sections based on the various form factor approximations, namely, non-relativistic form factor (NF), relativistic form factor (RF), modified form factor (MF), and MF with anomalous scattering factor (ASF) as well as the second order S-matrix formalisms, and the inelastic scattering differential cross sections based on the Klein-Nishina formula after including the inelastic scattering function (KN+ISF) have been calculated. The experimental results show fairly good agreement with theoretical cross sections.

Keywords: photon, polymers, elastic and inelastic, scattering cross sections

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Authors: Rafael Castilho Carvalho, Edjair de Souza Mota

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As the largest contributor to the biogeochemical functioning of the Earth system, the Amazon Rainforest has the greatest biodiversity on the planet, harboring about 15% of all the world's flora. Recognition and preservation are the focus of research that seeks to mitigate drastic changes, especially anthropic ones, which irreversibly affect this biome. Functional and low-cost monitoring alternatives to reduce these impacts are a priority, such as those using technologies such as Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN). Promising, reliable, secure and with low energy consumption, LPWAN can connect thousands of IoT devices, and in particular, LoRa is considered one of the most successful solutions to facilitate forest monitoring applications. Despite this, the forest environment, in particular the Amazon Rainforest, is a challenge for these technologies, requiring work to identify and validate the use of technology in a real environment. To investigate the feasibility of deploying LPWAN in remote water quality monitoring of rivers in the Amazon Region, a LoRa-based test bed consisting of a Lora transmitter and a LoRa receiver was set up, both parts were implemented with Arduino and the LoRa chip SX1276. The experiment was carried out at the Federal University of Amazonas, which contains one of the largest urban forests in Brazil. There are several springs inside the forest, and the main goal is to collect water quality parameters and transmit the data through the forest in real time to the gateway at the uni. In all, there are nine water quality parameters of interest. Even with a high collection frequency, the amount of information that must be sent to the gateway is small. However, for this application, the battery of the transmitter device is a concern since, in the real application, the device must run without maintenance for long periods of time. With these constraints in mind, parameters such as Spreading Factor (SF) and Coding Rate (CR), different antenna heights, and distances were tuned to better the connectivity quality, measured with RSSI and loss rate. A handheld spectrum analyzer RF Explorer was used to get the RSSI values. Distances exceeding 200 m have soon proven difficult to establish communication due to the dense foliage and high humidity. The optimal combinations of SF-CR values were 8-5 and 9-5, showing the lowest packet loss rates, 5% and 17%, respectively, with a signal strength of approximately -120 dBm, these being the best settings for this study so far. The rains and climate changes imposed limitations on the equipment, and more tests are already being conducted. Subsequently, the range of the LoRa configuration must be extended using a mesh topology, especially because at least three different collection points in the same water body are required.

Keywords: IoT, LPWAN, LoRa, coverage, loss rate, forest

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Authors: Yuzhi Cai

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In this paper, we discuss a Bayesian approach to quantile autoregressive (QAR) time series model estimation and forecasting. Together with a combining forecasts technique, we then predict USD to GBP currency exchange rates. Combined forecasts contain all the information captured by the fitted QAR models at different quantile levels and are therefore better than those obtained from individual models. Our results show that an unequally weighted combining method performs better than other forecasting methodology. We found that a median AR model can perform well in point forecasting when the predictive density functions are symmetric. However, in practice, using the median AR model alone may involve the loss of information about the data captured by other QAR models. We recommend that combined forecasts should be used whenever possible.

Keywords: combining forecasts, MCMC, predictive density functions, quantile forecasting, quantile modelling

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Authors: Arkadiusz Gut, Robert Mirski

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The nativist-constructivist debate constitutes a considerable part of current research on mindreading. Peter Carruthers and his colleagues are known for their nativist position in the debate and take issue with constructivist views proposed by other researchers, with Henry Wellman, Alison Gopnik, and Ian Apperly at the forefront. More specifically, Carruthers together with Evan Westra propose a nativistic explanation of Theory of Mind Scale study results that Wellman et al. see as supporting constructivism. While allowing for development of the innate mindreading system, Westra and Carruthers base their argumentation essentially on a competence-performance gap, claiming that cross-cultural differences in Theory of Mind Scale progression as well as discrepancies between infants’ and toddlers’ results on verbal and non-verbal false-belief tasks are fully explainable in terms of acquisition of other, pragmatic, cognitive developments, which are said to allow for an expression of the innately present Theory of Mind understanding. The goal of the present paper is to bring together arguments against the view offered by Westra and Carruthers. It will be shown that even though Carruthers et al.’s interpretation has not been directly controlled for in Wellman et al.’s experiments, there are serious reasons to dismiss such nativistic views which Carruthers et al. advance. The present paper discusses the following issues that undermine Carruthers et al.’s nativistic conception: (1) The concept of innateness is argued to be developmentally inaccurate; it has been dropped in many biological sciences altogether and many developmental psychologists advocate for doing the same in cognitive psychology. Reality of development is a complex interaction of changing elements that is belied by the simplistic notion of ‘the innate.’ (2) The purported innate mindreading conceptual system posited by Carruthers ascribes adult-like understanding to infants, ignoring the difference between first- and second-order understanding, between what can be called ‘presentation’ and ‘representation.’ (3) Advances in neurobiology speak strongly against any inborn conceptual knowledge; neocortex, where conceptual knowledge finds its correlates, is said to be largely equipotential at birth. (4) Carruthers et al.’s interpretations are excessively charitable; they extend results of studies done with 15-month-olds to conclusions about innateness, whereas in reality at that age there has been plenty of time for construction of the skill. (5) Looking-time experiment paradigm used in non-verbal false belief tasks that provide the main support for Carruthers’ argumentation has been criticized on methodological grounds. In the light of the presented arguments, nativism in theory of mind research is concluded to be an untenable position.

Keywords: development, false belief, mindreading, nativism, theory of mind

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Authors: Michal Kopcek, Tomas Skulavik, Michal Kebisek, Gabriela Krizanova

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The operation of nuclear power plants involves continuous monitoring of the environment in their area. This monitoring is performed using a complex data acquisition system, which collects status information about the system itself and values of many important physical variables e.g. temperature, humidity, dose rate etc. This paper describes a proposal and optimization of communication that takes place in teledosimetric system between the central control server responsible for the data processing and storing and the decentralized measuring stations, which are measuring the physical variables. Analyzes of ongoing communication were performed and consequently the optimization of the system architecture and communication was done.

Keywords: communication protocol, transmission optimization, data acquisition, system architecture

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Authors: Shashank Bahri, Divyanshu Arya, Rajni Jain, Sreedevi Upadhyayula

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Petroleum products can be obtained from syngas catalytic conversion using Fischer Tropsch Reaction. The liquid fuels obtained from FTS are sulphur and nitrogen free and thus may easily meet the increasing stringent environment regulations. In the present work we have synthesized Meso porous ZSM-5 supported catalyst. Meso structure were created in H-ZSM-5 crystallites by demetalation via subsequent base and acid treatment. Desilication through base treatment provides H-ZSM-5 with pore size and volumes similar to amorphous SiO2 (Conventional Carrier). Modifying the zeolite texture and surface chemistry by Desilication and acid washing alters its accessibility and interactions with metal phase and consequently the CO adsorption behavior and hydrocarbon product distribution. Increasing the mesoporosity via desilication provides the micro porous zeolite with essential surface area to support optimally sized metal crystallites. This improves the metal dispersion and hence improve the activity of the catalyst. Transition metal (Co) was loaded using wet impregnation method. Synthesized catalysts were characterized by Infrared Spectroscopy, Powdered X-Ray Diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), BET Method analytical techniques. Acidity of the catalyst which plays an important role in FTS reaction was measured by DRIFT setup pyridine adsorption instead of NH3 Temperature Programmed Desorption. The major difference is that, Pyridine Adsorption can distinguish between Lewis acidity and Bronsted Acidity, thus giving their relative strengths in the catalyst sample, whereas TPD gives total acidity including Lewis and Bronsted ones.

Keywords: mesopourus, fischer tropsch reaction, pyridine adsorrption, drift study

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Authors: Bita Mashayekhi, Hamid Kalhornia

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One of the most important roles of financial reporting is improving the firms’ investment decisions; however, there is not much supporting evidence for this claim in emerging markets like Iran. In this study, the effect of financial reporting transparency in investment efficiency of Iranian firms has been investigated. In order to do this, 336 listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) has been selected for time period 2012 to 2015 as research sample. For testing our main hypothesis, we classified sample firms into two groups based on their deviation from expected investment: under-investment and over-investment cases. The results indicate that there is positive significant relationship between financial transparency and investment efficiency. In the other words, transparency can mitigate both underinvestment and overinvestment situations.

Keywords: corporate governance, disclosure, investment decisions, investment efficiency, transparency

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Authors: Sekou Kangoye, Alexis Todoskoff, Mihaela Barreau

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Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC) is a structural coverage criterion that is highly recommended or required for safety-critical software coverage. Therefore, many testing standards include this criterion and require it to be satisfied at a particular level of testing (e.g. validation and unit levels). However, an important amount of time is needed to meet those requirements. In this paper we propose to automate MC/DC test data generation. Thus, we present an approach to automatically generate MC/DC test data, from software module description written over a dedicated language. We introduce a new merging approach that provides high MC/DC coverage for the description, with only a little number of test cases.

Keywords: domain-specific language, MC/DC, test data generation, safety-critical software coverage

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Authors: Arun Dhakal, Rajesh Kumar Rai

Abstract:

Agroforestry is long practiced in Nepal as a means of subsistence livelihoods. Given its potential to climate change mitigation, this practice is being recommended as a climate-smart farming practice in the recent years. However, the financial attractiveness of this practice is not well-documented in a labor scarce economy such as Nepal. This study attempts to examine the financial suitability of an agroforestry-based farming practice in the present socio-economic context of Nepal where labor is in short supply. A total of 200 households were randomly selected for household surveys in Dhanusha district during April to July 2015. Two farming practices were found to be dominant in the study area: 1) conventional farming (field crops only) in which at least two field crops are annually grown, and 2) agroforestry-based farming (agroforest, home garden and field crops combined) practice (ABFP). The ABFP was found to be less labor intensive than the conventional farming (137 Man days/yr/ha vs 218 Man days/yr/ha). The ex-ante financial analysis indicated that both the farming practices generated positive NPVs (Net Present Values) and B/C (Benefit-Cost) ratios greater than one, indicating both are financially attractive farming enterprises under the base discount rate of 12%. However, the ABFP generated higher NPV and greater B/C ratio than the conventional farming, indicating the former was financially more attractive than the later. The sensitivity analysis showed that the conventional farming was more sensitive to change in labor wage rate than that of the ABFP. Up to the 24% discount rate, the ABFP generated higher NPV and in case of B/C ratio, the ratio was found greater for ABFP even in 50% discount rate.

Keywords: agroforestry, benefit-cost analysis, conventional farming, net present value

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Authors: A. Ibovi Mouondayi, S. Zaher, K. Nassar, S. Janani

Abstract:

Introduction: Osteoarticular ultrasound has become an essential tool for the investigation and monitoring of osteoarticular pathologies for rheumatologists. It is performed in the clinic, cheap to access than other imaging technics. Important anatomical sites of inflammation in inflammatory diseases such as synovium, tendon sheath, and enthesis are easily identifiable on ultrasound. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the importance of ultrasound for rheumatologists in the development of diagnoses of inflammatory rheumatism in cases of uncertain clinical presentation. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted in our department and carried out over a period of 30 months from January 2020 to June 2022. We included all patients with inflammatory arthralgia without clinical arthritis. Patients' data were collected through a patient operating system. Results: A total of 35 patients were identified, made up of 4 men and 31 women, with a sex ratio M/F of 0.12. The average age of the patients was 48.8 years, with extremes ranging from 17 years to 83 years. All patients had inflammatory polyarthralgia for an average of 9.3 years. Only two patients had suspicious synovitis on clinical examination. 91.43% of patients had a positive inflammatory assessment with an average CRP of 22.2 mg/L. Rheumatoid factor (RF) was present in 45.7% of patients and anti-CCP in 48.57%, with respective averages of 294.43 and 314.63 international units/mL. Radiographic lesions were found in 54% of patients. Osteoarticular ultrasound was performed in all these patients. Subclinical synovitis was found in 60% of patients, including 23% Doppler positive. Tenosynovitis was found in 11% of patients. Enthesitis was objectified in 3% of patients. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was retained in 40% of patients; psoriatic arthritis in 6% of patients, hydroxyapatite arthritis, and osteoarthritis in 3% each. Conclusion: Osteoarticular ultrasound has been an essential tool in the practice of rheumatology in recent years. It is for diagnostic purposes in chronic inflammatory rheumatism as well as in degenerative rheumatism and crystal induced arthropathies, but also essential in the follow-up of patients in rheumatology.

Keywords: ultrasound, skeletal, rheumatoid arthritis, arthralgia

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Authors: Stephen Olusanmi Akintayo, Ilesanmi Fadahunsi

Abstract:

The ability of Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to grow and survive in milk is being exploited in industrial and biotechnological applications. Although considerable studies have been reported on the fermentation of milk, however, not so much work has been documented on the selection of LAB strains from milk of the Nigerian local cattle breeds for their starter culture potentials. A total of 110 LAB were isolated from raw milk of Sokoto gudali cattle breed. The isolates were screened for their proteolytic activities on skimmed milk media with isolates A07, F06 and A01 showing the highest zone of clearance of 18.5mm, 18.5mm, and 18.0mm respectively and were selected for the studies of their growth in different constituents of milk. A01, F06, and A07 were identified as Pediococcus acidilactici, Lactococcus raffinolactis, and Leuconostoc mesenteriodes respectively using cultural, biochemical, physiological and molecular characterization techniques. Leuconostoc mesenteriodes showed the highest growth in all the milk components that were used in this study. The three LAB species selected showed a growth range of 6.46 log cfu/ml to 10.91 log cfu/ml in lactose with Leuconostoc mesenteriodes showing the highest growth of 10.91 log cfu/ml while Pediococcus acidilactici recorded the lowest growth of 9.78 log cfu/ml. In medium containing leucine as the only amino acid, the viable counts of Pediococcus acidilactici, Lactococcus raffinolactis and Leuconostoc mesenteriodes in log cfu/ml at zero hour were 6.39, 6.36 and 6.38 respectively which increased to 9.31 log cfu/ml, 9.21 log cfu/ml, 9.92 log cfu/ml respectively after 24 hours. Similarly, in all other substrates (casein, lysine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid ) tested in this study, Leuconostoc mesenteriodes showed the highest growth. It was observed that the highest quantity of lactic acid (15.31mg/ml) was produced by Leuconostoc mesenteriodes. The same trend was also observed in the production of diacetyl and hydrogen peroxide by the three tested microorganisms. Due to its ability to grow maximally in milk components, Leuconostoc mesenteriodes shows potential as starter culture for milk fermentation.

Keywords: Leuconostoc mesenteriodes, lactic acid bacteria, Sokoto gudali, starter culture

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Authors: Sariyapa Kantawan, Muanfun Kongsomsawaeng

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Chanthaburi River community is an old mixed-culture village established in the 16th century. The town advanced more rapidly than others due to the ease of transportation at the time, which used the river as a road. Therefore, the province's first road begins here, propelling it to become an important commercial and trading center for almost a century. As a result of diverse culture, the architecture has been affected by Western, Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese, resulting in a new and distinctive style. To share the realm of memory, digital media enable the city to communicate its history and culture. This article describes a project that combines the concepts of digital storytelling and augmented reality and connects them to Chanthaburi River Community Culture by using QR codes as makers to display 3D models on mobile screens.

Keywords: digital storytelling, community culture, river community, cultural heritage, augmented reality

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Authors: Frederic Henry-Couannier

Abstract:

Dark Gravity is a natural extension of general relativity in presence of a flat non dynamical background. Matter and radiation fields from its dark sector, as soon as their gravity dominates over our side fields gravity, produce a constant acceleration law of the scale factor. After a brief reminder of the Dark Gravity theory foundations, the confrontation with the main cosmological probes is carried out. We show that, amazingly, the sudden transition between the usual matter dominated decelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t²/³ and this accelerated expansion law a(t) ∝ t² predicted by the theory should be able to fit the main cosmological probes (SN, BAO, CMB and age of the oldest stars data) but also direct H₀ measurements with two free parameters only: H₀ and the transition redshift.

Keywords: anti-gravity, negative energies, time reversal, field discontinuities, dark energy theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 36

Authors: Alexis Aldo Mendoza Villarroel, Ademir Clemente Villena Zevallos, Cristian Jose Lopez Del Alamo

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With the advancement of technology it is now possible to scan entire objects and obtain their digital representation by using point clouds or polygon meshes. However, some objects may be broken or have missing parts; thus, several methods focused on this problem have been proposed based on Geometric Deep Learning, such as GCNN, ACNN, PointNet, among others. In this article an approach from a different paradigm is proposed, using metric data structures to index global descriptors in the spectral domain and allow the recovery of a set of similar models in polynomial time; to later use the Iterative Close Point algorithm and recover the parts of the incomplete model using the geometry and topology of the model with less Hausdorff distance.

Keywords: 3D reconstruction method, point cloud completion, shape completion, similarity search

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Authors: Sandra H. Fukurozaki, Andre L. N. Silva, Joao B. F. Neto, Fernando J. G. Landgraf

Abstract:

Nowadays, the rare earth (RE) metals play an important role in emerging technologies that are crucial for the decarbonisation of the energy sector. Their unique properties have led to increasing clean energy applications, such as wind turbine generators, and hybrid and electric vehicles. Despite the substantial media coverage that has recently surrounded the mining and processing of rare earth metals, very little quantitative information is available concerning their subsequent life stages, especially related to the metallic production of didymium (Nd-Pr) in fluoride molten salt system. Here we investigate a gate to gate scale life cycle assessment (LCA) of the didymium electrolysis based on three different scenarios of operational conditions. The product system is modeled with SimaPro Analyst 8.0.2 software, and IMPACT 2002+ was applied as an impact assessment tool. In order to develop a life cycle inventories built in software databases, patents, and other published sources together with energy/mass balance were utilized. Analysis indicates that from the 14 midpoint impact categories evaluated, the global warming potential (GWP) is the main contributors to the total environmental burden, ranging from 2.7E2 to 3.2E2 kg CO2eq/kg Nd-Pr. At the damage step assessment, the results suggest that slight changes in materials flows associated with enhancement of current efficiency (between 2.5% and 5%), could lead a reduction up to 12% and 15% of human health and climate change damage, respectively. Additionally, this paper highlights the knowledge gaps and future research efforts needing to understand the environmental impacts of Nd-Pr electrolysis process from the life cycle perspective.

Keywords: didymium electrolysis, environmental impacts, life cycle assessment, rare earth metals

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Authors: Un Hwa Choe, Jong Hyon Choe, Yong Jun Kim

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The aim of this study was to effectively remove Fe2+ by using ozone microbubbles in bottled mineral water to prevent sediment from occurring during storage and increase shelf life. By considering the characteristics of mineral water with low solubility of ozone and high CO2 content, a suitable ozone injection step was chosen and a new mineral water treatment method using microbubbles was proposed. As a result of the treatment of the bottled mineral water with ozone microbubbles, the iron ion concentration was reduced from 0.14 mg/L to 0.01 mg/L, and the shelf life increased to 360 days. During the treatment, the concentrations of K+ and Na+ were almost unchanged, and the deposition time was reduced to one-third compared to the natural oxidation.

Keywords: CO₂-rich mineral water, ozone-micro bubble, shelf life, bottled mineral water, water treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 63

Authors: Ebeed A. Saleh, Kadry M. Sadek, Safaa H. Ghorbal

Abstract:

Due to the determination of the pollution status of fresh resources in the Egyptian territorial waters is very important for public health, this study was carried out to reveal the levels of heavy metals in the shellfish and their environment and its relation to the highly developed industrial activities in those areas. A total of 100 shellfish samples from the Rosetta, Edku, El-Maadiya, Abo-Kir and El-Max coasts [10 crustaceans (shrimp) and 10 mollusks (oysters)] were randomly collected from each coast. Additionally, 10 samples from both the water and the sediment were collected from each coast. Each collected sample was analyzed for cadmium, chromium, copper, lead and zinc residues using a Perkin Elmer atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). The results showed that the levels of heavy metals were higher in the water and sediment from Abo-Kir. The heavy metal levels decreased successively for the Rosetta, Edku, El-Maadiya, and El-Max coasts, and the concentrations of heavy metals, except copper and zinc, in shellfish exhibited the same pattern. For the concentration of heavy metals in shellfish tissue, the highest was zinc and the concentrations decreased successively for copper, lead, chromium and cadmium for all coasts, except the Abo-Kir coast, where the chromium level was highest and the other metals decreased successively for zinc, copper, lead and cadmium. In Rosetta, chromium was higher only in the mollusks, while the level of this metal was lower in the crustaceans; this trend was observed at the Edku, El-Maadiya and El-Max coasts as well. Herein, we discuss the importance of such contamination for public health and the sources of shellfish contamination with heavy metals. We suggest measures to minimize and prevent these pollutants in the aquatic environment and, furthermore, how to protect humans from excessive intake.

Keywords: atomic absorption, heavy metals, sediment, shellfish, water

Procedia PDF Downloads 306