Search results for: translation standards

Authors: Antonio Pizzarello, Oris Friesen

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Networks, such as the electric power grid, must demonstrate exemplary performance and integrity. Integrity depends on the quality of both the system design model and the deployed software. Integrity of the deployed software is key, for both the original versions and the many that occur throughout numerous maintenance activity. Current software engineering technology and practice do not produce adequate integrity. Distributed systems utilize networks where each node is an independent computer system. The connections between them is realized via a network that is normally redundantly connected to guarantee the presence of a path between two nodes in the case of failure of some branch. Furthermore, at each node, there is software which may fail. Self-stabilizing protocols are usually present that recognize failure in the network and perform a repair action that will bring the node back to a correct state. These protocols first introduced by E. W. Dijkstra are currently present in almost all Ethernets. Super stabilization protocols capable of reacting to a change in the network topology due to the removal or addition of a branch in the network are less common but are theoretically defined and available. This paper describes how to use the Software Integrity Assessment (SIA) methodology to analyze self-stabilizing software. SIA is based on the UNITY formalism for parallel and distributed programming, which allows the analysis of code for verifying the progress property p leads-to q that describes the progress of all computations starting in a state satisfying p to a state satisfying q via the execution of one or more system modules. As opposed to demonstrably inadequate test and evaluation methods SIA allows the analysis and verification of any network self-stabilizing software as well as any other software that is designed to recover from failure without external intervention of maintenance personnel. The model to be analyzed is obtained by automatic translation of the system code to a transition system that is based on the use of the weakest precondition.

Keywords: network, power grid, self-stabilization, software integrity assessment, UNITY, weakest precondition

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Authors: Wallapa Boonrod

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Thai National Education Act 1999 required all educational institutions received external quality evaluation at least once every five years. The purpose of this study was to compare the awareness in the code of ethics for nurse educators among nurse educators, professional nurses, and nursing students under The Royal Thai Army Nurse College. The sample consisted of 51 of nurse educators 200 nursing students and 340 professional nurses from Army nursing college and hospital by stratified random sampling techniques. The descriptive statistics indicated that the nurse educators, nursing students and professional nurses had different levels of awareness in the 9 roles of nurse educators: Nurse, Reliable Sacrifice, Intelligence, Giver, Nursing Skills, Teaching Responsibility, Unbiased Care, Tie to Organization, and Role Model. The code of ethics for nurse educators (CENE) measurement models from the awareness of nurse educators, professional nurses, and nursing students were well fitted with the empirical data. The CENE models from them were invariant in forms, but variant in factor loadings. Thai Army nurse educators strive to create a learning environment that nurtures the highest nursing potential and standards in their nursing students.

Keywords: awareness of the code of ethics for nurse educators, nursing college and hospital under The Royal Thai Army, Thai Army nurse educators, professional nurses

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Authors: Abdallah Abusam, Andrzej Mydlarczyk, Fadila Al-Salameen, Moh Elmuntasir Ahmed

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Treated municipal wastewater produced in Kuwait is used mainly in agricultural and greenery landscape irrigations. However, there are strong doubts that severe sludge bulking and foaming problems, particularly during winter seasons, may render the treated wastewater to be unsuitable for irrigation purposes. To assess the impact of sludge bulking and foaming problems on the quality of treated effluents, samples were collected weekly for nine months (January to September 2014) from the secondary effluents, tertiary effluents and sludge-mixed liquor streams of the two plants that severely suffer from sludge bulking and foaming problems. Dominant filamentous bacteria were identified and quantified using a molecular method called VIT (Vermicon Identification Technology). Quality of the treated effluents was determined according to water and wastewater standard methods. Obtained results were then statistically analyzed and compared to irrigation water standards. Statistical results indicated that secondary effluents were greatly impacted by sludge bulking and foaming problems, while tertiary effluents were slightly affected. This finding highlights the importance of having tertiary treatment units in plants that encountering sludge bulking and foaming problems.

Keywords: agriculture, filamentous bacteria, reclamation, reuse, wastewater

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Authors: Rodrigo Buaiz Boabaid

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Tokenization of Blue Bonds is an emerging Green Finance tool that has the potential to scale Blue Carbon Projects to fight climate change. This innovative solution has a huge potential to democratize the green finance market and catalyze innovations in the climate change finance sector. Switzerland has emerged as a leader in the Green Finance space and is well-positioned to drive the adoption of Tokenization of Blue & Green Bonds. This unique approach has the potential to unlock new sources of capital and enable global investors to participate in the financing of sustainable blue carbon projects. By leveraging the power of blockchain technology, Tokenization of Blue Bonds can provide greater transparency, efficiency, and security in the investment process, while also reducing transaction costs. Investments are in line with the highest regulations and designed according to the stringent legal framework and compliance standards set by Switzerland. The potential benefits of Tokenization of Blue Bonds are significant and could transform the way that sustainable projects are financed. By unlocking new sources of capital, this approach has the potential to accelerate the deployment of Blue Carbon projects and create new opportunities for investors to participate in the fight against climate change.

Keywords: blue carbon, blue bonds, green finance, Tokenization, blockchain solutions

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Authors: Siamak Eskandari, Neda Ebadi

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After discovering and using Freon as refrigerant in refrigerators and air conditioners, researchers have been working hard to minimize massive environmental damage caused by this type of systems, including ozone depletion, heat production, and urban warming. However, there is a growing concern for global warming and climate change and its impacts on climates. Although gas air conditioners can provide comfort in short term, there are long-term consequences and effects, including global warming, polar ice melting, sea level rising, rising sea surface temperatures, reduction in seasonal precipitation, tropical storms, and drought. In this theoretical and practical study, Peltier electronic chip was used with no gas in the structure and operation. In fact, cooling and heating are based on bipolar electronics. With an innovative method, Peltier air conditioners provide cooling in warm seasons and heating in cold seasons in buildings. Such a system prevents ambient warming. The problem of air circulation between high buildings in large cities and draught will be considerably resolved through the use of the silent fan in the system. In addition, the system is designed and developed in accordance with international standards such as LEED and Energy Star.

Keywords: energy, Building cooling and heating, peltier, leed, energy star

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Authors: Gyo Woo Lee, Man Young Kim

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Emission regulations for diesel engines are being strengthened and it is impossible to meet the standards without exhaust after-treatment systems. Lack of the space in many diesel vehicles, however, make it difficult to design and install stand-alone catalytic converters such as DOC, DPF, and SCR in the vehicle exhaust systems. Accordingly, those have been installed inside the muffler to save the space, and referred to the catalytic muffler. However, that has complex internal structure with perforated plate and pipe for noise and monolithic catalyst for emission reduction. For this reason, flow uniformity and pressure drop, which affect efficiency of catalyst and engine performance, respectively, should be examined when the catalytic muffler is designed. In this work, therefore, the flow uniformity and pressure drop to improve the performance of the catalytic converter and the engine have been numerically investigated by changing various design parameters such as inlet shape, porosity, and outlet shape of the muffler using the three-dimensional turbulent flow of the incompressible, non-reacting, and steady state inside the catalytic muffler. Finally, it can be found that the shape, in which the muffler has perforated pipe inside the inlet part, has higher uniformity index and lower pressure drop than others considered in this work.

Keywords: catalytic muffler, perforated inlet cone, catalysts, perforated pipe, flow uniformity, pressure drop

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Authors: Hongyu Ye, Hong Zhang, Minjie Sun, Hongfang Xu

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In the context of China's promotion of smart construction and building industrialization, there is a need for evaluation standards for the development of building industrialization based on assembly-type construction. However, the evaluation of smart construction remains a challenge in the industry's development process. This paper addresses this issue by proposing a calculation and evaluation method for the smartization rate of concrete structure building construction. The study focuses on examining the factors of smart equipment application and their impact on costs throughout the process of smart construction design, production, transfer, and construction. Based on this analysis, the paper presents an evaluation method for the smartization rate based on components. Furthermore, it introduces calculation methods for assessing the smartization rate of buildings. The paper also suggests a rapid calculation method for determining the smartization rate using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and information expression technology. The proposed research provides a foundation for the swift calculation of the smartization rate based on BIM and information technology. Ultimately, it aims to promote the development of smart construction and the construction of high-quality buildings in China.

Keywords: building industrialization, high quality building, smart construction, smartization rate, component

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Authors: Nassali Celine Lindah

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The study sought to find out how public accountability is a challenge to sustainable development in Uganda. The study was guided by the following set of objectives included establishing the challenges of Public accountability, the importance of accountability in Uganda, and the possible solutions to the problems identified in the study. In order to ensure proper accountability there should be proper control of resources, specifically the control of both public revenue and expenditures. Stakeholders should also be involved in the accountability process. Accountability can reduce corruption and other abuses, assure compliance with standards and procedures, and improve performance and organizational learning. The study involved qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques. A sample of 20 respondents from various districts/towns was used using both technical staff and non-technical staff members. The study utilized secondary and primary data, which was obtained using interviews and observations. The study reached a conclusion that the major challenges of Public accountability in Uganda are poor leadership, poor resource management, unethical behavior by the government officials and political involvement, among others. The study also recommended that the policymakers should design relevant guidelines/policies to help promote the process of public accountability in Uganda like prosecution and convictions, strengthen public expenditure management benchmarking and performance measurements, among others.

Keywords: accountability, sustainability, government activities, government sector

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Authors: Alireza Saidi

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Aside from injuries due to direct contact with hot or cold substances or objects, exposure to extreme temperatures in the workplace involves physical hazards to workers. On the other hand, a poorly acclimatized worker may have reduced performance and alertness and may, therefore, be more vulnerable to the risk of accidents and injuries. Due to the incompatibility of the standards put in place with certain workplaces and the lack of thermoregulation in many protective equipments, thermal strains remain among the physical risks most present in many work sectors. However, many of these problems can be overcome thanks to the potential of intelligent textile technologies allowing intelligent thermoregulation in protective equipment. Nowadays, technologies such as heating elements, cooling elements are applied in products intended for sport and leisure, and research work has been carried out in the integration of temperature sensors and thermal stress detectors in personal protective equipment. However, the usage of all of these technologies in personal protective equipment remains very marginal. This article presents a portrait of the current state of intelligent thermoregulation systems by carrying out a synthesis of technical developments, which is accompanied by a gap analysis of current developments. Thus, the research work necessary for the adaptation and integration of intelligent thermoregulation systems with personal protective equipment is discussed in order to offer a perspective of future developments.

Keywords: personal protective equipment, smart textiles, thermoregulation, thermal strain

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Authors: Jerome Dalphinis, Vishal Patel

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The Bailiwick of Jersey is an island British crown dependency situated off the coast of France. Jersey General Hospital’s emergency department sees approximately 40,000 patients a year. It’s outside the NHS, with secondary care being free at the point of care. Sedation is a continuum which extends from a normal conscious level to being fully unresponsive. Procedural sedation produces a minimally depressed level of consciousness in which the patient retains the ability to maintain an airway, and they respond appropriately to physical stimulation. The goals of it are to improve patient comfort and tolerance of the procedure and alleviate associated anxiety. Indications can be stratified by acuity, emergency (cardioversion for life-threatening dysrhythmia), and urgency (joint reduction). In the emergency department, this is most often achieved using a combination of opioids and benzodiazepines. Some departments also use ketamine to produce dissociative sedation, a cataleptic state of profound analgesia and amnesia. The response to pharmacological agents is highly individual, and the drugs used occasionally have unpredictable pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which can always result in progression between levels of sedation irrespective of the intention. Therefore, practitioners must be able to ‘rescue’ patients from deeper sedation. These practitioners need to be senior clinicians with advanced airway skills (AAS) training. It can lead to adverse effects such as dangerous hypoxia and unintended loss of consciousness if incorrectly undertaken; studies by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) have reported avoidable deaths. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, UK (RCEM) released an updated ‘Safe Sedation of Adults in the Emergency Department’ guidance in 2017 detailing a series of standards for staff competencies, and the required environment and equipment, which are required for each target sedation depth. The emergency department in Jersey undertook audit research in 2018 to assess their current practice. It showed gaps in clinical competency, the need for uniform care, and improved documentation. This spurred the development of a checklist incorporating the above RCEM standards, including contraindication for procedural sedation and difficult airway assessment. This was approved following discussion with the relevant heads of departments and the patient safety directorates. Following this, a second audit research was carried out in 2019 with 17 completed checklists (11 relocation of joints, 6 cardioversions). Data was obtained from looking at the controlled resuscitation drugs book containing documented use of ketamine, alfentanil, and fentanyl. TrakCare, which is the patient electronic record system, was then referenced to obtain further information. The results showed dramatic improvement compared to 2018, and they have been subdivided into six categories; pre-procedure assessment recording of significant medical history and ASA grade (2 fold increase), informed consent (100% documentation), pre-oxygenation (88%), staff (90% were AAS practitioners) and monitoring (92% use of non-invasive blood pressure, pulse oximetry, capnography, and cardiac rhythm monitoring) during procedure, and discharge instructions including the documented return of normal vitals and consciousness (82%). This procedural sedation checklist is a safe intervention that identifies pertinent information about the patient and provides a standardised checklist for the delivery of gold standard of care.

Keywords: advanced airway skills, checklist, procedural sedation, resuscitation

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Authors: Giovanni Menichini, Salvatore Giacomo Morano, Gloria Terenzi, Luca Salvatori, Maurizio Orlando

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The “Guidelines for Risk Classification, Safety Assessment, and Structural Health Monitoring of Existing Bridges” were recently approved by the Italian Government to define technical standards for managing the national network of existing bridges. These guidelines provide a framework for risk mitigation and safety assessment of bridges, which are essential elements of the built environment and form the basis for the operation of transport systems. Within the guideline framework, a workflow based on three main points was proposed: (1) risk-based, i.e., based on typical parameters of hazard, vulnerability, and exposure; (2) multi-level, i.e., including six assessment levels of increasing complexity; and (3) multirisk, i.e., assessing structural/foundational, seismic, hydrological, and landslide risks. The paper focuses on applying the Italian Guidelines to specific case studies, aiming to identify the parameters that predominantly influence the determination of the “class of attention”. The significance of each parameter is determined via sensitivity analysis. Additionally, recommendations for enhancing the process of assigning the class of attention are proposed.

Keywords: bridge safety assessment, Italian guidelines implementation, risk classification, structural health monitoring

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Authors: Lima Priscila, Gianotto Raiza, Arruda Leonan, Magalhães Filho Fernando

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Industrialization and especially the accentuated population growth in developing countries and the lack of drainage, public cleaning, water and sanitation services has caused concern about the need for expansion of water treatment units and sewage. However, these units have been generating by-products, such as the sludge. This paper aims to investigate aspects of operation and maintenance of sludge from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP - 90 L.s-1) and two water treatment plants (WTPs; 1.4 m3.s-1 and 0.5 m3.s-1) for the purpose of proper disposal and reuse, evaluating their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, the Brazilian legislation and standards. It was concluded that the sludge from the water treatment plants is directly related to the quality of raw water collected, and it becomes feasible for use in construction materials, and to dispose it in the sewage system, improving the efficiency of the WWTP regarding precipitation of phosphorus (35% of removal). The WTP Lageado had 55,726 kg/month of sludge production, more than WTP Guariroba (29,336 kg/month), even though the flow of WTP Guariroba is 1,400 L.s-1 and the WTP Lagedo 500 L.s-1, being explained by the quality that influences more than the flow. The WWTP sludge have higher concentrations of organic materials due to their origin and could be used to improve the fertility of the soil, crop production and recovery of degraded areas. The volume of sludge generated at the WWTP was 1,760 ton/month, with 5.6% of solid content in the raw sludge and in the dewatered sludge it increased its content to 23%.

Keywords: disposal, sludge, water treatment, wastewater treatment

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Authors: M. O. Eyankware, D. O. Ufomata

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Groundwater samples were collected from Otovwodo-Ughelli and Environ with the aim of assessing groundwater quality of the area. Twenty (20) water samples from Boreholes (BH) (six) and Hand Dug Wells (HDW) (fourteen) were randomly sampled and were analysed for different physiochemical and bacteriological parameters. The following 16 parameters have been considered viz: pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, total hardness, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, phosphate, sulphate, chloride, nitrate, calcium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, and total suspended solids. On comparing the results against drinking quality standards laid by World Health Organization and Nigeria industrial standard, it was found that the water quality parameters were not above the (WHO, 2011 and NIS, 2007) permissible limit. Microbial analysis reveals the presence of coliform and E.coli in two hand-dug well (HDW7 and 13) and one borehole well (BH20). These contaminations are perhaps traceable to have originated from human activities (septic tanks, latrines, dumpsites) and have affected the quality of groundwater in Otovwodo-Ughelli. From the piper trilinear diagram, the dominant ionic species is alkali bicarbonate water type, with bicarbonate as the predominant ion (Na+ + K+)-HCO3.

Keywords: groundwater, surface water, Ughelli, Nigeria industrial standard, who standard

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Authors: Rajiv Arora

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Biodiesel may be economical if produced from inexpensive feedstock which commonly contains high level of free fatty acids (FFA) as an inhibitor in production of methyl ester. In this study, a two-step process for biodiesel production from high FFA spent bleach earth oil in a batch reactor is developed. Oil sample extracted from spent bleaching earth (SBE) was utilized for biodiesel process. In the first step, FFA of the SBE oil was reduced to 1.91% through sulfuric acid catalyzed esterification. In the second step, the product prepared from the first esterification process was carried out transesterification with an alkaline catalyst. The influence of four variables on conversion efficiency to methyl ester, i.e., methanol/ SBE oil molar ratio, catalyst amount, reaction temperature and reaction time, was studied in the second stage. The optimum process variables in the transesterification were methanol/oil molar ratio 6:1, heterogeneous catalyst conc. 5 wt %, reaction temperature 65 °C and reaction time 60 minutes to produce biodiesel. Major fuel properties of SBE biodiesel were measured to comply with ASTM and EN standards. Therefore, an optimized process for production of biodiesel from a low-cost high FFA source was accomplished.

Keywords: biodiesel, esterification, free fatty acids, residual oil, spent bleaching earth, transesterification

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Authors: Pelin Sonmez

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Health services provided to refugees and asylum seekers are very important and of priority due to their physical damages during the war and conflict situation, possible diseases in migration journey and negative psychological mood. However, there are very poor international standards in regards to providing health services to these people, which in return cause each country to differ their regulations. United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that are in effect as of 2016 assure that attention should be provided to non-citizen vulnerable groups in terms of health policies and they should be included in the global development, thereby aims to decrease the problems arising from providing health services to refugees. Though, we should not forget that these are the recent and yet uncertain attempts, mostly, as a result of Syrian War's forced migration wave. As an attempt to reveal different attitudes of international actors, this study compares/analyzes health services provided to refugees and asylum seekers on the basis of Turkey-EU policy implementations. While doing so, two research data will be focused upon. In this globe, results of the focus group interviews and a field study in a specific work (from its health related section) which was done in 2017 to 5000 Syrian women living in Turkey and presented to Republic of Turkey Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency will be utilized.

Keywords: European Union, health policies, refugee, Syrian women, Turkey

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Authors: Mukesh Kumar, Mahendra Pal Sharma

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Depleting fossil fuel resources coupled with serious environmental degradation has led to the search for alternative resources for biodiesel production as a substitute of Petro-diesel. Currently, edible, non-edible oils and microalgal plant species are cultivated for biodiesel production. Looking at the demerits of edible and non-edible oil resources, the focus is being given to grow microalgal species having high oil productivities, less maturity time and less land requirement. Out of various microalgal species, Chlorella protothecoides is considered as the most promising species for biodiesel production owing to high oil content (58 %), faster growth rate (24–48 h) and high biomass productivity (1214 mg/l/day). The present paper reports the results of optimization of reaction parameters of transesterification process as well as the kinetics of transesterification with 97% yield of biodiesel. The measurement of fuel quality of microalgal biodiesel shows that the biodiesel exhibit very good oxidation stability (O.S) of 7 hrs, more than ASTM D6751 (3 hrs) and EN 14112 (6 hrs) specifications. The CP and PP of 0 and -3 °C are finding as per ASTM D 2500-11 and ASTM D 97-12 standards. These results show that the microalgal biodiesel does not need any enhancement in O.S & CFP and hence can be recommended to be directly used as MB100 or its blends into diesel engine operation. Further, scope is available for the production of binary blends using poor quality biodiesel for engine operation.

Keywords: fuel quality, methyl ester yield, microalgae, transesterification

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Authors: Qasim Kriri, Harsh B. Desai

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Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia is portrayed by difficulties and accomplishments. One of the fundamental difficulties is water shortage. With a specific end goal to beat water shortage, significant ventures have been attempted in sea water desalination, water circulation, sewerage, and wastewater treatment. The motivation behind Statistical Process Control (SPC) is to decide whether the execution of a procedure is keeping up an acceptable quality level [AQL]. SPC is an analytical decision-making method. A fundamental apparatus in the SPC is the Control Charts, which follow the inconstancy in the estimations of the item quality attributes. By utilizing the suitable outline, administration can decide whether changes should be made with a specific end goal to keep the procedure in charge. The two most important quality factors in the distilled water which were taken into consideration were pH (Potential of Hydrogen) and TDS (Total Dissolved Solids). There were three stages at which the quality checks were done. The stages were as follows: (1) Water at the source, (2) water after chemical treatment & (3) water which is sent for packing. The upper specification limit, central limit and lower specification limit are taken as per Saudi water standards. The procedure capacity to accomplish the particulars set for the quality attributes of Berain water Factory chose to be focused by the proposed SPC system.

Keywords: acceptable quality level, statistical quality control, control charts, process charts

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Authors: Chu Liu

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With the development of society and the changes of the times, the requirements for the cultivation of learners are different. In the 21st century, STEM education has become a boom in the development of education in various countries, aiming to improve the comprehensive ability of learners in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The rise of robot education provides an effective way for STEM education to cultivate computational thinking ability, interdisciplinary ability, problem-solving ability, and teamwork ability. Although robot education has been developed in China for several years, it still lacks a standard curriculum system. This article uses programming software as a platform, through the research and analysis of 'Basic Education Information Technology Curriculum Standards (2012 Edition)', combines with the actual learning situation of learners, tries to conduct teaching project design research, and aims at providing references for the teaching ideas and method of robot education courses. In contemporary society, technological advances increasingly require creativity. Innovative comprehensive talents urgently need a radical and effective education reform to keep up with social changes. So in this context, robot teaching design can be used for students. The tendency of creativity to influence is worth to be verified.

Keywords: STEM education, robot teaching, primary and secondary school students, tendency of creativity

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Authors: Maryam Khalili, Fateme Ghanei

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As one of the most significant phenomena of industrialized societies, tourism plays a key role in encouraging regional developments and enhancing higher standards of living for local communities in particular. Traveling is a formative experience endowed with lessons on various aspects of life. It allows us learning how to enhance the social position as well as the social relationships. However, people forget the need to travel and gain first-hand experiences as they have to cope with the ever-increasing rate of stress created by the disorders and routines of the urban dwelling style. In this paper, various spaces of such experiences were explored through a virtual tour with two underlying aims: 1) encouraging, informing, and educating the community in terms of tourism development, and 2) introducing a temporary release from the routines. This study enjoyed a practical-qualitative research methodology, and the required data were collected through observation and using a multiple-response questionnaire. The participants (19-48 years old) included 41 citizens of both genders (63.4% male and 36.6% female) from two regions in Tehran, selected by cluster-probability sampling. The results led to development of a spatial design for a virtual tour experience in Tehran where different areas are explored to both raise people’s awareness and educate them on their cultural heritage.

Keywords: ecotourism, education, gamification, social interaction, urban design, virtual tour

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Authors: Rasoul Eslami, Reza Gharakhanlou

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NT-4/5 and TrkB have been proposed to be involved in the coordinated adaptations of the neuromuscular system to elevated level of activity. Despite the persistence of this neurotrophin and its receptor expression in adult skeletal muscle, little attention has been paid to the functional significance of this complex in the mature neuromuscular system. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to study the effect of one session of resistance exercise on mRNA expression of NT4/5 and TrkB proteins in slow and fast muscles of Wistar Rats. Male Wistar rats (10 mo of age, preparation of Pasteur Institute) were housed under similar living conditions in cages (in groups of four) at room temperature under a controlled light/dark (12-h) cycle with ad libitum access to food and water. A number of sixteen rats were randomly divided to two groups (resistance exercise (T) and control (C); n=8 for each group). The resistance training protocol consisted of climbing a 1-meter–long ladder, with a weight attached to a tail sleeve. Twenty-four hours following the main training session, rats of T and C groups were anaesthetized and the right soleus and flexor hallucis longus (FHL) muscles were removed under sterile conditions via an incision on the dorsolateral aspect of the hind limb. For NT-4/5 and TrkB expression, quantitative real time RT-PCR was used. SPSS software and independent-samples t-test were used for data analysis. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05. Data indicate that resistance training significantly (P<0.05) decreased mRNA expression of NT4/5 in soleus muscle. However, no significant alteration was detected in FHL muscle (P>0.05). Our results also indicate that no significant alterations were detected for TrkB mRNA expression in soleus and FHL muscles (P>0.05). Decrease in mRNA expression of NT4/5 in soleus muscle may be as result of post-translation regulation following resistance training. Also, non-alteration in TrkB mRNA expression was indicated in probable roll of P75 receptor.

Keywords: neurotrophin-4/5 (NT-4/5), TrkB receptor, resistance training, slow and fast muscles

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Authors: S. Taghavi Kalajahi, A. Koerdt, T. Lund Skovhus

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Cathodic protection (CP) is an electrochemical method to control and manage corrosion in different industries and environments. CP which is widely used, especially in buried and sub-merged environments, which both environments are susceptible to microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC). Most of the standards recommend performing CP using -800 mV, however, if MIC threats are high or sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) is present, the recommendation is to use more negative potentials for adequate protection of the metal. Due to the lack of knowledge and research on the effectiveness of CP on MIC, to the author’s best knowledge, there is no information about what MIC threat is and how much more negative potentials should be used enabling adequate protection and not overprotection (due to hydrogen embrittlement risk). Recently, the development and cheaper price of molecular microbial methods (MMMs) open the door for more effective investigations on the corrosion in the presence of microorganisms, along with other electrochemical methods and surface analysis. In this work, using MMMs, the gene expression of SRB biofilm under different potentials of CP will be investigated. The specific genes, such as pH buffering, metal oxidizing, etc., will be compared at different potentials, enabling to determine the precise potential that protect the metal effectively from SRB. This work is the initial step to be able to standardize the recommended potential under MIC condition, resulting better protection for the infrastructures.

Keywords: cathodic protection, microbiologically influenced corrosion, molecular microbial methods, sulfate reducing bacteria

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Authors: Mohammed Abu Shquier

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This paper introduces a word segmentation method using the novel BP-LSTM-CRF architecture for processing semantic output training. The objective of web morphological analysis tools is to link a formal morpho-syntactic description to a lemma, along with morpho-syntactic information, a vocalized form, a vocalized analysis with morpho-syntactic information, and a list of paradigms. A key objective is to continuously enhance the proposed system through an inductive learning approach that considers semantic influences. The system is currently under construction and development based on data-driven learning. To evaluate the tool, an experiment on homograph analysis was conducted. The tool also encompasses the assumption of deep binary segmentation hypotheses, the arbitrary choice of trigram or n-gram continuation probabilities, language limitations, and morphology for both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Dialectal Arabic (DA), which provide justification for updating this system. Most Arabic word analysis systems are based on the phonotactic morpho-syntactic analysis of a word transmitted using lexical rules, which are mainly used in MENA language technology tools, without taking into account contextual or semantic morphological implications. Therefore, it is necessary to have an automatic analysis tool taking into account the word sense and not only the morpho-syntactic category. Moreover, they are also based on statistical/stochastic models. These stochastic models, such as HMMs, have shown their effectiveness in different NLP applications: part-of-speech tagging, machine translation, speech recognition, etc. As an extension, we focus on language modeling using Recurrent Neural Network (RNN); given that morphological analysis coverage was very low in dialectal Arabic, it is significantly important to investigate deeply how the dialect data influence the accuracy of these approaches by developing dialectal morphological processing tools to show that dialectal variability can support to improve analysis.

Keywords: NLP, DL, ML, analyser, MSA, RNN, CNN

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Authors: Lila Boulekbache-Makhlouf, Brahmi Fatiha

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This study was carried out with the aim of enriching fresh cheese with the food by-products, which are the leaves of shallots and the peels of potatoes. Firstly, the conditions for extracting the total polyphenols (TPP) using ultrasound are optimized. Then, the contents of PPT, flavonoids, and antioxidant activity were evaluated for the extracts obtained by adopting the optimal parameter. On the other hand, we have carried out some physico-chemical, microbiological, and sensory analyzes of the cheese produced. The maximum PPT value of 70.44 mg GAE/g DM of shallot leaves was reached with 40% (v/v) ethanol, an extraction time of 90 min, and a temperature of 10°C. Meanwhile, the maximum TPP content of potato peels of 45.03 ± 4.16 mg GAE/g DM was obtained using an ethanol/water mixture (40%, v/v), a time of 30 min, and a temperature of 60°C and the flavonoid contents were 13.99 and 7.52 QE/g DM, respectively. From the antioxidant tests, we deduced that the potato peels present a higher antioxidant power with IC50s of 125.42 ± 2.78 μg/mL for DPPH, of 87.21 ± 7.72 μg/mL for phosphomolybdate and 200.77 ± 13.38 μg/mL for iron chelation, compared with the results obtained for shallot leaves which were 204.29 ± 0.09, 45.85 ± 3,46 and 1004.10 ± 145.73 μg/mL, respectively. The results of the physico-chemical analyzes have shown that the formulated cheese was compliant with standards. Microbiological analyzes show that the hygienic quality of the cheese produced was satisfactory. According to the sensory analyzes, the experts liked the cheese enriched with the powder and pieces of the leaves of the shallots.

Keywords: shallots leaves, potato peels, ultrasound extraction, phenolic, cheese

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Authors: Shehu Usman Hassan

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Published accounting information in financial statements are required to provide various users - shareholders, employees, suppliers, creditors, financial analysts, stockbrokers and government agencies – with timely and reliable information useful for making prudent, effective and efficient decisions. The widespread failure in the financial information quality has created the need to improve the financial information quality and to strengthen the control of managers by setting up good firms structures. This paper investigates firm attributes from perspective of structure, monitoring, performance elements of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study adopted correlational research design with balanced panel data of 14 banks as sample of the study using multiple regression as a tool of analysis. The result reveals that firms attributes (leverage, profitability, liquidity, bank size and bank growth) has as significant influence on earnings quality of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria after the adoption of IFRS, while the pre period shows that the selected firm attributes has no significant impact on earnings quality. It is therefore concluded that the adoption of IFRS is right and timely.

Keywords: earnings quality, firm attributes, listed deposit money bank, Nigeria

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Authors: L. L. Ivy-Yap, H. A. Bekhet

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As the Malaysian residential electricity consumption continued to increase rapidly, effective energy policies, which address factors affecting residential electricity consumption, is urgently needed. This study attempts to investigate the relationship between residential electricity consumption (EC), real disposable income (Y), price of electricity (Pe) and population (Po) in Malaysia for 1978-2011 periods. Unlike previous studies on Malaysia, the current study focuses on the residential sector, a sector that is important for the contemplation of energy policy. The Phillips-Perron (P-P) unit root test is employed to infer the stationary of each variable while the bound test is executed to determine the existence of co-integration relationship among the variables, modeled in an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework. The CUSUM and CUSUM of squares tests are applied to ensure the stability of the model. The results suggest the existence of long-run equilibrium relationship and bidirectional Granger causality between EC and the macroeconomic variables. The empirical findings will help policy makers of Malaysia in developing new monitoring standards of energy consumption. As it is the major contributing factor in economic growth and CO2 emission, there is a need for more proper planning in Malaysia to attain future targets in order to cut emissions.

Keywords: co-integration, elasticity, granger causality, Malaysia, residential electricity consumption

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Authors: R. N. Begum, Ambalika Sharma, G. K. Singh

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Identity theft has serious ramifications beyond data and personal information loss. This necessitates the implementation of robust and efficient user identification systems. Therefore, automatic biometric recognition systems are the need of the hour, and ECG-based systems are unquestionably the best choice due to their appealing inherent characteristics. The CNNs are the recent state-of-the-art techniques for ECG-based user identification systems. However, the results obtained are significantly below standards, and the situation worsens as the number of users and types of heartbeats in the dataset grows. As a result, this study proposes a highly accurate and resilient ECG-based person identification system using CNN's dense learning framework. The proposed research explores explicitly the calibre of dense CNNs in the field of ECG-based human recognition. The study tests four different configurations of dense CNN which are trained on a dataset of recordings collected from eight popular ECG databases. With the highest FAR of 0.04 percent and the highest FRR of 5%, the best performing network achieved an identification accuracy of 99.94 percent. The best network is also tested with various train/test split ratios. The findings show that DenseNets are not only extremely reliable but also highly efficient. Thus, they might also be implemented in real-time ECG-based human recognition systems.

Keywords: Biometrics, Dense Networks, Identification Rate, Train/Test split ratio

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Authors: S. M. Ali, A. Salam Khan, A. U. Khan, M. Tariq, M. S. Hussain, B. A. Abbasi, I. Hussain, U. Farid

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Environment and surrounding plays a pivotal rule in structuring life-style of the consumers. Living standards intern effect the energy consumption of the consumers. In smart grid paradigm, climate drifts, weather parameter and green environmental directly relates to the energy profiles of the various consumers, such as residential, commercial and industrial. Considering above factors helps policy in shaping utility load curves and optimal management of demand and supply. Thus, there is a pressing need to develop correlation models of load and weather parameters and critical analysis of the factors effecting energy profiles of smart grid consumers. In this paper, we elaborated various environment and weather parameter factors effecting demand of consumers. Moreover, we developed correlation models, such as Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall, an inter-relation between dependent (load) parameter and independent (weather) parameters. Furthermore, we validated our discussion with real-time data of Texas State. The numerical simulations proved the effective relation of climatic drifts with energy consumption of smart grid consumers.

Keywords: climatic drifts, correlation analysis, energy consumption, smart grid, weather parameter

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Authors: Ravinder Kaur

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Introduction Global cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) mapping is a promising clinical assessment for stress-testing the brain using physiological challenges, such as CO₂, to elicit changes in perfusion. It enables real-time assessment of cerebrovascular integrity and health. Conventional imaging approaches solely use steady-state parameters, like cerebral blood flow (CBF), to evaluate the integrity of the resting parenchyma and can erroneously show a healthy brain at rest, despite the underlying pathogenesis in the presence of cerebrovascular disease. Conversely, coupling CO₂ inhalation with phase-contrast MRI neuroimaging interrogates the capacity of the vasculature to respond to changes under stress. It shows promise in providing prognostic value as a novel health marker to measure neurovascular function in disease and to detect early brain vasculature dysfunction. Objective This exploratory study was established to:(a) quantify the CBF response to CO₂ in hypocapnia and hypercapnia,(b) evaluate disparities in CVR between internal carotid (ICA) and vertebral artery (VA), and (c) assess sex-specific variation in CVR. Methodology Phase-contrast MRI was employed to measure the cerebrovascular reactivity to CO₂ (±10 mmHg). The respiratory interventions were presented using the prospectively end-tidal targeting RespirActTM Gen3 system. Post-processing and statistical analysis were conducted. Results In 9 young, healthy subjects, the CBF increased from hypocapnia to hypercapnia in all vessels (4.21±0.76 to 7.20±1.83 mL/sec in ICA, 1.36±0.55 to 2.33±1.31 mL/sec in VA, p < 0.05). The CVR was quantitatively higher in ICA than VA (slope of linear regression: 0.23 vs. 0.07 mL/sec/mmHg, p < 0.05). No statistically significant effect was observed in CVR between male and female (0.25 vs 0.20 mL/sec/mmHg in ICA, 0.09 vs 0.11 mL/sec/mmHg in VA, p > 0.05). Conclusions The principal finding in this investigation validated the modulation of CBF by CO₂. Moreover, it has indicated that regional heterogeneity in hemodynamic response exists in the brain. This study provides scope to standardize the quantification of CVR prior to its clinical translation.

Keywords: cerebrovascular disease, neuroimaging, phase contrast MRI, cerebrovascular reactivity, carbon dioxide

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Authors: Qirat Naz

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The aim of this research study is to explore the perspectives of migrants and interpreters from diverse backgrounds on language barriers, their English language proficiency and access to health care facilities. A qualitative research methodology was used including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Data was collected from 20 migrants who have difficulty conversing in the English language and 12 interpreters including family members and friends who provide translation services as part of accessing health care. The findings seek to address three key research questions: how language is a barrier for non-national language speakers to access the health care facilities, what is the impact of various socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds on health compliance, and what is the role of interpreters in providing access to, usage of, and satisfaction with health-care facilities. The most crucial component of providing care was found to be effective communication between patient and health care professionals. Language barrier was the major concern for healthcare professionals in providing and for migrants in accessing sufficient, suitable, and productive health care facilities. Language and sociocultural background play a significant role in health compliance as this research reported; respondents believe that patients who interact with the doctors who have same sociocultural and linguistic background benefit from receiving better medical care than those who do not. Language limitations and the socio-cultural gap make it difficult for patients and medical staff to communicate clearly with one another, which has a negative effect on quality of care and patient satisfaction. The use of qualified interpreters was found to be beneficial but there were also drawbacks such as accessibility and availability of them in a timely manner for patient needs. The findings of this research can help health care workers and policy makers working to improve health care delivery system and to create appropriate strategies to overcome this challenge.

Keywords: migration, migrants, language barrier, healthcare access

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Authors: Mae C. Pavilario

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This study employs a sequential explanatory mixed method. Quantitatively it investigated the profile of grade VII students. Qualitatively, the prevailing contextual variables that affect their frustration-level were sought based on their perspective and that of their parents and teachers. These students were categorized as frustration-level in reading based on the data on word list of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI). The researcher-made reading factor instrument translated to local dialect (Hiligaynon) was subjected to cross-cultural translation to address content, semantic, technical, criterion, or conceptual equivalence, the open-ended questions, and one unstructured interview was utilized. In the profile of the 26 participants, the 12 males are categorized as grade II and grade III frustration-levels. The prevailing contextual variables are personal-“having no interest in reading”, “being ashamed and fear of having to read in front of others” for extremely high frustration level; social environmental-“having no regular reading schedule at home” for very high frustration level and personal- “having no interest in reading” for high frustration level. Kendall Tau inferential statistical tool was used to test the significant relationship in the prevailing contextual variables that affect frustration-level readers when grouped according to perspective. Result showed that significant relationship exists between students-parents perspectives; however, there is no significant relationship between students’ and teachers’, and parents’ and teachers’ perspectives. The themes in the narratives of the participants on frustration-level readers are existence of speech defects, undesirable attitude, insufficient amount of reading materials, lack of close supervision from parents, and losing time and focus on task. Intervention was designed.

Keywords: contextual variables, frustration-level readers, perspective, inquiry

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