Search results for: result oriented product-service system

Authors: Abubakar Abdullahi

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Large amount of human energy are spent gathering and collecting fuel wood in many parts of the world, most especially in rural areas. In Nigeria fuel wood serves million houses in both rural and urban centers for various energy needs. It’s a common scene in many places while passing by roads to see bunch of woods being sold by the road sides. Even though the resource serves millions of peoples energy needs it has serious consequences on our environment, thus sustainable environment. Majority of the rural areas who rely heavily on the firewood as a means of energy are not aware of the dangers associated with the uses of the products. The aim of this work is to look into the utilization of fuel wood among rural dwellers and their perception about the dangers associated with it and how to sustain our environment. The methodology used involves a structured questionnaire designed with the question about the utilization and perception. The questionnaire is administered to the people of Kashere, a rural area in Gombe state. The result clearly shows there is a high level of ignorance among rural dwellers on the dangers of using fuel wood and how it constitute the depletion of the immediate environment. However, what is surprising in the research is the people’s readiness for alternative energy sources. The research recommend that proper orientation and sensitization is required to create education and awareness to the rural dwellers as well as provide alternative energy that is available, environment friendly and accessible to address the problems.

Keywords: energy, rural dwellers, environment, fuel wood, resources

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Authors: Muneeba Butt

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One of the most important physical evidence which leaves suspects at the crime scene is footprints. Analysis of footprints, which can provide useful information for personal identification, is helpful in crime scene investigation. For the current study, 200 samples collected (144 male and 56 female) from Pakistani population with a consent form. The footprints were collected by using black ink with an ink pad. The entire samples were photographed, and then the magnifying glass was used for visualization of individual characteristics including detail of toes, humps, phalange mark, and flat foot cracks in footprint patterns. The descriptive results of individualizing characteristics features were presented in tabular form with respective frequency and percentage. In the result in the male population, the prevalence of tibialis type (T-type) is highest. In the female population, the prevalence of midularis type (M-type) is highest. Humps on the first toe are more found in the male population rather than other humps. In the female population, humps on the third toe are more found rather than other humps. In the male population, the prevalence of phalange mark by toe 1 is highest followed by toe 3, toe 5, toe 2, toe 4 and in female population the prevalence of phalange mark by toe 1 is highest followed by toe 5, 4, 3 and 2. Creases marks are found highest in male population as compared to the female population.

Keywords: foot prints, toes, humps, cracks

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Authors: Magdalena Kuleta

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Ponta de Piedade (37º05 ' N, 08º40 ' W) is an area located in the southern part of the Lagos municipality, which include an abrasive and accumulative type of coastline. It is the one of the main touristic destinations of the city. The dynamic development of the attractiveness of the coast, is related with the expansion of the new tourism infrastructure and urban tourism products. These products are: transportation, sightseeing and entertainment in the form of the boat trips. Each type of excursion refers to the different product. This progress brings also many risks associated primarily with landslides cliffs. Natural conditions affecting the coast, create a huge impact on the evolution of urban tourism management. Based on observation, statistical analysis and survey method, author compare the period of six years from 2012 to 2016 in terms of the number of tourists, number and diversity of attractions, most frequently dialled products and infrastructure changes in the city. Carried methodology is based on data belonging to Turismo Portugal and the tourist company Days of Adventure. Main result, is to indicate the essence of the income from coastal tourism into the city development and how does it influence on the marketing and promoting of urban tourism in Lagos.

Keywords: geomorphology of the coast in Lagos, market and promotion, quality of tourism service, urban tourism products

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Authors: Yulu Zhang, Atushi Teramoto, Taka-Aki Ohkubo

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In this study, the effect of expansive additives on autogenous shrinkage and delayed expansion of ultra-high strength mortar was explored. The specimens made for the study were composed of ultra-high strength mortar, which was mixed with ettringite-lime composite type expansive additive. Two series of experiments were conducted with the specimens. The experimental results confirmed that the autogenous shrinkage of specimens was effectively decreased by increasing the proportion of the expansive additive. On the other hand, for the specimens, which had 7% expansive additive, and were cured for seven days at a constant temperature of 20°C, and then cured for a long time in either in an underwater, moist (Relative humidity: 100%) or dry air (Relative humidity: 60%) environment, excessively large expansion strain occurred. Specifically, typical turtle shell-like swelling expansion cracks were confirmed in the specimens that underwent long-term curing in an underwater and moist environment. According to the result of hydration analysis, the formation of expansive substances, calcium hydroxide and alumina, ferric oxide, tri-sulfate contribute to the occurrence of delayed expansion.

Keywords: ultra-high strength mortar, expansive additive, autogenous shrinkage, delayed expansion

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Authors: Fernando Augusto Ullmann Tobe, Moacyr Amaral Domingues, Figueiredo, Stephany Rie Yamamoto Gushiken

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The purpose of this paper is to present the process of elaborating the layout of an assembly line of a welding industry using the principles of lean manufacturing as the main driver. The objective of this paper is relevant since the current layout of the assembly line causes non-productive times for operators, being related to the lean waste of unnecessary movements. The methodology used for the project development was Project-based Learning (PBL), which is an active way of learning focused on real problems. The process of selecting the methodology for layout planning was developed considering three criteria to evaluate the most relevant one for this paper's goal. As a result of this evaluation, Systematic Layout Planning was selected, and three steps were added to it – Value Stream Mapping for the current situation and after layout changed and the definition of lean tools and layout type. This inclusion was to consider lean manufacturing in the layout redesign of the industry. The layout change resulted in an increase in the value-adding time of operations carried out in the sector, reduction in movement times between previous and final assemblies, and in cost savings regarding the man-hour value of the employees, which can be invested in productive hours instead of movement times.

Keywords: assembly line, layout, lean manufacturing, systematic layout planning

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Authors: Dimassi Wissem

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In this work, we investigate the effect of combination between the porous silicon (PS) layer passivized with Lithium Bromide (LiBr) and grooving of grain boundaries (GB) in multi crystalline silicon. The grain boundaries were grooved in order to reduce the area of these highly recombining regions. Using optimized conditions, grooved GB's enable deep phosphorus diffusion and deep metallic contacts. We have evaluated the effects of LiBr on the surface properties of porous silicon on the performance of silicon solar cells. The results show a significant improvement of the internal quantum efficiency, which is strongly related to the photo-generated current. We have also shown a reduction of the surface recombination velocity and an improvement of the diffusion length after the LiBr process. As a result, the I–V characteristics under the dark and AM1.5 illumination were improved. It was also observed a reduction of the GB recombination velocity, which was deduced from light-beam-induced-current (LBIC) measurements. Such grooving in multi crystalline silicon enables passivization of GB-related defects. These results are discussed and compared to solar cells based on untreated multi crystalline silicon wafers.

Keywords: Multicrystalline silicon, LiBr, porous silicon, passivation

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Authors: Ning Kang, Marius Doornenbal

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Funding is a very important – if not crucial – resource for research projects. Usually, funding organizations will publish a description of the funded research to describe the scope of the funding award. Logically, we would expect research outcomes to align with this funding award. For that reason, we might be able to predict future research topics based on present funding award data. That said, it remains to be shown if and how future research topics can be predicted by using the funding information. In this paper, we extract funding project information and their generated paper abstracts from the Gateway to Research database as a group, and use the papers from the same domains and publication years in the Scopus database as a baseline comparison group. We annotate both the project awards and the papers resulting from the funded projects with linguistic features (noun phrases), and then calculate tf-idf and cosine similarity between these two set of features. We show that the cosine similarity between the project-generated papers group is bigger than the project-baseline group, and also that these two groups of similarities are significantly different. Based on this result, we conclude that the funding information actually correlates with the content of future research output for the funded project on the topical level. How funding really changes the course of science or of scientific careers remains an elusive question.

Keywords: natural language processing, noun phrase, tf-idf, cosine similarity

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Authors: Mónika Garai-Fodor, Nikoett Huszak

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In the present study, we investigate the cognitive aspects of conscious consumer behaviour among Generation Z members. In our view, conscious consumption can greatly help to foster social responsibility, environmental and health-conscious behaviour, and ethical consumerism. We believe that it is an important educational task to promote and reinforce consumer behaviour among young people that increases and creates community value. In this study, we analysed the dimensions of young people's conscious consumer behaviour and its manifestation in concrete forms of behaviour, purchasing, and consumer decisions. As a result of a survey conducted through a snowball sampling procedure, the responses of 200 respondents who are members of Generation Z were analysed. The research analysed young people's perceptions and opinions of conscious living and their perceptions of self-conscious consumer behaviour. The primary research used a pre-tested standardised online questionnaire. Data were evaluated using bivariate and multivariate analyses in addition to descriptive statistics. The research presents results that are valid for the sample, and we plan to continue with a larger sample survey and extend it to other generations. Our main objective is to analyse what conscious living means to young people, what behavioural elements they associate with it, and what activities they themselves undertake in this context.

Keywords: generation Z, conscious consumption, primary research, sustainability

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Authors: M. Naidoo

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The concept of moral personhood extending from the moral status of an artificial intelligence system has been explored – but predominantly from a Western conception of personhood. African personhood, however, is distinctly different from Western personhood in that communitarianism is central to the underpinnings of personhood - rather than Western individualism. Personhood in the African context is not an inherent property that a human is born with; rather, it is an ontological journey that one goes on in his or her life with the hopes of attaining personhood. Given the decolonization, projects happening in Africa, and the law-making that is happening in this space within South Africa, it is of paramount importance to consider these views.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, bioethics, law, legal personality

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Authors: Sandani Muthukumarana, Malith Shehan Keraminiyage, Pavithra Rathnasiri

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Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing our generation. However, it also presents an opportunity to grow the economy using biotechnology. Biotechnology offers a variety of solutions that can help mitigate the effects of global warming. Despite this, there is a lack of research on the potential and challenges associated with the further use of biotechnology to combat the impacts of climate change. To address this gap, it is essential to investigate the current context surrounding the use of biotechnology for climate change mitigation, including potential applications, current practices, and existing challenges. By reviewing the existing literature on these perspectives, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential for biotechnology to mitigate the hazards of climate change. The use of biotechnology to mitigate the effects of climate change will be made easier as a result, and this will lay the groundwork for further study and actual initiatives in this field. Biotechnology can play a crucial role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. It offers a range of solutions, such as genetically modified crops, bioremediation, and bioenergy, that can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance carbon sequestration, and increase climate resilience. By utilizing biotechnology, we can reduce the negative impacts of climate change and create a more sustainable future. According to this knowledge, researchers can harness the potential of biotechnology to fight climate change and build a more sustainable future for future generations.

Keywords: biotechnology, impact, solutions, climate changes

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Authors: Abdelbaset Rabaiah

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e-Government mobile applications provide an extension for effective e-government services in today’s omniconnected world. They constitute part of m-government platforms. This study explores the usefulness, availability, discoverability and maturity of such applications. While this study impacts theory by addressing a relatively lacking area, it impacts practice more. The outcomes of this study suggest valuable recommendations for practitioners-developers of e-government applications. The methodology followed is to examine a large number of e-government smartphone applications. The focus is on applications available at the Google Play Store. Moreover, the study investigates applications published on government portals of a number of countries. A sample of 15 countries is researched. The results show a diversity in the level of discoverability, development, maturity, and usage of smartphone apps dedicated for use of e-government services. It was found that there are major issues in discovering e-government applications on both the Google Play Store and as-well-as on local government portals. The study found that only a fraction of mobile government applications was published on the Play Store. Only 19% of apps were multilingual, and 43% were developed by third parties including private individuals. Further analysis was made, and important recommendations are suggested in this paper for a better utilization of e-government smartphone applications. These recommendations will result in better discoverability, maturity, and usefulness of e-government applications.

Keywords: mobile applications, e-government, m-government, Google Play Store

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Authors: Panisa Panyalert

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This research aims to study the difference between Thailand and China in using English language in the homestay business, and also promoting using English language in the Thai community for developing employees in the tourism business. Then, the two provinces which are Samut Songkram province, Thailand and Yangzhou province, China where English is not the official language can be occurred more problems and difficulties in the communication to foreign tourists. The study uses the questionnaire for collecting the data by distributing the questionnaire to the homestay’s staff both in Samut Songkram province, Thailand and Yangzhou province, China. The sample group is 100 homestays for each province. The method of participant as observer role is required to play during visiting each homestay. Due to the comparative of the research between Samut Songkram and Yangzhou homestays, there are two hypotheses, hypothesis one: there will be relationships between English using and the profit of a homestay, probability because if the homestay staff can speak English, there will be more travelers, especially foreigners come for staying, and hypothesis two: managers in Thailand may know more English than the Chinese homestay staff. The questionnaire is separated into three parts to answer the two hypotheses. The first part is about the general information of the informant, the second part is mainly concerned with the homestay business characteristics, and the third part is English language using. As a result, the research is clearly answered the second hypothesis which is Thai homestay is using more English language than Chinese homestay.

Keywords: English language, guesthouse, homestay, using English

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Authors: Ishaq Kashif, Muhammad Younas, Muhammad Riaz, Mubarak Ali

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Poor feeding management during pre-weaning period is one of the factors resulting in compromised growth of Beetal kids fattened for meat purpose. The main reason for this anomaly may be less milk offered to kids and non-serious efforts for its management. This study was planned to find the most appropriate protein level suiting the age of the weaning while shifting animals to high input feeding system. Total of 42 Beetal male kids having 30 (±10), 60 (±10) and 90 (±10) days of age were selected with 16 in each age group. They were designated as G30, G60 and G90, respectively. The weights of animals were; 8±2 kg (G30), 12±2 kg (G60) and 16±2 kg (G90), respectively. All animals were weaned by introducing the total mix feed gradually and withdrawing the milk during the adjustment period of two weeks. The pelleted starter ration (total mix feed) with three various dietary protein levels designated as R1 (16% CP), R2 (20% CP) and R3 (26% CP) were introduced. The control group was reared on the fodder (Maize). The starter rations were iso-caloric and were offered for six-week duration. All animals were exposed to treatment using two-factor factorial (3×3) plus control treatment arrangement under completely randomized design. The data were collected on average daily feed intake (ADFI), average daily gain (ADG), gain to intake ratio, Klieber ratio (KR), body measurements and blood metabolites of kids. The data was analyzed using aov function of R-software. The statistical analysis showed that starter feed protein levels and age of weaning had significant interaction for ADG (P < 0.001), KR (P < 0.001), ADFI (P < 0.05) and blood urea nitrogen (P < 0.05) while serum creatinine and feed conversion had non-significant interaction. The trend analysis revealed that ADG had significant quadratic interaction (P < 0.05) within protein levels and age of weaning. It was found that animals weaned at 30 or 60 days, on R2 diet had better ADG (46.8 gm/day and 87.06 gm/day, respectively) weaned at 60 days of age. The animals weaned at 90 days had best ADG (127 gm/day) with R1. It is concluded that animal weaned at 30 or 40 days required 20% CP for better growth performance while animal at 90 days showed better performance with 16% CP.

Keywords: average daily gain, starter protein levels, weaning age, gain to intake ratio

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Authors: Reza Lotfalian, Sudarshan Martins, Peter Radziszewski

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The effect of reliability on life-cycle cost, including initial and maintenance cost of a system is studied. The failure probability of a component is used to calculate the average maintenance cost during the operation cycle of the component. The standard deviation of the life-cycle cost is also calculated as an error measure for the average life-cycle cost. As a numerical example, the model is used to study the average life cycle cost of an electric motor.

Keywords: initial cost, life-cycle cost, maintenance cost, reliability

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Authors: Slah Alsaleh

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In the recent years and with popularity of internet and technology, e-learning became a major part of majority of education systems. One of the advantages the e-learning systems provide is the large amount of information available about the students' behavior while communicating with the e-learning system. Such information is very rich and it can be used to improve the capability and efficiency of e-learning systems. This paper discusses how e-learning can benefit from implicit data in different ways including; creating homogeneous groups of student, evaluating students' learning, creating behavior profiles for students and identifying the students through their behaviors.

Keywords: e-learning, implicit data, user behavior, data mining

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Authors: Ardavan Zamanpour, Somaieh Yassari

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ZigBee protocol network was developed in industries and MIT laboratory in 1997. ZigBee is a wireless networking technology by alliance ZigBee which is designed to low board and low data rate applications. It is a Protocol which connects between electrical devises with very low energy and cost. The first version of IEEE 802.15.4 which was formed ZigBee was based on 2.4GHZ MHZ 912MHZ 868 frequency band. The name of system is often reminded random directions that bees (BEES) traversing during pollination of products. Such as alloy of the ways in which information packets are traversed within the mesh network. This paper aims to study the performance and effectiveness of this protocol in wireless networks.

Keywords: ZigBee, protocol, wireless, networks

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Authors: Marko Niinimaki

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Cryptocurrencies are getting increasingly popular, but very few of them can be conveniently used in daily mobile phone purchases. To solve this problem, we demonstrate how to build a functional prototype of a mobile cryptocurrency-based e-commerce application the communicates with Near-Field Communication (NFC) tags. Using the system, users are able to purchase physical items with an NFC tag that contains an e-commerce URL. The payment is done simply by touching the tag with a mobile device and accepting the payment. Our method is constructive: we describe the design and technologies used in the implementation and evaluate the security and performance of the solution. Our main finding is that the analysis and measurements show that our solution is feasible for e-commerce.

Keywords: cryptocurrency, e-commerce, NFC, mobile devices

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Authors: Tariq Ahmad Safapuri, Saghir Ahmad, Farhana Allai

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The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect dehydration techniques (polyhouse and tray drying), different treatment (SHMP, SHMP+ salt, salt + turmeric), different packaging material (HDPE, combination film), and different packaging methods (air, vacuum, CO2 Flush) on quality of dehydrated buffalo meat during ambient temperature storage. The quality measuring parameters included physico-chemical characteristics i.e. pH, rehydration ratio, moisture content and microbiological characteristics viz total plate content. It was found that the treatment of (SHMP, SHMP + salt, salt + turmeric increased the pH. Moisture Content of dehydrated meat samples were found in between 7.20% and 5.54%.the rehydration ratio of salt+ turmeric treated sample was found to be highest and lowest for controlled meat sample. the bacterial count log TPC/g of salt + turmeric and tray dried was lowest i.e. 1.80.During ambient temperature storage ,there was no considerable change in pH of dehydrated sample till 150 days. however the moisture content of samples increased in different packaging system in different manner. The highest moisture rise was found in case of controlled meat sample HDPE/air packed while the lowest increase was reported for SHMP+ Salt treated Packed by vacuum in combination film packed sample. Rehydration ratio was found considerably affected in case of HDPE and air packed sample dehydrated in polyhouse after 150 days of ambient storage. While there was a very little change in the rehydration ratio of meat samples packed in combination film CO2 flush system. The TPC was found under safe limit even after 150 days of storage. The microbial count was found to be lowest for salt+ turmeric treated samples after 150 days of storage.

Keywords: ambient temperature, dehydration technique, rehydration ratio, SHMP (sodium hexa meta phosphate), HDPE (high density polyethelene)

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Authors: Meareg Amare, Senait Aklog

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Lignin film was deposited at the surface of the glassy carbon electrode potential-statically. In contrast to the unmodified glassy carbon electrode, an oxidative peak with an improved current and overpotential for caffeine at the modified electrode showed catalytic activity of the modifier towards oxidation of caffeine. Linear dependence of peak current on caffeine concentration in the range 6 × 10⁻⁶ to 100 × 10⁻⁶ mol L⁻¹ with determination coefficient and method detection limit (LoD = 3 s/slope) of 0.99925 and 8.37 × 10⁻⁷ mol L⁻¹, respectively, supplemented by recovery results of 93.79–102.17%, validated the developed method. An attempt was made to determine the caffeine content of aqueous coffee extracts of Ethiopian coffees grown in four coffee cultivating localities (Wonbera, Wolega, Finoteselam, and Zegie) and hence to evaluate the correlation between users preference and caffeine content. In agreement with reported works, caffeine contents (w/w%) of 0.164 in Wonbera coffee; 0.134 in Wolega coffee; 0.097 in Finoteselam coffee; and 0.089 in Zegie coffee were detected, confirming the applicability of the developed method for determination of caffeine in a complex matrix environment. The result indicated that users’ highest preference for Wonbera and least preference for Zegie cultivated coffees are in agreement with the caffeine content.

Keywords: electrochemical, lignin, caffeine, electrode

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Authors: Erizal Lugman

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To achieve their academic goals whilst studying abroad, international students must successfully adjust to cross-cultural differences. As a result, they need to develop new abilities including intercultural competence and politeness in order to effectively communicate with different languages and cultures. (Im)politeness is also an essential aspect of intercultural competence which is vital for effective intercultural communication. This study seeks to integrate different aspects of intercultural competence, (im)politeness and the use of social media platforms which is solely focused on Indonesian students studying in the UK. Using a purposive sampling method, participants will be recruited to address the research questions who will all be volunteers and have lived in Britain for at least six months or who have passed the cultural adjustment period. Using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, in this respect, participants will be recruited and asked to relate the intercultural experiences they encountered during the cultural adjustment period through the use of e-portfolios, interviews, and critical reflection. This will be followed by online surveying from the Indonesian participants' point of view using the cross-cultural adaptability inventory (CCAI), which aims to measure the individual potential for cross-cultural adaptability. A discursive approach will be employed which aims to focus on analysing (im)politeness as reported and narrated by the participants.

Keywords: im)politeness, intercultural communication, intercultural competence, social media

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Authors: Quiza Pearl Senilla, Hannah Mercado, Francis Angelo Erosa

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Underdog narratives not only provides viewers with models of determination and hard work but that inducing hope may increase the likelihood that viewers will pursue their own goals in life. Although it has been proven that underdog narratives not only create a positive motivational state to the viewers but can also induce hope, little attention has been given to know if this underdog narrative affect the health outcomes or the subjective well-being of the viewers and if their hopefulness mediates on it. To address this gap, using underdog narratives as a predictor and hope as mediator, this study determined the effect of underdog narratives to the subjective well-being of the respondents, the relationship of hope and subjective well-being and last is the mediating effect of hopefulness. This study is an experimental research that uses a between subject design. Purposeful random sampling was used wherein the respondents must meet the following criteria to be part of the study. One hundred and twenty (N=120) Local State University students were assigned to different treatment conditions— underdog narrative, comedy, nature scenes—and a no exposure control group. Results show that there is a minimal difference on the subjective well-being of the respondents when exposed to different treatment condition although it is not significant. A moderate positive correlation between hope and subjective well-being also reveals in this study. And last the result also shows that there is no mediating effect of hopefulness to the subjective well-being of the subjects through exposure to underdog narrative.

Keywords: hope, hope theory, subjective well-being, underdog narratives

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Authors: Mohanad Al-Behadili, Xiang Song, Djamila Ouelhadj, Alex Fraess-Ehrfeld

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In off-shore wind farms, turbine blade inspection accessibility under various sea states is very challenging and greatly affects the downtime of wind turbines. Maintenance of any offshore system is not an easy task due to the restricted logistics and accessibility. The multirotor unmanned helicopter is of increasing interest in inspection applications due to its manoeuvrability and payload capacity. These advantages increase when many of them are deployed simultaneously in a swarm. Hence this paper proposes a drone swarm framework for inspecting offshore wind turbine blades and nacelles so as to reduce downtime. One of the big challenges of this task is that when operating a drone swarm, an individual drone may not have enough power to fly and communicate during missions and it has no capability of refueling due to its small size. Once the drone power is drained, there are no signals transmitted and the links become intermittent. Vessels equipped with 5G masts and small power units are utilised as platforms for drones to recharge/swap batteries. The research work aims at designing a smart energy management system, which provides automated vessel and drone routing and recharging plans. To achieve this goal, a novel mathematical optimisation model is developed with the main objective of minimising the number of drones and vessels, which carry the charging stations, and the downtime of the wind turbines. There are a number of constraints to be considered, such as each wind turbine must be inspected once and only once by one drone; each drone can inspect at most one wind turbine after recharging, then fly back to the charging station; collision should be avoided during the drone flying; all wind turbines in the wind farm should be inspected within the given time window. We have developed a real-time Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO) algorithm to generate real-time and near-optimal solutions to the drone swarm routing problem. The schedule will generate efficient and real-time solutions to indicate the inspection tasks, time windows, and the optimal routes of the drones to access the turbines. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the quality of the solutions generated by ACO.

Keywords: drone swarm, routing, scheduling, optimisation model, ant colony optimisation

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Authors: Wen Cai Ng, Saman Ilankoon, Meng Nan Chong

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The vast increase in global energy demand, coupled with the growing concerns on environmental issues, has triggered the search for cleaner alternative energy sources. In view of this, the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting offers a sustainable hydrogen (H2) production route that only requires solar energy, water, and PEC system operating in an ambient environment. However, the current advancement of PEC water splitting technologies is still far from the commercialization benchmark indicated by the solar-to-H2 (STH) efficiency of at least 10 %. This is largely due to the shortcomings of photoelectrodes used in the PEC system, such as the rapid recombination of photogenerated charge carriers and limited photo-responsiveness in the visible-light spectrum. Silver orthophosphate (Ag3PO4) possesses many desirable intrinsic properties for the fabrication into photoanode used in PEC systems, such as narrow bandgap of 2.4 eV and low valence band (VB) position. Hence, in this study, a highly efficient Ag3PO4-based photoanode was synthesized and characterized. The surface of the Ag foil substrate was directly oxidized to fabricate a top layer composed of {111}-bound Ag3PO4 tetrahedrons layer with a porous structure, forming the dual-layer Ag/Ag3PO4 photoanode. Furthermore, the key synthesis parameters were systematically investigated by varying the concentration ratio of capping agent-to-precursor (R), the volume ratio of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-to-water, and reaction period. Results showed that the optimized dual-layer Ag/Ag3PO4 photoanode achieved a photocurrent density as high as 4.19 mA/cm2 at 1 V vs. Ag/AgCl for the R-value of 4, the volume ratio of H2O2-to-water of 3:5 and 20 h reaction period. The current work provides a solid foundation for further nanoarchitecture modification strategies on Ag3PO4-based photoanodes for more efficient PEC water splitting applications. This piece of information needs to be backed up by evidence; therefore, you need to provide a reference. As the abstract should be self-contained, all information requiring a reference should be removed. This is a fact known to the area of research, and not necessarily required a reference to support.

Keywords: solar-to-hydrogen fuel, photoelectrochemical water splitting, photoelectrode, silver orthophosphate

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Authors: Walid El Kamash

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Sand columns (or granular piles) can be employed as soil strengthening for flexible constructions such as road embankments, oil storage tanks in addition to multistory structures. The challenge of embedding the sand columns in soft soil is that the surrounding soft soil cannot avail the enough confinement stress in order to keep the form of the sand column. Therefore, the sand columns which were installed in such soil will lose their ability to perform needed load-bearing capacity. The encasement, besides increasing the strength and stiffness of the sand column, prevents the lateral squeezing of sands when the column is installed even in extremely soft soils, thus enabling quicker and more economical installation. This paper investigates the improvement in load capacity of the sand column by encasement through a comprehensive parametric study using the 3-D finite difference analysis for the soft clay of soil in Egypt. Moreover, the study was extended to include a comparison study between encased sand column and Deep Mixed columns (DM). The study showed that confining the sand by geosynthetic resulted in an increment of shear strength. That result paid the attention to use encased sand stone rather than deep mixed columns due to relative high permeability of the first material.

Keywords: encased sand column, Deep mixed column, numerical analysis, improving soft soil

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Authors: Chamika Chiran Perera, Dananjaya Perera, Chirath Dasanayake, Banuka Athuraliya

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Male infertility is a major problem in the world, and it is a neglected and sensitive health issue in Sri Lanka. It can be determined by analyzing human semen samples. Sperm motility is one of many factors that can evaluate male’s fertility potential. In Sri Lanka, this analysis is performed manually. Manual methods are time consuming and depend on the person, but they are reliable and it can depend on the expert. Machine learning and deep learning technologies are currently being investigated to automate the spermatozoa motility analysis, and these methods are unreliable. These automatic methods tend to produce false positive results and false detection. Current automatic methods support different techniques, and some of them are very expensive. Due to the geographical variance in spermatozoa characteristics, current automatic methods are not reliable for motility analysis in Sri Lanka. The suggested system, DeepMotile, is to explore a method to analyze motility of human spermatozoa automatically and present it to the andrology laboratories to overcome current issues. DeepMotile is a novel deep learning method for analyzing spermatozoa motility parameters in the Sri Lankan population. To implement the current approach, Sri Lanka patient data were collected anonymously as a dataset, and glass slides were used as a low-cost technique to analyze semen samples. Current problem was identified as microscopic object detection and tackling the problem. YOLOv5 was customized and used as the object detector, and it achieved 94 % mAP (mean average precision), 86% Precision, and 90% Recall with the gathered dataset. StrongSORT was used as the object tracker, and it was validated with andrology experts due to the unavailability of annotated ground truth data. Furthermore, this research has identified many potential ways for further investigation, and andrology experts can use this system to analyze motility parameters with realistic accuracy.

Keywords: computer vision, deep learning, convolutional neural networks, multi-target tracking, microscopic object detection and tracking, male infertility detection, motility analysis of human spermatozoa

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Authors: Abdullah S. AlKhalifa, Mohammad Nasim Uddin, Michael Atkinson

Abstract:

The primary objective of this investigation is to explore the aerodynamic impact of adding trailing edge serrations to a Wells turbine. The baseline turbine consists of eight blades with NACA 0015 airfoils. The blade chord length was 0.125 m, and the span was 0.100 m. Two modified NACA 0015 serrated configurations were studied: 1) full-span and 2) partial span serrations covering the trailing edge from hub to tip. Numerical simulations were carried out by solving the three-dimensional, incompressible steady-state Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations using the k-ω SST turbulence model in ANSYS™ (CFX). The aerodynamic performance of the modified Wells turbine to the baseline was made by comparing non-dimensional parameters of torque coefficient, pressure drop coefficient, and turbine efficiency. A comparison of the surface limiting streamlines was performed to analyze the flow topology of the turbine blades. The trailing edge serrations generated a substantial change in surface pressure and effectively reduced the separated flow region, thus improving efficiency in most cases. As a result, the average efficiency increased across the range of simulated flow coefficients.

Keywords: renewable energy, trailing edge serrations, Wells turbine, partial serration

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Authors: Afaf Benhouda, Mouloud Yahia, Hachani Khadraoui, Asma Meddour, Souhila Benbia, Abdelmoudjib Ghecham, Djahida Benhouda

Abstract:

Umbilicus rupestris (UR) is an herbal medicine traditionally applied against the ignitions of the skin. The present paper aimed to study the acute and subacute toxicity with orally administered methanolic leaves extract of Umbilicus rupestris L (URMeOH). In acute toxicity tests, four groups of rats (n = 6/group/female) were orally treated with doses of 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 mg/kg, and general behaviour, adverse effects, and mortality were recorded for up to 14 days. In subacute toxicity study, rats received URAMeOH by gavage at the doses of 100, 200 mg/kg/day (n = 6/group) for 28 days, and biochemical, hematological, and histopathological changes in tissues (liver, kidney) were determined. URMeOH did not produce any hazardous symptoms or death and in the acute toxicity test. Subacute treatment with URMeOH did not show any change in body weight, and hematological and biochemical profiles. In addition, no change was observed either in macroscopic or microscopic aspects of vital organs in rats. Our result showed that Umbilicus rupestris extract could be safe for human use.

Keywords: acute toxicity, biochemical parameters, hematological parameters, Umbilicus rupestris, subacute toxicity

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Authors: Giorgi Chichinadze, David Shengelia, Tamara Tsutsunava, Nikoloz Maisuradze, Giorgi Beridze

Abstract:

The Jalovchat intrusive is built up of hornblende gabbros, gabbro-norites and norites. Within the intrusive hornblende-bearing gabbro-pegmatites are widespread. That is a coarse-grained rock with gigantic hornblende crystals. By its unusual composition, the Jalovchat intrusive has no analogue in the Caucasus. However, petrologically and geochemically, the intrusive rocks were studied insufficiently. For comprehensive investigations, the authors applied appropriate methodologies: Microscopic study of thin sections, petro- and geochemical analyses of the samples and also different petrogenic, rare and rare earth elements diagrams and spidergrams. Analytical study established that the Jalovchat intrusive by its composition corresponds mainly to the mid-ocean ridge basalts and according to geodynamic type belongs to the subduction type. In general, it is an anomalous phenomenon, as in the rocks of such composition crystallization of hornblende and especially of its gigantic crystals is atypical. The authors believe that the water-rich magma reservoir, which was necessary for the crystallization of gigantic hornblende crystals, appeared as a result of melting of water-rich mid-ocean ridge basaltic rocks during the subduction process in Bajocian time.

Keywords: gabbro-pegmatite, intrusive, petrogenesis, petrogeochemistry, the Caucasus

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Authors: Godiva Kwan, Winton Au, Fanny Cheung

Abstract:

Authenticity, being true to oneself and acting in congruence with one’s values and beliefs, is a basic human strength, and is instrumental to understanding well-being. While dispositional authenticity was found to be associated with positive affect and subjective well-being, others have demonstrated that individuals assumed different levels of authenticity when they took up different social roles, suggesting that state authenticity can be an alternative mechanism. This study examined the relation between workplace authenticity and job satisfaction. We hypothesize that state authenticity at work will be predicted by psychological safety climate (organizational climate where employees feel safe to speak up without being embarrassed or rejected). Employees are expected to experience higher subjective well-being and job satisfaction as a result of being authentic at work. Survey results provided support to the hypotheses. Psychological safety climate enhanced employees’ authenticity state at work, which in turn improved well-being and job satisfaction. In conclusion, we found that employees become more authentic at work in an organizational climate where they feel safe to express themselves, leading to a higher job satisfaction and well-being. The current study contributes to the understanding of underlying mechanisms behind experiencing authenticity at work among employees in Hong Kong. Our findings are expected to provide insights and to raise organizations’ awareness of creating an open and trustful culture in order to enhance job satisfaction of employees through encouraging them to “be themselves”.

Keywords: authenticity, job satisfaction, psychological safety climate, organizational climate

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Authors: Adegboyega Adeolapo Ola, Gerelene Jagganath

Abstract:

One of the greatest challenges of human right in the world, especially African states is the use of child soldiers in armed conflict, constituting a major source of destruction of lives and properties. Mostly, they are in developing countries with the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, the abduction and employment of children as soldiers is a form of exploitative labour that is tantamount to slavery. Since the end of cold war, Child soldier has increased in Africa countries like Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda. This study examines the main cause of the recruitment and use of child soldiers and its challenges to human right. It further assesses the role of international regional bodies and various governments in curbing child soldiers with a view to proffer suggestions on how to address some of the resultant threat of human right. The study posits that the control of small arms and light weapons is essential in curtailing the spread of child soldier and abuse of human right. This hopefully should result in the sustainability of human/child right in African continent. It is a recommendation of this study that, in order to sustain human right in the region, all Africa leaders, government and regional bodies; such as African Union, Economic Community of West African States, South African Development Community among others, should cooperate and work together to address the issue of illicit small arms, which could eventually lead to child soldier.

Keywords: arms control, child soldier, human right, small arms

Procedia PDF Downloads 198