Search results for: weak force

Authors: Kuo-Cheng Liu

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In the latest research efforts, the structures of the image in the spatial domain have been successfully analyzed and proved to deduce the visual masking for accurately estimating the visibility thresholds of the image. If the structural properties of the video sequence in the temporal domain are taken into account to estimate the temporal masking, the improvement and enhancement of the as-sessing spatio-temporal visibility thresholds are reasonably expected. In this paper, the temporal characteristics of human perception to the change in block structures on the time axis are analyzed. The temporal characteristics of human perception are represented in terms of the significant variation in block structures for the analysis of human visual system (HVS). Herein, the block structure in each frame is computed by combined the pattern masking and the contrast masking simultaneously. The contrast masking always overestimates the visibility thresholds of edge regions and underestimates that of texture regions, while the pattern masking is weak on a uniform background and is strong on the complex background with spatial patterns. Under considering the significant variation of block structures between successive frames, we extend the block structures of images in the spatial domain to that of video sequences in the temporal domain to analyze the relation between the inter-frame variation of structures and the temporal masking. Meanwhile, the subjective viewing test and the fair rating process are designed to evaluate the consistency of the temporal characteristics with the HVS under a specified viewing condition.

Keywords: temporal characteristic, block structure, pattern masking, contrast masking

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Authors: Tirtha Raj Dhakal, Brian Davidson, Bob Farquharson

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Institutional design is an important aspect in efficient water resource management. In Nepal, the water supply in both farmers’- and agency-managed irrigation systems has become sub-standard because of the weak institutional framework. This study characterizes both forms of the schemes and links existing institution and governance of the schemes with its performance with reference to cost recovery, maintenance of the schemes and water distribution throughout the schemes. For this, two types of surveys were conducted. A management survey of ten farmers’-managed and five agency-managed schemes of Chitwan valley and its periphery was done. Also, a farm survey comprising 25 farmers from each of head, middle and tail regions of both schemes; Narayani Lift Irrigation Project (agency-managed) and Khageri Irrigation System (farmers’-managed) of Chitwan Valley as a case study was conducted. The results showed that cost recovery of agency-managed schemes in 2015 was less than two percent whereas service fee collection rate in farmers’-managed schemes was nearly 2/3rd that triggered poor maintenance of the schemes and unequal distribution of water throughout the schemes. Also, the institution on practice is unable to create any incentives for farmers for economical use of water as well as willingness to pay for its use. This, thus, compels the need of refined institutional framework which has been suggested in this paper aiming to improve the cost recovery and better water distribution throughout the irrigation schemes.

Keywords: cost recovery, governance, institution, schemes' performance

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Authors: Murat Sarı, Emin Gundogar, Mumtaz Ipek

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Nowadays, in a furniture sector, competition of market share (portion) and production variety and changeability enforce the firm to reengineer operations on manufacturing line to increase the productivity. In this study, spring mattress manufacturing line of the furniture manufacturing firm is analyzed analytically. It’s intended to search and find the bottlenecks of production to balance the semi-finished material flow. There are four base points required to investigate in bottleneck elimination process. These are bottlenecks of Method, Material, Machine and Man (work force) resources, respectively. Mentioned bottlenecks are investigated and varied scenarios are created for recruitment of manufacturing system. Probable near optimal alternatives are determined by system models built in Arena simulation software.

Keywords: bottleneck search, buffer stock, furniture sector, simulation

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Authors: Hoon Yi, Minho Sung, Hangil Ko, Moon Kyu Kwak, Hoon Eui Jeong

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Inspired by the remarkable adhesion properties of gecko lizards, bio-inspired dry adhesives with smart adhesion properties have been developed in the last decade. Compared to earlier dry adhesives, the recently developed ones exhibit excellent adhesion strength, smart directional adhesion, and structural robustness. With these unique adhesion properties, bio-inspired dry adhesive pads have strong potential for use in precision industries such as semiconductor or display manufacturing. In this communication, we present a new manufacturing technology based on advanced dry adhesive systems that enable precise manipulation of large-area substrates over repeating cycles without any requirement for external force application. This new manufacturing technique is also highly accurate and environment-friendly, and thus has strong potential as a next-generation clean manufacturing technology.

Keywords: gecko, manufacturing robot, precision manufacturing

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Authors: Mncedisi Trinity Dewa, Andre Francois Van Der Merwe, Stephen Matope

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Tool, Die and Mould-making (TDM) firms have been known to play a pivotal role in the growth and development of the manufacturing sectors in most economies. Their output contributes significantly to the quality, cost and delivery speed of final manufactured parts. Unfortunately, the South African Tool, Die and Mould-making manufacturers have not been competing on the local or global market in a significant way. This reality has hampered the productivity and growth of the sector thus attracting intervention. The paper explores the shortcomings South African toolmakers have to overcome to restore their competitive position globally. Results from a global benchmarking survey on the tooling sector are used to establish a roadmap of what South African toolmakers can do to become a productive, World Class force on the global market.

Keywords: competitive performance objectives, toolmakers, world-class manufacturing, lead times

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Authors: Danielle Jablanski

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This article addresses the use of drone strikes under international law and the intersection between Islamic law and current terrorist trends worldwide. It breaks down the legality of drone strikes under international law and dissects certain aspects of their usage in modern warfare; i.e. concepts of directly participating in hostilities and the role of CIA operators. The article then looks at international paradigms of law enforcement versus the use of military force in relation to terrorism. Lastly, it describes traditional aspects of Islamic law and several interpretations of the law today as applied to widespread campaigns of terrorism, namely that of the recent group ISIS or ISIL operating between the battlegrounds of Iraq and Syria. The piece concludes with appraisals for moving forward on the basis of honing in on reasons for terrorism and negative opinions of solely military campaigns to dismantle or disrupt terror organizations and breeding grounds.

Keywords: international law, terrorism, ISIS, islamic law

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Authors: Kumaraamy Sasikumar

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The study was conducted in Vadamarachchi-East in Sri Lanka. Data collection was done for a period of two months from June to July 2011. The main focus of this study was to examine factors contributing to mangrove deforestation within the study area, and resultant impacts from deforestation. The study found that, the main factors that have contributed to deforestation include: Long civil wars in the region, poverty which pushed people to clear the forest to earn income through the sale of firewood and timber among others, industrial development, increasing demand for farm and settlement land, limited knowledge within the local community, weak government polices and implementation strategies, and natural disasters especially the 2004 Tsunami destruction. The impacts presented are those that impact both on the environment and the economy including; loss of income sources, loss of biodiversity, climate change, desertification, conflicts in the use of forest products and loss of land productivity due to reduced fertility caused by soil erosion. However, a few strategies have been put in place by the government to ensure the sustainable use of mangrove forest products, though these have not proved successful in reducing deforestation. The recommendations make suggestions to the government and other stakeholders to work together in ensuring sustainable use of natural resources, for example implementing laws and regulations aimed at controlling deforestation among others.

Keywords: deforestation, impacts, actors, environment, economic, sustainable development

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Authors: Josef Voracek, Jan Sima

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The main purpose of our study is to state the basic types of fitness customers. This paper aims to create a specific customer typology in today’s fitness centres in the region of Prague. Our suggested typology of Prague fitness centres customers is based on answers to the questions: What are the customers like, what are their preferences, and what kinds of services do they use more often in Prague fitness centres? These are the main aspects of the presented typology. A survey was conducted on a sample of 1004 respondents from 48 fitness centres, which ran during May 2012. We used questionnaires and latent class analysis for the assessment and interpretation of data. Gender was especially the main filter criterion. In the population, there were 522 males and 482 females. Data were analysed using the LCA method. We identified 6 segments of typical customers, of which three are male and three are female. Each segment is influenced primarily by the age of customers, from which we can develop further characteristics, such as education, income, marital status, etc. Male segments use the main workout area above all, whilst female segments use a much wider range of services offered, for example, group exercises, personal training, and cardio theatres. LCA method was found to be the most suitable tool, because cluster analysis is very limited in the forms and numbers of variables and indicators. Models of 3 latent classes for each gender are optimal, as it is demonstrated by entropy indices and matrices of the likelihood of the membership to the classes. A probable weak point of the survey is the selection of fitness centres, because of the market in Prague is really specific.

Keywords: customer, fitness, latent class analysis, typology

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Authors: Wai-Sum Lee

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This study investigates C-V and V-C co-articulation in Cantonese monosyllables of the CV, VC or CVC structure, with C = one of the three stop consonants [p, t, k] and V = one of the three corner vowels [i, a, u]. Five repetitions of each test syllable on a randomized list were elicited from Cantonese young adult speakers in their early-20s. A research tool, EMA AG500, was used to record the synchronized audio signals and articulatory data at three different locations of the tongue – tongue tip, tongue middle, and tongue back – and the positions of the upper and lower lips during the test syllables. The main findings based on the articulatory data collected from two male Cantonese speakers are as follows: (i) For the syllable-initial [p-], strong co-articulation is observed when [p-] preceding the high vowel [i] or [u], but not the low vowel [a]. As for the syllable-final [-p], it is strongly co-articulated with the preceding vowel, even when the vowel is [a]. (ii) The co-articulation between the initial [t-] and the following vowel of any type is weak. In the syllable-final position, the degree of co-articulatory resistance of [-t] is also large when following the vowel [u], but [-t] is largely co-articulated with the preceding vowel when the vowel is [i] or [a]. (iii) The strength of co-articulation differs when the initial [k-] precedes the different types of vowel. A stronger co-articulation between [k-] and [i] than between [k-] and [u], and the strength of co-articulation is much reduced between [k-] and [a]. However, in the syllable-final position, there is strong co-articulation between [-k] and the preceding vowel [a]. (iv) Among the three types of stop consonants in the syllable-initial position, the decreasing degree of co-articulatory resistance (CR) is [t-] > [k-] > [p-], and the degree of CR is reduced during all three types of stop in the syllable-final position. In general, the data on co-articulation between consonant and vowel in the Cantonese monosyllables are similar to those in other languages reported in previous studies.

Keywords: Cantonese, co-articulation, consonant, vowel

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Authors: Kevin Krupski

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Private Military Security Companies have grown to become a major force contributor to nations in military operations. Scholars have debated the implications of this in relation to control and efficiency related to the privatization of violence, but there has been little discussion on how these companies affect the profession of arms. Specifically, this paper seeks to address how the privatization of violence influences the military’s stewardship, whether private military security companies are capable of stewardship of the military profession, and whether there are aspects of stewardship of the military profession that private military security companies are capable of emulating. This paper reviews literature on stewardship, the relationship of the military to the state, and private military security companies in order to identify overlap between uniformed military services and the private sector. Then, it offers a typology for determining under what conditions an organization would act as a steward. Ultimately, there are insufficient reasons for private military security companies to act as stewards of the profession of arms.

Keywords: stewardship, military profession, civil-military, security

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Authors: Esam Jassim

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Supersonic nozzles are commonly used to purify natural gas in gas processing technology. As an innovated technology, it is employed to overcome the deficit of the traditional method, related to gas dynamics, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics theory. An indoor test rig is built to study the dehumidification process of moisture fluid. Humid air was chosen for the study. The working fluid was circulating in an open loop, which had provision for filtering, metering, and humidifying. A stainless steel supersonic separator is constructed together with the C-D nozzle system. The result shows that dehumidification enhances as NPR increases. This is due to the high intensity in the turbulence caused by the shock formation in the divergent section. Such disturbance strengthens the centrifugal force, pushing more particles toward the near-wall region. In return return, the pressure recovery factor, defined as the ratio of the outlet static pressure of the fluid to its inlet value, decreases with NPR.

Keywords: supersonic nozzle, dehumidification, particle separation, nozzle geometry

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Authors: Maria E. Eggink

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Human capital is one of the essential factors in an innovation system and innovation is the driving force of economic growth and development. Schumpeter focused on the entrepreneur as innovator, but the evolutionary economists shifted the focus to all participants in the innovation system. Education and training institutions are important participants in an innovation system, but there is a gap in literature on competence building as part of the analysis of innovation systems. In this paper the education and training institutions’ competence building role in the innovation system is examined. The Mpumalanga Province of South Africa is used as a case study. It was found that the absence of a university, the level of education, the quality and performance in the education sector and the condition of the education infrastructure have not been conducive to learning.

Keywords: education institutions, human capital, innovation systems, Mpumalanga Province

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Authors: M. Dhana Lakshmi, S. Sakthivel Murugan

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As light passes from source to observer in the water medium, it is scattered by the suspended particulate matter. This scattering effect will plague the captured images with non-uniform illumination, blurring details, halo artefacts, weak edges, etc. To overcome this, pixel normalization with an Amended Unsharp Mask (AUM) filter is proposed to enhance the degraded image. To validate the robustness of the proposed technique irrespective of atmospheric light, the considered datasets are collected on dual locations. For those images, the maxima and minima pixel intensity value is computed and normalized; then the AUM filter is applied to strengthen the blurred edges. Finally, the enhanced image is obtained with good illumination and contrast. Thus, the proposed technique removes the effect of scattering called de-hazing and restores the perceptual information with enhanced edge detail. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are done on considering the standard non-reference metric called underwater image sharpness measure (UISM), and underwater image quality measure (UIQM) is used to measure color, sharpness, and contrast for both of the location images. It is observed that the proposed technique has shown overwhelming performance compared to other deep-based enhancement networks and traditional techniques in an adaptive manner.

Keywords: underwater drone imagery, pixel normalization, thresholding, masking, unsharp mask filter

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Authors: Amanuel Bekuma, Rebecca Swift, Sarah Jackson, Ben Biddulph

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Economic loss to frost damage is increasing over the past years in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. Agronomic, genetic, and climatic works have still found a weak correlation between temperature and frost damage. One possibility that has not been explored within the Australian cropping system is whether ice nucleation active bacteria (INB) either present in situ on crop residue or introduced by rainfall could be responsible for the increased sensitivity of cereal plants to frost at different stages of development. This study investigated upper and lower leaf canopy, stubble, and soil as a potential site of ice nucleation activity (INA) and tracked the changes in INA during the plant development. We found that older leaves of wheat are the primary sites of ice nucleation (-4.7 to -6.3°C) followed by stubble (-5.7 to -6.7°C) which increases the risk of frost damage during heading and flowering (the most susceptible stages). However, healthy and green upper canopy leaves (flag and flag-2) and the soil have lower INA (< -11°C) during the frost-sensitive stage of wheat. We anticipate the higher INA on the stubble and older leaves to be due to the presence of biologically active ice-nucleating bacteria (INB), known to cause frost injury to sensitive plants at -5°C. Stubble retained or applied during the growing season further exacerbates additional frost risk by potentially increasing the INB load. The implications of the result for stubble and frost risk management in a frost-prone landscape will be discussed.

Keywords: frost, ice-nucleation-activity, stubble, wheat

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Authors: Najeebah Almahmeed

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Risk Management is an evolving subject among organizations that include corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and not-for-profit corporations. In order to enhance awareness around the importance of Risk Management and make sure everyone is using it in their day-to-day job, the Risk Culture topic has emerged and gained importance not only in the Finance Sector but also in the National Oil Companies in Kuwait. Risk Culture can be defined as the shared beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors within a company that guide its approach to managing risks. It acts as a connecting force that links policies, procedures, and individuals, influencing how risks are understood and tackled through activities. In this research, benefits of Risk Culture are shared, guidelines are presented to promote a risk aware culture, and fully embed and enforce Risk-based processes and procedures. Moreover, this research demonstrates methodologies of measuring the Risk Culture using specific dimensions and clusters.

Keywords: clusters, dimensions, national oil companies, risk culture, risk management

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Authors: David Suson

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In today's work environment, it becomes harder and harder to attract top talent, motivate them to achieve your goals, create a collaborative work environment and then retain them. It is especially challenging when you have remote employees, manage virtually, have different personalities, ages, work ethics and especially when there is a lure of better opportunities elsewhere. Leaders want results. All the strategies and tactics in the world won't make a difference if your people don't execute and "follow you into battle". The key to better leadership is motivating your teams to want to execute, want to work harder, want to work as a team, all while improving morale. Anyone can force employees by threatening them. This session teaches a 180-degree approach. Objectives/Outcomes: 1. Learn the 3 ways this leadership approach differs from traditional leadership, 2. Use a simple process to increase engagement and loyalty, 3. Implement strategies to drive performance. The approach being taught inspires, motivates, engages, and helps to attract better employees.

Keywords: leadership, success, communication, skills

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Authors: Reza Hadjiaghaie Vafaie, Aysan Madanpasandi, Behrooz Zare Desari, Seyedmohammad Mousavi

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High lamination in microchannel is one of the main challenges in on-chip components like micro total analyzer systems and lab-on-a-chips. Electro-osmotic force is highly effective in chip-scale. This research proposes a microfluidic-based micropump for low ionic strength solutions. Narrow microchannels are designed to generate an efficient electroosmotic flow near the walls. Microelectrodes are embedded in the lateral sides and actuated by low electric potential to generate pumping effect inside the channel. Based on the simulation study, the fluid velocity increases by increasing the electric potential amplitude. We achieve a net flow velocity of 100 µm/s, by applying +/- 2 V to the electrode structures. Our proposed low voltage design is of interest in conventional lab-on-a-chip applications.

Keywords: integration, electrokinetic, on-chip, fluid pumping, microfluidic

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Authors: Rishav Shrestha, Yong Zhang

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The Anti-Stoke upconversion process has been used extensively for bioimaging and is recently being used for photoactivated therapy in cancer utilizing upconversion nanoparticles (UCNs). The UCNs have an excitation band at 980nm; 980nm laser excitation used to produce UV/Visible emissions also produce a heating effect. Light-to-heat conversion has been observed in nanoparticles(NPs) doped with neodymium(Nd) or ytterbium(Yb)/erbium(Er) ions. Despite laser-induced heating in Rare-earth doped NPs being proven to be a relatively efficient process, only few attempts to use them as photothermal agents in biosystems have been made up to now. Gold nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes are the most researched and developed for photothermal applications. Both have large heating efficiency and outstanding biocompatibility. However, they show weak fluorescence which makes them harder to track in vivo. In that regard, UCNs are attractive due to their excellent optical features in addition to their light-to-heat conversion and excitation by NIR, for imaging and spatiotemporally releasing drugs. In this work, we have utilized a simple method to coat Nd doped UCNs with thermoresponsive polymer PNIPAM on which 4-Hydroxytamoxifen (4-OH-T) is loaded. Such UCNs demonstrate a high loading efficiency and low leakage of 4-OH-T. Encouragingly, the release of 4-OH-T can be modulated by varying the power and duration of the NIR. Such UCNs were then used to demonstrate imaging and controlled photothermal release of 4-OH-T in MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Keywords: cancer therapy, controlled release, photothermal release, upconversion nanoparticles

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Authors: Yaprak Aydin

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The rural is no longer a space of only agricultural activities that gave into the global market demands; or an idyll to return after retirement; or only a reservoir of cultural values, but rather a vision to redefine the future in terms of production and consumption relations. Gulpınar in Turkey and Ashtarak in Armenia are two towns where a new ground of dialogue between two communities has been initiated: ‘energy democracy’, which is a significant driving force in a sense of gathering people of two historically conflicted communities around common future concerns; and in a sense of transforming the accepted knowledge on the rurality and all the social structures it represents. This paper seeks to provoke a discussion of to what extent such a rurality is attainable by contextualizing – through visits and meetings in person – two towns and two communities within a renewable energy project called 'Under the Same Sun' carried out by two local civil society organizations together at two public spaces.

Keywords: civil society, energy democracy, prosumer communities, renewable energy, transnational rurality

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Authors: Loai Ben Naji, Osama M. Ibrahim, Khaled J. Al-Fadhalah

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the formation and adhesion of a protective aluminum-oxide (Al₂O₃, alumina) layer on the surface of Iron-Chromium-Aluminum Alloy (Fe-Cr-Al) sintered-metal-fibers. The oxide-scale layer was developed via multi-stage thermal oxidation at 930 ^oC for 1 hour, followed by 1 hour at 960 ^oC, and finally at 990 ^oC for 2 hours. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images show that the multi-stage thermal oxidation resulted in the formation of predominantly Al₂O₃ platelets-like and whiskers. SEM images also reveal non-uniform oxide-scale growth on the surface of the fibers. Furthermore, peeling/spalling of the alumina protective layer occurred after minimum handling, which indicates weak adhesion forces between the protective layer and the base metal alloy.  Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) analysis of the heat-treated Fe-Cr-Al sintered-metal-fibers confirmed the high aluminum content on the surface of the protective layer, and the low aluminum content on the exposed base metal alloy surface. In conclusion, the failure of the oxide-scale protective layer exposes the base metal alloy to further oxidation, and the fragile non-uniform oxide-scale is not suitable as a support for catalysts.

Keywords: high-temperature oxidation, iron-chromium-aluminum alloy, alumina protective layer, sintered-metal-fibers

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Authors: Constantinos Vayenas, Athanasios Fokas, Dimitrios Grigoriou

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We use special relativity to compute the inertial and thus gravitational mass of relativistic electron and muon neutrinos, and we find that, for neutrino kinetic energies above 150 MeV/c2, these masses are in the Planck mass range. Consequently, we develop a simple Bohr-type model using gravitational rather than electrostatic forces between the rotating neutrinos as the centripetal force in order to examine the bound rotational states formed by two or three such relativistic neutrinos. We find that the masses of the composite rotational structures formed, are in the meson and baryon mass ranges, respectively. These models contain no adjustable parameters and by comparing their predictions with the experimental values of the masses of protons and pions, we compute a mass of 0.0437 eV/c2 for the heaviest electron neutrino mass and of 1.1 x10-3 eV/c2 for the heaviest muon neutrino mass.

Keywords: geons, gravitational confinement, neutrino masses, special relativity

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Authors: Djeamsly Salomon

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Background: Epidemiological surveillance is a dynamic national system used to observe all aspects of the evolution of priority health problems, through: collection, analysis, systematic interpretation of information, and dissemination of results with necessary recommendations. The study was conducted to assess the mandatory disease surveillance system in the Sud Department. Methods: A study was conducted from March to May 2021 with key players involved in surveillance at the level of health institutions in the department . The CDC's 2021 updated guideline was used to evaluate the system. We collected information about the operation, attributes, and usefulness of the surveillance system using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Epi-Info7.2 and Excel 2016 were used to generate the mean, frequencies and proportions. Results: Of 30 participants, 23 (77%) were women. The average age was 39 years[30-56]. 25 (83%) had training in epidemiological surveillance. (50%) of the forms checked were signed by the supervisor. Collection tools were available at (80%). Knowledge of at least 7 notifiable diseases was high (100%). Among the respondents, 29 declared that the collection tools were simple, 27 had already filled in a notification form. The maximum time taken to fill out a form was 10 minutes. The feedback between the different levels was done at (60%). Conclusion: The surveillance system is useful, simple, acceptable, representative, flexible, stable and responsive. The data generated was of high quality. However, it is threatened by the lack of supervision of sentinel sites, lack of investigation and weak feedback. This evaluation demonstrated the urgent need to improve supervision in the sites and to feedback information. Strengthen epidemiological surveillance.

Keywords: evaluation, notifiable diseases, surveillance, system

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Authors: Zainab S. Mahmood, Aisha H. Hashim, Wan Haslina Hassan, Farhat Anwar

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The wide use of the internet-based applications bring many challenges to the researchers to guarantee the continuity of the connections needed by the mobile hosts and provide reliable Internet access for them. One of proposed solutions by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is to connect the local, multi-hop, and infrastructure-less Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) with Internet structure. This connection is done through multi-interface devices known as Internet Gateways. Many issues are related to this connection like gateway discovery, hand off, address auto-configuration and selecting the optimum gateway when multiple gateways exist. Many studies were done proposing gateway selection schemes with a single selection criterion or weighted multiple criteria. In this research, a review of some of these schemes is done showing the differences, the features, the challenges and the drawbacks of each of them.

Keywords: Internet Gateway, MANET, mobility, selection criteria

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Authors: Ambrish Singh

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The corrosion inhibition performance of pyran (AP) and benzimidazole (BI) derivatives on J55 steel in 3.5% NaCl solution saturated with CO₂ was investigated by electrochemical, weight loss, surface characterization, and theoretical studies. The electrochemical studies included electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), potentiodynamic polarization (PDP), electrochemical frequency modulation (EFM), and electrochemical frequency modulation trend (EFMT). Surface characterization was done using contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques. DFT and molecular dynamics (MD) studies were done using Gaussian and Materials Studio softwares. All the studies suggested the good inhibition by the synthesized inhibitors on J55 steel in 3.5% NaCl solution saturated with CO₂ due to the formation of a protective film on the surface. Molecular dynamic simulation was applied to search for the most stable configuration and adsorption energies for the interaction of the inhibitors with Fe (110) surface.

Keywords: corrosion, inhibitor, EFM, AFM, DFT, MD

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Authors: Arati Inamdar, Siddharth Bhattacharyya, Kester Haye

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Collision tumors are rare entities characterized by neoplasms of two different cell populations with distinct separating boundaries. Such tumors could be benign, malignant, or a combination of both. The exact mechanism of origin for collision tumors is predicted to be tumor heterogeneity or concurrent occurrence of neoplasm in the same organ. We present two cases of plasmacytoma presenting as a collision tumor, one with a tumor of hematological origin and another with a non-hematological origin, namely Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Adenocarcinoma of the colon, respectively. The immunohistochemical stains and flowcytometry analysis performed on the specimens aided incorrect diagnosis. Interestingly, neoplastic cells of plasmacytoma in the first case demonstrated strong cytokeratin along with weak Epithelial Specific Antigen/ Epithelial cell adhesion molecule Monoclonal Antibody (MOC31) positivity, indicating that the tumor may influence the microenvironment of the tumor in the vicinity. Furthermore, the next-generation sequencing studies performed on the specimen with plasmacytoma and chronic lymphocytic lymphoma demonstrated BReast CAncer gene (BRCA2) and Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Induced Protein 3 (TNFAIP3) as a disease associated variants suggestive of risk for multiple tumors including collision tumors. Our reports highlight the unique collision tumors involving plasmacytoma, which have never been reported previously, as well as provide necessary insights about the underline genetic aberrations and tumor heterogeneity through sequencing studies and allow clonality assessment for subsequent tumors.

Keywords: BRCA2, collision tumor, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, plasmacytoma

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Authors: Kun Xu, Yuan Xu, Jia Qiao

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The document detection plays an important role in optical character recognition and text analysis. Because the traditional detection methods have weak generalization ability, and deep neural network has complex structure and large number of parameters, which cannot be well applied in mobile devices, this paper proposes a lightweight Document Corner Detection Network (DCDNet). DCDNet is a two-stage architecture. The first stage with Encoder-Decoder structure adopts depthwise separable convolution to greatly reduce the network parameters. After introducing the Feature Attention Union (FAU) module, the second stage enhances the feature information of spatial and channel dim and adaptively adjusts the size of receptive field to enhance the feature expression ability of the model. Aiming at solving the problem of the large difference in the number of pixel distribution between corner and non-corner, Weighted Binary Cross Entropy Loss (WBCE Loss) is proposed to define corner detection problem as a classification problem to make the training process more efficient. In order to make up for the lack of Dataset of document corner detection, a Dataset containing 6620 images named Document Corner Detection Dataset (DCDD) is made. Experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain fast, stable and accurate detection results on DCDD.

Keywords: document detection, corner detection, attention mechanism, lightweight

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Authors: Xu Du, Aparna S. Varde

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In this research, we propose to conduct diagnostic and predictive analysis about the key factors and consequences of urban population relocation. To achieve this goal, urban simulation models extract the urban development trends as land use change patterns from a variety of data sources. The results are treated as part of urban big data with other information such as population change and economic conditions. Multiple data mining methods are deployed on this data to analyze nonlinear relationships between parameters. The result determines the driving force of population relocation with respect to urban sprawl and urban sustainability and their related parameters. Experiments so far reveal that data mining methods discover useful knowledge from the multicity urban data. This work sets the stage for developing a comprehensive urban simulation model for catering to specific questions by targeted users. It contributes towards achieving sustainability as a whole.

Keywords: data mining, environmental modeling, sustainability, urban planning

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Authors: Murat Erdoğdu, Mehmet Öçalan

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The main aim of this study is to find out the effects of the concepts of the brand awareness and the brand loyalty of teenagers (13-18) on their criteria to buy the products that attract high interest in the groups that do sports actively and vice versa. The training shoes that are thought to have high interests of teenagers were chosen in the study (because every student uses training shoes at least in physical education lessons) and searching the criteria to choose these products is one of the aims of this study. The sample of the research consisted of 775 teenagers doing sports (218 females, 557 males) and 752 teenagers not doing sports (399 females, 353 males) from the primary and secondary schools in the center of Ankara. 1527 students in total voluntarily participated in the study. When the effects of the brand functions perceived about the sample on the brand awareness was analyzed, it was found out that all of three function types have a positive and significant effect on the brand awareness. It was found out that there was a positive and average relationship between the dependence on a brand and the brand loyalty. It was understood that there was a positive and weak relationship between the brand loyalty and the general brand awareness in training shoes among teenagers. The groups of the teenagers doing sports and of the teenagers not doing sports showed significant differences in their preferences about training shoes. The effects of the criteria to buy training shoes on the brand loyalty showed significant differences in the groups. In addition, it was determined that according to their variables of doing sports actively, the teenagers doing sports actively have significantly higher brand awareness and brand loyalty than the teenagers not doing sports.

Keywords: brand awareness, brand loyalty sports marketing, teenagers, the level of doing sports

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Authors: Jia Xue, Frederica G. Lamar, Siyu Lin, Jennifer G. Lamori, Samendra Sherchan

Abstract:

Brackish water samples from Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana were assessed for the presence of pathogenic amoeba Naegleria fowleri, which causes primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). In our study, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) methods were used to determine N. fowleri, E. coli, and Enterococcus in water collected from Lake Pontchartrain. A total of 158 water samples were analyzed over the 10-month sampling period. Statistically significant positive correlation between water temperature and N. fowleri concentration was observed. N. fowleri target sequence was detected at 35.4% (56/158) of the water samples from ten sites around the Lake ranged from 11.6 GC/100 ml water to 457.8 GC/100 ml water. A single factor (ANOVA) analysis shows the average concentration of N. fowleri in summer (119.8 GC/100 ml) was significantly higher than in winter (58.6 GC/100 ml) (p < 0.01). Statistically significant positive correlations were found between N. fowleri and qPCR E. coli results and N. fowleri and colilert E. coli (culture method), respectively. A weak positive correlation between E. coli and Enterococcus was observed from both qPCR (r = 0.27, p < 0.05) and culture based method (r = 0.52, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, significant positive correlation between qPCR and culture based methods for E. coli (r = 0.30, p < 0.05) and Enterococcus concentration was observed (r = 0.26, p < 0.05), respectively. Future research is needed to determine whether sediment is a source of N. fowleri found in the water column.

Keywords: brackish water, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus, Naegleria fowleri, primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), qPCR

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Bong-Keun Jung, Jung-Yeon Kim

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to investigate usability of detachable brake system for moving apparatus such as baby strollers, manual wheelchairs or walkers. The current brake system was proposed to prevent that moving apparatus slip on sloping roadways when unattended as current built-in manual brake for the moving apparatus is not able to react for the matter. The developed detachable brake system enacted by force sensor on the hand grip showed the possibilities to prevent unexpected accident due to uncontrolled stroller or wheelchair use. To investigate the quality and acceptance of this new technology, standard stroller testbed was built and the use of moving apparatus which attached to the proposed brake system was analyzed through video recording. Additional usability questionnaires were given to test users for measuring usability issues.

Keywords: brake system, stroller, wheelchair, usability test

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