Search results for: Point support

Authors: Athanasia Kouroupa, Karen Irvine, Sivana Mengoni, Shivani Sharma

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Exploring parents’ preferences towards technology-based interventions for children on the autism spectrum can inform future research and support technology design. The study aimed to provide a comprehensive description of parents’ knowledge and preferences about innovative technology to support children on the autism spectrum. Survey data were collected from parents (n = 267) internationally. The survey included information about the use of conventional (e.g., smartphone, iPod, tablets) and non-conventional (e.g., virtual reality, robot) technologies. Parents appeared to prefer conventional technologies such as tablets and dislike non-conventional ones. They highlighted the positive contribution technology brought to the children’s lives during the pandemic. A few parents were equally concerned that the compulsory introduction of technology during the pandemic was associated with elongated time on devices. The data suggested that technology-based interventions are not widely known, need to be financially approachable and achieve a high standard of design to engage users.

Keywords: autism, intervention, preferences, technology

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Authors: Anna Petr Safrankova, Karla Hrbackova

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The education of socially disadvantaged students is in the long term spotlight of many pedagogical researches in both Czech and foreign environment. These researches among others investigate this topic from the point of view of individual compensatory measure which tries to overcome or remove the social disadvantage. The focus of the study is to highlight the important role of teachers in the education of this specific group of students, among others in terms of their (teachers´) pre-graduate training. The aim of the study is to point out the importance of teachers´ self-efficacy. The study is based on the assumption that the teacher's self-efficacy may significantly affect the teacher's perception of a particular group of students and thereby affect the education of the students. The survey involved 245 teachers from the two regions in the Czech Republic. In the research were used TES questionnaire (with the dimensions personal teaching efficacy – PTE and general teaching efficacy – GTE) by Gibson and Dembo and the semantic differential (containing 12 scales with bipolar adjectives) which investigated the components of teachers' attitudes toward socially disadvantaged students. It was found that teachers’ self-efficacy significantly affects the teachers’ perception of the group of socially disadvantaged students. Based on this finding we believe that it is necessary to work with this concept (prepare teachers to educate this specific group of students) already during higher education and especially during the pre-graduate teachers training.

Keywords: teachers, socially disadvantaged students, semantic differential, teachers self-efficacy

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Authors: Agnieszka Szczudlińska-Kanoś

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Nowadays the participation of citizens in public life increasingly effect on management at all levels of public authority. Today, however, democratic systems in many countries, also in Poland, based on the first - on the institutions of representative democracy, which is mainly on elections, party activity, on the other hand - on the basic instruments of direct democracy, which, in particular, we can include a referendum or initiative of citizenship - although these are often rather complementary. Other forms of participatory democracy, such as deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, public consultation in practice in many countries are still rare. Appropriate use of the potential invested in participatory democracy can bring enormous and multilateral benefits. On the one hand, local and regional communities taking an active part in public life express their needs, point out problems and thus affect the decisions of public authorities. Authorities using knowledge acquired from the citizens also implement the policy tailored to their needs, thus obtaining support in the next election. The purpose of this study is to show how the Polish citizens affect to resolve issues of social policy pursued at different levels of government. This problem is very important because today the observed changes seen in virtually all fields of life create new social problems, which nowadays are no longer only the problems of the region, the country but they are international, global issues. From such this perspective we should talk about them, discuss, try to solve at all levels. Article will be useful not only theorists involved in the management of the public, local government, or social but also practitioners - local government acting as their functions at different levels of government. Conclusions drawn from the publication will also be useful to politicians and those directly affecting for: functioning social security systems, the scope and quality of public services and the overall shape of the contemporary social policy in different countries.

Keywords: social policy, local government, social participation, social services

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Authors: D. Tedesco, G. Feletti, P. Trucco

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The present study aims to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) to support the operational decision of the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) regarding the assignment of medical emergency requests to Emergency Departments (ED). In the literature, this problem is also known as “hospital selection” and concerns the definition of policies for the selection of the ED to which patients who require further treatment are transported by ambulance. The employed research methodology consists of the first phase of revision of the technical-scientific literature concerning DSSs to support the EMS management and, in particular, the hospital selection decision. From the literature analysis, it emerged that current studies are mainly focused on the EMS phases related to the ambulance service and consider a process that ends when the ambulance is available after completing a request. Therefore, all the ED-related issues are excluded and considered as part of a separate process. Indeed, the most studied hospital selection policy turned out to be proximity, thus allowing to minimize the transport time and release the ambulance in the shortest possible time. The purpose of the present study consists in developing an optimization model for assigning medical emergency requests to the EDs, considering information relating to the subsequent phases of the process, such as the case-mix, the expected service throughput times, and the operational capacity of different EDs in hospitals. To this end, a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model was created to evaluate different hospital selection policies. Therefore, the next steps of the research consisted of the development of a general simulation architecture, its implementation in the AnyLogic software and its validation on a realistic dataset. The hospital selection policy that produced the best results was the minimization of the Time To Provider (TTP), considered as the time from the beginning of the ambulance journey to the ED at the beginning of the clinical evaluation by the doctor. Finally, two approaches were further compared: a static approach, which is based on a retrospective estimate of the TTP, and a dynamic approach, which is based on a predictive estimate of the TTP determined with a constantly updated Winters model. Findings reveal that considering the minimization of TTP as a hospital selection policy raises several benefits. It allows to significantly reduce service throughput times in the ED with a minimum increase in travel time. Furthermore, an immediate view of the saturation state of the ED is produced and the case-mix present in the ED structures (i.e., the different triage codes) is considered, as different severity codes correspond to different service throughput times. Besides, the use of a predictive approach is certainly more reliable in terms of TTP estimation than a retrospective approach but entails a more difficult application. These considerations can support decision-makers in introducing different hospital selection policies to enhance EMSs performance.

Keywords: discrete event simulation, emergency medical services, forecast model, hospital selection

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Authors: Navab Karimi, Tohid Alizadeh

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An intelligent vision-based system was designed to measure the quality and purity of raisins. A machine vision setup was utilized to capture the images of bulk raisins in ranges of 5-50% mixed pure-impure berries. The textural features of bulk raisins were extracted using Grey-level Histograms, Co-occurrence Matrix, and Local Binary Pattern (a total of 108 features). Genetic Algorithm and neural network regression were used for selecting and ranking the best features (21 features). As a result, the GLCM features set was found to have the highest accuracy (92.4%) among the other sets. Followingly, multiple feature combinations of the previous stage were fed into the second regression (linear regression) to increase accuracy, wherein a combination of 16 features was found to be the optimum. Finally, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was used to differentiate the mixtures, producing the best efficiency and accuracy of 96.2% and 97.35%, respectively.

Keywords: sun-dried organic raisin, genetic algorithm, feature extraction, ann regression, linear regression, support vector machine, south azerbaijan.

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Authors: Stephen Wagman

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This paper identifies three common structures in English sentences that are important for understanding academic texts, regardless of the characteristics or background of the readers or whether they are reading English as a second or a foreign language. Adapting a model from the Humanities, the explication of texts used in literary studies, the paper analyses sample sentences to reveal structures that enable the reader not only to decide which words are necessary for understanding the main ideas but to make the decision without knowing the meaning of the words. By their very syntax noun structures point to the key word for understanding them. As a rule, the key noun is followed by easily identifiable prepositions, relative pronouns, or verbs and preceded by single adjectives. With few exceptions, the modifiers are unnecessary for understanding the idea of the sentence. In addition, sentences are often structured by lists in which the items frequently consist of parallel groups of words. The principle of a list is that all the items are similar in meaning and it is not necessary to understand all of the items to understand the point of the list. This principle is especially important when the items are long or there is more than one list in the same sentence. The similarity in meaning of these items enables readers to reduce sentences that are hard to grasp to an understandable core without excessive use of a dictionary. Finally, the idea of subordination and the identification of the subordinate parts of sentences through connecting words makes it possible for readers to focus on main ideas without having to sift through the less important and more numerous secondary structures. Sometimes a main idea requires a subordinate one to complete its meaning, but usually, subordinate ideas are unnecessary for understanding the main point of the sentence and its part in the development of the argument from sentence to sentence. Moreover, the connecting words themselves indicate the functions of the subordinate structures. These most frequently show similarity and difference or reasons and results. Recognition of all of these structures can not only enable students to read more efficiently but to focus their attention on the development of the argument and this rather than a multitude of unknown vocabulary items, the repetition in lists, or the subordination in sentences are the one necessary element for comprehension of academic articles.

Keywords: development of the argument, lists, noun structures, subordination

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Authors: Fatih Iscan, Ceren Yagci

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Rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization are known as the most important factors of environment problems. Elimination and management of solid wastes are also within the most important environment problems. One of the main problems in solid waste management is the selection of the best site for elimination of solid wastes. Lately, Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used for easing selection of landfill area. GIS has the ability of imitating necessary economical, environmental and political limitations. They play an important role for the site selection of landfill area as a decision support tool. In this study; map layers will be studied for minimum effect of environmental, social and cultural factors and maximum effect for engineering/economical factors for site selection of landfill areas and using GIS for an decision support mechanism in solid waste landfill areas site selection will be presented in Aksaray/TURKEY city, Güzelyurt district practice.

Keywords: GIS, landfill, solid waste, spatial analysis

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Authors: Sakul Jariyachamsit

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The objectives of this research were to study the behaviour of inbound tourist who visited Ratanakosin Island and to study their needs concerning support facilities. The independent variables included gender, age, levels of education, occupation, and income while the dependent variables were classified into two groups: tourists’ behaviour variables and tourists’ need of supporting facilities. A simple random sampling method was utilized to get 225 respondents. The majority of respondents were both male and female in the same proportion but most were between 21-30 years old. Most were married with a graduated degree. The average income of the respondents was between $20,000-30,000. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents came to Thailand for the first time and spent about 8 days in Thailand and preferred to travel in small groups. Their decision to come to Thailand was influenced by word of mouth. When they first thought of Thailand, they thought of Thai food. In terms of the needs for tourists around the Ratanakosin Island, and ranked in importance, are as follows: a tourist centre, somebody who can speak English, a trustable agency, police patrol, and the availability of maps and brochures.

Keywords: Rattanakosin Island, tourist, travelling behaviour, media engineering

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Authors: Juan Carlos Quiñones

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Time has passed since the industrial design has put murder on a mass-production basis. The industrial design applies methods from different disciplines with a strategic approach, to place humans at the centers of the design process and to deliver solutions that are meaningful and desirable for users and for the market. This analysis summarizes some of the discussions that occurred in the 6th International Forum of Design as a Process, June 2016, Valencia. The aims of this conference were finding new linkages between systems and design interactions in order to define the social consequences. Through knowledge management we are able to transform the intangible aspect by using design as a transforming function capable of converting intangible knowledge into tangible solutions (i.e. products and services demanded by society). Industrial designers use knowledge consciously as a starting point for the ideation of the product. The handling of the intangible becomes more and more relevant over time as different methods emerge for knowledge extraction and subsequent organization. The different methodologies applied to the industrial design discipline and the evolution of the same discipline methods underpin the cultural and scientific background knowledge as a starting point of thought as a response to the needs; the whole thing coming through the instrument of creativity for the achievement of the proper and necessary balance between intuition and reason, design and science.

Keywords: creative process, creativity, industrial design, intangible

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Authors: Satya Girish Goparaju

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It is said that the pyramid of Needs is not an invention by Maslow but only a graphical representation of his theory. It is also interesting to note how business management schools have adopted this interpreted theory to organizational behavior and marketing subjects. Against this background, this article attempts to raise the point that the hierarchy of needs proposed by Abraham Maslow need not necessarily be represented in a pyramid, but a linear model would be more eligible in the present times. To propose this point, this article presents needs a comparative study of ‘self-actualization’ (the apex of the pyramid) in organizational behavior and branding contexts, respectively. This article tries to shed light on the original theory proposed by Maslow, which stated that self-actualization is attained through living one’s life completely and not by satisfying individual needs. Therefore, in an organizational behavior perspective, it can be understood that self-actualization is irrelevant as an employee’s life is not the work and the satisfied needs in a workplace will only make the employee perform better. In the same way, a brand does not sell products to satisfy all needs of a consumer and does not have a role directly in attaining self-actualization. For the purpose of this study, select employees of a branding agency will participate in responding to a questionnaire to answer both as employees of an organization and also as consumers of a global smartphone brand. This study aims to deconstruct the interpretations that have been widely accepted by both organizational behavior and branding professionals.

Keywords: branding, marketing, needs, organizational behavior, psychology

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Authors: Chiling Chen, Chiaoying Chou, Siyang Wu

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Taiwan locates at the west of Pacific Ocean and intersects between continental and marine climate. Typhoons frequently strike Taiwan and come with meteorological disasters, i.e., heavy flooding, landslides, loss of life and properties, etc. Global climate change brings more extremely meteorological disasters. So, develop techniques to improve disaster prevention and mitigation is needed, to improve rescue processes and rehabilitations is important as well. In this study, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are applied to take instant images for improving the disaster investigation and rescue processes. Paddy rice fields in the central Taiwan are the study area. There have been attacked by heavy rain during the monsoon season in June 2016. UAV images provide the high ground resolution (3.5cm) with 3D Point Clouds to develop image discrimination techniques and digital surface model (DSM) on rice lodging. Firstly, image supervised classification with Maximum Likelihood Method (MLD) is used to delineate the area of rice lodging. Secondly, 3D point clouds generated by Pix4D Mapper are used to develop DSM for classifying the lodging levels of paddy rice. As results, discriminate accuracy of rice lodging is 85% by image supervised classification, and the classification accuracy of lodging level is 87% by DSM. Therefore, UAVs not only provide instant images of agricultural damage after the meteorological disaster, but the image discriminations on rice lodging also reach acceptable accuracy (>85%). In the future, technologies of UAVs and image discrimination will be applied to different crop fields. The results of image discrimination will be overlapped with administrative boundaries of paddy rice, to establish GIS-based assist system on agricultural damage discrimination. Therefore, the time and labor would be greatly reduced on damage detection and monitoring.

Keywords: Monsoon, supervised classification, Pix4D, 3D point clouds, discriminate accuracy

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Authors: Shiau-Fang Chao, Yu-Chih Chen

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Owing to physical limitations and restrained lifestyle, older long-term care (LTC) residents are more likely to be affected by their environment than their community-dwelling counterparts. They also participate fewer activities and experience worse mental health than healthy older adults. This study adopts the ICF model to determine the extent to which the clustered patterns of LTC environment and activity participation are associated with older residents’ mental health. Method: Data were collected from a stratified equal probability sample of 634 older residents in 155 LTC institutions in Taiwan. Latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent class analysis (LCA) were conducted to explore the profiles for environment and activity participation. Multilevel modeling was performed to elucidate the relationships among environment profiles, activity profiles, and mental health. Results: LPA identified three mutually exclusive environment profiles (Low-, Moderate-, and High-Support Environment) based on the physical, social, and attitudinal environmental domains, consolidated from 12 environmental measures. LCA constructed two distinct activity profiles (Low- and High-Activity Participation) across seven activity domains (outdoor, volunteer-led leisure, spiritual, household chores, interpersonal exchange, social, and sedentary activity) that were factored from 20 activities. Compared to the Low-Support Environment class, older adults in the Moderate- and High-Support Environment classes had better mental health. Older residents in the Moderate- and High-Support Environment classes were more likely to be in the “High Activity” class, which in turn, exhibited better mental health. Conclusion: This study advances the current knowledge through rigorous methods and study design. The study findings lead to several conclusions. First, this study supports the use of ICF framework to institutionalized older individuals with functional limitations and demonstrates that both measures of environment and activity participation can be refined from multiple indicators. Second, environmental measures that encompass the physical, social, and attitudinal domains would provide a more comprehensive assessment on the place where an older individual embeds. Third, simply counting activities in which an older individual participates or considering a certain type of activity may not capture his or her way of life. Practitioners should not only focus on group or leisure activities within the institutions; rather, more efforts should be made to consider residents’ preferences for everyday life and support their remaining ability by encouraging continuous participation in activities they still willing and capable to perform. Fourth, environment and activity participation are modifiable factors which have greater potential to strengthen older LTC residents’ mental health, and activity participation should be considered in the link between environment and mental health. A combination of enhanced physical, social, and attitudinal environments, and continual engagement in various activities may optimize older LTC residents’ mental health.

Keywords: activity, environment, mental health, older LTC residents

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Authors: Gia Surguladze, Nino Topuria, Lily Petriashvili, Giorgi Surguladze

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Modeling of building processes of a multimodal freight transportation support information system is discussed based on modern CASE technologies. Functional efficiencies of ports in the eastern part of the Black Sea are analyzed taking into account their ecological, seasonal, resource usage parameters. By resources, we mean capacities of berths, cranes, automotive transport, as well as work crews and neighbouring airports. For the purpose of designing database of computer support system for Managerial (Logistics) function, using Object-Role Modeling (ORM) tool (NORMA – Natural ORM Architecture) is proposed, after which Entity Relationship Model (ERM) is generated in automated process. The software is developed based on Process-Oriented and Service-Oriented architecture, in Visual Studio.NET environment.

Keywords: seaport resources, business-processes, multimodal transportation, CASE technology, object-role model, entity relationship model, SOA

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Authors: Syahidah N. Zulkifli, Herlina A. Rahim, Nurul A. M. Subha

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Sustaining water quality is critical in order to avoid any harmful health consequences for end-user consumers. The detection of microbial impurities at the household level is the foundation of water security. Water quality is now monitored only at water utilities or infrastructure, such as water treatment facilities or reservoirs. This research provides a first-hand scientific understanding of microbial composition presence in Malaysia’s household point-of-use (POUs) water supply influenced by seasonal fluctuations, standstill periods, and flow dynamics by using the NIR-Raman spectroscopic technique. According to the findings, 20% of water samples were contaminated by pathogenic bacteria, which are Legionella and Salmonella cells. A comparison of the spectra reveals significant signature peaks (420 cm⁻¹ to 1800 cm⁻¹), including species-specific bands. This demonstrates the importance of regularly monitoring POUs water quality to provide a safe and clean water supply to homeowners. Conventional Raman spectroscopy, up-to-date, is no longer suited for real-time monitoring. Therefore, this study introduced an alternative micro-spectrometer to give a rapid and sustainable way of monitoring POUs water quality. Assessing microbiological threats in water supply becomes more reliable and efficient by leveraging IoT protocol.

Keywords: microbial contaminants, water quality, water monitoring, Raman spectroscopy

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Authors: Asma Shaheen Hashmi, Omer Riaz, Khalid Mahmood, Fahad Ullah, Tanveer Ahmad

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The urban landscapes are being change with the population growth and advancements in new technologies. The urban sprawl pattern and utilizes are related to the local socioeconomic and physical condition. Urban policy decisions are executed mostly through spatial planning. A decision support system (DSS) is very powerful tool which provides flexible knowledge base method for urban planning. An application was developed using geographical information system (GIS) for urban planning. A scenario based DSS was developed to integrate the hierarchical muti-criteria data of different aspects of urban landscape. These were physical environment, the dumping site, spatial distribution of road network, gas and water supply lines, and urban watershed management, selection criteria for new residential, recreational, commercial and industrial sites. The model provided a framework to incorporate the sustainable future development. The data can be entered dynamically by planners according to the appropriate criteria for the management of urban landscapes.

Keywords: urban, GIS, spatial, criteria

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Authors: Rabia Qusien

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New media has emerged as a significant force in the society which connects people across the globe. Where new media brought many advantages for its users, there is a darker aspect of new technology in the form of cyberbullying. Researcher has employed survey method to reach to its targeted audience. Sample of 604 respondents was selected from one of metropolitan city of Pakistan Lahore to collect the data. Equal sample from both genders was selected to apply gender analysis. Results of this study indicate that cyber bullying is having significant psychological and educational effects. Females face more cyber bullying incidents as compared to males so they face more severe effects of cyber bullying. A comprehensive analysis of managing strategies depicts that mostly youth tries to handle this issue personally but at times they seek the support of their family and friends when they face severe issues. Due to privacy concerns females get more upset and they are more likely to seek social support from friends and family.

Keywords: cyber bullying, cyber victims, educational impacts, psychological impacts

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Authors: F. Uriel, M. M. Fernandez Liporace

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In the last decade, academic achievement in higher education has become a topic of agenda in Argentina, regarding the high figures of adjustment problems, academic failure and dropout, and the low graduation rates in the context of massive classes and traditional teaching methods. Psychological variables, such as perceived social support, academic motivation and learning styles and strategies have much to offer since their measurement by tests allows a proper diagnose of their influence on academic achievement. Framed in a major research, several studies analysed multiple samples, totalizing 5135 students attending Argentinean public universities. The first goal was aimed at the identification of statistically significant differences in psychological variables -perceived social support, learning styles, learning strategies, and academic motivation- by age, gender, and degree of academic advance (freshmen versus sophomores). Thus, an inferential group differences study for each psychological dependent variable was developed by means of student’s T tests, given the features of data distribution. The second goal, aimed at examining associations between the four psychological variables on the one hand, and academic achievement on the other, was responded by correlational studies, calculating Pearson’s coefficients, employing grades as the quantitative indicator of academic achievement. The positive and significant results that were obtained led to the formulation of different predictive models of academic achievement which had to be tested in terms of adjustment and predictive power. These models took the four psychological variables above mentioned as predictors, using regression equations, examining predictors individually, in groups of two, and together, analysing indirect effects as well, and adding the degree of academic advance and gender, which had shown their importance within the first goal’s findings. The most relevant results were: first, gender showed no influence on any dependent variable. Second, only good achievers perceived high social support from teachers, and male students were prone to perceive less social support. Third, freshmen exhibited a pragmatic learning style, preferring unstructured environments, the use of examples and simultaneous-visual processing in learning, whereas sophomores manifest an assimilative learning style, choosing sequential and analytic processing modes. Despite these features, freshmen have to deal with abstract contents and sophomores, with practical learning situations due to study programs in force. Fifth, no differences in academic motivation were found between freshmen and sophomores. However, the latter employ a higher number of more efficient learning strategies. Sixth, freshmen low achievers lack intrinsic motivation. Seventh, models testing showed that social support, learning styles and academic motivation influence learning strategies, which affect academic achievement in freshmen, particularly males; only learning styles influence achievement in sophomores of both genders with direct effects. These findings led to conclude that educational psychologists, education specialists, teachers, and universities must plan urgent and major changes. These must be applied in renewed and better study programs, syllabi and classes, as well as tutoring and training systems. Such developments should be targeted to the support and empowerment of students in their academic pathways, and therefore to the upgrade of learning quality, especially in the case of freshmen, male freshmen, and low achievers.

Keywords: academic achievement, academic motivation, coping, learning strategies, learning styles, perceived social support

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Authors: Waleerak Sittisom

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The objectives of this research were to analyze transportation route management, to identify potential cost reductions in logistic operation. In-depth interview techniques and small group discussions were utilized with 25 participants from various backgrounds in the areas of logistics. The findings of this research revealed that there were four areas that companies are able to effectively manage a logistic cost reduction: managing the space within the transportation vehicles, managing transportation personnel, managing transportation cost, and managing control of transportation. On the other hand, there were four areas that companies were unable to effectively manage a logistic cost reduction: the working process of transportation, the route planning of transportation, the service point management, and technology management. There are five areas that cost reduction is feasible: personnel management, process of working, map planning, service point planning, and technology implementation. To be able to reduce costs, the transportation companies should suggest that customers use a file system to save truck space. Also, the transportation companies need to adopt new technology to manage their information system so that packages can be reached easy, safe, and fast. Staff needs to be trained regularly to increase knowledge and skills. Teamwork is required to effectively reduce the costs.

Keywords: cost reduction, management, logistics, transportation

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Authors: Rabiaa Gammoudi, Najet Rebei, Othman Hasnaoui

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Photovoltaic systems use different techniques for tracking the Maximum Power Point (MPPT) to provide the highest possible power to the load regardless of the climatic conditions variation. In this paper, the proposed method is the Open Circuit (OC) method with sudden and random variations of insolation. The simulation results of the water pumping system controlled by OC method are validated by an experimental experience in real-time using a test bench composed by a centrifugal pump powered by a PVG via a boost chopper for the adaptation between the source and the load. The output of the DC/DC converter supplies the motor pump LOWARA type, assembly by means of a DC/AC inverter. The control part is provided by a computer incorporating a card DS1104 running environment Matlab/Simulink for visualization and data acquisition. These results show clearly the effectiveness of our control with a very good performance. The results obtained show the usefulness of the developed algorithm in solving the problem of degradation of PVG performance depending on the variation of climatic factors with a very good yield.

Keywords: PVWPS (PV Water Pumping System), maximum power point tracking (MPPT), open circuit method (OC), boost converter, DC/AC inverter

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Authors: M. Manohari, Himanshu Gupta, S. Priyadharshini, R. Santhanam, S. Chandrasekaran, B. Venkatraman

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Injection is one of the potential routes of intake in a radioactive facility. The internal dose due to this intake is monitored at the radiation emergency medical centre, IGCAR using a portable planar HPGe detector. The contaminated wound may be having different shapes. In a reprocessing potential of wound contamination with actinide is more. Efficiency is one of the input parameters for estimation of internal dose. Estimating these efficiencies experimentally would be tedious and cumbersome. Numerical estimation can be a supplement to experiment. As an initial step in this study 241Am contamination of different shapes are studied. In this study portable planar HPGe detector was modeled using Monte Carlo code FLUKA and the effect of different parameters like distance of the contamination from the detector, radius of the circular contamination were studied. Efficiency values for point and surface contamination located at different distances were estimated. The effect of efficiency on the radius of the surface source was more predominant when the source is at 1 cm distance compared to when the source to detector distance is 10 cm. At 1 cm the efficiency decreased quadratically as the radius increased and at 10 cm it decreased linearly. The point source efficiency varied exponentially with source to detector distance.

Keywords: Planar HPGe, efficiency value, injection, surface source

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Authors: Andrew Shugyo Daijo Bonnici

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Core-Self Intelligence (CSI) is an absolutely still, non-verbal, non-cerebral intelligence. Our still core-self intelligence is felt at our body's center point of gravity, just an inch below our navel, deep within our lower abdomen. The still sub-quantum depth of core-Self remains untouched by the conditioning influences of family, society, culture, religion, and spiritual views that shape our personalities and ego-self identities. As core-Self intelligence is inborn and unconditioned, it exists within all human beings regardless of age, race, color, creed, mental acuity, or national origin. Our core-self intelligence functions as a wise and compassionate guide that advances our health and well-being, our mental clarity and emotional resiliency, our fearless peace and behavioral wisdom, and our ever-deepening compassion for self and others. Although our core-Self, with its absolutely still non-judgmental intelligence, operates far beneath the functioning of our ego-self identity and our thinking mind, it effectively coexists with our passing thoughts, all of our figuring and thinking, our logical and rational way of knowing, the ebb and flow of our feelings, and the natural or triggered emergence of our emotions. When we allow our whole inner somatic awareness to gently sink into the intelligent center point of gravity within our lower abdomen, the felt arising of our core- Self’s inborn stillness has a serene and relaxing effect on our ego-self and thinking mind. It naturally slows down the speedy passage of our involuntary thoughts, diminishes our ego-self's defensive and reactive functioning, and decreases narcissistic reflections on I, me, and mine. All of these healthy cognitive benefits advance our innate wisdom and compassion, facilitate our personal and interpersonal growth, and liberate the ever-fresh wonder and curiosity of our beginner's heartmind. In conclusion, by studying, exploring, and researching our core-Self intelligence, psychologists and psychotherapists can unlock new avenues for advancing the farther reaches of our mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being, our innate behavioral wisdom and boundless empathy, our lucid compassion for self and others, and our unwavering confidence in the still guiding light of our core-Self that exists at the abdominal center point of all human beings.

Keywords: intelligence, transpersonal, beginner’s heartmind, compassionate wisdom

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Authors: Pedro Barros, Ana Breda, Eugenio Rocha, M. Isabel Santos

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As visual and spatial awareness develops, children apprehension of the concept of direction, (relative) distance and (relative) location materializes. Here we present the educational inclusive digital game ORIESPA, under development by the Thematic Line Geometrix, for children aged between 6 and 10 years old, aiming the improvement of their visual and spatial awareness. Visual-spatial abilities are of crucial importance to succeed in many everyday life tasks. Unavoidable in the technological age we are living in, they are essential in many fields of study as, for instance, mathematics.The game, set on a 2D/3D environment, focusses in tasks/challenges on the following categories (1) static orientation of the subject and object, requiring an understanding of the notions of up–down, left–right, front–back, higher-lower or nearer-farther; (2) interpretation of perspectives of three-dimensional objects, requiring the understanding of 2D and 3D representations of three-dimensional objects; and (3) orientation of the subject in real space, requiring the reading and interpreting of itineraries. In ORIESPA, simpler tasks are based on a quadrangular grid, where the front-back and left-right directions and the rotations of 90º, 180º and 270º play the main requirements. The more complex ones are produced on a cubic grid adding the up and down movements. In the first levels, the game's mechanics regarding the reading and interpreting maps (from point A to point B) is based on map routes, following a given set of instructions. In higher levels, the player must produce a list of instructions taking the game character to the desired destination, avoiding obstacles. Being an inclusive game the user has the possibility to interact through the mouse (point and click with a single button), the keyboard (small set of well recognized keys) or a Kinect device (using simple gesture moves). The character control requires the action on buttons corresponding to movements in 2D and 3D environments. Buttons and instructions are also complemented with text, sound and sign language.

Keywords: digital game, inclusion, itinerary, spatial ability

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Authors: Benghenia Hadj Abd El Kader

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Sleep apnea events as obstructive, central, mixed or hypopnea are characterized by frequent breathing cessations or reduction in upper airflow during sleep. An advanced method for analyzing the patterning of biomedical signals to recognize obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea is presented. In the aim to extract characteristic parameters, which will be used for classifying the above stated (obstructive, central, mixed) sleep apnea and hypopnea, the proposed method is based first on the analysis of polysomnography signals such as electrocardiogram signal (ECG) and electromyogram (EMG), then classification of the (obstructive, central, mixed) sleep apnea and hypopnea. The analysis is carried out using the wavelet transform technique in order to extract characteristic parameters whereas classification is carried out by applying the SVM (support vector machine) technique. The obtained results show good recognition rates using characteristic parameters.

Keywords: obstructive, central, mixed, sleep apnea, hypopnea, ECG, EMG, wavelet transform, SVM classifier

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Authors: Kwang Chun, John Kemeny

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Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been a prevalent remote-sensing technology applied in the geological fields due to its high precision and ease of use. One of the major applications is to use the detailed geometrical information of underground structures as a basis for the generation of a three-dimensional numerical model that can be used in a geotechnical stability analysis such as FEM or DEM. To date, however, straightforward techniques in reconstructing the numerical model from the scanned data of the underground structures have not been well established or tested. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive approach integrating all the various processes, from LiDAR scanning to finite element numerical analysis. The study focuses on converting LiDAR 3D point clouds of geologic structures containing complex surface geometries into a finite element model. This methodology has been applied to Kartchner Caverns in Arizona, where detailed underground and surface point clouds can be used for the analysis of underground stability. Numerical simulations were performed using the finite element code Abaqus and presented by 3D computing visualization solution, ParaView. The results are useful in studying the stability of all types of underground excavations including underground mining and tunneling.

Keywords: finite element analysis, LiDAR, remote-sensing, scientific visualization, underground stability

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Authors: Norfiza Ibrahim, Norshuhada Shiratuddin, Siti Mahfuzah Sarif

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Decision-making system is used to facilitate people in making the right choice for their important daily activities. For the youth, proper guidance in making important decisions is needed. Their skills in decision-making aid decisions will indirectly affect their future. For that reason, this study focuses on the intelligent aspects in the development of intelligent decision support application. The aid apparently integrates Personality Traits (PT) and Multiple Intelligence (MI) data in development of a computerized personal decision aid for youth named as Youth Personal Decision Aid (Youth PDA). This study is concerned with the aid’s helpfulness based on the hybrid intelligent process. There are four main items involved which are reliability, decision making effort, confidence, as well as decision process awareness. Survey method was applied to the actual user of this system, namely the school and the Institute of Higher Education (IPT)’s students. An establish instrument was used to evaluate the study. The results of the analysis and findings in the assessment indicates a high mean value of the four dimensions in helping Youth PDA to be accepted as a useful tool for the youth in decision-making.

Keywords: decision support, multiple intelligent, personality traits, youth personal decision aid

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Authors: Yasser Gaber, Mohamed Ismail, Serena Bisagni, Mohamad Takwa, Rajni Hatti-Kaul

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Enzymes are safe and selective catalysts. They skillfully catalyze chemical reactions; however, the native form is not usually suitable for industrial applications. Enzymes are therefore engineered by several techniques to meet the required catalytic task. Clopidogrel is recorded among the five best selling pharmaceutical in 2010 under the brand name Plavix. The commonly used route for production of the drug on an industrial scale is the synthesis of the racemic mixture followed by diastereomeric resolution to obtain the pure S isomer. The process consumes a lot of solvents and chemicals. We have evaluated a biocatalytic cleaner approach for asymmetric hydrolysis of racemic clopidogrel. Initial screening of a selected number of hydrolases showed only one enzyme EST to exhibit activity and selectivity towards the desired stereoisomer. As the crude EST is a mixture of several isoenzymes, a homology model of EST-1 was used in molecular dynamic simulations to study the interaction of the enzyme with R and S isomers of clopidogrel. Analysis of the geometric hindrances of the tetrahedral intermediates revealed a potential site for mutagenesis in order to improve the activity and the selectivity. Single point mutation showed dramatic increase in activity and inversion of the enantioselectivity (400 fold change in E value).

Keywords: biocatalysis, biotechnology, enzyme, protein engineering, molecular modeling

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Authors: Sadeem A. Alolayan

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The purpose of early intervention (EI) programs and services is to minimize the impact of disability on children ages 0-5 and to reduce future special education costs. This literature review identifies the status of families of children with special needs. Four major themes emerged from this literature review. The first was the family’s needs and the expressed desire for services to be obtained or outcomes to be achieved. The second was family support, meaning any information or skills needed to facilitate parents’ role as professionals in order to enable them to train and provide their child with the best quality of life. The third theme, barriers, was defined as parents’ actions or life circumstances that hindered families in obtaining appropriate EI services. The conclusions derived from the recommendations are that effective parent participation involves careful planning, establishing and maintaining a trusted rapport between parents, and EI providers that understand parents’ individual needs and interests, thus motivating effective parent involvement in early intervention programs.

Keywords: early intervention, individuals with disabilities education act, parents, recommendations

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Authors: Albena Ivanova, Jill Kurp, Austin Hampe

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Cereal products in the US contain rich information on the front of the package (FOP) as well as point-of-purchase (POP) summaries provided by the store. These summaries frequently are confusing and misleading to the consumer. This study explores the relationship between perceived quality, objective quality, price, and value in the cold cereal industry. A total of 270 cold cereal products were analyzed and the price, quality and value for different summaries were compared using ANOVA tests. The results provide evidence that the United States Department of Agriculture Organic FOP/POP are related to higher objective quality, higher price, but not to a higher value. Whole grain FOP/POP related to a higher objective quality, lower or similar price, and higher value. Heart-healthy POP related to higher objective quality, similar price, and higher value. Gluten-free FOP/POP related to lower objective quality, higher price, and lower value. Kid's cereals were of lower objective quality, same price, and lower value compared to family and adult markets. The findings point to a disturbing tendency of companies to continue to produce lower quality products for the kids’ market, pricing them the same as high-quality products. The paper outlines strategies that marketers and policymakers can utilize to contribute to the increased objective quality and value of breakfast cereal products in the United States.

Keywords: cereals, certifications, front-of-package claims, consumer health.

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Authors: Stephanie Duval

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The concept of educational success, combined with the overall development of the child in kindergarten, is at the center of current interests, both in research and in the environments responsible for the education of young children. In order to promote it, researchers emphasize the importance of studying the executive functions [EF] of children in preschool education. More precisely, the EFs, which refers to working memory [WM], inhibition, mental flexibility and planning, would be the pivotal element of the child’s educational success. In order to support the EFs of the child, and even his educational success, the quality of the environments is beginning to be explored more and more. The question that arises now is how to promote EFs for young children in the educational environment, in order to support their educational success? The objective of this study is to investigate the link between the quality of interactions in 5-year-old kindergarten and child’s EFs. The sample consists of 118 children (70 girls, 48 boys) in 12 classes. The quality of the interactions is observed from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System [CLASS], and the EFs (i.e., working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and planning) are measured with administered tests. The hypothesis of this study was that the quality of teacher-child interactions in preschool education, as measured by the CLASS, was associated with the child’s EFs. The results revealed that the quality of emotional support offered by adults in kindergarten, included in the CLASS tool, was positively and significantly related to WM and inhibition skills. The results also suggest that WM is a key skill in the development of EFs, which may be associated with the educational success of the child. However, this hypothesis remains to be clarified, as is the link with educational success. In addition, results showed that factors associated to the family (ex. parents’ income) moderate the relationship between the domain ‘instructional support’ of the CLASS (ex. concept development) and child’s WM skills. These data suggest a moderating effect related to family characteristics in the link between ‘quality of classroom interactions’ and ‘EFs’. This project proposes, as a future avenue, to check the distinctive effect of different environments (familial and educational) on the child’s EFs. More specifically, future study could examine the influence of the educational environment on EF skills, as well as whether or not there is a moderating effect of the family environment (ex. parents' income) on the link between the quality of the interactions in the classroom and the EFs of the children, as anticipated by this research.

Keywords: executive functions [EFs], environmental factors, quality of interactions, preschool education

Procedia PDF Downloads 354

Authors: Xiaosheng Chen, Jingjing Chen, Phil Reed, Dan Zhang

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Conscious intention can be a promising point cut to grasp consciousness and orient voluntary action. The current study adopted a random ratio (RR), yoked random interval (RI) reinforcement learning schedule instead of the previous highly repeatable and single decision point paradigms, aimed to induce voluntary action with the conscious intention that evolves from the interaction between short-range-intention and long-range-intention. Readiness potential (RP) -like-EEG amplitude and inter-trial-EEG variability decreased significantly prior to voluntary action compared to cued action for inter-trial-EEG variability, mainly featured during the earlier stage of neural activities. Notably, (RP) -like-EEG amplitudes decreased significantly prior to higher RI-reward rates responses in which participants formed a higher plane of conscious intention. The present study suggests the possible contribution of conscious intention-based processes to the neural activities from the earlier stage prior to voluntary action on reinforcement leanring schedule.

Keywords: Reinforcement leaning schedule, voluntary action, EEG, conscious intention, readiness potential

Procedia PDF Downloads 62