Search results for: discrete events

Authors: Francesco Piluso

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Nowadays, to restore the deconstructive power of semiotics implies a critical analysis of neoliberal ideology, and, even more critically, a confrontation with materialist perspective. The theoretical path of Jean Baudrillard is crucial to understand the ambivalence of this intersection. A semiotic critique of Baudrillard’s work, through tools of both structuralism and interpretative semiotics, has the aim to give materialism a new consistent semiotic approach and vice-versa. According to Baudrillard, the commodity form is characterized by the same abstract and systemic logic of the sign-form, in which the production of the signified (use-value) is a mere ideological mean for the reproduction of the signifiers-chain (exchange-value). Nevertheless, this parallelism is broken by the author himself: if the use-value is deconstructed in its relative logic, the signified and the referent, both as discrete and positive elements, are collapsed on the same plane at the shadows of the signified forms. These divergent considerations lead Baudrillard to the same crucial point: the dismissal of the material world, replaced by the hyperreality as reproduction of a semiotic (genetic) Code. The stress on the concept of form, as an epistemological and semiotic tool to analyse the construction of values in the consumer society, has led to the Code as its ontological drift. In other words, Baudrillard seems to enclose consumer society (and reality) in this immanent and self-fetishized world of signs–an ideological perspective that mystifies the gravity of the material relationships between Northern-Western World and Third World. The notion of Encyclopaedia by Umberto Eco is the key to overturn the relationship of immanence/transcendence between the Code and the economic political of the sign, by understanding the former as an ideological plane within the encyclopedia itself. Therefore, rather than building semiotic (hyper)realities, semiotics has to deal with materialism in terms of material relationships of power which are mystified and reproduced through such ideological ontologies of signs.

Keywords: Baudrillard, Code, Eco, Encyclopaedia, epistemology vs. ontology, semiotics vs. materialism

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Authors: Marwa Zein

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The long-term of the contract is one of the major features that distinguish international trade and investment contracts from other internal contracts. This is due to the nature of the contract and the huge works required to be performed from one hand or the desire of the parties to achieve stability in their transactions. However, long-term contracts might expose them to certain events and circumstances that impact the capability of the parties to execute their obligations pursuant to these contracts. During the year 2016, the Egyptian government has taken series of economic decisions which greatly impacted the economic and investment environment. Consequently, many contracts have encountered many problems in their execution due to such changes that greatly influence the performance of their obligation, a matter that necessitated the renegotiation of the conditions of these contracts on the basis of the unpredicted changes that could be listed under the Force Majeure Clause. The principle of fair and equitable treatment in investment placed on an obligation on the Egyptian government to consider the renegotiation of contract clauses based on the new conditions. This paper will discuss the idea of renegotiating international trade and investment contracts in Egypt with reference to the changes the economic environment has witnessed lately.

Keywords: change of circumstances, international contracts, investment contracts, renegotiation

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Authors: Mohamed Emran, Giovanni Pardini, Maria Gispert, Mohamed Rashad

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Land use and abandonment in semi-arid degraded ecosystems may cause regressive dynamics in vegetation cover affecting organic matter contents, soil nutrients and structural stability, thus reducing soil resistance to erosion. Mediterranean areas are generally subjected to climatic fluctuations, which modify soil conditions and hydrological processes, such as runoff and water infiltration within the upper soil horizons. Low erosion rates occur in very fragile and shallow soils with minor clay content progressively decrease organic carbon C and nitrogen N pools in the upper soil horizons. Seven soils were selected representing variant context of land use and abandonment at the Cap de Creus Peninsula, Catalonia, NE Spain, from recent cultivated vines and olive groves, mid abandoned forests standing under cork and pine trees, pasture to late abandoned Cistus and Erica scrubs. The aim of this work was to study the effect of changes in land use and abandonment on the depletion of soil organic carbon and nitrogen transported by runoff water in shallow soils after natural rainfall events during two years with different rainfall patterns (1st year with low rainfall and 2nd year with high rainfall) by i) monitoring the most significant soil erosion parameters at recorded rainfall events, ii) studying the most relevant soil physical and chemical characteristics on seasonal basis and iii) analysing the seasonal trends of depleted carbon and nitrogen and their interaction with soil surface compaction parameters. Significant seasonal variability was observed in the relevant soil physical and chemical parameters and soil erosion parameters in all soils to establish their evolution under land use and abandonment during two years of different rainfall patterns (214 and 487 mm per year), giving important indications on soil response to rainfall impacts. Erosion rates decreased significantly with the increasing of soil C and N under low and high rainfall. In cultivated soils, C and N depletion increased by 144% and 115%, respectively by 13% increase in erosion rates during the 1st year with respect to the 2nd year. Depleted C and N were proportionally higher in soils under vines and olive with vulnerable soil structure and low soil resilience leading to degradation, altering nutrients cycles and causing adverse impact on environmental quality. Statistical analysis underlined that, during the 1st year, soil surface was less effective in preserving stocks of organic resources leading to higher susceptibility to erosion with consequent C and N depletion. During the 2nd year, higher organic reserve and water storage occurred despite the increasing of C and N loss with an effective contribution from soil surface compaction parameters. The overall estimation during the two years indicated clear differences among soils under vines, olive, cork and pines, suggesting on the one hand, that current cultivation practices are inappropriate and that reforestation with pines may delay the achievement of better soil conditions. On the other hand, the natural succession of vegetation under Cistus, pasture and Erica suggests the recovery of good soil conditions.

Keywords: land abandonment, land use, nutrient's depletion, soil erosion

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Authors: Muhammad Hadi Ibrahim

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The benefits of alternative/renewable fuels in general and a study of the environmental impacts of biofuels in particular have been reviewed in this paper. It is a known fact that, energy generation using fossil fuel produces many important pollutants including; nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, soot, dust, smoke and other particulate harmful matter. It’s believed that if carbon dioxide levels continue to increase drastically, the planet will become warmer and will most likely result in a variety of negative impacts including; sea-level rise, extreme and unpredictable weather events and an increased frequency of draughts in inland agricultural zones. Biofuels such as alcohols, biogas, etc. appear to be more viable alternatives, especially for use as fuels in diesel engines. The substitution of fossil fuel through increased utilization of biofuels produced in a sustainable manner, can contribute immensely towards a cleaner environment, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation of climate change. Stakeholders in the energy sector can be sensitized by the findings of the research study and to consider the possible adverse effects in developing technologies for the production and combustion of biofuels.

Keywords: emission, energy, renewable/alternative fuel, environment, pollution

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Authors: O. Maranci, A. B. Tugrul

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Scintigraphy is an imaging method of nuclear events provoked by collisions or charged current interactions with radiation. It is used for diagnostic test used in nuclear medicine via radiopharmaceuticals emitting radiation which is captured by gamma cameras to form two-dimensional images. Liver scintigraphy is widely used in nuclear medicine.Tc-99m and Cr-51 gamma radioisotopes can be used for this purpose. Cr-51 usage is more important for patients’ organ dose that has higher energy and longer half-life as compared to Tc-99m. In this study, it is aimed to determine the required dose for critical organs of patient through liver scintigraphy via Cr-51 gamma radioisotope. Experimental studies were conducted on patients even though conducting experimental studies on patients is extremely difficult for determination of critical organ doses. Torso phantom was utilized to simulate the liver scintigraphy by using 20 mini packages of Cr-51 that were placed on the organ. The radioisotope was produced by irradiation in central thimble of TRIGA MARK II Reactor at 250 KW power. As the results of the study, critical organ doses were determined and evaluated with different critic organs.

Keywords: critical organ doses, liver, scintigraphy, TRIGA Mark-II

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Authors: L. Wilkening, G. Ackermann, T. T. Do

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This article presents an approach for stand-alone and grid-connected mode of a German low-voltage grid with high share of photovoltaic. For this purpose, suitable dynamic system models have been developed. This allows the simulation of dynamic events in very small time ranges and the operation management over longer periods of time. Using these simulations, suitable control parameters could be identified, and their effects on the grid can be analyzed. In order to validate the simulation results, a LV-grid test bench has been implemented at the University of Technology Hamburg. The developed control strategies are to be validated using real inverters, generators and different realistic loads. It is shown that a battery hybrid system installed next to a voltage transformer makes it possible to operate the LV-grid in stand-alone mode without using additional information and communication technology and without intervention in the existing grid units. By simulating critical days of the year, suitable control parameters for stable stand-alone operations are determined and set point specifications for different control strategies are defined.

Keywords: battery, e-mobility, photovoltaic, smart grid

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Authors: Ekin Ozer

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Assessment of structural reliability is essential for efficient use of civil infrastructure which is subjected hazardous events. Dynamic analysis of finite element models is a commonly used tool to simulate structural behavior and estimate its performance accordingly. However, theoretical models purely based on preliminary assumptions and design drawings may deviate from the actual behavior of the structure. This study proposes up-to-date reliability estimation procedures which engages actual bridge vibration data modifying finite element models for finite element model updating and performing reliability estimation, accordingly. The proposed method utilizes vibration response measurements of bridge structures to identify modal parameters, then uses these parameters to calibrate finite element models which are originally based on design drawings. The proposed method does not only show that reliability estimation based on updated models differs from the original models, but also infer that non-updated models may overestimate the structural capacity.

Keywords: earthquake engineering, engineering vibrations, reliability estimation, structural health monitoring

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Authors: Cesar Eduardo Hernández Curiel, Victor Hugo Benítez Baltazar, Jesús Horacio Pacheco Ramírez

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This paper is devoted to present the advances in the design of a prototype that is able to supervise the complex behavior of water quality parameters such as pH and temperature, via a real-time monitoring system. The current water quality tests that are performed in government water quality institutions in Mexico are carried out in problematic locations and they require taking manual samples. The water samples are then taken to the institution laboratory for examination. In order to automate this process, a water quality monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks is proposed. The system consists of a sensor node which contains one pH sensor, one temperature sensor, a microcontroller, and a ZigBee radio, and a base station composed by a ZigBee radio and a PC. The progress in this investigation shows the development of a water quality monitoring system. Due to recent events that affected water quality in Mexico, the main motivation of this study is to address water quality monitoring systems, so in the near future, a more robust, affordable, and reliable system can be deployed.

Keywords: pH measurement, water quality monitoring, wireless sensor networks, ZigBee

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Authors: Evangelia Gaitanidou, Evangelos Bekiaris

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Considering that resilience implies the ability of a system to adapt continuously in order to respond to its operational goals, a system is considered as more or less resilient depending on the level and time of recovering from disruptive events and/or shocks to its initial state. Regarding transport systems, enhancing resilience is considered imperative for two main reasons: Such systems provide critical support to every socio-economic activity, while being one of the most important economic sectors and, secondly, the paths that convey people, goods and information, are the same through which risks are propagated. RESOLUTE (RESilience management guidelines and Operationalization appLied to Urban Transport Environment) Horizon 2020 research project is answering those needs, by proposing and testing a set of guidelines for resilience management of the urban transport system. The methods and steps towards this goal, through a step-wise methodology, taking into account established models like FRAM (Functional Resonance Analysis Model), and upon gathering existing practices are described in this paper, together with an overview of the produced guidelines. The overall aim is to create a framework which public transport authorities could consult and apply, for rendering their infrastructure resilient against natural disaster and other threats.

Keywords: guidelines, infrastructure, resilience, transport

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Authors: Yungeng Xie, Cong Liu, Yi Liu, Xuanao Wan

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The study aims to explore microblog users’ emotion expression and sharing behaviors on the Chinese microblog (Weibo). The first theme of study analyzed whether microblog emotions impact readers’ message sharing behaviors, specifically, how the strength of emotion (positive and negative) in microblog messages facilitate/inhibit readers’ sharing behaviors. The second theme compared the differences among the three types of microblog users (i.e., verified enterprise users, verified individual users and unverified users) in terms of their profiles and microblog behaviors. A total of 7114 microblog messages about 24 hot public events in China were sampled from Sina Weibo. The first study results show that strength of negative emotions that microblog messages carry significantly increase the possibility of the message being shared. The second study results indicate that there are significant differences across the three types of users in terms of their emotion expression and its influence on microblog behaviors.

Keywords: emotion expression, information diffusion, microblog, sharing

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Authors: Anthony John Walker, Glen Bright

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The challenge faced by manufactures, when producing custom products, is that each product needs exact components. This can cause work-in-process instability due to component matching constraints imposed on assembly cells. Clearing type flow control policies have been used extensively in mediating server access between multiple arrival processes. Although the stability and performance of clearing policies has been well formulated and studied in the literature, the growth in arrival to departure sequence disorder for each arriving job, across a serving resource, is still an area for further analysis. In this paper, a closed form industrial model has been formulated that characterizes arrival-to-departure sequence disorder through stable manufacturing systems under clearing type flow control policy. Specifically addressed are the effects of sequence disorder imposed on a downstream assembly cell in terms of work-in-process instability induced through component matching constraints. Results from a simulated manufacturing system show that steady state average sequence disorder in parallel upstream processing cells can be balanced in order to decrease downstream assembly system instability. Simulation results also show that the closed form model accurately describes the growth and limiting behavior of average sequence disorder between parts arriving and departing from a manufacturing system flow controlled via clearing policy.

Keywords: assembly system constraint, custom products, discrete sequence disorder, flow control

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Authors: Vyacheslav Furtak, Merja Roivainen, Olga Mirochnichenko, Majid Laassri, Bella Bidzhieva, Tatiana Zagorodnyaya, Vladimir Chizhikov, Konstantin Chumakov

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Molecular epidemiology and environmental surveillance are parts of a rational strategy to control infectious diseases. They have been widely used in the worldwide campaign to eradicate poliomyelitis, which otherwise would be complicated by the inability to rapidly respond to outbreaks and determine sources of the infection. The conventional scheme involves isolation of viruses from patients and the environment, followed by their identification by nucleotide sequences analysis to determine phylogenetic relationships. This is a tedious and time-consuming process that yields definitive results when it may be too late to implement countermeasures. Because of the difficulty of high-throughput full-genome sequencing, most such studies are conducted by sequencing only capsid genes or their parts. Therefore the important information about the contribution of other parts of the genome and inter- and intra-species recombination to viral evolution is not captured. Here we propose a new approach based on the rapid concentration of sewage samples with tangential flow filtration followed by deep sequencing and reconstruction of nucleotide sequences of viruses present in the samples. The entire nucleic acids content of each sample is sequenced, thus preserving in digital format the complete spectrum of viruses. A set of rapid algorithms was developed to separate deep sequence reads into discrete populations corresponding to each virus and assemble them into full-length consensus contigs, as well as to generate a complete profile of sequence heterogeneities in each of them. This provides an effective approach to study molecular epidemiology and evolution of natural viral populations.

Keywords: poliovirus, eradication, environmental surveillance, laboratory diagnosis

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Authors: Beatriz González-rodrigo, Diego Hidalgo-leiva, Omar Flores, Claudia Germoso, Maribel Jiménez-martínez, Laura Navas-sánchez, Belén Orta, Nicola Tarque, Orlando Hernández- Rubio, Miguel Marchamalo, Juan Gregorio Rejas, Belén Benito-oterino

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Cities facing seismic hazard necessitate detailed risk assessments for effective urban planning and vulnerability identification, ensuring the safety and sustainability of urban infrastructure. Comprehensive studies involving seismic hazard, vulnerability, and exposure evaluations are pivotal for estimating potential losses and guiding proactive measures against seismic events. However, broad-scale traditional risk studies limit consideration of specific local threats and identify vulnerable housing within a structural typology. Achieving precise results at neighbourhood levels demands higher resolution seismic hazard exposure, and vulnerability studies. This research aims to bolster sustainability and safety against seismic disasters in three Central American and Caribbean capitals. It integrates geospatial techniques and artificial intelligence into seismic risk studies, proposing cost-effective methods for exposure data collection and damage prediction. The methodology relies on prior seismic threat studies in pilot zones, utilizing existing exposure and vulnerability data in the region. Emphasizing detailed building attributes enables the consideration of behaviour modifiers affecting seismic response. The approach aims to generate detailed risk scenarios, facilitating prioritization of preventive actions pre-, during, and post-seismic events, enhancing decision-making certainty. Detailed risk scenarios necessitate substantial investment in fieldwork, training, research, and methodology development. Regional cooperation becomes crucial given similar seismic threats, urban planning, and construction systems among involved countries. The outcomes hold significance for emergency planning and national and regional construction regulations. The success of this methodology depends on cooperation, investment, and innovative approaches, offering insights and lessons applicable to regions facing moderate seismic threats with vulnerable constructions. Thus, this framework aims to fortify resilience in seismic-prone areas and serves as a reference for global urban planning and disaster management strategies. In conclusion, this research proposes a comprehensive framework for seismic risk assessment in high-risk urban areas, emphasizing detailed studies at finer resolutions for precise vulnerability evaluations. The approach integrates regional cooperation, geospatial technologies, and adaptive fragility curve adjustments to enhance risk assessment accuracy, guiding effective mitigation strategies and emergency management plans.

Keywords: assessment, behaviour modifiers, emergency management, mitigation strategies, resilience, vulnerability

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Authors: Sum Lau, Wing Chung Cleo Lau, Wing Yan Chu, Long Ching Ip, Wan Yin Lo, Jo Long Sam Yau, Ka Ho Hui, Sze Yi Mak

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Biomedical engineering (BME) is an interdisciplinary subject where knowledge about biology and medicine is applied to novel applications, solving clinical problems. This subject is crucial for cities such as Hong Kong, where the burden on the medical system is rising due to reasons like the ageing population. Hong Kong, who is actively boosting technological advancements in recent years, sets BME, or biotechnology, as a major category, as reflected in the 2018-19 Budget, where biotechnology was one of the four pillars for development. Over the years, while resources in terms of money and space have been provided, there has been a lack of talents expressed by both the academia and industry. While exogenous factors, such as COVID, may have hindered talents from outside Hong Kong to come, endogenous factors should also be considered. In particular, since there are already a few local universities offering BME programmes, their curriculum or style of education requires to be reviewed to intensify the network of the BME community and support post-academic career development. It was observed that while undergraduate (UG) studies focus on knowledge teaching with some technical training and postgraduate (PG) programmes concentrate on upstream research, the programmes are generally confined to the academic sector and lack connections to the industry. In light of that, a “Biomedical Innovation and Outreach Programme 2022” (“B.I.O.2022”) was held to connect students and professors from academia with clinicians and engineers from the industry, serving as a comparative approach to conventional education methods (UG and PG programmes from tertiary institutions). Over 100 participants, including undergraduates, postgraduates, secondary school students, researchers, engineers, and clinicians, took part in various outreach events such as conference and site visits, all held from June to July 2022. As a case study, this programme aimed to tackle the aforementioned problems with the theme of “4Cs” (connection, communication, collaboration, and commercialisation). The effectiveness of the programme is investigated by its ability to serve as an adult and continuing education and the effectiveness of causing social change to tackle current societal challenges, with the focus on tackling the lack of talents engaging in biomedical engineering. In this study, B.I.O.2022 is found to be able to complement the traditional educational methods, particularly in terms of knowledge exchange between the academia and the industry. With enhanced communications between participants from different career stages, there were students who followed up to visit or even work with the professionals after the programme. Furthermore, connections between the academia and industry could foster the generation of new knowledge, which ultimately pointed to commercialisation, adding value to the BME industry while filling the gap in terms of human resources. With the continuation of events like B.I.O.2022, it provides a promising starting point for the development and relationship strengthening of a BME community in Hong Kong, and shows potential as an alternative way of adult education or learning with societal benefits.

Keywords: biomedical engineering, adult education for social change, comparative methods and principles, lifelong learning, faced problems, promises, challenges and pitfalls

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Authors: Sandra Figueiredo

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To guarantee the well-being and the academic achievement it is crucial into the global society to develop techniques to assess language competence and control psychological aspects on the second language learning context. The current scenario of the war conflicts that are emerging mostly in Europe and Middle East have been resulting in forced immigration and refugees’ maladjustment. The inclusion is the priority for United Nations concerning the sustainability of societies. For inclusion, psychological screening tests and educational tools are urgent. Method: Approximately 100 refugees from Ukraine were assessed, in Portugal, under the administration of the PCL-5. This 20-item instrument evaluates the Post-Traumatic Disorder. Expected results: The statistical analysis will be performed with the International Database Analyzer and SPSS (v. 28). The results expected are the relationship between traumatic events caused by war and post-traumatic symptomatology (anxiety, hypervigilance, stress). Implications: The data will be discussed concerning the problems of belonging, the psychological constraints and educational attainment (language needs included) experienced by the individuals more recently arrived to the hosting societies. The refugees’ acculturation process and the emotional regulation will be addressed.

Keywords: refugees, immigration, educational needs, trauma, inclusion, second language.

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Authors: Ondrej Slach, Jan Machacek, Jan Zenka, Lucie Hyllova, Petr Rumpel

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The aim of the paper is to identify and asses different trajectories of two fashionable urban policies –creative and smart cities– in specific post-socialistic context. Drawing on the case of Czechia, we employ the concept of policy mobility research. More specifically, we employ a discourse analysis in order to identify the so-called 'infrastructure' of both policies (such as principal actors, journals, conferences, events), with the special focus on 'agents of transfer' in a multiscale perspective. The preliminary results indicate faster and more aggressive spatial penetration of smart cities policy compared to creative cities policy in Czechia. Further, it seems that existed translation and implementation of smart cities policy into the national and urban context resulted in deliberated fragmented policy of smart cities in Czechia (pure technocratic view), which might be a threat for the future development of social sustainability, especially in cities that are facing increasing social polarisation. Last but not least, due to the fast spatial penetration of the concept and policies of smart cities, it seems that creative cities policy has almost been crowded out of the Czech urban agenda.

Keywords: policy mobility, smart cities, creative cities, Czechia

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Authors: Elham Serkani, Hossein Gharaee Garakani, Naser Mohammadzadeh, Elaheh Vaezpour

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Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are the main components of network security. These systems analyze the network events for intrusion detection. The design of an IDS is through the training of normal traffic data or attack. The methods of machine learning are the best ways to design IDSs. In the method presented in this article, the pruning algorithm of C5.0 decision tree is being used to reduce the features of traffic data used and training IDS by the least square vector algorithm (LS-SVM). Then, the remaining features are arranged according to the predictor importance criterion. The least important features are eliminated in the order. The remaining features of this stage, which have created the highest level of accuracy in LS-SVM, are selected as the final features. The features obtained, compared to other similar articles which have examined the selected features in the least squared support vector machine model, are better in the accuracy, true positive rate, and false positive. The results are tested by the UNSW-NB15 dataset.

Keywords: decision tree, feature selection, intrusion detection system, support vector machine

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Authors: Ji-Yuan Lin, Yu-Ming Liou, Yi-Ting Chen, Chen-Syuan Lin

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Soil water index obtained by tank model is now commonly used in soil and sand disaster alarm system in Japan. Comparing with the rainfall trigging index in Taiwan, the tank model is easy to predict the slope water content on large-scale landslide. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the threshold value of large-scale landslide using the soil water index Sixteen typhoons and heavy rainfall events, were selected to establish the, to relationship between landslide event and soil water index. Finally, the proposed threshold values for landslides on country road No.89 are suggested in this study. The study results show that 95% landslide cases occurred in soil water index more than 125mm, and 30% of the more serious slope failure occurred in the soil water index is greater than 250mm. Beside, this study speculates when soil water index more than 250mm and the difference value between second tank and third tank less than -25mm, it leads to large-scale landslide more probably.

Keywords: soil water index, tank model, landslide, threshold values

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Authors: Asmir Gogic, Aljo Mujcic, Sandra Ibric, Nermin Suljanovic

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Ubiquity of natural disasters during last few decades have risen serious questions towards the prediction of such events and human safety. Every disaster regardless its proportion has a precursor which is manifested as a disruption of some environmental parameter such as temperature, humidity, pressure, vibrations and etc. In order to anticipate and monitor those changes, in this paper we propose an overall system for disaster prediction and monitoring, based on wireless sensor network (WSN). Furthermore, we introduce a modified and simplified WSN routing protocol built on the top of the trickle routing algorithm. Routing algorithm was deployed using the bluetooth low energy protocol in order to achieve low power consumption. Performance of the WSN network was analyzed using a real life system implementation. Estimates of the WSN parameters such as battery life time, network size and packet delay are determined. Based on the performance of the WSN network, proposed system can be utilized for disaster monitoring and prediction due to its low power profile and mesh routing feature.

Keywords: bluetooth low energy, disaster prediction, mesh routing protocols, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Aref Zribi, Sonia Ben Nasr, Sana Fendri, Mahdi Balti, Abderazzek Haddaoui

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Background: Despite their benefit, Endocrine therapies (ET) are known to have substantial adverse events (AEs) such as hot flashes, mood disorders and osteoarticular pain. ET induced alopecia(EIA) is less frequently noted by patients and is less reported in the literature. The aim of our study was to report ET alopecia characteristics and their influence on patient and treatment observance. Method: We conducted a retrospective study including luminal BC patients treated in the oncology department of the military hospital of Tunis between January 2015 and December 2020. Patients treated with previous chemotherapy-inducing alopecia were excluded. Results: 145 female patients were included. The median age was 59 years. EIA was reported in 44% of cases. Alopecia was attributed to aromatase inhibitors in 53% and tamoxifen in 21%. Severity was grade 1 in 80% and grade 2 in the remaining cases. ET discontinuation because of alopecia was noted in 6.5 % of patients. Moderate improvement of alopecia was observed with topical minoxidil and Thallium metallicum 9CH homeopathy during ET in 60% of patients. Conclusions: EIA is frequent in BC patients and should be considered to improve treatment observance and patients’ quality of life.

Keywords: endocrine therapy, alopecia, breast cancer, Tunisia

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Authors: Ludivine Saint-Mard, Masato Nakajima, Gloria Senfaute

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In areas with low to moderate seismicity, the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis frequently uses a Poisson approach, which assumes independence in time and space of events to determine the annual probability of earthquake occurrence. Nevertheless, in countries with high seismic rate, such as Japan, it is frequently use non-poissonian model which assumes that next earthquake occurrence depends on the date of previous one. The objective of this paper is to apply a non-poissonian models in a region of low to moderate seismicity to get a feedback on the following questions: can we overcome the lack of data to determine some key parameters?, and can we deal with uncertainties to apply largely this methodology on an industrial context?. The Brownian-Passage-Time model was applied to a fault located in France and conclude that even if the lack of data can be overcome with some calculations, the amount of uncertainties and number of scenarios leads to a numerous branches in PSHA, making this method difficult to apply on a large scale of low to moderate seismicity areas and in an industrial context.

Keywords: probabilistic seismic hazard, non-poissonian model, earthquake occurrence, low seismicity

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Authors: Abdulmalik Adamu

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This study is premised on the assumption that language, particularly, English plays a significant role in the acquisition of power in Nigeria. This is against the backdrop of the fact that for the first time in the political history of Nigeria, an opposition party succeeded in dethroning an incumbent President and ruling political party in an election. Therefore the main objective was to investigate the role of language, particularly English in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria. The corpus generated for this study consisted of excerpts from the media exchange between the spokespersons of the two dominant political parties at the time of the elections in 2015; Olisa Metuh of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Lai Mohammed of the All Progressive Party (APC). The excerpts were analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a research tool. The findings revealed the acceptance of the first proposition that English facilitates the acquisition of political power in Nigeria and the rejection of the second proposition that English is an instrument for the exclusion of the populist from political events in Nigeria. The study, therefore, concluded that language, particularly English played a significant role in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria.

Keywords: language, power, politics, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

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Authors: Krystian Chachula, Robert Nowak

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Manufacturing home-made explosives and synthetic drugs is an increasing problem in Europe. To combat that, a data fusion system is proposed for the detection and localization of production sites in urban environments. The data consists of measurements of properties of wastewater performed by various sensors installed in a sewage network. A four-stage fusion strategy allows detecting sources of waste products from known chemical reactions. First, suspicious measurements are used to compute the amount and position of discharged compounds. Then, this information is propagated through the sewage network to account for missing sensors. The next step is clustering and the formation of tracks. Eventually, tracks are used to reconstruct discharge events. Sensor measurements are simulated by a subsystem based on real-world data. In this paper, different discharge scenarios are considered to show how the parameters of used algorithms affect the effectiveness of the proposed system. This research is a part of the SYSTEM project (SYnergy of integrated Sensors and Technologies for urban sEcured environMent).

Keywords: continuous monitoring, information fusion and sensors, internet of things, multisensor fusion

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Authors: Scott A. Ochsner, Christopher M. Watkins, Apollo McOwiti, David L. Steffen Lauren B. Becnel, Neil J. McKenna

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Understanding signaling by nuclear receptors (NRs) requires an appreciation of their cognate ligand- and tissue-specific transcriptomes. While target gene regulation data are abundant in this field, they reside in hundreds of discrete publications in formats refractory to routine query and analysis and, accordingly, their full value to the NR signaling community has not been realized. One of the mandates of the Nuclear Receptor Signaling Atlas (NURSA) is to facilitate access of the community to existing public datasets. Pursuant to this mandate we are developing a freely-accessible community web resource, Transcriptomine, to bring together the sum total of available expression array and RNA-Seq data points generated by the field in a single location. Transcriptomine currently contains over 25,000,000 gene fold change datapoints from over 1200 contrasts relevant to over 100 NRs, ligands and coregulators in over 200 tissues and cell lines. Transcriptomine is designed to accommodate a spectrum of end users ranging from the bench researcher to those with advanced bioinformatic training. Visualization tools allow users to build custom charts to compare and contrast patterns of gene regulation across different tissues and in response to different ligands. Our resource affords an entirely new paradigm for leveraging gene expression data in the NR signaling field, empowering users to query gene fold changes across diverse regulatory molecules, tissues and cell lines, target genes, biological functions and disease associations, and that would otherwise be prohibitive in terms of time and effort. Transcriptomine will be regularly updated with gene lists from future genome-wide expression array and expression-sequencing datasets in the NR signaling field.

Keywords: target gene database, informatics, gene expression, transcriptomics

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Authors: Ayoub El Bourtali, Abdessamed Najine, Amrou Moussa Benmoussa

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It is becoming more and more necessary to manage flood risk, and it must include all stakeholders and all possible means available. The goal of this work is to map the vulnerability of the Oued Derna-region Tagzirt flood zone in the semi-arid region. This is about implementing predictive models and flood control. This allows for the development of flood risk prevention plans. In this study, A resistivity survey was conducted over the area to locate and evaluate soil characteristics in order to calculate discharges and prevent flooding for the study area. The development of a one-dimensional (1D) hydrodynamic model of the Derna River was carried out in HEC-RAS 5.0.4 using a combination of survey data and spatially extracted cross-sections and recorded river flows. The study area was hit by several extreme floods, causing a lot of property loss and loss of life. This research focuses on the most recent flood events, based on the collected data, the water level, river flow and river cross-section were analyzed. A set of flood levels were obtained as the outputs of the hydraulic model and the accuracy of the simulated flood levels and velocity.

Keywords: derna river, 1D hydrodynamic model, flood modelling, HEC-RAS 5.0.4

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Authors: Dorothy Chyung

Abstract:

In the psychiatric interview, the mental status exam begins with an assessment of the patient's appearance, noting aspects such as grooming and hygiene. However, it is not well established whether further examination of a patient's attire can provide further useful information. The popular assumption is that those who are mentally unwell will manifest this in unusual clothing. In the moral treatment of the 19th century, proper clothing was also seen as a pivotal therapeutic concern. This project examines assumptions about clothing, both as a reflection of and treatment for psychopathology. The methodology considers the opinions expressed in 19th century art and journals, as well as asylum rules, in comparison to contemporary psychiatric practice and research evidence. Per moral treatment in the 19th century, self-discipline and a proper environment would cure insanity. Madness was evident in the opposite of these ideals—such as ragged or ‘improper’ clothing—and rules about attire delineated the most correct (i.e. sane) ways to dress. These rules applied not only for the patients but also for staff. Despite these ideals, accusations were made that asylums, in fact, dressed patients to look more mentally unwell and further removed patients’ agency. Current practice in psychiatric hospitals retains remnants of moral treatment. Patients are expected to dress ‘appropriately’ while retaining some choice to build self-esteem, with arguments about safety being used to justify the removal of choice. Meanwhile, staff is expected to dress professionally and as role models, based on the assumption that conservative dress is least pathological. Research on this subject is limited, and there is little evidence that discrete psychiatric diagnoses manifest in the particular dress, nor that conservative dress would result in a reduction in pathology. Dressing unusually has become a privilege granted only to those without association with mental illness.

Keywords: fashion, history of psychiatry, medical humanities, mental health treatment

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Authors: Musab Isah

Abstract:

This paper presents a longitudinal analysis of Internet speed data in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, focusing on the most populous cities of each of the six countries – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai, UAE; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Doha, Qatar; Manama, Bahrain; and Muscat, Oman. The study utilizes data collected from the Measurement Lab (M-Lab) infrastructure over a five-year period from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2023. The analysis includes downstream and upstream throughput data for the cities, covering significant events such as the launch of 5G networks in 2019, COVID-19-induced lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, and the subsequent recovery period and return to normalcy. The results showcase substantial increases in Internet speeds across the cities, highlighting improvements in both download and upload throughput over the years. All the GCC countries have achieved above-average Internet speeds that can conveniently support various online activities and applications with excellent user experience.

Keywords: internet data science, internet performance measurement, throughput analysis, internet speed, measurement lab, network diagnostic tool

Procedia PDF Downloads 63

Authors: Melissa Valle

Abstract:

This paper draws upon the studies of visual culture and intersectionality to illuminate how visuality can naturalize social hierarchies. Through the use of iconography, it decodes the denotative, connotative and ideological meanings of symbols of ritualistic events in the context of the Colombian Atlantic Coast. An examination of such exceptional moments, i.e. of the spectacle, brings into focus how such performances are imbued with meaning by both the on-looker and the performer. Through an analysis of preexisting visuals (e.g., advertisements, social media) and visual materials produced by the researcher for the purpose of photo-elicitation interviews, this paper provides a contextual analysis of the ways in which three representations, popular during Colombian Atlantic coastal festivals (Negrita Puloy, Las Palenqueras, and El Son de Negro), have been historically, culturally and politically constituted. This work reveals that the visualizations are born out of and reproduce typifications systems heavily based upon race, gender, class, and ethnicity. Understanding the ways these categories are mutually constituted through the cultural practice of visual representation is essential to a more comprehensive understanding of the role such representation plays in the reproduction of social difference.

Keywords: Colombia, festivals, intersectionality, visual culture

Procedia PDF Downloads 356

Authors: Fatemeh Abdollahi, Mehran Zarghami, Jamshid Yazdani Jarati, Mun-Sunn Lye

Abstract:

Fathers may be at risk of depression during the postpartum period. Some studies have been reported maternal depression is the key predictor of paternal postpartum depression (PPD). This study aimed to explore this association. Using a cross-sectional study design, 591 couples referring to primary health centers at 2-8 weeks postpartum (during 2017) were recruited. Couples screened for depression using Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Data on socio-demographic characteristics and psychosocial factors was also gathered. Paternal PPD was analyzed in relation to maternal PPD and other related factors using multiple regressions. The prevalence of Paternal and maternal postpartum depression was 15.7% (93) and 31.8% (188), respectively. The regression model showed that there was increased risk of PPD in fathers whose wives experienced PPD [OR=1.15, (95%CI: 1.04-1.27)], who had a lower state of general health [OR=1.21, (95%CI: 1.11-1.33)], who experienced increased number of life events [OR=1.42, (95%CI: 1.01-1.2.00)], and who were at older age [OR=1.20, (95%CI: 1.05- 1.36)]. Also, there was a decreased risk of depression in fathers with more children compared with those with fewer children [OR=0.20, (95%CI: 0.07-0.53)]. Maternal PPD and psychosocial risk factors were the strong predictors of parental PPD. Being grown up in a family with two depressed parents are an important issue for children and needs futher research and attention.

Keywords: Father, Mother, Postpartum depression, Risk factors

Procedia PDF Downloads 146

Authors: Yasmeen Saleem, Pedro Berliner, Nurit Agam

Abstract:

The most severe limitation for plant production in arid areas is water. Rainfall events are rare but can have pulses of high intensity. As a result, crusts are formed, which decreases infiltration into the soil, and results additionally in erosive losses of soil. Direct evaporation of water from the wetted soil can account for large fractions of the water stored in the soil. Different kinds of mulches have been used to decrease the loss of water in arid and semi-arid region. This study aims to evaluate the effect of polystyrene styrofoam pellets mulch on soil infiltration, runoff, and evaporation as a more efficient and economically viable mulch alternative. Polystyrene styrofoam pellets of two sizes (0.5 and 1 cm diameter) will be placed on top of the soil in two mulch layer depths (1 and 2 cm), in addition to the non-mulched treatment. The rainfall simulator will be used as an artificial source of rain. The preliminary results in the prototype experiment indicate that polystyrene styrofoam pellets decreased runoff, increased soil-water infiltration. We are still testing the effect of these pellets on decreasing the soil-water evaporation.

Keywords: synthetic mulch, runoff, evaporation, infiltration

Procedia PDF Downloads 123