Search results for: general education university course

Authors: Maria De Los Angeles Ortega, Denis Bruneau, Patrick Sebastian, Jean-Pierre Nadeau, Alain Sommier, Saed Raji

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Phase change materials (PCM) present attractive features that made them a passive solution for thermal comfort assessment in buildings during summer time. They show a large storage capacity per volume unit in comparison with other structural materials like bricks or concrete. If their use is matched with the peak load periods, they can contribute to the reduction of the primary energy consumption related to cooling applications. Despite these promising characteristics, they present some drawbacks. Commercial PCMs, as paraffines, offer a low thermal conductivity affecting the overall performance of the system. In some cases, the material can be enhanced, adding other elements that improve the conductivity, but in general, a design of the unit that optimizes the thermal performance is sought. The material selection is the departing point during the designing stage, and it does not leave plenty of room for optimization. The PCM melting point depends highly on the atmospheric characteristics of the building location. The selection must relay within the maximum, and the minimum temperature reached during the day. The geometry of the PCM container and the geometrical distribution of these containers are designing parameters, as well. They significantly affect the heat transfer, and therefore its phenomena must be studied exhaustively. During its lifetime, an air-PCM unit in a building must cool down the place during daytime, while the melting of the PCM occurs. At night, the PCM must be regenerated to be ready for next uses. When the system is not in service, a minimal amount of thermal exchanges is desired. The aforementioned functions result in the presence of sensible and latent heat storage and release. Hence different types of mechanisms drive the heat transfer phenomena. An experimental test was designed to study the heat transfer phenomena occurring in a circular tube bundle air-PCM exchanger. An in-line arrangement was selected as the geometrical distribution of the containers. With the aim of visual identification, the containers material and a section of the test bench were transparent. Some instruments were placed on the bench for measuring temperature and velocity. The PCM properties were also available through differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) tests. An evolution of the temperature during both cycles, melting and solidification were obtained. The results showed some phenomena at a local level (tubes) and on an overall level (exchanger). Conduction and convection appeared as the main heat transfer mechanisms. From these results, two approaches to analyze the heat transfer were followed. The first approach described the phenomena in a single tube as a series of thermal resistances, where a pure conduction controlled heat transfer was assumed in the PCM. For the second approach, the temperature measurements were used to find some significant dimensionless numbers and parameters as Stefan, Fourier and Rayleigh numbers, and the melting fraction. These approaches allowed us to identify the heat transfer phenomena during both cycles. The presence of natural convection during melting might have been stated from the influence of the Rayleigh number on the correlations obtained.

Keywords: phase change materials, air-PCM exchangers, convection, conduction

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Authors: Tuyuan Cheng

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As we age, many things become more difficult. Among the abilities are the linguistic and cognitive ones. Competing theories have shown that these two functions could diminish together or that one is selectively affected by the other. In other words, some proposes aging affects sentence production in the same way it affects sentence comprehension and other cognitive functions, while some argues it does not.To address this question, the current investigation is conducted into the critical aspect of sentences as well as cognitive abilities – the syntactic complexity and the number of perspective shifts being contained in the elicited production. Healthy non-pathological aging is often characterized by a cognitive and neural decline in a number of cognitive abilities. Although the language is assumed to be of the more stable domain, a variety of findings in the cognitive aging literature would suggest otherwise. Older adults often show deficits in language production and multiple aspects of comprehension. Nevertheless, while some age differences likely reflect cognitive decline, others might reflect changes in communicative goals, and some even display cognitive advantages. In the domain of language processing, research efforts have been made in tests that probed a variety of communicative abilities. In general, there exists a distinction: Comprehension seems to be selectively unaffected, while production does not. The current study raises a novel question and investigates whether aging affects the production of relative clauses (RCs) under the cognitive factor of perspective shifts. Based on Perspective Hypothesis (MacWhinney, 2000, 2005), our cognitive processes build upon a fundamental system of perspective-taking, and language provides a series of cues to facilitate the construction and shifting of perspectives. These cues include a wide variety of constructions, including RCs structures. In this regard, linguistic complexity can be determined by the number of perspective shifts, and the processing difficulties of RCs can be interpreted within the theory of perspective shifting. Two experiments were conducted to study language production under controlled conditions. In Experiment 1, older healthy participants were tested on standard measures of cognitive aging, including MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination), ToMI-2 (a simplified Theory of Mind Inventory-2), and a perspective-shifting comprehension task programmed with E-Prime. The results were analyzed to examine if/how they are correlated with aging people’s subsequent production data. In Experiment 2, the production profile of differing RCs, SRC vs. ORC, were collected with healthy aging participants who perform a picture elicitation task. Variable containing 0, 1, or 2 perspective shifts were juxtaposed respectively to the pictures and counterbalanced presented for elicitation. In parallel, a controlled group of young adults were recruited to examine the linguistic and cognitive abilities in question. The results lead us to the discussion whetheraging affects RCs production in a manner determined by its semantic structure or the number of perspective shifts it contains or the status of participants’ mental understanding. The major findingsare: (1) Elders’ production on Chinese RCtypes did not display intrinsic difficulty asymmetry. (2) RC types (the linguistic structural features) and the cognitiveperspective shifts jointly play important roles in the elders’ RCproduction. (3) The production of RC may defy the aging in the case offlexibly preserved cognitive ability.

Keywords: cognition aging, perspective hypothesis, perspective shift, relative clauses, sentence complexity

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Authors: Kimberley Adamek

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According to the Council on Tall Buildings, there has been a rapid increase in the construction of tall or “megatall” buildings over the past two decades. Simultaneously, the New England Journal of Medicine has reported that there has been a steady increase in climate related natural disasters since the 1970s; the eastern expansion of the USA's infamous Tornado Alley being just one of many current issues. In the future, this could mean that tall buildings, which already guide high speed winds down to pedestrian levels would have to withstand stronger forces and protect pedestrians in more extreme ways. Although many projects are required to be verified within wind tunnels and a handful of cities such as San Francisco have included wind testing within building code standards, there are still many examples where wind is only considered for basic loading. This typically results in and an increase of structural expense and unwanted mitigation strategies that are proposed late within a project. When building cities, architects rarely consider how each building alters the invisible patterns of wind and how these alterations effect other areas in different ways later on. It is not until these forces move, overpower and even destroy cities that people take notice. For example, towers have caused winds to blow objects into people (Walkie-Talkie Tower, Leeds, England), cause building parts to vibrate and produce loud humming noises (Beetham Tower, Manchester), caused wind tunnels in streets as well as many other issues. Alternatively, there exist towers which have used their form to naturally draw in air and ventilate entire facilities in order to eliminate the needs for costly HVAC systems (The Met, Thailand) and used their form to increase wind speeds to generate electricity (Bahrain Tower, Dubai). Wind and weather exist and effect all parts of the world in ways such as: Science, health, war, infrastructure, catastrophes, tourism, shopping, media and materials. Working in partnership with a leading wind engineering company RWDI, a series of tests, images and animations documenting discovered interactions of different building forms with wind will be collected to emphasize the possibilities for wind use to architects. A site within San Francisco (due to its increasing tower development, consistently wind conditions and existing strict wind comfort criteria) will host a final design. Iterations of this design will be tested within the wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamic systems which will expose, utilize and manipulate wind flows to create new forms, technologies and experiences. Ultimately, this thesis aims to question the amount which the environment is allowed to permeate building enclosures, uncover new programmatic possibilities for wind in buildings, and push the boundaries of working with the wind to ensure the development and safety of future cities. This investigation will improve and expand upon the traditional understanding of wind in order to give architects, wind engineers as well as the general public the ability to broaden their scope in order to productively utilize this living phenomenon that everyone constantly feels but cannot see.

Keywords: wind engineering, climate, visualization, architectural aerodynamics

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Authors: G. Suja, J. Sreekumar, A. N. Jyothi, V. S. Santhosh Mithra

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Worldwide concerns regarding food safety, environmental degradation and threats to human health have generated interest in alternative systems like organic farming. Tropical tuber crops, cassava, sweet potato, yams, and aroids are food-cum-nutritional security-cum climate resilient crops. These form stable or subsidiary food for about 500 million global population. Cassava, yams (white yam, greater yam, and lesser yam) and edible aroids (elephant foot yam, taro, and tannia) are high energy tuberous vegetables with good taste and nutritive value. Seven on-station field experiments at ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram, India and seventeen on-farm trials in three districts of Kerala, were conducted over a decade (2004-2015) to compare the varietal response, yield, quality and soil properties under organic vs conventional system in these crops and to develop a learning system based on the data generated. The industrial, as well as domestic varieties of cassava, the elite and local varieties of elephant foot yam and taro and the three species of Dioscorea (yams), were on a par under both systems. Organic management promoted yield by 8%, 20%, 9%, 11% and 7% over conventional practice in cassava, elephant foot yam, white yam, greater yam and lesser yam respectively. Elephant foot yam was the most responsive to organic management followed by yams and cassava. In taro, slight yield reduction (5%) was noticed under organic farming with almost similar tuber quality. The tuber quality was improved with higher dry matter, starch, crude protein, K, Ca and Mg contents. The anti-nutritional factors, oxalate content in elephant foot yam and cyanogenic glucoside content in cassava were lowered by 21 and 12.4% respectively. Organic plots had significantly higher water holding capacity, pH, available K, Fe, Mn and Cu, higher soil organic matter, available N, P, exchangeable Ca and Mg, dehydrogenase enzyme activity and microbial count. Organic farming scored significantly higher soil quality index (1.93) than conventional practice (1.46). The soil quality index was driven by water holding capacity, pH and available Zn followed by soil organic matter. Organic management enhanced net profit by 20-40% over chemical farming. A case in point is the cost-benefit analysis in elephant foot yam which indicated that the net profit was 28% higher and additional income of Rs. 47,716 ha-1 was obtained due to organic farming. Cost-effective technologies were field validated. The on-station technologies developed were validated and popularized through on-farm trials in 10 sites (5 ha) under National Horticulture Mission funded programme in elephant foot yam and seven sites in yams and taro. The technologies are included in the Package of Practices Recommendations for crops of Kerala Agricultural University. A learning system developed using artificial neural networks (ANN) predicted the performance of elephant foot yam organic system. Use of organically produced seed materials, seed treatment in cow-dung, neem cake, bio-inoculant slurry, farmyard manure incubated with bio-inoculants, green manuring, use of neem cake, bio-fertilizers and ash formed the strategies for organic production. Organic farming is an eco-friendly management strategy that enables 10-20% higher yield, quality tubers and maintenance of soil health in tuber crops.

Keywords: eco-agriculture, quality, root crops, healthy soil, yield

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Authors: Tom S. Owens, Tom A. Calverley, Benjamin S. Stacey, Christopher J. Marley, George Rose, Lewis Fall, Gareth L. Jones, Priscilla Williams, John P. R. Williams, Martin Steggall, Damian M. Bailey

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Introduction and aims: Sports-related concussion (SRC) represents a significant and growing public health concern in rugby union, yet remains one of the least understood injuries facing the health community today. Alongside increasing SRC incidence rates, there is concern that prior recurrent concussion may contribute to long-term neurologic sequelae in later-life. This may be due to an accelerated decline in cerebral perfusion, a major risk factor for neurocognitive decline and neurodegeneration, though the underlying mechanisms remain to be established. The present study hypothesised that recurrent concussion in current professional rugby union players would result in elevated systemic oxidative-nitrosative stress, reflected by a free radical-mediated reduction in nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability and impaired cerebrovascular and cognitive function. Methodology: A longitudinal study design was adopted across the 2017-2018 rugby union season. Ethical approval was obtained from the University of South Wales Ethics Committee. Data collection is ongoing, and therefore the current report documents result from the pre-season and first half of the in-season data collection. Participants were initially divided into two subgroups; 23 professional rugby union players (aged 26 ± 5 years) and 22 non-concussed controls (27 ± 8 years). Pre-season measurements were performed for cerebrovascular function (Doppler ultrasound of middle cerebral artery velocity (MCAv) in response to hypocapnia/normocapnia/hypercapnia), cephalic venous concentrations of the ascorbate radical (A•-, electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy), NO (ozone-based chemiluminescence) and cognition (neuropsychometric tests). Notational analysis was performed to assess contact in the rugby group throughout each competitive game. Results: 1001 tackles and 62 injuries, including three concussions were observed across the first half of the season. However, no associations were apparent between number of tackles and any injury type (P > 0.05). The rugby group expressed greater oxidative stress as indicated by increased A•- (P < 0.05 vs. control) and a subsequent decrease in NO bioavailability (P < 0.05 vs. control). The rugby group performed worse in the Ray Auditory Verbal Learning Test B (RAVLT-B, learning, and memory) and the Grooved Pegboard test using both the dominant and non-dominant hands (visuomotor coordination, P < 0.05 vs. control). There were no between-group differences in cerebral perfusion at baseline (MCAv: 54 ± 13 vs. 59 ± 12, P > 0.05). Likewise, no between-group differences in CVRCO2Hypo (2.58 ± 1.01 vs. 2.58 ± 0.75, P > 0.05) or CVRCO2Hyper (2.69 ± 1.07 vs. 3.35 ± 1.28, P > 0.05) were observed. Conclusion: The present study identified that the rugby union players are characterized by impaired cognitive function subsequent to elevated systemic-oxidative-nitrosative stress. However, this appears to be independent of any functional impairment in cerebrovascular function. Given the potential long-term trajectory towards accelerated cognitive decline in populations exposed to SRC, prophylaxis to increase NO bioavailability warrants consideration.

Keywords: cognition, concussion, mild traumatic brain injury, rugby

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Authors: Makhan Maharjan, Mani Ulaganathan, Vanchiappan Aravindan, Srinivasan Madhavi, Jing-Yuan Wang, Tuti Mariana Lim

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The ever-increasing energy demand has made research to develop high performance energy storage systems that are able to fulfill energy needs. Supercapacitors have potential applications as portable energy storage devices. In recent years, there have been huge research interests to enhance the performances of supercapacitors via exploiting novel promising carbon precursors, tailoring textural properties of carbons, exploiting various electrolytes and device types. In this work, we employed orange peel (waste material) as the starting material and synthesized activated carbon by pyrolysis of KOH impregnated orange peel char at 800 °C in argon atmosphere. The resultant orange peel-derived activated carbon (OP-AC) exhibited BET surface area of 1,901 m² g-1, which is the highest surface area so far reported for the orange peel. The pore size distribution (PSD) curve exhibits the pores centered at 11.26 Å pore width, suggesting dominant microporosity. The high surface area OP-AC accommodates more ions in the electrodes and its well-developed porous structure facilitates fast diffusion of ions which subsequently enhance electrochemical performance. The OP-AC was studied as positive electrode in combination with different negative electrode materials, such as pre-lithiated graphite (LiC6) and Li4Ti5O12 for making hybrid capacitors. The lithium ion capacitor (LIC) fabricated using OP-AC with pre-lithiated graphite delivered high energy density of ~106 Wh kg–1. The energy density for OP-AC||Li4Ti5O12 capacitor was ~35 Wh kg⁻¹. For comparison purpose, configuration of OP-AC||OP-AC capacitors were studied in both aqueous (1M H2SO4) and organic (1M LiPF6 in EC-DMC) electrolytes, which delivered the energy density of 8.0 Wh kg⁻¹ and 16.3 Wh kg⁻¹, respectively. The cycling retentions obtained at current density of 1 A g⁻¹ were ~85.8, ~87.0 ~82.2 and ~58.8% after 2500 cycles for OP-AC||OP-AC (aqueous), OP-AC||OP-AC (organic), OP-AC||Li4Ti5O12 and OP-AC||LiC6 configurations, respectively. In addition, characterization studies were performed by elemental and proximate composition, thermogravimetry analysis, field emission-scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectra, X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern, Fourier transform-infrared, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and N2 sorption isotherms. The morphological features from FE-SEM exhibited well-developed porous structures. Two typical broad peaks observed in the XRD framework of the synthesized carbon implies amorphous graphitic structure. The ratio of 0.86 for ID/IG in Raman spectra infers high degree of graphitization in the sample. The band spectra of C 1s in XPS display the well resolved peaks related to carbon atoms in various chemical environments. The presence of functional groups is also corroborated from the FTIR spectroscopy. Characterization studies revealed the synthesized carbon to be promising electrode material towards the application for energy storage devices. Overall, the intriguing properties of OP-AC make it a new alternative promising electrode material for the development of high energy lithium ion capacitors from abundant, low-cost, renewable biomass waste. The authors gratefully acknowledge Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)/ Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore for funding support.

Keywords: energy storage, lithium-ion capacitors, orange peels, porous activated carbon

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Authors: Asadullah Sheikh, Kerry Barnett, Paul Ayres

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Despite significant progress in access, equity and public examination success, poor student performance in mathematics in secondary schools has become a major concern in Bangladesh. A substantial body of research has emphasised the important contribution of teaching practices to student achievement. However, this has not been investigated in Bangladesh. Therefore, the study sought to find out the effectiveness of mathematics teaching practices as a means of improving secondary school mathematics in Dhaka Municipality City (DMC) area, Bangladesh. The purpose of this study was twofold, first, to identify the 20 highest performing secondary schools in mathematics in DMC, and second, to investigate the teaching practices of mathematics teachers in these schools. A two-phase mixed method approach was adopted. In the first phase, secondary source data were obtained from the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Dhaka and value-added measures used to identify the 20 highest performing secondary schools in mathematics. In the second phase, a concurrent mixed method design, where qualitative methods were embedded within a dominant quantitative approach was utilised. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select fifteen teachers from the 20 highest performing secondary schools. The main sources of data were classroom teaching observations, and teacher interviews. The data from teacher observations were analysed with descriptive and nonparametric statistics. The interview data were analysed qualitatively. The main findings showed teachers adopt a direct teaching approach which incorporates orientation, structuring, modelling, practice, questioning and teacher-student interaction that creates an individualistic learning environment. The variation in developmental levels of teaching skill indicate that teachers do not necessarily use the qualitative (i.e., focus, stage, quality and differentiation) aspects of teaching behaviours effectively. This is the first study to investigate teaching behaviours of effective secondary mathematics teachers within Dhaka, Bangladesh. It contributes in an international dimension to the field of educational effectiveness and raise questions about existing constructivist approaches. Further, it contributes to important insights about teaching behaviours that can be used to inform the development of evidence-based policy and practice on quality teaching in Bangladesh.

Keywords: effective teaching, mathematics, secondary schools, student achievement, value-added measures

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Authors: Jonny Beirne

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Hydropower developments have come to assume an important role within the Ethiopian government's overall development strategy for the country during the last ten years. The Gilgel Gibe III on the Omo river, due to become operational in September 2014, represents the most ambitious, and controversial, of these projects to date. Further aspects of the government's national development strategy include leasing vast areas of designated 'unused' land for large-scale commercial agricultural projects and 'voluntarily' villagizing scattered, semi-nomadic agro-pastoralist groups to centralized settlements so as to use land and water more efficiently and to better provide essential social services such as education and healthcare. The Lower Omo valley, along the Omo River, is one of the sites of this villagization programme as well as of these large-scale commercial agricultural projects which are made possible owing to the regulation of the river's flow by Gibe III. Though the Ethiopian government cite many positive aspects of these agricultural and hydropower developments there are still expected to be serious regional and transnational effects, including on migration flows, in an area already characterized by increasing climatic vulnerability with attendant population movements and conflicts over scarce resources. The following paper is an attempt to track actual and anticipated migration flows resulting from the construction of Gibe III in the immediate vicinity of the dam, downstream in the Lower Omo Valley and across the border in Kenya around Lake Turkana. In the case of those displaced in the Lower Omo Valley, this will be considered in view of the distinction between voluntary villagization and forced resettlement. The research presented is not primary-source material. Instead, it is drawn from the reports and assessments of the Ethiopian government, rights-based groups, and academic researchers as well as media articles. It is hoped that this will serve to draw greater attention to the issue and encourage further methodological research on the dynamics of dam constructions (and associated large-scale irrigation schemes) on migration flows and on the ultimate experience of displacement and resettlement for environmental migrants in the region.

Keywords: forced displacement, voluntary resettlement, migration, human rights, human security, land grabs, dams, commercial agriculture, pastoralism, ecosystem modification, natural resource conflict, livelihoods, development

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Authors: Ahmeda Ali, Mary Codd, Susan Brundage

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Importance: This research focuses on devising and improving Health Service Executive (HSE) policy and legislation and therefore improving patient trauma care and outcomes in Ireland. Objectives: The study measures components of the Trauma System in the district hospital setting of the Cavan/Monaghan Hospital Group (CMHG), HSE, Ireland, and uses the collected data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the CMHG Trauma System organisation, to include governance, injury data, prevention and quality improvement, scene care and facility-based care, and rehabilitation. The information will be made available to local policy makers to provide objective situational analysis to assist in future trauma service planning and service provision. Design, setting and participants: From 28 April to May 28, 2016 a cross-sectional survey using World Health Organisation (WHO) Trauma System Assessment Tool (TSAT) was conducted among healthcare professionals directly involved in the level III trauma system of CMHG. Main outcomes: Identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the Trauma System of CMHG. Results: The participants who reported inadequate funding for pre hospital (62.3%) and facility based trauma care at CMHG (52.5%) were high. Thirty four (55.7%) respondents reported that a national trauma registry (TARN) exists but electronic health records are still not used in trauma care. Twenty one respondents (34.4%) reported that there are system wide protocols for determining patient destination and adequate, comprehensive legislation governing the use of ambulances was enforced, however, there is a lack of a reliable advisory service. Over 40% of the respondents reported uncertainty of the injury prevention programmes available in Ireland; as well as the allocated government funding for injury and violence prevention. Conclusions: The results of this study contributed to a comprehensive assessment of the trauma system organisation. The major findings of the study identified three fundamental areas: the inadequate funding at CMHG, the QI techniques and corrective strategies used, and the unfamiliarity of existing prevention strategies. The findings direct the need for further research to guide future development of the trauma system at CMHG (and in Ireland as a whole) in order to maximise best practice and to improve functional and life outcomes.

Keywords: trauma, education, management, system

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Authors: Abderrahim El Maslouhi

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The paper aims to analyze an often-overlooked dimension of global constitutionalism, which is the rise of the regulatory state and its impact on parliamentary dynamics in transition regimes. In contrast to Majone’s technocratic vision of convergence towards a single regulatory system based on competence and efficiency, national transpositions of regulatory governance and, in general, the relationship to global standards primarily depend upon a number of distinctive parameters. These include policy formation process, speed of change, depth of parliamentary tradition and greater or lesser vulnerability to the normative conditionality of donors, interstate groupings and transnational regulatory bodies. Based on a comparison between three post-Arab Spring countries -Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, whose constitutions have undergone substantive review in the period 2011-2014- and some European Union state members, the paper intends, first, to assess the degree of permeability to global constitutionalism in different contexts. A noteworthy divide emerges from this comparison. Whereas European constitutions still seem impervious to the lexicon of global constitutionalism, the influence of the latter is obvious in the recently drafted constitutions in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. This is evidenced by their reference to notions such as ‘governance’, ‘regulators’, ‘accountability’, ‘transparency’, ‘civil society’, and ‘participatory democracy’. Second, the study will provide a contextual account of internal and external rationales underlying the constitutionalization of regulatory governance in the cases examined. Unlike European constitutionalism, where parliamentarism and the tradition of representative government function as a structural mechanism that moderates the de-parliamentarization effect induced by global constitutionalism, Arab constitutional transitions have led to a paradoxical situation; contrary to the public demands for further parliamentarization, the 2011 constitution-makers have opted for a de-parliamentarization pattern. This is particularly reflected in the procedures established by constitutions and regular legislation, to handle the interaction between lawmakers and regulatory bodies. Once the ‘constitutional’ and ‘independent’ nature of these agencies is formally endorsed, the birth of these ‘fourth power’ entities, which are neither elected nor directly responsible to elected officials, will raise the question of their accountability. Third, the paper shows that, even in the three selected countries, the de-parliamentarization intensity is significantly variable. By contrast to the radical stance of the Moroccan and Egyptian constituents who have shown greater concern to shield regulatory bodies from legislatures’ scrutiny, the Tunisian case indicates a certain tendency to provide lawmakers with some essential control instruments (e. g. exclusive appointment power, adversarial discussion of regulators’ annual reports, dismissal power, later held unconstitutional). In sum, the comparison reveals that the transposition of the regulatory state model and, more generally, sensitivity to the legal implications of global conditionality essentially relies on the evolution of real-world power relations at both national and international levels.

Keywords: Arab legislatures, de-parliamentarization, global constitutionalism, normative conditionality, regulatory state

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Authors: Irmak Karaduman, Tugba Corlu, Sezin Galioglu, Burcu Akata, M. Ali Yildirim, Aytunç Ateş, Selim Acar

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Breath analysis represents a promising non-invasive, fast and cost-effective alternative to well-established diagnostic and monitoring techniques such as blood analysis, endoscopy, ultrasonic and tomographic monitoring. Portable, non-invasive, and low-cost breath analysis devices are becoming increasingly desirable for monitoring different diseases, especially asthma. Beacuse of this, NO gas sensing at low concentrations has attracted progressive attention for clinical analysis in asthma. Recently, nanomaterials based sensors are considered to be a promising clinical and laboratory diagnostic tool, because its large surface–to–volume ratio, controllable structure, easily tailored chemical and physical properties, which bring high sensitivity, fast dynamic processand even the increasing specificity. Among various nanomaterials, semiconducting metal oxides are extensively studied gas-sensing materials and are potential sensing elements for breathanalyzer due to their high sensitivity, simple design, low cost and good stability.The sensitivities of metal oxide semiconductor gas sensors can be enhanced by adding noble metals. Doping contents, distribution, and size of metallic or metal oxide catalysts are key parameters for enhancing gas selectivity as well as sensitivity. By manufacturing doping MOS structures, it is possible to develop more efficient sensor sensing layers. Zeolites are perhaps the most widely employed group of silicon-based nanoporous solids. Their well-defined pores of sub nanometric size have earned them the name of molecular sieves, meaning that operation in the size exclusion regime is possible by selecting, among over 170 structures available, the zeolite whose pores allow the pass of the desired molecule, while keeping larger molecules outside.In fact it is selective adsorption, rather than molecular sieving, the mechanism that explains most of the successful gas separations achieved with zeolite membranes. In view of their molecular sieving and selective adsorption properties, it is not surprising that zeolites have found use in a number of works dealing with gas sensing devices. In this study, the Cu doped ZnO nanostructure film was produced by SILAR method and investigated the NO gas sensing properties. To obtain the selectivity of the sample, the gases including CO,NH3,H2 and CH4 were detected to compare with NO. The maximum response is obtained at 85 C for 20 ppb NO gas. The sensor shows high response to NO gas. However, acceptable responses are calculated for CO and NH3 gases. Therefore, there are no responses obtain for H2 and CH4 gases. Enhanced to selectivity, Cu doped ZnO nanostructure film was coated with zeolite A thin film. It is found that the sample possess an acceptable response towards NO hardly respond to CO, NH3, H2 and CH4 at room temperature. This difference in the response can be expressed in terms of differences in the molecular structure, the dipole moment, strength of the electrostatic interaction and the dielectric constant. The as-synthesized thin film is considered to be one of the extremely promising candidate materials in electronic nose applications. This work is supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBİTAK) under Project No, 115M658 and Gazi University Scientific Research Fund under project no 05/2016-21.

Keywords: Cu doped ZnO, electrical characterization, gas sensing, zeolite

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Authors: Iuri Salukvadze

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Construction takes importance role in the history of mankind, there is not a single thing-product in our lives in which the builder’s work was not to be materialized, because to create all of it requires setting up factories, roads, and bridges, etc. The function of the Republic of Georgia, as part of the connecting Europe-Asia transport corridor, is significantly increased. In the context of transit function a large part of the cargo traffic belongs to motor transport, hence the improvement of motor roads transport infrastructure is rather important and rise the new, increased operational demands for existing as well as new motor roads. Construction of the durable road surface is related to rather large values, but because of high transport-operational properties, such as high-speed, less fuel consumption, less depreciation of tires, etc. If the traffic intensity is high, therefore the reimbursement of expenses occurs rapidly and accordingly is increasing income. If the traffic intensity is relatively small, it is recommended to use lightened structures of road carpet in order to pay for capital investments amounted to no more than normative one. The road carpet is divided into the following basic types: asphaltic concrete and cement concrete. Asphaltic concrete is the most perfect type of road carpet. It is arranged in two or three layers on rigid foundation and will be compacted. Asphaltic concrete is artificial building material, which due stratum will be selected and measured from stone skeleton and sand, interconnected by bitumen and a mixture of mineral powder. Less strictly selected similar material is called as bitumen-mineral mixture. Asphaltic concrete is non-rigid building material and well durable on vertical loadings; it is less resistant to the impact of horizontal forces. The cement concrete is monolithic and durable material, it is well durable the horizontal loads and is less resistant related to vertical loads. The cement concrete consists from strictly selected, measured stone material and sand, the binder is cement. The cement concrete road carpet represents separate slabs of sizes from 3 ÷ 5 op to 6 ÷ 8 meters. The slabs are reinforced by a rather complex system. Between the slabs are arranged seams that are designed for avoiding of additional stresses due temperature fluctuations on the length of slabs. For the joint behavior of separate slabs, they are connected by metal rods. Rods provide the changes in the length of slabs and distribute to the slab vertical forces and bending moments. The foundation layers will be extremely durable, for that is required high-quality stone material, cement, and metal. The qualification work aims to: in order for improvement of traffic conditions on motor roads to prolong operational conditions and improving their characteristics. The work consists from three chapters, 80 pages, 5 tables and 5 figures. In the work are stated general concepts as well as carried out by various companies using modern methods tests and their results. In the chapter III are stated carried by us tests related to this issue and specific examples to improving the operational characteristics.

Keywords: asphalt, cement, cylindrikal sample of asphalt, building

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Authors: Asmat Nawaz, Ceylan Zafer, Ali K. Erdinc, Kaiying Wang, M. Nadeem Akram

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Hybrid halide Perovskites with the general formula ABX₃, where X = Cl, Br or I, are considered as an ideal candidates for the preparation of photovoltaic devices. The most commonly and successfully used hybrid halide perovskite for photovoltaic applications is CH₃NH₃PbI₃ and its analogue prepared from lead chloride, commonly symbolized as CH₃NH₃PbI₃_ₓClₓ. Some researcher groups are using lead free (Sn replaces Pb) and mixed halide perovskites for the fabrication of the devices. Both mesoporous and planar structures have been developed. By Comparing mesoporous structure in which the perovskite materials infiltrate into mesoporous metal oxide scaffold, the planar architecture is much simpler and easy for device fabrication. In a typical perovskite solar cell, a perovskite absorber layer is sandwiched between the hole and electron transport. Upon the irradiation, carriers are created in the absorber layer that can travel through hole and electron transport layers and the interface in between. We fabricated inverted planar heterojunction structure ITO/PEDOT/ Perovskite/PCBM/Al, based solar cell via two-step spin coating method. This is also called Sequential deposition method. A small amount of cheap additive H₂O was added into PbI₂/DMF to make a homogeneous solution. We prepared four different solution such as (W/O H₂O, 1% H₂O, 2% H₂O, 3% H₂O). After preparing, the whole night stirring at 60℃ is essential for the homogenous precursor solutions. We observed that the solution with 1% H₂O was much more homogenous at room temperature as compared to others. The solution with 3% H₂O was precipitated at once at room temperature. The four different films of PbI₂ were formed on PEDOT substrates by spin coating and after that immediately (before drying the PbI₂) the substrates were immersed in the methyl ammonium iodide solution (prepared in isopropanol) for the completion of the desired perovskite film. After getting desired films, rinse the substrates with isopropanol to remove the excess amount of methyl ammonium iodide and finally dried it on hot plate only for 1-2 minutes. In this study, we added H₂O in the PbI₂/DMF precursor solution. The concept of additive is widely used in the bulk- heterojunction solar cells to manipulate the surface morphology, leading to the enhancement of the photovoltaic performance. There are two most important parameters for the selection of additives. (a) Higher boiling point w.r.t host material (b) good interaction with the precursor materials. We observed that the morphology of the films was improved and we achieved a denser, uniform with less cavities and almost full surface coverage films but only using precursor solution having 1% H₂O. Therefore, we fabricated the complete perovskite solar cell by sequential deposition technique with precursor solution having 1% H₂O. We concluded that with the addition of additives in the precursor solutions one can easily be manipulate the morphology of the perovskite film. In the sequential deposition method, thickness of perovskite film is in µm and the charge diffusion length of PbI₂ is in nm. Therefore, by controlling the thickness using other deposition methods for the fabrication of solar cells, we can achieve the better efficiency.

Keywords: methylammonium lead iodide, perovskite solar cell, precursor composition, sequential deposition

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Authors: Shir Daphna-Tekoah, Nurit Eitan-Gutman, Uri Balla

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Background: Systemic documentation is essential in social work practice. Collaboration between an institution of higher education and social work health care services enabled adaptation of the medical documentation model of SOAP in the field of social work, by creating the ISOAPS model (Introduction, Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Summary) model. Aims: The article describes the ISOAPS model and its implementation in the field of social work, as a tool for standardization of documentation and the enhancement of multidisciplinary collaboration. Methods: We examined the changes in standardization using a mixed methods study, both before and after implementation of the model. A review of social workers’ documentation was carried out by medical staff and social workers in the Clalit Healthcare Services, the largest provider of public and semi-private health services in Israel. After implementation of the model, semi-structured qualitative interviews were undertaken. Main findings: The percentage of reviewers who evaluated their documentation as correct increased from 46%, prior to implementation, to 61% after implementation. After implementation, 81% of the social workers noted that their documentation had become standardized. The training process prepared them for the change in documentation and most of them (83%) started using the model on a regular basis. The qualitative data indicate that the use of the ISOAPS model creates uniform documentation, improves standards and is important to teach social work students. Conclusions: The ISOAPS model standardizes documentation and promotes communication between social workers and medical staffs. Implications for practice: In the intricate realm of healthcare, efficient documentation systems are pivotal to ensuring coherent interdisciplinary communication and patient care. The ISOAPS model emerges as a quintessential instrument, meticulously tailored to the nuances of social work documentation. While it extends its utility across the broad spectrum of social work, its specificity is most pronounced in the medical domain. This model not only exemplifies rigorous academic and professional standards but also serves as a testament to the potential of contextualized documentation systems in elevating the overall stature of social work within healthcare. Such a strategic documentation tool can not only streamline the intricate processes inherent in medical social work but also underscore the indispensable role that social workers play in the broader healthcare ecosystem.

Keywords: ISOAPS, professional documentation, medial social-work, social work

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Authors: Joseph M. Rich, Vinay A. Duddalwar, Assad A. Oberai

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Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common cancer in males, with osseous metastases as the commonest site of metastatic prostate carcinoma (mPC). Treatment monitoring is based on the evaluation and characterization of lesions on multiple imaging studies, including Computed Tomography (CT). Monitoring of the osseous disease burden, including follow-up of lesions and identification and characterization of new lesions, is a laborious task for radiologists. Deep learning algorithms are increasingly used to perform tasks such as identification and segmentation for osseous metastatic disease and provide accurate information regarding metastatic burden. Here, nnUNet was used to produce a model which can segment CT scan images of prostate adenocarcinoma vertebral bone metastatic lesions. nnUNet is an open-source Python package that adds optimizations to deep learning-based UNet architecture but has not been extensively combined with transfer learning techniques due to the absence of a readily available functionality of this method. The IRB-approved study data set includes imaging studies from patients with mPC who were enrolled in clinical trials at the University of Southern California (USC) Health Science Campus and Los Angeles County (LAC)/USC medical center. Manual segmentation of metastatic lesions was completed by an expert radiologist Dr. Vinay Duddalwar (20+ years in radiology and oncologic imaging), to serve as ground truths for the automated segmentation. Despite nnUNet’s success on some medical segmentation tasks, it only produced an average Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) of 0.31 on the USC dataset. DSC results fell in a bimodal distribution, with most scores falling either over 0.66 (reasonably accurate) or at 0 (no lesion detected). Applying more aggressive data augmentation techniques dropped the DSC to 0.15, and reducing the number of epochs reduced the DSC to below 0.1. Datasets have been identified for transfer learning, which involve balancing between size and similarity of the dataset. Identified datasets include the Pancreas data from the Medical Segmentation Decathlon, Pelvic Reference Data, and CT volumes with multiple organ segmentations (CT-ORG). Some of the challenges of producing an accurate model from the USC dataset include small dataset size (115 images), 2D data (as nnUNet generally performs better on 3D data), and the limited amount of public data capturing annotated CT images of bone lesions. Optimizations and improvements will be made by applying transfer learning and generative methods, including incorporating generative adversarial networks and diffusion models in order to augment the dataset. Performance with different libraries, including MONAI and custom architectures with Pytorch, will be compared. In the future, molecular correlations will be tracked with radiologic features for the purpose of multimodal composite biomarker identification. Once validated, these models will be incorporated into evaluation workflows to optimize radiologist evaluation. Our work demonstrates the challenges of applying automated image segmentation to small medical datasets and lays a foundation for techniques to improve performance. As machine learning models become increasingly incorporated into the workflow of radiologists, these findings will help improve the speed and accuracy of vertebral metastatic lesions detection.

Keywords: deep learning, image segmentation, medicine, nnUNet, prostate carcinoma, radiomics

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Authors: Monika Sobolewska, Aleksandra Majchrzak, Bartlomiej Chojnacki, Katarzyna Baruch, Adam Pilch

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The main purpose of the study is to perform the measurement and analysis of noise harmfulness in public utility facilities. The World Health Organization reports that the number of people suffering from hearing impairment is constantly increasing. The most alarming is the number of young people occurring in the statistics. The majority of scientific research in the field of hearing protection and noise prevention concern industrial and road traffic noise as the source of health problems. As the result, corresponding standards and regulations defining noise level limits are enforced. However, there is another field uncovered by profound research – leisure time. Public utility facilities such as clubs, shopping malls, sport facilities or concert halls – they all generate high-level noise, being out of proper juridical control. Among European Union Member States, the highest legislative act concerning noise prevention is the Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC. However, it omits the problem discussed above and even for traffic, railway and aircraft noise it does not set limits or target values, leaving these issues to the discretion of the Member State authorities. Without explicit and uniform regulations, noise level control at places designed for relaxation and entertainment is often in the responsibility of people having little knowledge of hearing protection, unaware of the risk the noise pollution poses. Exposure to high sound levels in clubs, cinemas, at concerts and sports events may result in a progressive hearing loss, especially among young people, being the main target group of such facilities and events. The first step to change this situation and to raise the general awareness is to perform reliable measurements the results of which will emphasize the significance of the problem. This project presents the results of more than hundred measurements, performed in most types of public utility facilities in Poland. As the most suitable measuring instrument for such a research, personal noise dosimeters were used to collect the data. Each measurement is presented in the form of numerical results including equivalent and peak sound pressure levels and a detailed description considering the type of the sound source, size and furnishing of the room and the subjective sound level evaluation. In the absence of a straight reference point for the interpretation of the data, the limits specified in EU Directive 2003/10/EC were used for comparison. They set the maximum sound level values for workers in relation to their working time length. The analysis of the examined problem leads to the conclusion that during leisure time, people are exposed to noise levels significantly exceeding safe values. As the hearing problems are gradually progressing, most people underplay the problem, ignoring the first symptoms. Therefore, an effort has to be made to specify the noise regulations for public utility facilities. Without any action, in the foreseeable future the majority of Europeans will be dealing with serious hearing damage, which will have a negative impact on the whole societies.

Keywords: hearing protection, noise level limits, noise prevention, noise regulations, public utility facilities

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Authors: Vittorio Astarita, Giuseppe Guido, Vincenzo Pasquale Giofre, Alessandro Vitale

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Traffic microsimulation has been used extensively to evaluate consequences of different traffic planning and control policies in terms of travel time delays, queues, pollutant emissions, and every other common measured performance while at the same time traffic safety has not been considered in common traffic microsimulation packages as a measure of performance for different traffic scenarios. Vehicle conflict techniques that were introduced at intersections in the early traffic researches carried out at the General Motor laboratory in the USA and in the Swedish traffic conflict manual have been applied to vehicles trajectories simulated in microscopic traffic simulators. The concept is that microsimulation can be used as a base for calculating the number of conflicts that will define the safety level of a traffic scenario. This allows engineers to identify unsafe road traffic maneuvers and helps in finding the right countermeasures that can improve safety. Unfortunately, most commonly used indicators do not consider conflicts between single vehicles and roadside obstacles and barriers. A great number of vehicle crashes take place with roadside objects or obstacles. Only some recent proposed indicators have been trying to address this issue. This paper introduces a new procedure based on the simulation of potential crash events for the evaluation of safety levels in microsimulation traffic scenarios, which takes into account also potential crashes with roadside objects and barriers. The procedure can be used to define new conflict indicators. The proposed simulation procedure generates with the random perturbation of vehicle trajectories a set of potential crashes which can be evaluated accurately in terms of DeltaV, the energy of the impact, and/or expected number of injuries or casualties. The procedure can also be applied to real trajectories giving birth to new surrogate safety performance indicators, which can be considered as “simulation-based”. The methodology and a specific safety performance indicator are described and applied to a simulated test traffic scenario. Results indicate that the procedure is able to evaluate safety levels both at the intersection level and in the presence of roadside obstacles. The procedure produces results that are expressed in the same unity of measure for both vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to roadside object conflicts. The total energy for a square meter of all generated crash can be used and is shown on the map, for the test network, after the application of a threshold to evidence the most dangerous points. Without any detailed calibration of the microsimulation model and without any calibration of the parameters of the procedure (standard values have been used), it is possible to identify dangerous points. A preliminary sensitivity analysis has shown that results are not dependent on the different energy thresholds and different parameters of the procedure. This paper introduces a specific new procedure and the implementation in the form of a software package that is able to assess road safety, also considering potential conflicts with roadside objects. Some of the principles that are at the base of this specific model are discussed. The procedure can be applied on common microsimulation packages once vehicle trajectories and the positions of roadside barriers and obstacles are known. The procedure has many calibration parameters and research efforts will have to be devoted to make confrontations with real crash data in order to obtain the best parameters that have the potential of giving an accurate evaluation of the risk of any traffic scenario.

Keywords: road safety, traffic, traffic safety, traffic simulation

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Authors: A. Yousuf, M. Iqbal, A. Mir, S. Aziz

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This study deals with the women’s right to land for gender equality. Economic Transformation Initiative, Gilgit-Baltistan (ETI-GB), an ambitious program supported by International Fund for Agricultural Development United Nation (IFAD, UN), aims to strengthen land reforms process in disputed area of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Pakistan, that is taking place first time in the history. This project is a brick to build the foundation of land reforms and land policies in GB. The ETI-GB provides substantive support to government of GB in developing policy measures and initiatives to promote women’s right to have and to own land is kind of unconventional step in a very traditional society. It would be interesting to have discussion and document the people’s response regarding this project. The study has used mixed method for data collection. For qualitative data, content analysis is used to have a thorough understanding of different types of land reforms across the globe particularly in South Asia. Theoretical understanding of the literature is essential which provides the basis why land reforms are important and how far it plays an important role when it comes to eliminating inequality. Focused group discussion was carried out for verification and triangulation of data. For quantitative, survey was conducted to take responses from the people of the region and analyzed. The program is implemented in Ghizer district of GB. 2340 households were identified as beneficiaries of newly developed land. Among them, 2285 were men households, and 55 were women households. There is a significant difference between men and women households. In spite of great difference, it is a great achievement of the donor that in history of GB, first time women are going to be entitled to land ownership. GB is a patriarchal society, many social factors like cultural, religious play role for gender inequality. In developing countries, such as Pakistan, the awareness of land property rights has not been given proper attention to gender equality development frameworks. It is argued that land property rights of women have not been taken into mainstream policymaking in the development of nation building process. Consequently, this has generated deprivation of women’s property rights, low income level, lack of education and poor health. This paper emphasises that there should have proper land property right of women in Gilgit-Baltistan Pakistan, provided that the gender empowerment could be increased in terms of women’s property rights.

Keywords: gender equality, women right to land ownership, property rights, women empowerment

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: Ling-Lang Huang

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Background: The holistic health care should ideally cover physical, mental, spiritual, and social aspects of a patient. With very constrained time in current clinical practice system, medical decisions often tip the balance in favor of evidence-based medicine (EBM) in comparison to patient's personal values. Even in the era of competence-based medical education (CBME), when scrutinizing the items of entrustable professional activities (EPAs), we found that EPAs of establishing doctor-patient relationship remained incomplete or even missing. This phenomenon prompted us to raise this project aiming at advocating value-based medicine (VBM), which emphasizes the importance of patient’s values in medical decisions. A true and effective doctor-patient communication and relationship should be a well-balanced harmony of EBM and VBM. By constructing VBM into current EPAs, we can further promote genuine shared decision making (SDM) and fix the missing link in holistic health care. Methods: In this project, we are going to find out EPA elements crucial for establishing an ideal doctor-patient relationship through three distinct pairs of doctor-patient relationships: patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (relatively young but with grave disease), patients undergoing surgery (facing critical medical decisions), and patients with terminal diseases (facing forthcoming death). We’ll search for important EPA elements through the following steps: 1. Narrative approach to delineate patients’ values among 2. distinct groups. 3.Hermeneutics-based interview: semi-structured interview will be conducted for both patients and physicians, followed by qualitative analysis of collected information by compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding. 4. Preliminarily construct those VBM elements into EPAs for doctor-patient relationships in 3 groups. Expected Outcomes: The results of this project are going to give us invaluable information regarding the impact of patients’ values, while facing different medical situations, on the final medical decision. The competence of well-blending and -balanced both values from patients and evidence from clinical sciences is the missing link in holistic health care and should be established in future EPAs to enhance an effective SDM.

Keywords: value-based medicine, shared decision making, entrustable professional activities, holistic health care

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Authors: Jiazhi Zeng, Leiyu Shi, Xia Zou, Wen Chen, Li Ling

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Background: China is facing the unprecedented challenge of rapidly increasing rural-to-urban migration. Due to the household registration system, migrants are in a vulnerable state when they attempt to access to primary care services. A strong primary care system can reduce health inequities and mitigate socioeconomic disparities in healthcare utilization. Literature indicated that migrants were more reliant on the primary care system than local residents. Although the Chinese government has attached great importance to creating an efficient health system, primary care services are still underutilized. The referral system between primary care institutions and hospitals has not yet been completely established in China. The general populations often go directly to hospitals instead of primary care institutions for their primary care. Primary care institutions generally consist of community health centers (CHCs) and community health stations (CHSs) in urban areas, and township health centers (THCs) and rural health stations (THSs) in rural areas. In addition, primary care services are also provided by the outpatient department of municipal hospitals and tertiary hospitals. A better understanding of migrants’ experiences with primary care in the above-mentioned medical institutions is critical for improving the performance of primary care institutions and providing indications of the attributes that require further attention. The purpose of this pioneering study is to explore rural-to-urban migrants’ experiences in primary care, compare their primary care experiences in four types of medical institutions in Guangzhou, China, and suggest implications for targeted interventions to improve primary care for the migrants. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted with 736 rural-to-urban migrants in Guangzhou, China, in 2014. A multistage sampling method was employed. A validated Chinese version of Primary Care Assessment Tool - Adult Short Version (PCAT-AS) was used to collect information on migrants’ primary care experiences. The PCAT-AS consists of 10 domains. Analysis of covariance was conducted for comparison on PCAT domain scores and total scores among migrants accessing four types of medical institutions. Multiple linear regression models were used to explore factors associated with PCAT total scores. Results: After controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, migrant characteristics, health status and health insurance status, migrants accessing primary care in tertiary hospitals had the highest PCAT total scores when compared with those accessing primary care THCs/ RHSs (25.49 vs. 24.18, P=0.007) and CHCs/ CHSs(25.49 vs. 24.24, P=0.006). There was no statistical significant difference for PCAT total scores between migrants accessing primary care in CHCs/CHSs and those in municipal hospitals (24.24 vs. 25.02, P=0.436). Factors positively associated with higher PCAT total scores also included insurance covering parts of healthcare payment (P < 0.001). Conclusions: This study highlights the need for improvement in primary care provided by primary care institutions for rural-to-urban migrants. Migrants receiving primary care from THCs, RHSs, CHSs and CHSs reported worse primary care experiences than those receiving primary care from tertiary hospitals. Relevant policies related to medical insurance should be implemented for providing affordable healthcare services for migrants accessing primary care. Further research exploring the specific reasons for poorer PCAT scores of primary care institutions users will be needed.

Keywords: China, PCAT, primary care, rural-to-urban migrants

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Authors: Mark Anthony Casimiro, Ivan Culaba, Cornelia Soto

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Misconceptions are the wrong concepts understood by the students which may come up based on what they experience and observe around their environment. This seemed to hinder students’ learning. In this study, six different misconceptions were determined by the researcher from the previous researches. Teachers play a vital role in the classroom. The use of appropriate strategies can contribute a lot in the success of teaching and learning Physics. The current study aimed to compare two strategies- Interactive Lecture Demonstration (ILD) and Inquiry-Based Instruction (IBI) in addressing students’ misconceptions in electric circuits. These two strategies are both interactive learning activities and student-centered. In ILD, the teacher demonstrates the activity and the students have their predictions while in IBI, students perform the experiments. The study used the mixed method in which quantitative and qualitative researches were combined. The main data of this study were the test scores of the students from the pretest and posttest. Likewise, an interview with the teacher, observer and students was done before, during and after the execution of the activities. Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric Circuits Test version 2 (DIRECT v.2) was the instrument used in the study. Two sections of Grade 9 students from Kalumpang National High School were the respondents of the study. The two strategies were executed to each section; one class was assigned as the ILD group and the other class was the IBI group. The Physics teacher of the said school was the one who taught and executed the activities. The researcher taught the teacher the steps in doing the two strategies. The Department of Education level of proficiency in the Philippines was adopted in scoring and interpretation. The students’ level of proficiency was used in assessing students’ knowledge on electric circuits. The pretest result of the two groups had a p-value of 0.493 which was greater than the level of significance 0.05 (p >0.05) and it implied that the students’ level of understanding in the topic was the same before the execution of the strategies. The posttest results showed that the p-value (0.228) obtained was greater than the level of significance which is 0.05 (p> 0.05). This implied that the students from the ILD and IBI groups had the same level of understanding after the execution of the two strategies. This could be inferred that either of the two strategies- Interactive Lecture Demonstration and Inquiry-Based Instruction could be used in addressing students’ misconception in electric circuit as both had similar effect on the students’ level of understanding in the topic. The result of this study may greatly help teachers, administration, school heads think of appropriate strategies that can address misconceptions depending on the availability of their materials of their school.

Keywords: inquiry- based instruction, interactive lecture demonstration, misconceptions, mixed method

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Authors: Hanna Mamo Ergando

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Climate change is already having a severe influence on agriculture, affecting crop yields, the nutritional content of main grains, and livestock productivity. Significant adaptation investments will be necessary to sustain existing yields and enhance production and food quality to fulfill demand. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) provides numerous potentials in this regard, combining a focus on enhancing agricultural output and incomes while also strengthening resilience and responding to climate change. To improve agriculture production and productivity, the Ethiopian government has adopted and implemented a series of strategies, including the recent agricultural cluster farming that is practiced as an effort to change, improve, and transform subsistence farming to modern, productive, market-oriented, and climate-smart approach through farmers production cluster. Besides, greater attention and focus have been given to wheat production and productivity by the government, and wheat is the major crop grown in cluster farming. Therefore, the objective of this assessment was to examine various opportunities and challenges farmers face in a cluster farming system. A qualitative research approach was used to generate primary and secondary data. Respondents were chosen using the purposeful sampling technique. Accordingly, experts from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Institute, the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute, and the Ethiopian Environment Protection Authority were interviewed. The assessment result revealed that farming in clusters is an economically viable technique for sustaining small, resource-limited, and socially disadvantaged farmers' agricultural businesses. The method assists farmers in consolidating their products and delivering them in bulk to save on transportation costs while increasing income. Smallholders' negotiating power has improved as a result of cluster membership, as has knowledge and information spillover. The key challenges, on the other hand, were identified as a lack of timely provision of modern inputs, insufficient access to credit services, conflict of interest in crop selection, and a lack of output market for agro-processing firms. Furthermore, farmers in the cluster farming approach grow wheat year after year without crop rotation or diversification techniques. Mono-cropping has disadvantages because it raises the likelihood of disease and insect outbreaks. This practice may result in long-term consequences, including soil degradation, reduced biodiversity, and economic risk for farmers. Therefore, the government must devote more resources to addressing the issue of environmental sustainability. Farmers' access to complementary services that promote production and marketing efficiencies through infrastructure and institutional services has to be improved. In general, the assessment begins with some hint that leads to a deeper study into the efficiency of the strategy implementation, upholding existing policy, and scaling up good practices in a sustainable and environmentally viable manner.

Keywords: cluster farming, smallholder farmers, wheat, challenges, opportunities

Procedia PDF Downloads 180

Authors: Pia Kastl

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Potentials of blended learning are the flexibility of learning and the possibility to get in touch with lecturers and fellow students on site. By combining face-to-face sessions with digital self-learning units, the learning process can be optimized, and learning success increased. To examine wether blended learning outperforms online and face-to-face teaching, a theory-based questionnaire survey was conducted. The results show that the interaction and cooperation among students is poorly provided in blended learning, and face-to-face teaching performs better in this respect. The aim of this article is to identify concrete suggestions students have for improving cooperation and interaction in blended learning courses. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with students from various academic disciplines in face-to-face, online, or blended learning courses (N= 60). The questions referred to opinions and suggestions for improvement regarding the course design of the respective learning environment. The analysis was carried out by qualitative content analysis. The results show that students perceive the interaction as beneficial to their learning. They verbalize their knowledge and are exposed to different perspectives. In addition, emotional support is particularly important in exam phases. Interaction and cooperation were primarily enabled in the face-to-face component of the courses studied, while there was very limited contact with fellow students in the asynchronous component. Forums offered were hardly used or not used at all because the barrier to asking a question publicly is too high, and students prefer private channels for communication. This is accompanied by the disadvantage that the interaction occurs only among people who already know each other. Creating contacts is not fostered in the blended learning courses. Students consider optimization possibilities as a task of the lecturers in the face-to-face sessions: Here, interaction and cooperation should be encouraged through get-to-know-you rounds or group work. It is important here to group the participants randomly to establish contact with new people. In addition, sufficient time for interaction is desired in the lecture, e.g., in the context of discussions or partner work. In the digital component, students prefer synchronous exchange at a fixed time, for example, in breakout rooms or an MS Teams channel. The results provide an overview of how interaction and cooperation can be implemented in blended learning courses. Positive design possibilities are partly dependent on subject area and course. Future studies could tie in here with a course-specific analysis.

Keywords: blended learning, higher education, hybrid teaching, qualitative research, student learning

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Authors: A. G. Back

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Urban planning is a relevant tool to address, in a systemic way, several sectoral policies capable of linking the urban agenda with the reduction of socio-environmental risks. The Sao Paulo’s master plan (2014) presents innovations capable of promoting the transition to sustainability in the urban space, with a view to its regulatory instruments related to i) promotion of density in the axes of mass transport involving the mixture of commercial, residential, services, and leisure uses (principles related to the compact city); ii) vulnerabilities reduction based on housing policies including regular sources of funds for social housing and land reservation in urbanized areas; iii) reserve of green areas in the city to create parks and environmental regulations for new buildings focused on reducing the effects of heat island and improving urban drainage. However, its long-term implementation involves distributive conflicts and can undergo changes in different political, economic, and social contexts over time. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to identify and analyze the dynamics of conflicts of interest between social groups in the implementation of Sao Paulo’s urban development policy, particularly in relation to recent attempts at a (re) interpretation of the Master Plan guidelines, in view of the proposals for revision of the urban zoning law. In this sense, we seek to identify the demands, narratives of urban actors, including the real estate market, middle-class neighborhood associations ('not in my backyard' movements), and social housing rights movements. And we seek to analyze the power resources that these actors mobilize to influence the decision-making process, involving five categories: social capital, political access; discursive resource; media, juridical resource. The major findings of this research suggest that the interests and demands of the real estate market do not always prevail in urban regulation. After all, other actors also press for the definition of urban law with interests opposite to those of the real estate market. This is the case of associations of middle-class neighborhoods, which work to protect the characteristics of the locality, acting, in general, to prevent constructive and population densification in neighborhoods well located near the center, in São Paulo. One of the main demands of these “not in my backyard” movements is the delimitation of exclusively residential areas in the central region of the city, which is not only contrary to the interests of the real state market but also contrary to the principles of the compact city. On the other hand, social housing rights movements have also made progress in delimiting special areas of social interest in well-located and valued areas in the city dedicated to building social housing, also contrary to the interests of the real estate market. An urban development that follows the principles of the compact city must take into account the insertion of low-income populations in well-located regions; otherwise, such a development model may continue to push the less favored to the peripheries towards the preservation areas and/or risk areas.

Keywords: interest groups, Sao Paulo, sustainable urban development, urban policies implementation

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Authors: Huijing Wen, Daibao Guo

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Writing is thought to be the most complex facet of language arts. Assessing writing is difficult and subjective, and there are few scientifically validated assessments exist. Research has proposed evaluating writing using a multidimensional approach, including both qualitative and quantitative measures of handwriting, spelling and prose. Given that narrative writing has historically been a staple of literacy instruction in primary grades and is one of the three major genres Common Core State Standards required students to acquire starting in kindergarten, it is essential for teachers to understand how to measure beginning writers writing development and sources of writing difficulties through narrative writing. Guided by the theoretical models of early written expression and using empirical data, this study examines ways teachers can enact a comprehensive approach to understanding beginning writer’s narrative writing through three writing rubrics developed for a Curriculum-based Measurement (CBM). The goal is to help classroom teachers structure a framework for assessing early writing in primary classrooms. Participants in this study included 380 first-grade students from 50 classrooms in 13 schools in three school districts in a Mid-Atlantic state. Three writing tests were used to assess first graders’ writing skills in relation to both transcription (i.e., handwriting fluency and spelling tests) and translational skills (i.e., a narrative prompt). First graders were asked to respond to a narrative prompt in 20 minutes. Grounded in theoretical models of earlier expression and empirical evidence of key contributors to early writing, all written samples to the narrative prompt were coded three ways for different dimensions of writing: length, quality, and genre elements. To measure the quality of the narrative writing, a traditional holistic rating rubric was developed by the researchers based on the CCSS and the general traits of good writing. Students' genre knowledge was measured by using a separate analytic rubric for narrative writing. Findings showed that first-graders had emerging and limited transcriptional and translational skills with a nascent knowledge of genre conventions. The findings of the study provided support for the Not-So-Simple View of Writing in that fluent written expression, measured by length and other important linguistic resources measured by the overall quality and genre knowledge rubrics, are fundamental in early writing development. Our study echoed previous research findings on children's narrative development. The study has practical classroom application as it informs writing instruction and assessment. It offered practical guidelines for classroom instruction by providing teachers with a better understanding of first graders' narrative writing skills and knowledge of genre conventions. Understanding students’ narrative writing provides teachers with more insights into specific strategies students might use during writing and their understanding of good narrative writing. Additionally, it is important for teachers to differentiate writing instruction given the individual differences shown by our multiple writing measures. Overall, the study shed light on beginning writers’ narrative writing, indicating the complexity of early writing development.

Keywords: writing assessment, early writing, beginning writers, transcriptional skills, translational skills, primary grades, simple view of writing, writing rubrics, curriculum-based measurement

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Authors: Mehmet Salih Bayraktutan, Emre Tokmak

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Great Ararat Volcano is the highest peak in South Caucasus Volcanic Plateau. Uplifted by Quaternary basaltic pyroclastic and lava flows. Numerous volcanic cones formed along with the tensional fractures under N-S compressional geodynamic framework. Basaltic flows have fresh surface morphology give ages of 650-680 K years. Hyperstene andesites constitute a major mass of Greater Ararat gives ages of 450-490 K years. During the early eruption period, predominately pyroclastics, cinder, lapilly-ash volcanic bombs were extruded. Third-period eruptions dominantly basaltic lava flows. Andesitic domes aligned along with the NW-SE striking fractures. Hyalo basalt and hornblende basaltic lavas are the latest lava eruptions. Hyalo-basaltic eruptions occurred via parasitic cones distributed far from the center. Parasitic cones are most common at the foot of Mount covered by recent NW flowing basaltic lava. Some of the cones are distributed on a circular pattern. One of the most hazardous disasters recorded in Eastern Turkey was July 1840 Cehennem Canyon Flood. Volcanic activities seismically triggered resulted in melting of glacier cap, mixed with ash and pyroclastics, flowed down along the Valley. Mud rich Slush urged catastrophically northwards, crossed Ars River and damned Surmeli Basin, forming reservoir behind. Ararat volcanoes are located on NW-SE striking Agri Fault Zone. Right lateral extensional faults, along which a series of andesitic domes formed. Great Ararat, in general strato-type volcano. This huge structure, developed in two main parts with different topographic and morphological features. The large lower base covers a widespread area composed of predominantly pyroclastics, ignimbrites, aglomerates, thick pumice, perlite deposits. Approximately 1/3 of the Crest by height formed of this basement. And 2/3 of the upper part with a conic- shape composed of basaltic lava flows. The active tectonic structure consists of three different patterns. The first network is radially distributed fractures formed during the last stage of lava eruptions. The second group of active faults striking in NW direction, and continue in N30W strike, formes Igdir Fault Zone. The third set of faults, dipping in the northwest with 75-80 degrees, strikes NE- SW across the whole Mount, slicing Great Ararat into four segments. In the upper stage of Cehennem Canyon, this set cutting volcanic layers caused numerous Waterfalls, Rock Avalanches, Mud Flows along the canyon, threatens the Village of Yanidogan, at the apex of flood deposits. Great Ararat Region has high seismo-tectonic risk and by occurrence frequency and magnitude, which caused in history caused heavy disasters, at villages surrounding the Ararat Basement.

Keywords: Eastern Turkey, geohazard, great ararat volcano, seismo-tectonic features

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Authors: Nadia Miranda Lorick, Neela Badrie, Marsha Singh

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Cassava (Manihot esculenta, Crantz) which is also known as ‘yucca’ or ‘manioc’ has been acknowledged as a millennium crop which has been utilized for food security purposes. The crop provides considerable amount of energy. The aim of the study was to assess consumer groups of both ‘fresh’ and ‘frozen’ in terms of their perceptions toward the quality and safety attributes of frozen cassava. The questionnaire included four sections: consumer demographics, consumer perceptions on quality attributes of ‘frozen’ cassava, consumer knowledge, awareness and attitudes toward food safety of ‘frozen’ cassava and consumer suggestions toward the improvement of frozen cassava. A face-to-face questionnaire was administered to 200 consumers of cassava between April and May 2016. The criteria for inclusion in the survey were that they must be 15 years and over and consumer of cassava. The sections of the questionnaire included demographics of respondents, consumer perception on quality and safety attributes of cassava and suggestions for the improvement of the value-added product. The data was analysed by descriptive and chi-square using SPSS as well as qualitative information was captured. Only 17% of respondents purchased frozen cassava and this was significantly (P<0.05) associated to income. Some (15%) of fresh cassava purchasers had never heard of frozen cassava products and 7.5% o perceived that these products were unhealthy for consumption. More than half (51.3%) of the consumers (all from the ‘fresh’ cassava group) believed that there were ‘no toxins’ within cassava. The ‘frozen’ cassava products were valued for convenience but purchasers were least satisfied with ‘value for money’ (50%), ‘product safety’ (50%) and ‘colour’ (52.9%). Cassava purchasers demonstrated highest dissatisfaction levels with the quality attribute: value for money (6.6%, 11.8%) respectively. The most predominant area outlined by respondents for frozen cassava improvement was promotion /advertising/education (23%). The ‘frozen’ cassava purchasers were ‘least satisfied’ thus most concern that clean knives and clean surface would not be used agro- processing. Fresh cassava purchasers were comparatively more knowledgeable on the potential existence of naturally occurring toxins in cassava, however with 1% respondents being able to specifically identify the toxin as ‘cyanide’. Dangerous preservatives (31%), poor hygiene (30%) and chemicals from the packaging (11%) were identified as some sources of contamination of ‘frozen’ cassava. Purchasers of frozen cassava indicated that the information on packaging label was unclear (P<0.01) when compared to ‘fresh’ cassava consumers.

Keywords: consumer satisfaction, convenience, cyanide toxin, product safety, price, label

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Authors: Elissavet Feloni, Ioannis Kourtis, Konstantinos Kotsifakis, Evangelos Baltas

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Water inadequacy in small dry islands scattered in the Aegean Sea (Greece) is a major problem regarding Water Resources Management (WRM), especially during the summer period due to tourism. In the present work, various WRM schemes are designed and presented. The WRM schemes take into account current infrastructure and include Rainwater Harvesting tanks and Reverse Osmosis Desalination Units. The energy requirements are covered mainly by wind turbines and/or a seawater pumped storage system. Sizing is based on the available data for population and tourism per island, after taking into account a slight increase in the population (up to 1.5% per year), and it guarantees at least 80% reliability for the energy supply and 99.9% for potable water. Evaluation of scenarios is carried out from a financial perspective, after calculating the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of each investment for a lifespan of 30 years. The wind-powered desalination plant was found to be the most cost-effective practice, from an economic point of view. Finally, in order to estimate the Climate Change (CC) impact, six different CC scenarios were investigated. The corresponding rate of on-grid versus off-grid energy required for ensuring the targeted reliability for the zero and each climatic scenario was investigated per island. The results revealed that under CC the grid-on energy required would increase and as a result, the reduction in wind turbines and seawater pumped storage systems’ reliability will be in the range of 4 to 44%. However, the range of this percentage change does not exceed 22% per island for all examined CC scenarios. Overall, CC is proposed to be incorporated into the design process for WRM-related projects. Acknowledgements: This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund - ESF) through the Operational Program «Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020» in the context of the project “Development of a combined rain harvesting and renewable energy-based system for covering domestic and agricultural water requirements in small dry Greek Islands” (MIS 5004775).

Keywords: small dry islands, water resources management, climate change, desalination, RES, seawater pumped storage system, rainwater harvesting

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Authors: Saul Ngarava, Leocadia Zhou, Nomakhaya Monde

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Water crises have the fourth most significant societal impact after weapons of mass destruction, climate change, and extreme weather conditions, ahead of natural disasters. Intricacies between women and water are central to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The majority of the 1.2 billion poor people worldwide, with two-thirds being women, and mostly located in Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) and South Asia, do not have access to safe and reliable sources of water. There exist gendered differences in water security based on the division of labour associating women with water. Globally, women and girls are responsible for water collection in 80% of the households which have no water on their premises. Women spend 16 million hours a day collecting water, while men and children spend 6 million and 4 million per day, respectively, which is time foregone in the pursuit of other livelihood activities. Due to their proximity and activities concerning water, women are vulnerable to water insecurity through exposures to water-borne diseases, fatigue from physically carrying water, and exposure to sexual and physical harassment, amongst others. Proximity to treated water and their wellbeing also has an effect on their sensitivity and adaptive capacity to water insecurity. The great distances, difficult terrain and heavy lifting expose women to vulnerabilities of water insecurity. However, few studies have quantified the vulnerabilities and burdens on women, with a few taking a phenomenological qualitative approach. Vulnerability studies have also been scanty in the water security realm, with most studies taking linear forms of either quantifying exposures, sensitivities or adaptive capacities in climate change studies. The current study argues for the need for a water insecurity vulnerability assessment, especially for women into research agendas as well as policy interventions, monitoring, and evaluation. The study sought to identify and provide pathways through which female-headed households were water insecure in South Africa, the 30th driest country in the world. This was through linking the drinking water decision as well as the vulnerability frameworks. Secondary data collected during the 2016 General Household Survey (GHS) was utilised, with a sample of 5928 female-headed households. Principal Component Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling were used to analyse the data. The results show dynamic relationships between water characteristics and water treatment. There were also associations between water access and wealth status of the female-headed households. Association was also found between water access and water treatment as well as between wealth status and water treatment. The study concludes that there are dynamic relationships in water insecurity (exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity) for female-headed households in South Africa. The study recommends that a multi-prong approach is required in tackling exposures, sensitivities, and adaptive capacities to water insecurity. This should include capacitating and empowering women for wealth generation, improve access to water treatment equipment as well as prioritising the improvement of infrastructure that brings piped and safe water to female-headed households.

Keywords: gender, principal component analysis, structural equation modelling, vulnerability, water insecurity

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Authors: Luminiţa Duţică, Gheorghe Duţică

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One of the most powerful language innovation in the twentieth century music was the heterophony–hypostasis of the vertical syntax entered into the sphere of interest of many composers, such as George Enescu, Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti and others. The heterophonic syntax has a history of its growth, which means a succession of different concepts and writing techniques. The trajectory of settling this phenomenon does not necessarily take into account the chronology: there are highly complex primary stages and advanced stages of returning to the simple forms of writing. In folklore, the plurimelodic simultaneities are free or random and originate from the (unintentional) differences/‘deviations’ from the state of unison, through a variety of ornaments, melismas, imitations, elongations and abbreviations, all in a flexible rhythmic and non-periodic/immeasurable framework, proper to the parlando-rubato rhythmics. Within the general framework of the multivocal organization, the heterophonic syntax in elaborate (academic) version has imposed itself relatively late compared with polyphony and homophony. Of course, the explanation is simple, if we consider the causal relationship between the sound vocabulary elements – in this case, the modalism – and the typologies of vertical organization appropriate for it. Therefore, adding up the ‘classic’ pathway of the writing typologies (monody – polyphony – homophony), heterophony - applied equally to the structures of modal, serial or synthesis vocabulary – reclaims necessarily an own macrotemporal form, in the sense of the analogies enshrined by the evolution of the musical styles and languages: polyphony→fugue, homophony→sonata. Concerned about the prospect of edifying a new musical ontology, the composer Ştefan Niculescu experienced – along with the mathematical organization of heterophony according to his own original methods – the possibility of extrapolation of this phenomenon in macrostructural plan, reaching this way to the unique form of ‘synchrony’. Founded on coincidentia oppositorum principle (involving the ‘one-multiple’ binom), the sound architecture imagined by Ştefan Niculescu consists in one (temporal) model / algorithm of articulation of two sound states: 1. monovocality state (principle of identity) and 2. multivocality state (principle of difference). In this context, the heterophony becomes an (auto)generative mechanism, with macrotemporal amplitude, strategy that will be grown by the composer, practically throughout his creation (see the works: Ison I, Ison II, Unisonos I, Unisonos II, Duplum, Triplum, Psalmus, Héterophonies pour Montreux (Homages to Enescu and Bartók etc.). For the present demonstration, we selected one of the most edifying works of Ştefan Niculescu – Simphony II, Opus dacicum – where the form of (heterophony-)synchrony acquires monumental-symphonic features, representing an emblematic case for the complexity level achieved by this type of vertical syntax in the twentieth century music.

Keywords: heterophony, modalism, serialism, synchrony, syntax

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