Search results for: exploratory factors analysis

Authors: Daniel Ecler

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This paper aims to compare the data obtained using semi-structured questionnaires and find some connections between them, which could help to understand what factors affect the perception of the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning compared to conventional education. The data collected came from respondents from Czech and Chinese university students, and expectations were such that the different cultural environments from which the two groups come would have an impact on different experiences of distance education. With the help of variation-finding comparison, it turned out that Chinese students did not have such difficulties with the transition to distance learning as students from the Czech Republic, as most of them came into contact with some form of distance education in the past. In addition, it has also been shown that Chinese students use modern technology to a much greater extent, which has also made it easier for them to become accustomed to another form of teaching. In conclusion, Chinese students have greater preconditions for easier management of distance learning, while Czech students prefer more personal contact, and thus full-time teaching. It is obvious that both approaches have their pros and cons; now, it is necessary to find out how to use them for maximum efficiency of the educational process.

Keywords: Chinese college students, cultural background, Czech college students, distance learning, full-time teaching

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Authors: Mohamed Saad Ahmed Hussien

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This paper discusses the risk management in Islamic banks and aims to determine the difference in the practices and methods of risk management in those banks compared to the conventional banks, and to make a case study of the biggest Islamic bank in Egypt (Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt) to identify the most important financial risks faced and how to manage those risks. It was found that Islamic banks face two types of risks. The first type is similar to the risks in conventional banks; the second type is the additional risks which facing the Islamic banks only as a result of some Islamic modes of financing. With regard to the risk management, Islamic banks such as conventional banks applied the regulatory rules issued by the Central Banks and the Basel Committee; Islamic banks also applied the instructions and procedures issued by the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB). Also, Islamic banks are similar to the conventional banks in the practices and methods which they use to manage the risks. And there are some factors that may affect the risk management in Islamic banks, such as the size of the bank and the efficiency of the administration and the staff of the bank.

Keywords: conventional banks, Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt, Islamic banks, risk management

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Authors: Francesca Radice

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Domestic and sexual violence provokes, on average in Australia, one female death per week due to intimate violence behaviours. 83% of couples meet online, and intercepting domestic and sexual violence at this level would be beneficial. It has been observed that violent or coercive behaviour has been apparent from initial conversations on dating apps like Tinder. Child pornography, stalking, and coercive control are some criminal offences from dating apps, including women murdered after finding partners through Tinder. Police databases and predictive policing are novel approaches taken to prevent crime before harm is done. This research will investigate how police databases can be used in a privacy-preserving way to characterise users in terms of their potential for violent crime. Using the COPS database of NSW Police, we will explore how the past criminal record can be interpreted to yield a category of potential danger for each dating app user. It is up to the judgement of each subscriber on what degree of the potential danger they are prepared to enter into. Sentiment analysis is an area where research into natural language processing has made great progress over the last decade. This research will investigate how sentiment analysis can be used to interpret interchanges between dating app users to detect manipulative or coercive sentiments. These can be used to alert law enforcement if continued for a defined number of communications. One of the potential problems of this approach is the potential prejudice a categorisation can cause. Another drawback is the possibility of misinterpreting communications and involving law enforcement without reason. The approach will be thoroughly tested with cross-checks by human readers who verify both the level of danger predicted by the interpretation of the criminal record and the sentiment detected from personal messages. Even if only a few violent crimes can be prevented, the approach will have a tangible value for real people.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, data mining, predictive policing, virtual manipulation

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Authors: Amber Salamanca-Blazek

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This paper explores the connection between gender ideology and the legality of same-sex marriage cross-nationally. The author questions what role gender ideology plays in the cultural shift concerning same-sex marriage currently underway around the world and the variations in the legal treatment of same-sex marriage at the national level. Existing literature on gender, gender ideology, the role of gender ideology in traditional and same-sex marriage, and the extent to which this connection has previously been examined is explored. Also, the author explores the relationship between gender ideology and the legality of same-sex marriage in three countries with the differing legality of same-sex marriage - The United States, where same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015, Australia, where same-sex marriage was legalized in 2017, and Iran, where the death penalty for homosexuality still exists. A comparison of gender ideology frameworks and an analysis of the political rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage in each country are performed. It is argued that the important role of gender ideology in the legality of same-sex marriage has been greatly ignored and is in need of increased attention to assist gay rights activists in their framework. The link of gender ideology and patriarchal authority between the gay rights movement and the women’s rights movement are subsequently discussed. The author argues that because of this linkage between movements, there is a necessity for joint frameworks. Suggestions for future research are also provided.

Keywords: gender ideology, same-sex marriage, same-sex marriage legality, women's rights movement

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Authors: Supannee Pinmanee

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This article focuses on the strategies in the translation of terms of address for both referential and vocative functions from Thai to English from a cultural perspective. The discussion concerns the culture-specific ways in which Thai people use address terms that depend largely on social and conventional contexts, including pragmatic factors, for example, relationships between people, levels of formality, and attitudes. Examples used to illustrate the problems and proposed solutions were drawn from the media, the internet, the novels and the language used by Thai native speakers in expressing Thai address terms. The terms used in this area show very well not only the differences in language but also the different cultures and world views of the speakers of Thai and those of English. Thai has developed its own set of address terms, particularly kinship terms for non-relatives and the Thai royal terms. Some of Newmark’s procedures (1995) are used in the article to illustrate the task of translating Thai terms into English, a language that embodies a very different culture with its own set of address terms. However, no one strategy can be applied to serve all purposes and to translate all the intended senses. One particular term can be translated by several strategies, and which strategy to choose depends largely on one’s purposes and what requirement one needs to fulfill.

Keywords: translation, terms of address, Thai-English translation, Thai culture-specific terms of address, translation strategies

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Authors: Panisa Harnpathananun

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This paper is 'Practical Experience Analysis' which aims to analyze critical obstacles hampering the growth of the functional milk industry and suggest recommendations to overcome those obstacles. Using the Sectoral Innovation System (SIS) along value chain analysis, it is found that restriction in regulation of milk disinfection process, difficulty of dairy entrepreneurs for health claim approval of functional food and beverage and lack of intermediary between entrepreneurs and certified units for certification of functional foods and milk are major causes that needed to be resolved. Consequently, policy recommendations are proposed to tackle the problems occurring throughout the value chain. For the upstream, a collaborative platform using the quadruple helix model is proposed in a pattern of effective dairy cooperatives. For the midstream, regulation issues of new process, extended shelf life (ESL) milk, or prolonged milk are necessary, which can be extended the global market opportunity. For the downstream, mechanism of intermediary between entrepreneurs and certified units can be assisted in certified process of functional milk, especially a process of 'health claim' approval.

Keywords: Thailand, functional milk, supply chain, quadruple helix, intermediary, functional food

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Authors: Asma Afshari, Abdollah Jamshidi, Jamshid Razmyar, Mehrnaz Rad

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Clostridium perfringens is a serious pathogen which causes enteric diseases in domestic animals and food poisoning in humans. Spores can survive cooking processes and play an important role in the possible onset of disease. In this study RAPD-PCR and REP-PCR were used to examine the genetic diversity of 49isolates ofC. Perfringens type A from 3 different sources. The results of RAPD-PCR revealed the most genetic diversity among poultry isolates, while human isolates showed the least genetic diversity. Cluster analysis obtained from RAPD_PCR and based on the genetic distances split the 49 strains into five distinct major clusters (A, B, C, D, and E). Cluster A and C were composed of isolates from poultry meat, cluster B was composed of isolates from human feces, cluster D was composed of isolates from minced meat, poultry meat and human feces and cluster E was composed of isolates from minced meat. Further characterization of these strains by using (GTG) 5 fingerprint repetitive sequence-based PCR analysis did not show further differentiation between various types of strains. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which the genetic diversity of C. perfringens isolates from different types of meats and human feces has been investigated.

Keywords: C. perfringens, genetic diversity, RAPD-PCR, REP-PCR

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Authors: Reshu Chaudhary, R. S. Sengar

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To increase the agricultural production Indian farmer needs to aware of the latest technology i.e. precision farming to maximize the crop yield and minimize the input (fertilizer, pesticide etc.) through monitoring the environmental factors. Biotechnology and information technology have provided lots of opportunities for the development of agriculture. But, still we have to do much more for increasing our agricultural production in order to achieve the target growth of agriculture to secure food, to eliminate poverty and improve living style, to enhance agricultural exports and national income and to improve quality of agricultural products. Nanotechnology can be a great element to satisfy these requirements and to boost the multi-dimensional development of agriculture in order to fulfill the dream of Indian farmers. Nanotechnology is the most rapidly growing area of science and technology with its application in physical science, chemical science, life science, material science and earth science. Nanotechnology is a part of any nation’s future. Research in nanotechnology has extremely high potential to benefit society through application in agricultural sciences. Nanotechnology has greater potential to bring revolution in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: agriculture, biotechnology, crop yield, nanotechnology

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Authors: Sireesha Tamada, Debraj Bhattacharjee, Pranab K. Dan, Prabha Bhola

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The most important component in an automotive transmission system is the gearbox which controls the speed of the vehicle. In an automatic transmission, the right positioning of actuators ensures efficient transmission mechanism embodiment, wherein the challenge lies in formulating the number of actuators associated with modelling a gearbox. Data with respect to actuation and gear shifting sequence has been retrieved from the available literature, including patent documents, and has been used in this proposed heuristics based methodology for modelling actuation sequence in a gear box. This paper presents a methodological approach in designing a gearbox for the purpose of obtaining an optimal shifting sequence. The computational model considers factors namely, the number of stages and gear teeth as input parameters since these two are the determinants of the gear ratios in an epicyclic gear train. The proposed transmission schematic or stick diagram aids in developing the gearbox layout design. The number of iterations and development time required to design a gearbox layout is reduced by using this approach.

Keywords: automatic transmission, gear-shifting, multi-stage planetary gearbox, rank ordered clustering

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Authors: B. Varaprasad, C. Srinivasa Rao

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Hard turning has been explored as an alternative to the conventional one used for manufacture of Parts using tool steels. In the present study, the effects of cutting speed, feed rate and Depth of Cut (DOC) on cutting forces, specific cutting force, power and surface roughness in the hard turning are experimentally investigated. Experiments are carried out using mixed ceramic(Al2O3+TiC) cutting tool of corner radius 0.8mm, in turning operations on AISI H13 tool steel, heat treated to a hardness of 62 HRC. Based on Design of Experiments (DOE), a total of 20 tests are carried out. The range of each one of the three parameters is set at three different levels, viz, low, medium and high. The validity of the model is checked by Analysis of variance (ANOVA). Predicted models are derived from regression analysis. Comparison of experimental and predicted values of specific cutting force, power and surface roughness shows that good agreement has been achieved between them. Therefore, the developed model may be recommended to be used for predicting specific cutting force, power and surface roughness in hard turning of tool steel that is AISI H13 steel.

Keywords: hard turning, specific cutting force, power, surface roughness, AISI H13, mixed ceramic

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Authors: Ozhan Simsek, Dicle Donmez, Burhanettin Imrak, Ahsen Isik Ozguven, Yildiz Aka Kacar

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Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) is known to be one of the oldest edible fruit tree species, with a wide geographical global distribution. Fruits from the two defined varieties (Hicaznar and 33N26) were taken at intervals after pollination and fertilization at different sizes. Seed samples were used for transcriptome sequencing. Primary sequencing was produced by Illumina Hi-Seq™ 2000. Firstly, we had raw reads, and it was subjected to quality control (QC). Raw reads were filtered into clean reads and aligned to the reference sequences. De novo analysis was performed to detect genes expressed in seeds of pomegranate varieties. We performed downstream analysis to determine differentially expressed genes. We generated about 27.09 gb bases in total after Illumina Hi-Seq sequencing. All samples were assembled together, we got 59,264 Unigenes, the total length, average length, N50, and GC content of Unigenes are 84.547.276 bp, 1.426 bp, 2,137 bp, and 46.20 %, respectively. Unigenes were annotated with 7 functional databases, finally, 42.681(NR: 72.02%), 39.660 (NT: 66.92%), 30.790 (Swissprot: 51.95%), 20.212 (COG: 34.11%), 27.689 (KEGG: 46.72%), 12.328 (GO: 20.80%), and 33,833 (Interpro: 57.09%) Unigenes were annotated. With functional annotation results, we detected 42.376 CDS, and 4.999 SSR distribute on 16.143 Unigenes.

Keywords: next generation sequencing, SSR, RNA-Seq, Illumina

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Authors: Lalitchandra J. Shah, Katarzyna Bialek, Melinda L. Clarke, Jessica L. Jansson

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Handwriting is essential to academic success; however, the current literature is limited in the identification of pre-handwriting skills. The purpose of this study was to identify the pre-handwriting skills, which occupational therapy practitioners deem important to handwriting success, as well as those which aid in intervention planning. The online survey instrument consisted of 33 questions that assessed various skills related to the development of handwriting, as well as captured demographic information. Both occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants were included in the survey study. The survey found that the respondents were in agreement that purposeful scribbling, the ability of a child to copy (vertical/horizontal lines, circle, squares, and triangles), imitating an oblique cross, cognitive skills (attention, praxis, self-regulation, sequencing), grasp patterns, hand dominance, in hand manipulation skills (shift, translation, rotation), bilateral integration, stabilization of paper, crossing midline, and visual perception were important indicators of handwriting readiness. The results of the survey support existing research regarding the skills necessary for the successful development of handwriting in children.

Keywords: development, handwriting, occupational therapy, visual perceptual skills

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Authors: Sibel Karacaoglu, Fatma Ç. Kayapinar

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The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of the core training program on physical fitness characteristics and body composition in male volleyball players. 26 male university volleyball team players aged between 19 to 24 years who had no health problems and injury participated in the study. Subjects were divided into training (TG) and control groups (CG) as randomly. Data from twenty-one players who completed all training sessions were used for statistical analysis (TG,n=11; CG,n=10). A core training program was applied to the training group three days a week for 10 weeks. On the other hand, the control group did not receive any training. Before and after the 10-week training program, pre- and post-testing comprised of body composition measurements (weight, BMI, bioelectrical impedance analysis) and physical fitness measurements including flexibility (sit and reach test), muscle strength (back, leg and grip strength by dynamometer), muscle endurance (sit-ups and push-ups tests), power (one-legged jump and vertical jump tests), speed (20m sprint, 30m sprint) and balance tests (one-legged standing test) were performed. Changes of pre- and post- test values of the groups were determined by using dependent t test. According to the statistical analysis of data, no significant difference was found in terms of body composition in the both groups for pre- and post- test values. In the training group, all physical fitness measurements improved significantly after core training program (p<0.05) except 30m speed and handgrip strength (p>0.05). On the hand, only 20m speed test values improved after post-test period (p<0.05), but the other physical fitness tests values did not differ (p>0.05) between pre- and post- test measurement in the control group. The results of the study suggest that the core training program has positive effect on physical fitness characteristics in male volleyball players.

Keywords: body composition, core training, physical fitness, volleyball

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Authors: Jing Ning, Kunyuan Gao

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The microstructure and phase structure of Al-Er alloys with Er content of 10, 20, 30wt% at cooling rate of 60, 40 and 5℃/h were analyzed using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Experimental results showed that for solidification of the hypereutectic Al-Er alloys at different conditions, a halo of α-Al appeared around the primary Al₃Er phase. Analysis of the solidification process indicated that after the primary Al₃Er phase formed, the composition of supercooled liquid phase located outside the coupled zone of eutectic growth below the eutectic line, which leaded to the formation of Al halo. With the increase of Er content, the blocky primary Al₃Er phase expanded from 200μm to 1mm in size. With the decrease of cooling rate, the morphology and phase structure of alloy were different. At the cooling rate of 60℃/h, it was obtained the primary Al3Er phase with L1₂ structure, whose profile was straight. Meanwhile, the eutectic structure was flocculent. At the quite slow cooling rate of 5℃/h, it was obtained the primary Al₃Er phase with hR20 structure with irregular jagged profile, and the eutectic structure was approximately strip-shaped. These characteristics were closely related to the cooling rate of solidification. The XRD analysis showed that for Al₃Er phase, the lattice constant a of L1₂ structure was 4.2158Å, and a, c of hR20 structure were 6.0321Å and 35.6290Å, respectively.

Keywords: Al-Er alloy, composition, cooling rate, microstructure

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Authors: Kumars ZandParsa, Quynh Nguyen, Hadi Moradi

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There are old cast-in-place concrete box girder bridges in California with inter-span hinges that are designed based on old earthquake codes. Hinge removal is part of the bridges’ earthquake retrofitting project, and hinges were removed and replaced with modified hinges per new earthquake codes. The span that has a hinge is divided into short and long cantilevers in which the short cantilever supports the long cantilever. In the recent bridge hinge replacement, the length of the short and long cantilevers were 20ft and 80ft, respectively. The seat in the new design is wider than the old design, and the horizontal and vertical movements of the deck at the hinge location must be computed to check if restraints are needed. In this paper, besides considering the conventional reinforced concrete box girder bridges, the hinge removal operations, along with the response spectrum analysis based on the El Centro 1940 earthquake, will be presented to verify if vertical and horizontal restrainers are needed.

Keywords: hinge replacement, restrainers, vertical earthquake, response spectrum analysis

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Authors: Harjot Singh Gill, Neelkanth Grover, Jwala Parshad Singla

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The main aim of this research work is to present the effect of coating on two different grades of grey cast iron using detonation spray method. Ni20Cr and Al2O3-13TiO2 powders were sprayed using detonation gun onto GI250 and GIHC substrates and the results as well as coating surface morphology of the coating is studied by XRD and SEM/EDAX analysis. The wear resistance of Ni20Cr and Al2O3-13TiO2 has been investigated on pin-on-disc tribometer using ASTM G99 standards. Cumulative wear rate and coefficient of friction (µ) were calculated under three normal load of 30N, 40N, 50N at constant sliding velocity of 1m/s. Worn out surfaces were analyzed by SEM/EDAX. The results show significant resistance to wear with Al2O3-13TiO2 coating as compared to Ni20Cr and bare substrates. SEM/EDAX analysis and cumulative wear loss bar charts clearly explain the wear behavior of coated as well as bare sample of GI250 and GIHC.

Keywords: detonation spray, grey cast iron, wear rate, coefficient of friction

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Authors: Ana M. Korol, Bibiana Riquelme, Osvaldo A. Rosso

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Since erythrocyte deformability analysis is mostly qualitative, the development of quantitative nonlinear methods is crucial for restricting subjectivity in the study of cell behaviour. An electro-optic mechanic system called erythrodeformeter has been developed and constructed in our laboratory in order to evaluate the erythrocytes' viscoelasticity. A numerical method formulated on the basis of fractal approximation for ordinary (OBM) and fractionary Brownian motion (FBM), as well as wavelet transform analysis, are proposed to distinguish chaos from noise based on the assumption that diffractometric data involves both deterministic and stochastic components, so it could be modelled as a system of bounded correlated random walk. Here we report studies on 25 donors: 4 alpha thalassaemic patients, 11 beta thalassaemic patients, and 10 healthy controls non-alcoholic and non-smoker individuals. The Correlation Coefficient, a nonlinear parameter, showed evidence of the changes in the erythrocyte deformability; the Wavelet Entropy could quantify those differences which are detected by the light diffraction patterns. Such quantifiers allow a good deal of promise and the possibility of a better understanding of the rheological erythrocytes aspects and also could help in clinical diagnosis.

Keywords: red blood cells, deformability, nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory, wavelet trannsform

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Authors: Nurudeen Oluwasola Lasisi, Abdulkareem Afolabi Ibrahim

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Newcastle disease is an infection of domestic poultry and other bird species with virulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV). In this paper, we study the dynamics of modeling the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) using a novel quarantine-adjusted incidence. We do a comparison of Vaccination, linear incident rate, and novel quarantine adjusted incident rate in the models. The dynamics of the models yield disease free and endemic equilibrium states. The effective reproduction numbers of the models are computed in order to measure the relative impact for the individual bird or combined intervention for effective disease control. We showed the local and global stability of endemic equilibrium states of the models, and we found that stability of endemic equilibrium states of models are globally asymptotically stable if the effective reproduction numbers of the models equations are greater than a unit.

Keywords: effective reproduction number, endemic state, mathematical model, Newcastle disease virus, novel quarantine-adjusted incidence, stability analysis

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Authors: Marthinus Conradie

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The conversational dynamics of democratically orientated deliberation continue to stimulate critical scholarship for its potential to bolster robust engagement between different sections of pluralist societies. Several axes of deliberation that have attracted academic attention include face-to-face vs. online interaction, and citizen-to-citizen communication vs. engagement between citizens and political elites. In all these areas, numerous researchers have explored deliberative procedures aimed at achieving instrumental goals such a securing consensus on policy issues, against procedures that prioritise expressive outcomes such as broadening the range of argumentative repertoires that discursively construct and mediate specific political issues. The study that informs this paper, works in the latter stream. Drawing its data from the reader-comments section of a South African broadsheet newspaper, the study investigates online, citizen-to-citizen deliberation by analysing the discursive practices through which competing understandings of social problems are articulated and contested. To advance this agenda, the paper deals specifically with user-generated comments posted in response to news stories on questions of race and racism in South Africa. The analysis works to discern and interpret the various sets of discourse practices that shape how citizens deliberate contentious political issues, especially racism. Since the website in question is designed to encourage the critical comparison of divergent interpretations of news events, without feeding directly into national policymaking, the study adopts an analytic framework that traces how citizens articulate arguments, rather than the instrumental effects that citizen deliberations might exert on policy. The paper starts from the argument that such expressive interactions are particularly crucial to current trends in South African politics, given that the precise nature of race and racism remain contested and uncertain. Centred on a sample of 2358 conversational moves in 814 posts to 18 news stories emanating from issues of race and racism, the analysis proceeds in a two-step fashion. The first stage conducts a qualitative content analysis that offers insights into the levels of reciprocity among commenters (do readers engage with each other or simply post isolated opinions?), as well as the structures of argumentation (do readers support opinions by citing evidence?). The second stage involves a more fine-grained discourse analysis, based on a theorisation of argumentation that delineates it into three components: opinions/conclusions, evidence/data to support opinions/conclusions and warrants that explicate precisely how evidence/data buttress opinions/conclusions. By tracing the manifestation and frequency of specific argumentative practices, this study contributes to the archive of research currently aggregating around the practices that characterise South Africans’ engagement with provocative political questions, especially racism and racial inequity. Additionally, the study also contributes to recent scholarship on the affordances of Web 2.0 software by eschewing a simplistic bifurcation between cyber-optimist vs. pessimism, in favour of a more nuanced and context-specific analysis of the patterns that structure online deliberation.

Keywords: online deliberation, discourse analysis, qualitative content analysis, racism

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Authors: Shanthi Thomas

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This research paper presents the current practices of teacher professional development, perceived as beneficial by teachers themselves, in a private secondary school in Brunei Darussalam. This is part of the findings of a larger qualitative study on teacher empowerment, using ethnographic methods for data collection, i.e. participant observation, interviews and document analysis. The field work was carried out over a period of six months in 2013. An analysis of the field data revealed multiple pathways of teacher professional development existing in the school. The results indicate that school leaders, the teacher community in the school, students, and the teachers themselves were the agents in a school that facilitated teacher empowerment. Besides contributing to the knowledge base on teacher professional development, the results of this study provides directions for educational policy makers in their efforts to enhance professional development in secondary schools of similar characteristics. For school leaders and the teacher community, these findings offer guidelines for maximizing the opportunities for these professional development practices, by strengthening collegiality and by using the existing structures optimally for the benefit of all concerned.

Keywords: colleagues and the wider teacher community, school leaders, self-driven professional development, teacher professional development

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Authors: Selma Bouasria, Mahi Abdelkader, Abbès Azzi, Herouz Keltoum

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Ventilation in buildings is a key element to provide high indoor air quality. Its efficiency appears as one of the most important factors in maintaining thermal comfort for occupants of buildings. Personal displacement ventilation is a new ventilation concept that combines the positive features of displacement ventilation with those of task conditioning or personalized ventilation. This work aims to study numerically the supply air flow in a room to optimize a comfortable microclimate for an occupant. The room is heated, and a dummy is designed to simulate the occupant. Two types of configurations were studied. The first consist of a room without windows; and the second one is a local equipped with a window. The influence of the blowing speed and the solar radiation coming from the window on the thermal comfort of the occupant is studied. To conduct this study we used the turbulence models, namely the high Reynolds k-e, the RNG and the SST models. The numerical tool used is based on the finite volume method. The numerical simulation of the supply air flow in a room can predict and provide a significant information about indoor comfort.

Keywords: local, comfort, thermique, ventilation, internal environment

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Authors: Azar Baghtaghi

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Financial risk management is critically important as it enables companies to maintain stability and profitability amidst market fluctuations and unexpected events. It involves the precise identification of risks that could impact investments, assets, and potential revenues. By implementing effective risk management strategies, companies can insure themselves against adverse market changes and prevent potential losses. In today's era, where markets are highly complex and influenced by various factors such as macroeconomic policies, exchange rate fluctuations, and natural disasters, the need for meticulous planning to cope with these uncertainties is more pronounced. Ultimately, financial risk management means being prepared for the future and the ability to sustain business in changing environments. A company capable of managing its risks not only achieves sustainable profitability but also gains the confidence of shareholders, investors, and business partners, enhancing its competitive position in the market. In this article, the types of financial risk and risk management strategies for improving financial performance were investigated. By identifying the risks stated in this article and their evaluation techniques, it is possible to improve the organization's financial performance.

Keywords: strategy, risk, risk management, financial performance

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Authors: Bhekisisa Nyoni, Nomakhosi Ndiweni, Annatoria Chinyama

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The aim of this paper was to explore ways to enhance the quality of higher education with a bias towards engineering education in Zimbabwe universities. A search through relevant literature was conducted looking at both international and local scholars. It also involved reviewing the Dakar Framework for Action and Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action plans for education for sustainable development. Goals were set for 2030 as a standard for quality to be adopted by all countries in improving access as well as the quality of education from early childhood and through to adult learning. Despite the definition of quality being difficult to express due to diverse expectations from different stakeholders, the view of quality adopted is based on the World Education Forum’s propositions on quality education going beyond the classroom experience. It considers factors such as learning environment, governance and management, and teacher caliber. The study concludes by illustrating that the quality of engineering education in Zimbabwe has come a long way. It has made strides in increasing access and variety to education though at the expense of quality in its totality. To improve the quality of engineering education, programs have been introduced to promote the professionalism of lecturers, such as industrial secondment and professional development courses.

Keywords: engineering education, quality of education, professional development, industrial secondment

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Authors: Cherry Yieng Siang Ling, Joong Hee Lee, Myung Hwan Yun

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The quality of a product to be usable has become the basic requirement in consumer’s perspective while failing the requirement ends up the customer from not using the product. Identifying usability issues from analyzing quantitative and qualitative data collected from usability testing and evaluation activities aids in the process of product design, yet the lack of studies and researches regarding analysis methodologies in qualitative text data of usability field inhibits the potential of these data for more useful applications. While the possibility of analyzing qualitative text data found with the rapid development of data analysis studies such as natural language processing field in understanding human language in computer, and machine learning field in providing predictive model and clustering tool. Therefore, this research aims to study the application capability of text processing algorithm in analysis of qualitative text data collected from usability activities. This research utilized datasets collected from LG neckband headset usability experiment in which the datasets consist of headset survey text data, subject’s data and product physical data. In the analysis procedure, which integrated with the text-processing algorithm, the process includes training of comments onto vector space, labeling them with the subject and product physical feature data, and clustering to validate the result of comment vector clustering. The result shows 'volume and music control button' as the usability feature that matches best with the cluster of comment vectors where centroid comments of a cluster emphasized more on button positions, while centroid comments of the other cluster emphasized more on button interface issues. When volume and music control buttons are designed separately, the participant experienced less confusion, and thus, the comments mentioned only about the buttons' positions. While in the situation where the volume and music control buttons are designed as a single button, the participants experienced interface issues regarding the buttons such as operating methods of functions and confusion of functions' buttons. The relevance of the cluster centroid comments with the extracted feature explained the capability of text processing algorithms in analyzing qualitative text data from usability testing and evaluations.

Keywords: usability, qualitative data, text-processing algorithm, natural language processing

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Authors: Giorgi Bregadze

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Tourism is the most viable and sustainable economic development option for Georgia and one of the main sources of foreign exchange earnings. Events are considered as one of the most effective ways to attract foreign visitors to the country, and, recently, the government of Georgia has begun investing in this sector very actively. This article stresses the necessity of research based economic policy in the tourism sector. In this regard, it is of paramount importance to measure the economic effects of the events which are subsidized by taxpayers’ money. The economic effect of events can be analyzed from two perspectives; financial perspective of the government and perspective of economic effects of the tourism administration. The article emphasizes more realistic and all-inclusive focus of the economic effect analysis of the tourism administration as it concentrates on the income of residents and local businesses, part of which generate tax revenues for the government. The public would like to know what the economic returns to investment are. In this article, the methodology used to describe the economic effects of UEFA Super Cup held in Tbilisi, will help to answer this question. Methodology is based on three main principles and covers three stages. Using the suggested methodology article estimates the direct economic effect of UEFA Super cup on Georgian economy. Although the attempt to make an economic effect analysis of the event was successful in Georgia, some obstacles and insufficiencies were identified during the survey. The article offers several recommendations that will help to refine methodology and improve the accuracy of the data. Furthermore, it is very important to receive the correct standard of measurement of events in Georgia. In this caseü non-ethical acts of measurement which are widely utilized by different research companies will not trigger others to show overestimated effects. It is worth mentioning that to author’s best knowledge, this is the first attempt to measure the economic effect of an event held in Georgia.

Keywords: biased economic effect analysis, expenditure of local citizens, time switchers and casuals, UEFA super cup

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Authors: Mohsen Sanayei, Jerzy Szpunar, Sami Penttilä

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Exposure of Nickel-based superalloys to high temperature and harsh environment such as Super-Critical Water (SCW) environment leads to the formation of oxide scales composed of multiple and complex phases that are difficult to differentiate with conventional analysis techniques. In this study, we used simultaneous Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) to analyze the complex oxide scales formed on several Nickel-based Superalloys exposed to high temperature SCW. Multi-layered structures of Iron, Nickel, Chromium and Molybdenum oxides and spinels were clearly identified using the simultaneous EBSD-EDS analysis technique. Furthermore, the orientation relationship between the oxide scales and the substrate has been investigated.

Keywords: electron backscatter diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, superalloy, super-critical water

Procedia PDF Downloads 311

Authors: Imdad Ullah Khan, Yongseok Yoon, Kyeung Uk Choi, Kwang Rae Jo, Namyul Kim, Eunbee Lee, Wan Hee Kim, Oh-Kyeong Kweon

Abstract:

The primary spinal cord injury (SCI) causes mechanical damage to the neurons and blood vessels. It leads to secondary SCI, which activates multiple pathological pathways, which expand neuronal damage at the injury site. It is characterized by vascular disruption, ischemia, excitotoxicity, oxidation, inflammation, and apoptotic cell death. It causes nerve demyelination and disruption of axons, which perpetuate a loss of impulse conduction through the injured spinal cord. It also leads to the production of myelin inhibitory molecules, which with a concomitant formation of an astroglial scar, impede axonal regeneration. The pivotal role regarding the neuronal necrosis is played by oxidation and inflammation. During an early stage of spinal cord injury, there occurs an abundant expression of reactive oxygen species (ROS) due to defective mitochondrial metabolism and abundant migration of phagocytes (macrophages, neutrophils). ROS cause lipid peroxidation of the cell membrane, and cell death. Abundant migration of neutrophils, macrophages, and lymphocytes collectively produce pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), matrix metalloproteinase, superoxide dismutase, and myeloperoxidases which synergize neuronal apoptosis. Therefore, it is crucial to control inflammation and oxidation injury to minimize the nerve cell death during secondary spinal cord injury. Therefore, in response to oxidation and inflammation, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is induced by the resident cells to ameliorate the milieu. In the meanwhile, neurotrophic factors are induced to promote neuroregeneration. However, it seems that anti-stress enzyme (HO-1) and neurotrophic factor (BDNF) do not significantly combat the pathological events during secondary spinal cord injury. Therefore, optimum healing can be induced if anti-inflammatory and neurotrophic factors are administered in a higher amount through an exogenous source. During the first experiment, the inflammation and neuroregeneration were selectively targeted. HO-1 expressing MSCs (HO-1 MSCs) and BDNF expressing MSCs (BDNF MSC) were co-transplanted in one group (combination group) of dogs with subacute spinal cord injury to selectively control the expression of inflammatory cytokines by HO-1 and induce neuroregeneration by BDNF. We compared the combination group with the HO-1 MSCs group, BDNF MSCs group, and GFP MSCs group. We found that the combination group showed significant improvement in functional recovery. It showed increased expression of neural markers and growth-associated proteins (GAP-43) than in other groups, which depicts enhanced neuroregeneration/neural sparing due to reduced expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-alpha, IL-6 and COX-2; and increased expression of anti-inflammatory markers such as IL-10 and HO-1. Histopathological study revealed reduced intra-parenchymal fibrosis in the injured spinal cord segment in the combination group than in other groups. Thus it was concluded that selectively targeting the inflammation and neuronal growth with the combined use of HO-1 MSCs and BDNF MSCs more favorably promote healing of the SCI. HO-1 MSCs play a role in controlling the inflammation, which favors the BDNF induced neuroregeneration at the injured spinal cord segment of dogs.

Keywords: HO-1 MSCs, BDNF MSCs, neuroregeneration, inflammation, anti-inflammation, spinal cord injury, dogs

Procedia PDF Downloads 114

Authors: S. Alansary, M. Nagi

Abstract:

This paper presents an approach of conducting semantic annotation of Arabic corpus using the Universal Networking Language (UNL) framework. UNL is intended to be a promising strategy for providing a large collection of semantically annotated texts with formal, deep semantics rather than shallow. The result would constitute a semantic resource (semantic graphs) that is editable and that integrates various phenomena, including predicate-argument structure, scope, tense, thematic roles and rhetorical relations, into a single semantic formalism for knowledge representation. The paper will also present the Interactive Analysis​ tool for automatic semantic annotation (IAN). In addition, the cornerstone of the proposed methodology which are the disambiguation and transformation rules, will be presented. Semantic annotation using UNL has been applied to a corpus of 20,000 Arabic sentences representing the most frequent structures in the Arabic Wikipedia. The representation, at different linguistic levels was illustrated starting from the morphological level passing through the syntactic level till the semantic representation is reached. The output has been evaluated using the F-measure. It is 90% accurate. This demonstrates how powerful the formal environment is, as it enables intelligent text processing and search.

Keywords: semantic analysis, semantic annotation, Arabic, universal networking language

Procedia PDF Downloads 578

Authors: Seyed Abolhasan Naeini, M. Mortezaee

Abstract:

Various factors such as the method of installation, the pile type, the pile material and the pile shape, can affect the final bearing capacity of a pile executed in the soil; among them, the method of installation is of special importance. The physical modeling is among the best options in the laboratory study of the piles behavior. Therefore, the current paper first presents and reviews the frustum confining vesel (FCV) as a suitable tool for physical modeling of deep foundations. Then, by describing the loading tests of two open-ended and closed-end steel piles, each of which has been performed in two methods, “with displacement" and "without displacement", the effect of end conditions and installation method on the final bearing capacity of the pile is investigated. The soil used in the current paper is silty sand of Firoozkooh. The results of the experiments show that in general the without displacement installation method has a larger bearing capacity in both piles, and in a specific method of installation the closed ended pile shows a slightly higher bearing capacity.

Keywords: physical modeling, frustum confining vessel, pile, bearing capacity, installation method

Procedia PDF Downloads 143

Authors: Federico Valenzuela-Beltran, Sonia E. Ruiz, Alfredo Reyes-Salazar, Juan Bojorquez

Abstract:

A reliability-based methodology which uses structural demand hazard curves to consider the increment of the ductility demands of structures with tilting is proposed. The approach considers the effect of two orthogonal components of the ground motions as well as the influence of soil-structure interaction. The approach involves the calculation of ductility demand hazard curves for symmetric systems and, alternatively, for systems with different degrees of asymmetry. To get this objective, demand hazard curves corresponding to different global ductility demands of the systems are calculated. Next, Uniform Exceedance Rate Spectra (UERS) are developed for a specific mean annual rate of exceedance value. Ratios between UERS corresponding to asymmetric and to symmetric systems located in soft soil of the valley of Mexico are obtained. Results indicate that the ductility demands corresponding to tilted structures may be several times higher than those corresponding to symmetric structures, depending on several factors such as tilting angle and vibration period of structure and soil.

Keywords: asymmetric yielding, seismic performance, structural reliability, tilted structures

Procedia PDF Downloads 503