Search results for: religious economic behavior

Authors: Rohan M. Dalal, Elena Pirondini, Shanu Somvanshi

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Introduction: The current state of reproductive health outcomes in lower-income countries is poor, with inadequate knowledge and culture among adolescent boys. Moreover, boys have traditionally not been a priority target. To explore the opportunity to educate adolescent boys in the developing world regarding accurate reproductive health information, the purpose of this study is to investigate how adolescent boys in the developing world engage and use technology, utilizing cell phones. This electronic survey and video interview study were conducted to determine the feasibility of a mobile phone platform for an educational video game specifically designed for boys that will improve health knowledge, influence behavior, and change health outcomes, namely teen pregnancies. Methods: With the assistance of Plan India, a subsidiary of Plan International, informed consent was obtained from parents of adolescent males who participated in an electronic survey and video interviews via Microsoft Teams. An electronic survey was created with 27 questions, including topics of mobile phone usage, gaming preferences, and sexual and reproductive health, with a sample size of 181 adolescents, ages 11-25, near New Delhi, India. The interview questions were written to explore more in-depth topics after the completion of the electronic survey. Eight boys, aged 15, were interviewed for 40 minutes about gaming and usage of mobile phones as well as sexual and reproductive health. Data/Results. 154 boys and 27 girls completed the survey. They rated their English fluency as relatively high. 97% of boys (149/154) had access to mobile phones. The majority of phones were smartphones (97%, 143/148). 48% (71/149) of boys borrowed cell phones. The most popular phone platform was Samsung (22%, 33/148). 36% (54/148) of adolescent males looked at their phones 1-10 times per day for 1-2 hours. 55% (81/149) of the boys had parental restrictions. 51% (76/148) had 32 GB of storage on their phone. 78% (117/150) of the boys had wifi access. 80% (120/150) of respondents reported ease in downloading apps. 97% (145/150) of male adolescents had social media, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and YouTube. 58% (87/150) played video games. Favorite video games included Free Fire, PubG, and other shooting games. In the video interviews, the boys revealed what made games fun and engaging, including customized avatars, progression to higher levels, realistic interactive platforms, shooting/guns, the ability to perform multiple actions, and a variety of worlds/settings/adventures. Ideas to improve engagement in sexual and reproductive health classes included open discussions in the community, enhanced access to information, and posting on social media. Conclusion: This study involving an electronic survey and video interviews provides an initial foray into understanding mobile phone usage among adolescent males and understanding sexual and reproductive health education in New Delhi, India. The data gathered from this study support using mobile phone platforms, and this will be used to create a serious video game to educate adolescent males about sexual and reproductive health in an attempt to lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies in the world.

Keywords: adolescent males, India, mobile phone, sexual and reproductive health

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Authors: Stamatia Nasiakou, Dimitrios Chouvardas, Michael Vrahnakis, Vassiliki Kleftoyanni

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Recent research in the mountainous and semi-mountainous rural landscapes of Greece shows that they have been significantly changed over the last 80 years. These changes have the form of structural modification of land cover/use patterns, with the main characteristic being the extensive expansion of dense forests and shrubs at the expense of grasslands and extensive agricultural areas. The aim of this research was to study the 60-year changes (1960-2019) of land cover/ use units in the rural landscape of Mouzaki (Karditsa Prefecture, central Greece). Relevant cartographic material such as forest land use maps, digital maps (Corine Land Cover -2018), 1960 aerial photos from Hellenic Military Geographical Service, and satellite imagery (Google Earth Pro 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019) was collected and processed in order to study landscape evolution. ArcGIS v 10.2.2 software was used to process the cartographic material and to produce several sets of data. Main product of the analysis was a digitized photo-mosaic of the 1960 aerial photographs, a digitized photo-mosaic of recent satellite images (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019), and diagrams and maps of temporal transformation of the rural landscape (1960 – 2019). Maps and diagrams were produced by applying photointerpretation techniques and a suitable land cover/ use classification system on the two photo-mosaics. Demographic and socioeconomic inventory data was also collected mainly from diachronic census reports of the Hellenic Statistical Authority and local sources. Data analysis of the temporal transformation of land cover/ use units showed that they are mainly located in the central and south-eastern part of the study area, which mainly includes the mountainous part of the landscape. The most significant change is the expansion of the dense forests that currently dominate the southern and eastern part of the landscape. In conclusion, the produced diagrams and maps of the land cover/ use evolution suggest that woody vegetation in the rural landscape of Mouzaki has significantly increased over the past 60 years at the expense of the open areas, especially grasslands and agricultural areas. Demographic changes, land abandonment and the transformation of traditional farming practices (e.g. agroforestry) were recognized as the main cause of the landscape change. This study is part of a broader research project entitled “Perspective of Agroforestry in Thessaly region: A research on social, environmental and economic aspects to enhance farmer participation”. The project is funded by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) and the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI).

Keywords: Agroforestry, Forest expansion, Land cover/ use changes, Mountainous and semi-mountainous areas

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Authors: Frederick Huie, Lauren Fusfeld, William Burchenal, Scott Howell, Alyssa McVey, Thomas F. Goss

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Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a degenerative brain disease characterized by memory loss and cognitive decline that presents a substantial economic burden for patients and health insurers in the US. This study evaluates the payer budget impact of the DISCERN™ test in the diagnosis and management of patients with symptoms of dementia evaluated for AD. DISCERN™ comprises three assays that assess critical factors related to AD that regulate memory, formation of synaptic connections among neurons, and levels of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain and can provide a quicker, more accurate diagnosis than tests in the current diagnostic pathway (CDP). An Excel-based model with a three-year horizon was developed to assess the budget impact of DISCERN™ compared with CDP in a Medicare Advantage plan with 1M beneficiaries. Model parameters were identified through a literature review and were verified through consultation with clinicians experienced in diagnosis and management of AD. The model assesses direct medical costs/savings for patients based on the following categories: •Diagnosis: costs of diagnosis using DISCERN™ and CDP. •False Negative (FN) diagnosis: incremental cost of care avoidable with a correct AD diagnosis and appropriately directed medication. •True Positive (TP) diagnosis: AD medication costs; cost from a later TP diagnosis with the CDP versus DISCERN™ in the year of diagnosis, and savings from the delay in AD progression due to appropriate AD medication in patients who are correctly diagnosed after a FN diagnosis.•False Positive (FP) diagnosis: cost of AD medication for patients who do not have AD. A one-way sensitivity analysis was conducted to assess the effect of varying key clinical and cost parameters ±10%. An additional scenario analysis was developed to evaluate the impact of individual inputs. In the base scenario, DISCERN™ is estimated to decrease costs by $4.75M over three years, equating to approximately $63.11 saved per test per year for a cohort followed over three years. While the diagnosis cost is higher with DISCERN™ than with CDP modalities, this cost is offset by the higher overall costs associated with CDP due to the longer time needed to receive a TP diagnosis and the larger number of patients who receive a FN diagnosis and progress more rapidly than if they had received appropriate AD medication. The sensitivity analysis shows that the three parameters with the greatest impact on savings are: reduced sensitivity of DISCERN™, improved sensitivity of the CDP, and a reduction in the percentage of disease progression that is avoided with appropriate AD medication. A scenario analysis in which DISCERN™ reduces the utilization for patients of computed tomography from 21% in the base case to 16%, magnetic resonance imaging from 37% to 27% and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker testing, positive emission tomography, electroencephalograms, and polysomnography testing from 4%, 5%, 10%, and 8%, respectively, in the base case to 0%, results in an overall three-year net savings of $14.5M. DISCERN™ improves the rate of accurate, definitive diagnosis of AD earlier in the disease and may generate savings for Medicare Advantage plans.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, budget, dementia, diagnosis.

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Authors: Mohammad Ibrahim Alladin

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The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was first published in 1970. Since its publication it has become one of most cited book in the social sciences. Over a million copies have been sold worldwide. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire was published in 1970 (New York: Herder and Herder), The book has caused a “revolution” in the education world and his theory has been examined and analysed. It has influenced educational policy, curriculum development and teacher education. The revolution started half a century ago. “Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed develops a theory of education fitted to the needs of the disenfranchised and marginalized members of capitalist societies. Combining educational and political philosophy, the book offers an analysis of oppression and a theory of liberation. Freire believes that traditional education serves to support the dominance of the powerful within society and thereby maintain the powerful’s social, political, and economic status quo. To overcome the oppression endemic to an exploitative society, education must be remade to inspire and enable the oppressed in their struggle for liberation. This new approach to education focuses on consciousness-raising, dialogue, and collaboration between teacher and student in the effort to achieve greater humanization for all. For Freire, education is political and functions either to preserve the current social order or to transform it. The theories of education and revolutionary action he offers in Pedagogy of the Oppressed are addressed educators committed to the struggle for liberation from oppression. Freire’s own commitment to this struggle developed through years of teaching literacy to Brazilian and Chilean peasants and laborers. His efforts at educational and political reform resulted in a brief period of imprisonment followed exile from his native Brazil for fifteen years. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed begins Freire asserts the importance of consciousness-raising, or conscientização, as the means enabling the oppressed to recognize their oppression and commit to the effort to overcome it, taking full responsibility for themselves in the struggle for liberation. He addresses the “fear of freedom,” which inhibits the oppressed from assuming this responsibility. He also cautions against the dangers of sectarianism, which can undermine the revolutionary purpose as well as serve as a refuge for the committed conservative. Freire provides an alternative view of education by attacking tradition education and knowledge. He is highly critical of how is imparted and how knowledge is structured that limits the learner’s thinking. Hence, education becomes oppressive and school functions as an institution of social control. Since its publication, education has gone through a series of reforms and in some areas total transformation. This paper addresses the following: The role of education in social transformation The teacher/learner relationship :Critical thinking The paper essentially examines what happened in the last fifty years since Freire’s book. It seeks to explain what happened to Freire’s education revolution, and what is the status of the movement that started almost fifty years ago.

Keywords: pedagogy, reform, curriculum, teacher education

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Authors: Małgorzata Golonka, Jadwiga Laska

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Among self-healing materials, the most unexplored group are thermoplastic polymers. These polymers are used not only to produce packaging with a relatively short life but also to obtain coatings, insulation, casings, or parts of machines and devices. Due to its exceptional resistance to weather conditions, hydrophobicity, sufficient mechanical strength, and ease of extrusion, polyethylene is used in the production of polymer pipelines and as an insulating layer for steel pipelines. Polyethylene or PE coated steel pipelines can be used in difficult conditions such as underground or underwater installations. Both installation and use under such conditions are associated with high stresses and consequently the formation of microdamages in the structure of the material, loss of its integrity and final applicability. The ideal solution would be to include a self-healing system in the polymer material. In the presented study the behavior of resin-coated microcapsules in the extrusion process of low-density polyethylene was examined. Microcapsules are a convenient element of the repair system because they can be filled with appropriate reactive substances to ensure the repair process, but the main problem is their durability under processing conditions. Rapeseed oil, which has a relatively high boiling point of 240⁰C and low volatility, was used as the core material that simulates the reactive agents. The capsule shell, which is a key element responsible for its mechanical strength, was obtained by in situ polymerising urea-formaldehyde, melamine-urea-formaldehyde or melamine-formaldehyde resin on the surface of oil droplets dispersed in water. The strength of the capsules was compared based on the shell material, and in addition, microcapsules with single- and multilayer shells were obtained using different combinations of the chemical composition of the resins. For example, the first layer of appropriate tightness and stiffness was made of melamine-urea-formaldehyde resin, and the second layer was a melamine-formaldehyde reinforcing layer. The size, shape, distribution of capsule diameters and shell thickness were determined using digital optical microscopy and electron microscopy. The efficiency of encapsulation (i.e., the presence of rapeseed oil as the core) and the tightness of the shell were determined by FTIR spectroscopic examination. The mechanical strength and distribution of microcapsules in polyethylene were tested by extruding samples of crushed low-density polyethylene mixed with microcapsules in a ratio of 1 and 2.5% by weight. The extrusion process was carried out in a mini extruder at a temperature of 150⁰C. The capsules obtained had a diameter range of 70-200 µm. FTIR analysis confirmed the presence of rapeseed oil in both single- and multilayer shell microcapsules. Microscopic observations of cross sections of the extrudates confirmed the presence of both intact and cracked microcapsules. However, the melamine-formaldehyde resin shells showed higher processing strength compared to that of the melamine-urea-formaldehyde coating and the urea-formaldehyde coating. Capsules with a urea-formaldehyde shell work very well in resin coating systems and cement composites, i.e., in pressureless processing and moulding conditions. The addition of another layer of melamine-formaldehyde coating to both the melamine-urea-formaldehyde and melamine-formaldehyde resin layers significantly increased the number of microcapsules undamaged during the extrusion process. The properties of multilayer coatings were also determined and compared with each other using computer modelling.

Keywords: self-healing polymers, polyethylene, microcapsules, extrusion

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Authors: Victoria C. Valdebenito

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Located within the context of accelerating globalization in the 21^st-century knowledge society, this paper focuses on one selected university in Chile at which radical curriculum policy changes have been taking place, diverging from the traditional curriculum in Chile at the undergraduate level as a section of a larger investigation. Using a ‘policy trajectory’ framework, and guided by the interpretivist approach to research, interview transcripts and institutional documents were analyzed in relation to the meso (university administration) and the micro (academics) level. Inside the case study, participants from the university administration and academic levels were selected both via snow-ball technique and purposive selection, thus they had different levels of seniority, with some participating actively in the curriculum reform processes. Guided by an interpretivist approach to research, documents and interview transcripts were analyzed to reveal major themes emerging from the data. A further ‘bigger picture’ analysis guided by critical theory was then undertaken, involving interrogation of underlying ideologies and how political and economic interests influence the cultural production of policy. The case-study university was selected because it represents a traditional and old case of university setting in the country, undergoing curriculum changes based on international trends such as the competency model and the liberal arts. Also, it is representative of a particular socioeconomic sector of the country. Access to the university was gained through email contact. Qualitative research methods were used, namely interviews and analysis of institutional documents. In all, 18 people were interviewed. The number was defined by when the saturation criterion was met. Semi-structured interview schedules were based on the four research questions about influences, policy texts, policy enactment and longer-term outcomes. Triangulation of information was used for the analysis. While there was no intention to generalize the specific findings of the case study, the results of the research were used as a focus for engagement with broader themes, often evident in global higher education policy developments. The research results were organized around major themes in three of the four contexts of the ‘policy trajectory’. Regarding the context of influences and the context of policy text production, themes relate to hegemony exercised by first world countries’ universities in the higher education field, its associated neoliberal ideology, with accountability and the discourse of continuous improvement, the local responses to those pressures, and the value of interdisciplinarity. Finally, regarding the context of policy practices and effects (enactment), themes emerged around the impacts of the curriculum changes on university staff, students, and resistance amongst academics. The research concluded with a few recommendations that potentially provide ‘food for thought’ beyond the localized settings of this study, as well as possibilities for further research.

Keywords: curriculum, global-local dynamics, higher education, policy, sociology of education

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Authors: Alejandra Castillo-Arias, Santiago Amézquita-Murcia, Golber Carvajal-Lavi, Carlos M. Zuluaga-Domínguez

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The intricate relationship between health and nutrition has driven the food industry to seek healthier and more sustainable alternatives. A key strategy currently employed is the reduction of saturated fats and the incorporation of ingredients that align with new consumer trends. Modified starch, a polysaccharide widely used in baking, also serves as a functional ingredient to boost dietary fiber content. However, its use in puff pastry remains challenging due to the technological difficulties in achieving a buttery pastry with the necessary strength to create thin, flaky layers. This study explored the potential of incorporating modified starch into puff pastry formulations. To evaluate the physicochemical properties of wheat flour mixed with modified starch, five different flour samples were prepared: T1, T2, T3, and T4, containing 10g, 20g, 30g, and 40g of modified starch per 100 g mixture, respectively, alongside a control sample (C) with no added starch. The analysis focused on various physicochemical indices, including the Water Absorption Index (WAI), Water Solubility Index (WSI), Swelling Power (SP), and Water Retention Capacity (WRC). The puff pastry was further characterized by color measurement and sensory analysis. For the preparation of the puff pastry dough, the flour, modified starch, and salt were mixed, followed by the addition of water until a homogenous dough was achieved. The margarine was later incorporated into the dough, which was folded and rolled multiple times to create the characteristic layers of puff pastry. The dough was then cut into equal pieces, baked at 170°C, and allowed to cool. The results indicated that the addition of modified starch did not significantly alter the specific volume or texture of the puff pastries, as reflected by the stable WAI and SP values across the samples. However, the WRC increased with higher starch content, highlighting the hydrophilic nature of the modified starch, which necessitated additional water during dough preparation. Color analysis revealed significant variations in the L* (lightness) and a* (red-green) parameters, with no consistent relationship between the modified starch treatments and the control. However, the b* (yellow-blue) parameter showed a strong correlation across most samples, except for treatment T3. Thus, modified starch affected the a* component of the CIELAB color spectrum, influencing the reddish hue of the puff pastries. Variations in baking time due to increased water content in the dough likely contributed to differences in lightness among the samples. Sensory analysis revealed that consumers preferred the sample with a 20% starch substitution (T2), which was rated similarly to the control in terms of texture. However, treatment T3 exhibited unusual behavior in texture analysis, and the color analysis showed that treatment T1 most closely resembled the control, indicating that starch addition is most noticeable to consumers in the visual aspect of the product. In conclusion, while the modified starch successfully maintained the desired texture and internal structure of puff pastry, its impact on water retention and color requires careful consideration in product formulation. This study underscores the importance of balancing product quality with consumer expectations when incorporating modified starches in baked goods.

Keywords: consumer preferences, modified starch, physicochemical properties, puff pastry

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Authors: Liya Abraham

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Eritrea is located along the Red Sea, north of the Horn of Africa, between Djibouti and Sudan and has a population of about 3.2 million as of 2010. It has six administrative regions; Anseba, Debub, Debubawi K’eyih Bahri, Gash-Barka, Ma'akel, and Semenawi K’eyih Bahri. Eritrea has got its independence in 1991 after 30 years war of liberation. The country is blessed with various medicinal flora and fauna, and marine and terrestrial biodiversity. Traditional Medicine (TM) has been an integral part of the Eritrean culture for centuries. So far, more than 19 TM modalities have been recognized, and are broadly categorized as; herbal, procedure-based and spiritual. Despite the availability of modern medicine to the majority of the population, TM is still widely practiced. The rationale behind widespread use is accessibility, affordability and cultural acceptability. Hence, TM is of great contribution to the Eritrean health care system. As a matter of fact, harnessing the potential contribution of effective and safe TM in order to attain Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has been emphasized in the WHO TM strategy 2014-2023. The Eritrean TM, however, was operating without regulation and reliable scientific justification behind its safety and efficacy. Thus, the Ministry of Health (MoH), in recognition of the role of TM in primary healthcare and safeguard public health, established a regulatory body for TM so-called as Traditional Medicine Unit (TMU) in 2012. The mission of the unit is to ensure rational TM use through an integrated health service delivery system and contribute to the country’s economic and social development. The unit has established its national TM policy in 2017. The activities of the unit are guided by the National TM Advisory Committee (TMAC), responsible for the provision of technical assistance and advisory role. Moreover, the Legal Framework and Code of Ethics and Practice which provide a legal basis for the regulation of TM have also been drafted. In recognition of the importance of TM research and development, the unit launched a nationwide TM survey in 2017 and had surveyed two zones (Gash-Barka and Debub). The findings of the survey were subjected to a research dissemination workshop and publication in international journals. Furthermore, TM-related adverse events reporting tool (Green Form) aiming to guide regulatory interventions and researches have been established by the unit, and ever since reports are flowing. The unit has also been offering training to THPs, pharmacy students and health care professionals regarding TM and its regulatory activities. In addition, as part of the establishment of the national medicinal plants' database and herbal monograph, more than 329 and 30 medicinal plants, have been compiled respectively. In conclusion, TM is still widely accepted and practiced in Eritrea. The TMU ever since its establishment is endeavoring to ensure the safety and efficacy of the TM, and its integration in the mainstream health service delivery system.

Keywords: efficacy, regulation, safety, traditional medicine, traditional medicine unit, universal health coverage

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Authors: Álvaro Turriago-Hoyos

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Most research tends to see innovation as an explanatory factor in achieving high levels of competitiveness and productivity. More recent studies have begun to analyze the determinants of innovation in the services sector as opposed to the much-discussed industrial sector of a country’s economy. This research paper focuses on the services sector in Colombia, one of Latin America’s fastest growing and biggest economies. Over the past decade, much of Colombia’s economic expansion has relied on commodity exports (mainly oil and coffee) whilst the industrial sector has performed relatively poorly. Such developments highlight the potential of the innovative role played by the services sector of the Colombian economy and its future growth prospects. This research paper analyzes the relationship between inputs, which at the same time are internal sources of innovation (such as R&D activities), and external sources that are improved by technology acquisition. The outputs are basically the four kinds of innovation that the OECD Oslo Manual recognizes: product, process, marketing and organizational innovations. The instrument used to measure this input-output relationship is based on Knowledge Production Function approaches. We run Probit models in order to identify the existing relationships between the above inputs and outputs, but also to identify spill-overs derived from interactions of the components of the value chain of the services firms analyzed: customers, suppliers, competitors, and complementary firms. Data are obtained from the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics for the period 2008 to 2013 published in the II and III Colombian National Innovation Survey. A short summary of the results obtained lead to conclude that firm size and a firm’s level of technological development turn out to be important discriminating factors for the description of the innovative process at the firm level. The model’s outcomes show a positive impact on the probability of introducing any kind of innovation both on R&D and Technology Acquisition investment. Also, cooperation agreements with customers, research institutes, competitors, and the suppliers are significant. Belonging to a particular industrial group is an important determinant but only to product and organizational innovation. It is possible to establish that Health Services, Education, Computer, Wholesale trade, and Financial Intermediation are the ISIC sectors, which report the highest number of frequencies of the considered set of firms. Those five sectors of the sixteen considered, in all cases, explained more than half of the total of all kinds of innovations. Product Innovation, which is followed by Marketing Innovation, gets the highest results. Displaying the same set of firms distinguishing by size, and belonging to high and low tech services sector shows that the larger the firms the larger a number of innovations, but also that always high-tech firms show a better innovation performance.

Keywords: Colombia, determinants of innovation, innovation, services sector

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Authors: Tatiana Ponomarenko, Oksana Marinina, Marina Nevskaya

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Modern corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a sphere of multilevel responsibility of a company toward society represented by various stakeholders. The relevance of CSR management grows due to the active development of socially responsible investing (principles for responsible investment) taking into account factors of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG), growing attention of the investment community in general to the long-term stability of companies and the quality of control of nonfinancial risks. The modern approach to CSR strategic management is aimed at the creation of trustful relationships with stakeholders, on the basis of which a contribution to the sustainable development of companies, regions, and national economics is insured. However, the practical concepts of social responsibility in mining companies are different, which leads to various degrees of application of CSR. A number of companies implement CSR using a traditional (limited) understanding of responsibility toward employees and counteragents, the others understand CSR much wider and try to use leverages of efficient cooperation. As in large mining companies the scope of CSR measures is diverse and characterized by different indices, the study was aimed at evaluating CSR efficiency on the basis of a proprietary methodology and determining the level of development of CSR management in terms of anti-crisis, reactive and proactive development. The methodology of the research includes analysis of integrated global reporting initiative (GRI) reports of large mining companies; choice of most representative sectoral agents by a criterion of the regularity of issuance and publication of reports; calculation of indices of evaluation of CSR level of the selected companies in dynamics. The methodology of evaluation of CSR level is based on a rating score of changes in standard indices of GRI reports by economic, environmental, and social directions. Result. By the results of the analysis, companies of fuel and energy and metallurgic complexes, in overwhelming majority, reflecting three indices out of a wide range of possible indicators of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), were selected for the study. The evaluation of the scopes of CSR of the companies Gazprom, LUKOIL, Metalloinvest, Nornikel, Rosneft, Severstal, SIBUR, SUEK corresponds to the reactive type of development according to a scale of CSR strategic management, which is the average value out of the possible values. The chief drawback is that companies, in the process of analyzing global goals, often choose the goals which relate to their own activities, paying insufficient attention to the interests of the stakeholders inside the country. This fact evidences the necessity of searching for more effective mechanisms of CSR control. Acknowledgment: This article is prepared within grant support of the RFBR, project 19-510-44013 'Development of the concept of mineral resources value formation in the context of sustainable development in resource-oriented economies'.

Keywords: sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, development strategies, efficiency assessment

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Authors: Dario Milani, Guido Morgenthal

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Fluid dynamic computation of wind caused forces on bluff bodies e.g light flexible civil structures or high incidence of ground approaching airplane wings, is one of the major criteria governing their design. For such structures a significant dynamic response may result, requiring the usage of small scale devices as guide-vanes in bridge design to control these effects. The focus of this paper is on the numerical simulation of the bluff body problem involving multiscale phenomena induced by small scale devices. One of the solution methods for the CFD simulation that is relatively successful in this class of applications is the Vortex Particle Method (VPM). The method is based on a grid free Lagrangian formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations, where the velocity field is modeled by particles representing local vorticity. These vortices are being convected due to the free stream velocity as well as diffused. This representation yields the main advantages of low numerical diffusion, compact discretization as the vorticity is strongly localized, implicitly accounting for the free-space boundary conditions typical for this class of FSI problems, and a natural representation of the vortex creation process inherent in bluff body flows. When the particle resolution reaches the Kolmogorov dissipation length, the method becomes a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). However, it is crucial to note that any solution method aims at balancing the computational cost against the accuracy achievable. In the classical VPM method, if the fluid domain is discretized by Np particles, the computational cost is O(Np2). For the coupled FSI problem of interest, for example large structures such as long-span bridges, the aerodynamic behavior may be influenced or even dominated by small structural details such as barriers, handrails or fairings. For such geometrically complex and dimensionally large structures, resolving the complete domain with the conventional VPM particle discretization might become prohibitively expensive to compute even for moderate numbers of particles. It is possible to reduce this cost either by reducing the number of particles or by controlling its local distribution. It is also possible to increase the accuracy of the solution without increasing substantially the global computational cost by computing a correction of the particle-particle interaction in some regions of interest. In this paper different strategies are presented in order to extend the conventional VPM method to reduce the computational cost whilst resolving the required details of the flow. The methods include temporal sub stepping to increase the accuracy of the particles convection in certain regions as well as dynamically re-discretizing the particle map to locally control the global and the local amount of particles. Finally, these methods will be applied on a test case and the improvements in the efficiency as well as the accuracy of the proposed extension to the method are presented. The important benefits in terms of accuracy and computational cost of the combination of these methods will be thus presented as long as their relevant applications.

Keywords: adaptation, fluid dynamic, remeshing, substepping, vortex particle method

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Authors: Dada Durojaye Joshua

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The study examined the combined effect of internal control system and whistle blowing policy while it pursues the following specific objectives, which are to: examine the relationship between monitoring activities and fraud’s detection and prevention; investigate the effect of control activities on fraud’s detection and prevention in Nigerian Deposit Money Banks (DMBs). The population of the study comprises the 89,275 members of staff in the 20 DMBs in Nigeria as at June 2019. Purposive and convenient sampling techniques were used in the selection of the 80 members of staff at the supervisory level of the Internal Audit Departments of the head offices of the sampled banks, that is, selecting 4 respondents (Audit Executive/Head, Internal Control; Manager, Operation Risk Management; Head, Financial Crime Control; the Chief Compliance Officer) from each of the 20 DMBs in Nigeria. A standard questionnaire was adapted from 2017/2018 Internal Control Questionnaire and Assessment, Bureau of Financial Monitoring and Accountability Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. It was modified to serve the purpose for which it was meant to serve. It was self-administered to gather data from the 80 respondents at the respective headquarters of the sampled banks at their respective locations across Nigeria. Two likert-scales was used in achieving the stated objectives. A logit regression was used in analysing the stated hypotheses. It was found that effect of monitoring activities using the construct of conduct of ongoing or separate evaluation (COSE), evaluation and communication of deficiencies (ECD) revealed that monitoring activities is significant and positively related to fraud’s detection and prevention in Nigerian DMBS. So also, it was found that control activities using selection and development of control activities (SDCA), selection and development of general controls over technology to prevent financial fraud (SDGCTF), development of control activities that gives room for transparency through procedures that put policies into actions (DCATPPA) contributed to influence fraud detection and prevention in the Nigerian DMBs. In addition, it was found that transparency, accountability, reliability, independence and value relevance have significant effect on fraud detection and prevention ibn Nigerian DMBs. The study concluded that the board of directors demonstrated independence from management and exercises oversight of the development and performance of internal control. Part of the conclusion was that there was accountability on the part of the owners and preparers of the financial reports and that the system gives room for the members of staff to account for their responsibilities. Among the recommendations was that the management of Nigerian DMBs should create and establish a standard Internal Control System strong enough to deter fraud in order to encourage continuity of operations by ensuring liquidity, solvency and going concern of the banks. It was also recommended that the banks create a structure that encourages whistleblowing to complement the internal control system.

Keywords: internal control, whistleblowing, deposit money banks, fraud prevention, fraud detection

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Authors: Idoia Landa Oregi, Itsaso Gonzalez Ochoantesana, Olatz Nicolas Buxens, Carlo Ferretti

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The impact of citizens in urban transformations has become increasingly important in the pursuit of creating citizen-centered cities. Citizens at the forefront of the urban transformation process are key to establishing resilient, sustainable, and inclusive cities that cater to the needs of all residents. Therefore, collecting data and information directly from citizens is crucial for the sustainable development of cities. Within this context, public participation becomes a pillar for acquiring the necessary information from citizens. Public participation in urban transformation processes establishes a more responsive, equitable, and resilient urban environment. This approach cultivates a sense of shared responsibility and collective progress in building cities that truly serve the well-being of all residents. However, the implementation of public participation practices often overlooks strategies to effectively engage citizens in the processes, resulting in non-successful participatory outcomes. Therefore, this research focuses on identifying and analyzing the critical aspects of citizen engagement during the same participatory urban transformation process in different European contexts: Ermua (Spain), Elva (Estonia) and Matera (Italy). The participatory neighborhood regeneration process is divided into three main stages, to turn social districts into inclusive and smart neighborhoods: (i) the strategic level, (ii) the design level, and (iii) the implementation level. In the initial stage, the focus is on diagnosing the neighborhood and creating a shared vision with the community. The second stage centers around collaboratively designing various action plans to foster inclusivity and intelligence while pushing local economic development within the district. Finally, the third stage ensures the proper co-implementation of the designed actions in the neighborhood. To this date, the presented results critically analyze the key aspects of engagement in the first stage of the methodology, the strategic plan, in the three above-mentioned contexts. It is a multifaceted study that incorporates three case studies to shed light on the various perspectives and strategies adopted by each city. The results indicate that despite of the various cultural contexts, all cities face similar barriers when seeking to enhance engagement. Accordingly, the study identifies specific challenges within the participatory approach across the three cities such as the existence of discontented citizens, communication gaps, inconsistent participation, or administration resistance. Consequently, key learnings of the process indicate that a collaborative sphere needs to be cultivated, educating both citizens and administrations in the aspects of co-governance, giving these practices the appropriate space and their own communication channels. This study is part of the DROP project, funded by the European Union, which aims to develop a citizen-centered urban renewal methodology to transform the social districts into smart and inclusive neighborhoods.

Keywords: citizen-centred cities, engagement, public participation, urban transformation

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Authors: Dada Durojaye Joshua

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The study examined the combined effect of internal control system and whistle blowing policy while it pursues the following specific objectives, which are to: examine the relationship between monitoring activities and fraud’s detection and prevention; investigate the effect of control activities on fraud’s detection and prevention in Nigerian Deposit Money Banks (DMBs). The population of the study comprises the 89,275 members of staff in the 20 DMBs in Nigeria as at June 2019. Purposive and convenient sampling techniques were used in the selection of the 80 members of staff at the supervisory level of the Internal Audit Departments of the head offices of the sampled banks, that is, selecting 4 respondents (Audit Executive/Head, Internal Control; Manager, Operation Risk Management; Head, Financial Crime Control; the Chief Compliance Officer) from each of the 20 DMBs in Nigeria. A standard questionnaire was adapted from 2017/2018 Internal Control Questionnaire and Assessment, Bureau of Financial Monitoring and Accountability Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. It was modified to serve the purpose for which it was meant to serve. It was self-administered to gather data from the 80 respondents at the respective headquarters of the sampled banks at their respective locations across Nigeria. Two likert-scales was used in achieving the stated objectives. A logit regression was used in analysing the stated hypotheses. It was found that effect of monitoring activities using the construct of conduct of ongoing or separate evaluation (COSE), evaluation and communication of deficiencies (ECD) revealed that monitoring activities is significant and positively related to fraud’s detection and prevention in Nigerian DMBS. So also, it was found that control activities using selection and development of control activities (SDCA), selection and development of general controls over technology to prevent financial fraud (SDGCTF), development of control activities that gives room for transparency through procedures that put policies into actions (DCATPPA) contributed to influence fraud detection and prevention in the Nigerian DMBs. In addition, it was found that transparency, accountability, reliability, independence and value relevance have significant effect on fraud detection and prevention ibn Nigerian DMBs. The study concluded that the board of directors demonstrated independence from management and exercises oversight of the development and performance of internal control. Part of the conclusion was that there was accountability on the part of the owners and preparers of the financial reports and that the system gives room for the members of staff to account for their responsibilities. Among the recommendations was that the management of Nigerian DMBs should create and establish a standard Internal Control System strong enough to deter fraud in order to encourage continuity of operations by ensuring liquidity, solvency and going concern of the banks. It was also recommended that the banks create a structure that encourages whistleblowing to complement the internal control system.

Keywords: internal control, whistleblowing, deposit money banks, fraud prevention, fraud detection

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Authors: Gleyce Assis Da Silva Barbosa

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In recent years, we have witnessed a vertiginous growth of large education companies. Daughters of national and world capital, these companies expand both through consolidated physical networks in the form of branches spread across the territory and through institutional networks such as business networks through mergers, acquisitions, creation of new companies and influence. They do this by incorporating small, medium and large schools and universities, teaching systems and other products and services. They are also able to weave their webs directly or indirectly in philanthropic circles, limited partnerships, family businesses and even in public education through various mechanisms of outsourcing, privatization and commercialization of products for the sector. Although the growth of these groups in basic education seems to us a recent phenomenon in peripheral countries such as Brazil, its diffusion is closely linked to higher education conglomerates and other sectors of the economy forming oligopolies, which began to expand in the 1990s with strong state support and through political reforms that redefined its role, transforming it into a fundamental agent in the formation of guidelines to boost the incorporation of neoliberal logic. This expansion occurred through the objectification of education, commodifying it and transforming students into consumer clients. Financial power combined with the neo-liberalization of state public policies allowed the profusion of social exclusion, the increase of individuals without access to basic services, deindustrialization, automation, capital volatility and the indetermination of the economy; in addition, this process causes capital to be valued and devalued at rates never seen before, which together generates various impacts such as the precariousness of work. Understanding the connection between these processes, which engender the economy, allows us to see their consequences in labor relations and in the territory. In this sense, it is necessary to analyze the geographic-economic context and the role of the facilitating agents of this process, which can give us clues about the ongoing transformations and the directions of education in the national and even international scenario since this process is linked to the multiple scales of financial globalization. Therefore, the present research has the general objective of analyzing the socio-spatial impacts of financialization and the formation of oligopolies in Brazilian basic education. For this, the survey of laws, data, and public policies on the subject in question was used as a methodology. As a methodology, the work was based on some data from these companies available on websites for investors. Survey of information from global and national companies that operate in Brazilian basic education. In addition to mapping the expansion of educational oligopolies using public data on the location of schools. With this, the research intends to provide information about the ongoing commodification process in the country. Discuss the consequences of the oligopolization of education, considering the impacts that financialization can bring to teaching work.

Keywords: financialization, oligopolies, education, Brazil

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Authors: Boris G. German, Edward Jiménez, Sebastián Espinoza, Andrés G. Chico, Ricardo A. Narváez

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The unique flora and fauna of The Galapagos Islands has leveraged a tourism-driven growth in the islands. Nonetheless, such development is energy-intensive and requires thousands of gallons of diesel each year for thermoelectric electricity generation. The needed transport of fossil fuels from the continent has generated oil spillages and affectations to the fragile ecosystem of the islands. The Zero Fossil Fuels initiative for The Galapagos proposed by the Ecuadorian government as an alternative to reduce the use of fossil fuels in the islands, considers the replacement of diesel in thermoelectric generators, by Jatropha curcas vegetable oil. However, the Jatropha oil supply cannot entirely cover yet the demand for electricity generation in Galapagos. Within this context, the present work aims to provide an optimization model that can be used as a selection criterion for approving new Jatropha Curcas collection points in rural areas of Manabi-Ecuador. For this purpose, existing Jatropha collection points in Manabi were grouped under three regions: north (7 collection points), center (4 collection points) and south (9 collection points). Field work was carried out in every region in order to characterize the collection points, to establish local Jatropha supply and to determine transportation costs. Data collection was complemented using GIS software and an objective function was defined in order to determine the profit associated to Jatropha oil production. The market price of both Jatropha oil and residual cake, were considered for the total revenue; whereas Jatropha price, transportation and oil extraction costs were considered for the total cost. The tonnes of Jatropha fruit and seed, transported from collection points to the extraction plant, were considered as variables. The maximum and minimum amount of the collected Jatropha from each region constrained the optimization problem. The supply chain was optimized using linear programming in order to maximize the profits. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was performed in order to find a profit-based criterion for the acceptance of future collection points in Manabi. The maximum profit reached a value of $ 4,616.93 per year, which represented a total Jatropha collection of 62.3 tonnes Jatropha per year. The northern region of Manabi had the biggest collection share (69%), followed by the southern region (17%). The criteria for accepting new Jatropha collection points in the rural areas of Manabi can be defined by the current maximum profit of the zone and by the variation in the profit when collection points are removed one at a time. The definition of new feasible collection points plays a key role in the supply chain associated to Jatropha oil production. Therefore, a mathematical model that assists decision makers in establishing new collection points while assuring profitability, contributes to guarantee a continued Jatropha oil supply for Galapagos and a sustained economic growth in the rural areas of Ecuador.

Keywords: collection points, Jatropha curcas, linear programming, supply chain

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Authors: Seung Ah Lee, Sunghyun Cho, Kyong Mee Chung

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Rapid population aging became a worldwide demographic phenomenon due to rising life expectancy and declining fertility rates. Considering the current increasing rate of population aging, it is assumed that Korean society enters into a ‘super-aged’ society in 10 years, in which people aged 65 years or older account for more than 20% of entire population. In line with this trend, ICT services aimed to help elderly people to improve the quality of life have been suggested. However, existing ICT services mainly focus on supporting health or nursing care and are somewhat limited to meet a variety of specialized needs and challenges of this population. It is pointed out that the majority of services have been driven by technology-push policies. Given that the usage of ICT services greatly vary on individuals’ socio-economic status (SES), physical and psychosocial needs, this study systematically categorized elderly population into sub-groups and identified their needs and characteristics related to ICT usage in detail. First, three assessment criteria (demographic variables including SES, cognitive functioning level, and emotional functioning level) were identified based on previous literature, experts’ opinions, and focus group interview. Second, survey questions for needs assessment were developed based on the criteria and administered to 600 respondents from a national probability sample. The questionnaire consisted of 67 items concerning demographic information, experience on ICT services and information technology (IT) devices, quality of life and cognitive functioning, etc. As the result of survey, age (60s, 70s, 80s), education level (college graduates or more, middle and high school, less than primary school) and cognitive functioning level (above the cut-off, below the cut-off) were considered the most relevant factors for categorization and 18 sub-groups were identified. Finally, 18 sub-groups were clustered into 3 groups according to following similarities; computer usage rate, difficulties in using ICT, and familiarity with current or previous job. Group 1 (‘active users’) included those who with high cognitive function and educational level in their 60s and 70s. They showed favorable and familiar attitudes toward ICT services and used the services for ‘joyful life’, ‘intelligent living’ and ‘relationship management’. Group 2 (‘potential users’), ranged from age of 60s to 80s with high level of cognitive function and mostly middle to high school graduates, reported some difficulties in using ICT and their expectations were lower than in group 1 despite they were similar to group 1 in areas of needs. Group 3 (‘limited users’) consisted of people with the lowest education level or cognitive function, and 90% of group reported difficulties in using ICT. However, group 3 did not differ from group 2 regarding the level of expectation for ICT services and their main purpose of using ICT was ‘safe living’. This study developed a systematic needs assessment tool and identified three sub-groups of elderly ICT users based on multi-criteria. It is implied that current cognitive function plays an important role in using ICT and determining needs among the elderly population. Implications and limitations were further discussed.

Keywords: elderly population, ICT, needs assessment, population aging

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Authors: Payam Rasoulnia, Seyyed Mohammad Mousavi

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Heavy fuel oil firing power plants produce huge amounts of ashes as solid wastes, which seriously need to be managed and processed. Recycling precious metals of V and Ni from these oil-fired ashes which are considered as secondary sources of metals recovery, not only has a great economic importance for use in industry, but also it is noteworthy from the environmental point of view. Vanadium is an important metal that is mainly used in the steel industry because of its physical properties of hardness, tensile strength, and fatigue resistance. It is also utilized in oxidation catalysts, titanium–aluminum alloys and vanadium redox batteries. In the present study bioleaching of vanadium and nickel from an oil-fired ash sample was conducted using Aspergillus niger fungus. The experiments were carried out using spent-medium bioleaching method in both Erlenmeyer flasks and also bubble column bioreactor, in order to compare them together. In spent-medium bioleaching the solid waste is not in direct contact with the fungus and consequently the fungal growth is not retarded and maximum organic acids are produced. In this method the metals are leached through biogenic produced organic acids present in the medium. In shake flask experiments the fungus was cultured for 15 days, where the maximum production of organic acids was observed, while in bubble column bioreactor experiments a 7 days fermentation period was applied. The amount of produced organic acids were measured using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and the results showed that depending on the fermentation period and the scale of experiments, the fungus has different major lixiviants. In flask tests, citric acid was the main produced organic acid by the fungus and the other organic acids including gluconic, oxalic, and malic were excreted in much lower concentrations, while in the bioreactor oxalic acid was the main lixiviant and it was produced considerably. In Erlenmeyer flasks during 15 days fermentation of Aspergillus niger, 8080 ppm citric acid and 1170 ppm oxalic acid was produced, while in bubble column bioreactor over 7 days of fungal growth, 17185 ppm oxalic acid and 1040 ppm citric acid was secreted. The leaching tests using the spent-media obtained from both of fermentation experiments, were performed at the same conditions of leaching duration of 7 days, leaching temperature of 60 °C and pulp density up to 3% (w/v). The results revealed that in Erlenmeyer flask experiments 97% of V and 50% of Ni were extracted while using spent medium produced in bubble column bioreactor, V and Ni recoveries were achieved to 100% and 33%, respectively. These recovery yields indicate that in both scales almost total vanadium can be recovered, while nickel recovery was lower. With help of the bioreactor spent-medium nickel recovery yield was lower than that of obtained from the flask experiments, which it could be due to precipitation of some values of Ni in presence of high levels of oxalic acid existing in its spent medium.

Keywords: Aspergillus niger, bubble column bioreactor, oil-fired ash, spent-medium bioleaching

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Authors: Razieh Karimi Aghcheh, Christian Kubicek, Joseph Strauss, Gerhard Braus

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Filamentous fungi are of considerable economic and social significance for human health, nutrition and in white biotechnology. These organisms are dominant producers of a range of primary metabolites such as citric acid, microbial lipids (biodiesel) and higher unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs). In particular, they produce also important but structurally complex secondary metabolites with enormous therapeutic applications in pharmaceutical industry, for example: cephalosporin, penicillin, taxol, zeranol and ergot alkaloids. Several fungal secondary metabolites, which are significantly relevant to human health do not only include antibiotics, but also e.g. lovastatin, a well-known antihypercholesterolemic agent produced by Aspergillus. terreus, or aflatoxin, a carcinogen produced by A. flavus. In addition to their roles for human health and agriculture, some fungi are industrially and commercially important: Species of the ascomycete genus Hypocrea spp. (teleomorph of Trichoderma) have been demonstrated as efficient producer of highly active cellulolytic enzymes. This trait makes them effective in disrupting and depolymerization of lignocellulosic materials and thus applicable tools in number of biotechnological areas as diverse as clothes-washing detergent, animal feed, and pulp and fuel productions. Fungal LaeA/LAE1 (Loss of aflR Expression A) homologs their gene products act at the interphase between secondary metabolisms, cellulase production and development. Lack of the corresponding genes results in significant physiological changes including loss of secondary metabolite and lignocellulose degrading enzymes production. At the molecular level, the encoded proteins are presumably methyltransferases or demethylases which act directly or indirectly at heterochromatin and interact with velvet domain proteins. Velvet proteins bind to DNA and affect expression of secondary metabolites (SMs) genes and cellulases. The dynamic interplay between LaeA/LAE1, velvet proteins and additional interaction partners is the key for an understanding of the coordination of metabolic and morphological functions of fungi and is required for a biotechnological control of the formation of desired bioactive products. Aspergilli and Trichoderma represent different biotechnologically significant species with significant differences in the LaeA/LAE1-Velvet protein machinery and their target proteins. We, therefore, performed a comparative study of the interaction partners of this machinery and the dynamics of the various protein-protein interactions using our robust proteomic and mass spectrometry techniques. This enhances our knowledge about the fungal coordination of secondary metabolism, cellulase production and development and thereby will certainly improve recombinant fungal strain construction for the production of industrial secondary metabolite or lignocellulose hydrolytic enzymes.

Keywords: cellulases, LaeA/1, proteomics, secondary metabolites

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Authors: Meless Gebrie Bore, Lin Perry, Xiaoyue Xu, Andargachew Kassa, Marilyn Cruickshank

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Background: Adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) in Ethiopia face significant health challenges, particularly related to nutrition, which is essential for optimizing antiretroviral therapy (ART) outcomes. This population is vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies due to increased energy demands and the adverse effects of HIV, alongside rapid growth and low socio-economic status. Despite advances in ART, research on nutritional care for ALHIV in Ethiopia is limited. Integrated nutritional interventions are critical for improving health outcomes, yet comprehensive guidance is lacking. This study aimed to evaluate healthcare workers' practices in ART clinics, assess the nutritional status of ALHIV, and provide recommendations for enhancing nutritional care. Method: Cross-sectional surveys were conducted, recruiting 44 healthcare professionals and 384 ALHIV across ten public hospitals in Addis Ababa and Oromia regions. Participants were selected using purposive sampling for healthcare workers and proportionate random sampling for ALHIV engaged in ART services. Data was collected using a pre-tested structured questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative components facilitated by trained healthcare workers through the Kobo Toolbox program. Results: Findings revealed that while most healthcare workers conducted basic nutritional assessments, more sensitive methods were rarely used. Only 36.4% assessed dietary intake and 27.3% evaluated food security. Nutrition counseling was limited, with only 38.6% providing such services regularly. Health Care worker participants expressed dissatisfaction with the integration of nutrition services due to a lack of training and resources. Nutritional assessments revealed that 24.2% of ALHIV were classified as thin, 21.7% as stunted, and 34.9% as malnourished based on mid-upper arm circumference, with 19.4% experiencing severe acute malnutrition. These results highlight the urgent need and opportunities to improve nutritional support tailored to ALHIV-specific needs. Conclusion and Recommendations: Study findings identified evidence of substantial nutritional deficits and critical gaps in nutritional care for ALHIV in Ethiopian ART clinics. While basic assessment and counseling were generally practiced, limited use of more sensitive methods and inadequate integration of nutrition services hindered care effectiveness. To improve health outcomes, it is essential to enhance training for healthcare workers, develop standardized nutrition guidelines, and allocate resources effectively. Conducting further research with large, diverse samples and integrating comprehensive nutritional care alongside ART services will enable better matching of the nutritional needs of this vulnerable population.

Keywords: adolescents living with HIV(ALHIV), antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV, Ethiopia, malnutrition, nutritional support, stunting, thinness

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Authors: F. Iberraken, R. Medjoudj, D. Aissani

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The development of the smart grids concept is built around two separate definitions, namely: The European one oriented towards sustainable development and the American one oriented towards reliability and security of supply. In this paper, we have investigated reliability merits enabling decision-makers to provide a high quality of service. It is based on system behavior using interruptions and failures modeling and forecasting from one hand and on the contribution of information and communication technologies (ICT) to mitigate catastrophic ones such as blackouts from the other hand. It was found that this concept has been adopted by developing and emerging countries in short and medium terms followed by sustainability concept at long term planning. This work has highlighted the reliability merits such as: Benefits, opportunities, costs and risks considered as consistent units of measuring power customer satisfaction. From the decision making point of view, we have used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to achieve customer satisfaction, based on the reliability merits and the contribution of such energy resources. Certainly nowadays, fossil and nuclear ones are dominating energy production but great advances are already made to jump into cleaner ones. It was demonstrated that theses resources are not only environmentally but also economically and socially sustainable. The paper is organized as follows: Section one is devoted to the introduction, where an implicit review of smart grids development is given for the two main concepts (for USA and Europeans countries). The AHP method and the BOCR developments of reliability merits against power customer satisfaction are developed in section two. The benefits where expressed by the high level of availability, maintenance actions applicability and power quality. Opportunities were highlighted by the implementation of ICT in data transfer and processing, the mastering of peak demand control, the decentralization of the production and the power system management in default conditions. Costs were evaluated using cost-benefit analysis, including the investment expenditures in network security, becoming a target to hackers and terrorists, and the profits of operating as decentralized systems, with a reduced energy not supplied, thanks to the availability of storage units issued from renewable resources and to the current power lines (CPL) enabling the power dispatcher to manage optimally the load shedding. For risks, we have razed the adhesion of citizens to contribute financially to the system and to the utility restructuring. What is the degree of their agreement compared to the guarantees proposed by the managers about the information integrity? From technical point of view, have they sufficient information and knowledge to meet a smart home and a smart system? In section three, an application of AHP method is made to achieve power customer satisfaction based on the main energy resources as alternatives, using knowledge issued from a country that has a great advance in energy mutation. Results and discussions are given in section four. It was given us to conclude that the option to a given resource depends on the attitude of the decision maker (prudent, optimistic or pessimistic), and that status quo is neither sustainable nor satisfactory.

Keywords: reliability, AHP, renewable energy resources, smart grids

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Authors: Sara Mosteller, Larissa K. Samuelson, Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar, John P. Spencer

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This study was designed to examine how humans are able to teach and learn semantic information as well as cooperate in order to jointly achieve sophisticated goals. Specifically, we are measuring individual differences in how these abilities develop from foundational building blocks in early childhood. The current study adopts a paradigm for novel noun learning developed by Samuelson, Smith, Perry, and Spencer (2011) to a hyperscanning paradigm [Cui, Bryant and Reiss, 2012]. This project measures coordinated brain activity between a parent and child using simultaneous functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in pairs of 2.5, 3.5 and 4.5-year-old children and their parents. We are also separately testing pairs of adult friends. Children and parents, or adult friends, are seated across from one another at a table. The parent (in the developmental study) then teaches their child the names of novel toys. An experimenter then tests the child by presenting the objects in pairs and asking the child to retrieve one object by name. Children are asked to choose from both pairs of familiar objects and pairs of novel objects. In order to explore individual differences in cooperation with the same participants, each dyad plays a cooperative game of Jenga, in which their joint score is based on how many blocks they can remove from the tower as a team. A preliminary analysis of the noun-learning task showed that, when presented with 6 word-object mappings, children learned an average of 3 new words (50%) and that the number of objects learned by each child ranged from 2-4. Adults initially learned all of the new words but were variable in their later retention of the mappings, which ranged from 50-100%. We are currently examining differences in cooperative behavior during the Jenga playing game, including time spent discussing each move before it is made. Ongoing analyses are examining the social dynamics that might underlie the differences between words that were successfully learned and unlearned words for each dyad, as well as the developmental differences observed in the study. Additionally, the Jenga game is being used to better understand individual and developmental differences in social coordination during a cooperative task. At a behavioral level, the analysis maps periods of joint visual attention between participants during the word learning and the Jenga game, using head-mounted eye trackers to assess each participant’s first-person viewpoint during the session. We are also analyzing the coherence in brain activity between participants during novel word-learning and Jenga playing. The first hypothesis is that visual joint attention during the session will be positively correlated with both the number of words learned and with the number of blocks moved during Jenga before the tower falls. The next hypothesis is that successful communication of new words and success in the game will each be positively correlated with synchronized brain activity between the parent and child/the adult friends in cortical regions underlying social cognition, semantic processing, and visual processing. This study probes both the neural and behavioral mechanisms of learning and cooperation in a naturalistic, interactive and developmental context.

Keywords: communication, cooperation, development, interaction, neuroscience

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Authors: V. E. Messerle, O. A. Lavrichshev, A. B. Ustimenko

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Currently and in the foreseeable future (up to 2100), the global economy is oriented to the use of organic fuel, mostly, solid fuels, the share of which constitutes 40% in the generation of electric power. Therefore, the development of technologies for their effective and environmentally friendly application represents a priority problem nowadays. This work presents the results of thermodynamic and experimental investigations of plasma technology for processing of low-grade coals. The use of this technology for producing target products (synthesis gas, hydrogen, technical carbon, and valuable components of mineral mass of coals) meets the modern environmental and economic requirements applied to basic industrial sectors. The plasma technology of coal processing for the production of synthesis gas from the coal organic mass (COM) and valuable components from coal mineral mass (CMM) is highly promising. Its essence is heating the coal dust by reducing electric arc plasma to the complete gasification temperature, when the COM converts into synthesis gas, free from particles of ash, nitrogen oxides and sulfur. At the same time, oxides of the CMM are reduced by the carbon residue, producing valuable components, such as technical silicon, ferrosilicon, aluminum and carbon silicon, as well as microelements of rare metals, such as uranium, molybdenum, vanadium, titanium. Thermodynamic analysis of the process was made using a versatile computation program TERRA. Calculations were carried out in the temperature range 300 - 4000 K and a pressure of 0.1 MPa. Bituminous coal with the ash content of 40% and the heating value 16,632 kJ/kg was taken for the investigation. The gaseous phase of coal processing products includes, basically, a synthesis gas with a concentration of up to 99 vol.% at 1500 K. CMM components completely converts from the condensed phase into the gaseous phase at a temperature above 2600 K. At temperatures above 3000 K, the gaseous phase includes, basically, Si, Al, Ca, Fe, Na, and compounds of SiO, SiH, AlH, and SiS. The latter compounds dissociate into relevant elements with increasing temperature. Complex coal conversion for the production of synthesis gas from COM and valuable components from CMM was investigated using a versatile experimental plant the main element of which was plug and flow plasma reactor. The material and thermal balances helped to find the integral indicators for the process. Plasma-steam gasification of the low-grade coal with CMM processing gave the synthesis gas yield 95.2%, the carbon gasification 92.3%, and coal desulfurization 95.2%. The reduced material of the CMM was found in the slag in the form of ferrosilicon as well as silicon and iron carbides. The maximum reduction of the CMM oxides was observed in the slag from the walls of the plasma reactor in the areas with maximum temperatures, reaching 47%. The thusly produced synthesis gas can be used for synthesis of methanol, or as a high-calorific reducing gas instead of blast-furnace coke as well as power gas for thermal power plants. Reduced material of CMM can be used in metallurgy.

Keywords: gasification, mineral mass, organic mass, plasma, processing, solid fuel, synthesis gas, valuable components

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Authors: Jae Won Lee, Kyung Hyun Min, Hong Jae Lee, Sang Cheon Lee

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To date, imaging techniques have attracted much attention in medicine because the detection of diseases at an early stage provides greater opportunities for successful treatment. Consequently, over the past few decades, diverse imaging modalities including magnetic resonance (MR), positron emission tomography, computed tomography, and ultrasound (US) have been developed and applied widely in the field of clinical diagnosis. However, each of the above-mentioned imaging modalities possesses unique strengths and intrinsic weaknesses, which limit their abilities to provide accurate information. Therefore, multimodal imaging systems may be a solution that can provide improved diagnostic performance. Among the current medical imaging modalities, US is a widely available real-time imaging modality. It has many advantages including safety, low cost and easy access for patients. However, its low spatial resolution precludes accurate discrimination of diseased region such as cancer sites. In contrast, MR has no tissue-penetrating limit and can provide images possessing exquisite soft tissue contrast and high spatial resolution. However, it cannot offer real-time images and needs a comparatively long imaging time. The characteristics of these imaging modalities may be considered complementary, and the modalities have been frequently combined for the clinical diagnostic process. Biominerals such as calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and calcium phosphate (CaP) exhibit pH-dependent dissolution behavior. They demonstrate pH-controlled drug release due to the dissolution of minerals in acidic pH conditions. In particular, the application of this mineralization technique to a US contrast agent has been reported recently. The CaCO3 mineral reacts with acids and decomposes to generate calcium dioxide (CO2) gas in an acidic environment. These gas-generating mineralized nanoparticles generated CO2 bubbles in the acidic environment of the tumor, thereby allowing for strong echogenic US imaging of tumor tissues. On the basis of this previous work, it was hypothesized that the loading of MR contrast agents into the CaCO3 mineralized nanoparticles may be a novel strategy in designing a contrast agent for dual imaging. Herein, CaCO3 mineralized nanoparticles that were capable of generating CO2 bubbles to trigger the release of entrapped MR contrast agents in response to tumoral acidic pH were developed for the purposes of US and MR dual-modality imaging of tumors. Gd2O3 nanoparticles were selected as an MR contrast agent. A key strategy employed in this study was to prepare Gd2O3 nanoparticle-loaded mineralized nanoparticles (Gd2O3-MNPs) using block copolymer-templated CaCO3 mineralization in the presence of calcium cations (Ca2+), carbonate anions (CO32-) and positively charged Gd2O3 nanoparticles. The CaCO3 core was considered suitable because it may effectively shield Gd2O3 nanoparticles from water molecules in the blood (pH 7.4) before decomposing to generate CO2 gas, triggering the release of Gd2O3 nanoparticles in tumor tissues (pH 6.4~7.4). The kinetics of CaCO3 dissolution and CO2 generation from the Gd2O3-MNPs were examined as a function of pH and pH-dependent in vitro magnetic relaxation; additionally, the echogenic properties were estimated to demonstrate the potential of the particles for the tumor-specific US and MR imaging.

Keywords: calcium carbonate, mineralization, ultrasound imaging, magnetic resonance imaging

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Authors: Priscila Ribeiro dos Santos, Luiz Antonio Daniel

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Inadequate access to clean water and sanitation has become one of the most widespread problems affecting people throughout the developing world, leading to an unceasing need for low-cost and sustainable wastewater treatment systems. The UASB technology has been widely employed as a suitable and economical option for the treatment of sewage in developing countries, which involves low initial investment, low energy requirements, low operation and maintenance costs, high loading capacity, short hydraulic retention times, long solids retention times and low sludge production. Whereas dissolved air flotation process is a good option for the post-treatment of anaerobic effluents, being capable of producing high quality effluents in terms of total suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand, phosphorus, and even pathogens. This work presents an evaluation and monitoring, over a period of 6 months, of one compact full-scale system with this configuration, UASB reactors followed by dissolved air flotation units (DAF), operating in Brazil. It was verified as a successful treatment system, and an issue of relevance since dissolved air flotation process treating UASB reactor effluents is not widely encompassed in the literature. The study covered the removal and behavior of several variables, such as turbidity, total suspend solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), Escherichia coli, total coliforms and Clostridium perfringens. The physicochemical variables were analyzed according to the protocols established by the Standard Methods for Examination of Water and Wastewater. For microbiological variables, such as Escherichia coli and total coliforms, it was used the “pour plate” technique with Chromocult Coliform Agar (Merk Cat. No.1.10426) serving as the culture medium, while the microorganism Clostridium perfringens was analyzed through the filtering membrane technique, with the Ágar m-CP (Oxoid Ltda, England) serving as the culture medium. Approximately 74% of total COD was removed in the UASB reactor, and the complementary removal done during the flotation process resulted in 88% of COD removal from the raw sewage, thus the initial concentration of COD of 729 mg.L-1 decreased to 87 mg.L-1. Whereas, in terms of particulate COD, the overall removal efficiency for the whole system was about 94%, decreasing from 375 mg.L-1 in raw sewage to 29 mg.L-1 in final effluent. The UASB reactor removed on average 77% of the TSS from raw sewage. While the dissolved air flotation process did not work as expected, removing only 30% of TSS from the anaerobic effluent. The final effluent presented an average concentration of 38 mg.L-1 of TSS. The turbidity was significantly reduced, leading to an overall efficiency removal of 80% and a final turbidity of 28 NTU.The treated effluent still presented a high concentration of fecal pollution indicators (E. coli, total coliforms, and Clostridium perfringens), showing that the system did not present a good performance in removing pathogens. Clostridium perfringens was the organism which suffered the higher removal by the treatment system. The results can be considered satisfactory for the physicochemical variables, taking into account the simplicity of the system, besides that, it is necessary a post-treatment to improve the microbiological quality of the final effluent.

Keywords: dissolved air flotation, municipal sewage, UASB reactor, treatment

Procedia PDF Downloads 331

Authors: Avi Shrivastava

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Our world continues to grapple with a lot of social issues. Economic growth and scientific advancements have not completely eradicated poverty, homelessness, discrimination and bias, gender inequality, health issues, mental illness, addiction, and other social issues. So, how do we improve the human condition in a world driven by advanced technology? The answer is simple: we will have to leverage technology to address some of the most important social challenges of the day. AI, or artificial intelligence, has emerged as a critical tool in the battle against issues that deprive marginalized and disadvantaged groups of the right to enjoy benefits that a society offers. Social work professionals can transform their lives by harnessing it. The lack of reliable data is one of the reasons why a lot of social work projects fail. Social work professionals continue to rely on expensive and time-consuming primary data collection methods, such as observation, surveys, questionnaires, and interviews, instead of tapping into AI-based technology to generate useful, real-time data and necessary insights. By leveraging AI’s data-mining ability, we can gain a deeper understanding of how to solve complex social problems and change lives of people. We can do the right work for the right people and at the right time. For example, AI can enable social work professionals to focus their humanitarian efforts on some of the world’s poorest regions, where there is extreme poverty. An interdisciplinary team of Stanford scientists, Marshall Burke, Stefano Ermon, David Lobell, Michael Xie, and Neal Jean, used AI to spot global poverty zones – identifying such zones is a key step in the fight against poverty. The scientists combined daytime and nighttime satellite imagery with machine learning algorithms to predict poverty in Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Malawi. In an article published by Stanford News, Stanford researchers use dark of night and machine learning, Ermon explained that they provided the machine-learning system, an application of AI, with the high-resolution satellite images and asked it to predict poverty in the African region. “The system essentially learned how to solve the problem by comparing those two sets of images [daytime and nighttime].” This is one example of how AI can be used by social work professionals to reach regions that need their aid the most. It can also help identify sources of inequality and conflict, which could reduce inequalities, according to Nature’s study, titled The role of artificial intelligence in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2020. The report also notes that AI can help achieve 79 percent of the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). AI is impacting our everyday lives in multiple amazing ways, yet some people do not know much about it. If someone is not familiar with this technology, they may be reluctant to use it to solve social issues. So, before we talk more about the use of AI to accomplish social work objectives, let’s put the spotlight on how AI and social work can complement each other.

Keywords: social work, artificial intelligence, AI based social work, machine learning, technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 102

Authors: Sarra Boukhari

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Refugee studies have lately emerged as a focused area of research, yet there is a vast knowledge gap vis-à-vis the integration experiences and socialization processes of diversified refugees in different educational settings. This research intends to study the diverse experiences of African refugee children in an Algerian mainstream secondary school. The study seeks to explore the nature and complexity of refugees’ experiences and their relevance to the integration processes. Highlighting these diverse perspectives will be for the sake of understanding ways by which integration could be facilitated amongst refugees within mainstream school classrooms. Subsequently, this study shall investigate the possibility of story-telling activities in exploring and dealing with different issues of integration met by refugees in the predefined context. Accordingly, stories and narratives will be used to discuss values designed by the Living Values Educational Programme (LVEP) that could change the negative effect of war and conflict. These stories can potentially develop young refugees’ understanding of the key social concepts that can facilitate acceptance and integration inside refugee communities and the host society. This study invokes the theoretical framework provided by Jerome Bruner’s works on constructing the narrative through real-life experiences. In practice, the idea is to voice children’ sense-making of their own world and integrate it with good values to help them construct a positive narrative. Qualitative methods will be integrated to investigate the readiness and acceptance of African refugee children to each other in an Algerian classroom. Two phases of data collection will be conducted. The first phase will attempt to answer the first research question about the challenges that refugee children encounter in their education in a host society. In this phase, classroom observation and semi-structured interviews will be held to explore the context regarding the research question. After issues and challenges have been identified in this phase, topics of discussion (values) that reflect these issues will be designed for the second phase. The use of participatory methods with children in the second stage of the data collection will help in discussing the core values by giving them the optionality of the arts-based tools through which they can express themselves. Story-telling was the idea behind the activities. It could help children express their thoughts and feelings about the discussed values freely. The methods used promoted a very integrating atmosphere in the classroom where both refugee and non-refugee students showed cohesion and integration. Children identified many issues in their integration processes that exceeded the classroom or the education setting. Political and economic opinions were openly shared in the class. Overall, the study is an attempt to reveal how refugee children in Algeria are experiencing integration in their education. The study will be unveiling the impact of the context on the integration of refugee children. The process of integration involved in this context helped to shape refugee experiences in a very unique way.

Keywords: children’s agency, narrative construction, refugee children, refugee experiences, story-telling

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Vijaya Dixit Aasheesh Dixit

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Shipbuilding industry operates in Engineer Procure Construct (EPC) context. Product mix of a shipyard comprises of various types of ships like bulk carriers, tankers, barges, coast guard vessels, sub-marines etc. Each order is unique based on the type of ship and customized requirements, which are engineered into the product right from design stage. Thus, to execute every new project, a shipyard needs to upgrade its production expertise. As a result, over the long run, holistic learning occurs across different types of projects which contributes to the knowledge base of the shipyard. Simultaneously, in the short term, during execution of a project comprising of multiple sister ships, repetition of similar tasks leads to learning at activity level. This research aims to capture above learnings of a shipyard and incorporate learning curve effect in project scheduling and materials procurement to improve project performance. Extant literature provides support for the existence of such learnings in an organization. In shipbuilding, there are sequences of similar activities which are expected to exhibit learning curve behavior. For example, the nearly identical structural sub-blocks which are successively fabricated, erected, and outfitted with piping and electrical systems. Learning curve representation can model not only a decrease in mean completion time of an activity, but also a decrease in uncertainty of activity duration. Sister ships have similar material requirements. The same supplier base supplies materials for all the sister ships within a project. On one hand, this provides an opportunity to reduce transportation cost by batching the order quantities of multiple ships. On the other hand, it increases the inventory holding cost at shipyard and the risk of obsolescence. Further, due to learning curve effect the production scheduled of each consequent ship gets compressed. Thus, the material requirement schedule of every next ship differs from its previous ship. As more and more ships get constructed, compressed production schedules increase the possibility of batching the orders of sister ships. This work aims at integrating materials management with project scheduling of long duration projects for manufacturing of multiple sister ships. It incorporates the learning curve effect on progressively compressing material requirement schedules and addresses the above trade-off of transportation cost and inventory holding and shortage costs while satisfying budget constraints of various stages of the project. The activity durations and lead time of items are not crisp and are available in the form of probabilistic distribution. A Stochastic Mixed Integer Programming (SMIP) model is formulated which is solved using evolutionary algorithm. Its output provides ordering dates of items and degree of order batching for all types of items. Sensitivity analysis determines the threshold number of sister ships required in a project to leverage the advantage of learning curve effect in materials management decisions. This analysis will help materials managers to gain insights about the scenarios: when and to what degree is it beneficial to treat a multiple ship project as an integrated one by batching the order quantities and when and to what degree to practice distinctive procurement for individual ship.

Keywords: learning curve, materials management, shipbuilding, sister ships

Procedia PDF Downloads 502

Authors: Tuğrul Varol, Halil Barış Özel

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In this study which has been conducted in Akçasu Forest Range District of Devrek Forest Directorate; 3 methods (cover removal with human force, cover removal with Hitachi F20 Excavator, and cover removal with agricultural equipment mounted on a Ferguson 240S agriculture tractor) utilized in weed control efforts in regeneration of degraded oriental beech forests have been compared. In this respect, 3 methods have been compared by determining certain work hours and standard durations of unit areas (1 hectare). For this purpose, evaluating the tasks made with human and machine force from the aspects of duration, productivity and costs, it has been aimed to determine the most productive method in accordance with the actual ecological conditions of research field. Within the scope of the study, the time studies have been conducted for 3 methods used in weed control efforts. While carrying out those studies, the performed implementations have been evaluated by dividing them into business stages. Also, the actual data have been used while calculating the cost accounts. In those calculations, the latest formulas and equations which are also used in developed countries have been utilized. The variance of analysis (ANOVA) was used in order to determine whether there is any statistically significant difference among obtained results, and the Duncan test was used for grouping if there is significant difference. According to the measurements and findings carried out within the scope of this study, it has been found during living cover removal efforts in regeneration efforts in demolished oriental beech forests that the removal of weed layer in 1 hectare of field has taken 920 hours with human force, 15.1 hours with excavator and 60 hours with an equipment mounted on a tractor. On the other hand, it has been determined that the cost of removal of living cover in unit area (1 hectare) was 3220.00 TL for man power, 788.70 TL for excavator and 2227.20 TL for equipment mounted on a tractor. According to the obtained results, it has been found that the utilization of excavator in weed control effort in regeneration of degraded oriental beech regions under actual ecological conditions of research field has been found to be more productive from both of aspects of duration and costs. These determinations carried out should be repeated in weed control efforts in degraded forest fields with different ecological conditions, it is compulsory for finding the most efficient weed control method. These findings will light the way of technical staff of forestry directorate in determination of the most effective and economic weed contol method. Thus, the more actual data will be used while preparing the weed control budgets, and there will be significant contributions to national economy. Also the results of this and similar studies are very important for developing the policies for our forestry in short and long term.

Keywords: artificial regeneration, weed control, oriental beech, productivity, mechanization, man power, cost analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 418

Authors: Thilini M. Yatanwala

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CCTV (Closed-Circuit-Television) Surveillance System is being used in public places over decades and a large variety of data is being produced every moment. However, most of the CCTV data is stored in isolation without having integrity. As a result, identification of the behavior of suspicious people along with their location has become strenuous. This research was conducted to acquire more accurate and reliable timely information from the CCTV video records. The implemented system can identify human objects in public places based on outfit colors. Inter-process communication technologies were used to implement the CCTV camera network to track people in the premises. The research was conducted in three stages and in the first stage human objects were filtered from other movable objects available in public places. In the second stage people were uniquely identified based on their outfit colors and in the third stage an individual was continuously tracked in the CCTV network. A face detection algorithm was implemented using cascade classifier based on the training model to detect human objects. HAAR feature based two-dimensional convolution operator was introduced to identify features of the human face such as region of eyes, region of nose and bridge of the nose based on darkness and lightness of facial area. In the second stage outfit colors of human objects were analyzed by dividing the area into upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right of the body. Mean color, mod color and standard deviation of each area were extracted as crucial factors to uniquely identify human object using histogram based approach. Color based measurements were written in to XML files and separate directories were maintained to store XML files related to each camera according to time stamp. As the third stage of the approach, inter-process communication techniques were used to implement an acknowledgement based CCTV camera network to continuously track individuals in a network of cameras. Real time analysis of XML files generated in each camera can determine the path of individual to monitor full activity sequence. Higher efficiency was achieved by sending and receiving acknowledgments only among adjacent cameras. Suspicious incidents such as a person staying in a sensitive area for a longer period or a person disappeared from the camera coverage can be detected in this approach. The system was tested for 150 people with the accuracy level of 82%. However, this approach was unable to produce expected results in the presence of group of people wearing similar type of outfits. This approach can be applied to any existing camera network without changing the physical arrangement of CCTV cameras. The study of human identification and suspicious incident detection using outfit color analysis can achieve higher level of accuracy and the project will be continued by integrating motion and gait feature analysis techniques to derive more information from CCTV videos.

Keywords: CCTV surveillance, human detection and identification, image processing, inter-process communication, security, suspicious detection

Procedia PDF Downloads 181