Search results for: security incident

Authors: Ahmad Alsaber

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This paper aims to understand the intermediary role of the payment platform applications by analyzing the various factors that can influence the desirability of utilizing said payment services in Kuwait, as well as to determine the effect of the presence of different types of payment platforms on the variables of the “Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology” (UTAUT) model. The UTAUT model's findings will provide an important understanding of the moderating role of payment platform mobile applications. This study will explore the influence of payment platform mobile applications on customer purchase intentions in Kuwait by employing a quantitative survey of 200 local customers. Questions will cover their usage of payment platforms, purchase intent, and overall satisfaction. The information gathered is then analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in order to gain insights. The research hopes to provide greater insight into the effect of mobile payment platforms on customer purchase intentions in Kuwait. This research will provide important implications to marketers and customer service providers, informing their strategies and initiatives, as well as offer recommendations to payment platform providers on how to improve customer satisfaction and security. The study results suggest that the likelihood of a purchase is affected by performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, risk, and trust. The purpose of this research is to understand the advancements in the different variables that Kuwaiti customers consider while dealing with mobile banking applications. With the implementation of stronger security measures, progressively more payment platform applications are being utilized in the Kuwaiti marketplace, making them more desirable with their accessibility and usability. With the development of the Kuwaiti digital economy, it is expected that mobile banking will have a greater impact on banking transactions and services in the future.

Keywords: purchase intention, UTAUT, performance expectancy, social influence, risk, trust

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Authors: Van Trieu, Shouhuai Xu, Yusheng Feng

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Tracking attack trajectories can be difficult, with limited information about the nature of the attack. Even more difficult as attack information is collected by Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) due to the current IDSs having some limitations in identifying malicious and anomalous traffic. Moreover, IDSs only point out the suspicious events but do not show how the events relate to each other or which event possibly cause the other event to happen. Because of this, it is important to investigate new methods capable of performing the tracking of attack trajectories task quickly with less attack information and dependency on IDSs, in order to prioritize actions during incident responses. This paper proposes a two-level graph causality framework for tracking attack trajectories in internet networks by leveraging observable malicious behaviors to detect what is the most probable attack events that can cause another event to occur in the system. Technically, given the time series of malicious events, the framework extracts events with useful features, such as attack time and port number, to apply to the conditional independent tests to detect the relationship between attack events. Using the academic datasets collected by IDSs, experimental results show that the framework can quickly detect the causal pairs that offer meaningful insights into the nature of the internet network, given only reasonable restrictions on network size and structure. Without the framework’s guidance, these insights would not be able to discover by the existing tools, such as IDSs. It would cost expert human analysts a significant time if possible. The computational results from the proposed two-level graph network model reveal the obvious pattern and trends. In fact, more than 85% of causal pairs have the average time difference between the causal and effect events in both computed and observed data within 5 minutes. This result can be used as a preventive measure against future attacks. Although the forecast may be short, from 0.24 seconds to 5 minutes, it is long enough to be used to design a prevention protocol to block those attacks.

Keywords: causality, multilevel graph, cyber-attacks, prediction

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Authors: Rachel Gough

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In 2014, Skellig Michael, an island off Ireland’s western seaboard and UNESCO world heritage site became a major setting in Disney’s Star Wars franchise. The subsequent influx of tourists to the site has proven to be a point of contention nationally. The increased visitor numbers have uplifted certain areas of the local economy, the mainland, but have caused irreparable damage to historic monuments and to endangered bird populations who breed on the island. Recent research carried out by a state body suggests far-reaching and longterm negative impacts on the island’s culture and environment, should the association with the Star Wars franchise persist. In spite of this, the film has been widely endorsed by the Irish government as providing a vital economic boost to historically marginalised rural areas through film tourism. This paper argues quite plainly that what is taking place on Skellig is neocolonialism. Skellig Michael’s unique resources, its aesthetic qualities, its ecosystem, and its cultural currency have been sold by the state to a multinational corporation, who profit from their use. Meanwhile, locals are left to do their best to turn a market trend into sustainable business at the expense of culture ecology and community. This paper intends to be the first dedicated study into the psychogeographic and cultural impact of Skellig Michael’s deterioration as a result of film tourism. It will discuss the projected impact of this incident on Irish culture more broadly and finally will attempt to lay out a roadmap for more collaborative filmmaking and touristic approach, which allows local cultures and ecosystem’s to thrive without drastically inhibiting cultural production. This paper will ultimately find that the consequences of this representation call for a requirement to read tourism as a split concept — namely into what we might loosely call “eco-tourism” and more capital-based “profit-bottom-line tourism.”

Keywords: ecology, film tourism, neocolonialism, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 192

Authors: D. Osborn, L. Easthope

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The increasing threat of ‘marauding terror,' utilising improvised explosive devices and firearms, has focused the attention of policy makers and emergency responders once again on the treatment of the critically injured patient in a highly volatile scenario. Whilst there have been significant improvements made in the response and lessons learned from recent disasters in the international disaster community there still remain areas of uncertainty and a lack of clarity in the care of the critically injured. This innovative, longitudinal study has at its heart the aim of using ethnographic methods to ‘slow down’ the journey such patients will take and make visible the ethical complexities that 2017 technologies, expectations and over a decade of improved combat medicine techniques have brought. The primary researcher, previously employed in the hospital emergency management environment, has closely followed responders as they managed casualties with life-threatening injuries. Ethnographic observation of Exercise Unified Response in March 2016, exposed the ethical and legal 'vacuums' within a mass casualty and fatality setting, specifically the extrication, treatment and care of critically injured patients from crushed and overturned train carriages. This article highlights a gap in the debate, evaluation, planning and response to an incident of this nature specifically the incapacitated, unidentified patients and the ethics of submitting them to the invasive ‘Disaster Victim Identification’ process. Using a qualitative ethnographic analysis, triangulating observation, interviews and documentation, this analysis explores the gaps and highlights the next stages in the researcher’s pathway as she continues to explore with emergency practitioners some of this century’s most difficult questions in relation to the medico-legal and ethical challenges faced by emergency services in the wake of new and emerging threats and medical treatment expectations.

Keywords: ethics, disaster, Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), legality, unidentified

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Authors: Huseyin Sinan Gunesli

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Process Safety Management is a disciplined framework for managing the integrity of systems and processes that handle hazardous substances. It relies on good design principles, well-implemented automation systems, and operating and maintenance practices. Alarm Management Systems play a critically important role in the safe and efficient operation of modern industrial plants. In that respect, Alarm Management is one of the critical factors feeding the safe operations of the plants in the manner of applying effective process safety principles. Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) is part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which extends from the Caspian Sea to Italy. TANAP transports Natural Gas from the Shah Deniz gas field of Azerbaijan, and possibly from other neighboring countries, to Turkey and through Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) Pipeline to Europe. TANAP plays a crucial role in maintaining Energy Security for the region and Europe. In that respect, the application of Process Safety principles is vital to deliver safe, reliable and efficient Natural Gas delivery to Shippers both in the region and Europe. Effective Alarm Management is one of those Process Safety principles which feeds safe operations of the TANAP pipeline. Alarm Philosophy was designed and implemented in TANAP Pipeline according to the relevant standards. However, it is essential to manage the alarms received in the control room effectively to maintain safe operations. In that respect, TANAP has commenced Alarm Management & Rationalization program as of February 2022 after transferring to Plateau Regime, reaching the design parameters. While Alarm Rationalization started, there were more than circa 2300 alarms received per hour from one of the compressor stations. After applying alarm management principles such as reviewing and removal of bad actors, standing, stale, chattering, fleeting alarms, comprehensive review and revision of alarm set points through a change management principle, conducting alarm audits/design verification and etc., it has been achieved to reduce down to circa 40 alarms per hour. After the successful implementation of alarm management principles as specified above, the number of alarms has been reduced to industry standards. That significantly improved operator vigilance to focus on mainly important and critical alarms to avoid any excursion beyond safe operating limits leading to any potential process safety events. Following the ‟What Gets Measured, Gets Managed” principle, TANAP has identified key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to manage Process Safety principles effectively, where Alarm Management has formed one of the key parameters of those KPIs. However, review and analysis of the alarms were performed manually. Without utilizing Alarm Management Software, achieving full compliance with international standards is almost infeasible. In that respect, TANAP has started using one of the industry-wide known Alarm Management Applications to maintain full review and analysis of alarms and define actions as required. That actually significantly empowered TANAP’s process safety principles in terms of Alarm Management.

Keywords: process safety principles, energy security, natural gas pipeline operations, alarm rationalization, alarm management, alarm management application

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Authors: Chikae Isobe, Toshihiko Souma, Yoshiya Furukawa

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In Japan, an organization is sometimes asked for responsibility and apology toward the organization for the annoying behavior of employees, even though the behavior is not relevant to the organization. Our studies have repeatedly shown that it is important for organizational evaluation to organization propose compensatory behavior for such annoying behavior, even though the behavior is not relevant to the organization. In this study, it was examined how such an organizational response (apology) was likely to evaluate by members of the organization who were not related to the annoying behavior. Three independent variables were manipulated that is organization emotion (guilt and shame), compensation (proposal or not), and the relation between organization and the annoying behavior (relate or not). And the effects of organizational identity (high and low) were also examined. We conducted an online survey for 240 participants through a crowdsourcing company. Participants were asked to imagine a situation in which an incident in which some people in your company did not return an important document that they borrowed privately (vs. at work) became the topic of discussion, and the company responded. For the analysis,189 data (111 males and 78 females, mean age = 40.6) were selected. The results of ANOVA of 2 by2 on organizational appraisal, perceived organizational responsibility, and so on were conducted. Organization appraisal by members was also higher when the organization proposed compensatory behavior. In addition, when the annoying behavior was related to their work (than no related), for those who were high in organization identity (than low), organization appraisal was high. The interaction between relatedness and organizational identity was significant. Differences in relatedness between the organization and annoying behavior were significant in those with low organizational identity but not in those with high organizational identity. When the organization stated not taking compensatory action, members were more likely to perceive the organization as responsible for the annoying behavior. However, the interaction results indicated this tendency was limited to when the annoying behavior was not related to the organization. Furthermore, it tended to be perceived as responsible for the organization when the organization made a statement that felt shame for the annoying behavior not related to the organization and would compensate for the annoying behavior. These results indicate that even members of the organization do not consider the organization's compensatory actions to be unjustified. In addition, because those with high organizational identity perceived the organization to be responsible when it showed strong remorse (shame and compensation), they would be a tendency to make judgments that are consistent with organizational judgments. It would be considered that the Japanese have the norm that even if the organization is not at fault for a member's disruptive behavior, it should respond to it.

Keywords: appraisal for organization, annoying behavior, group shame and guilt, compensation, organizational apologies

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Authors: Aprajeeta Jha, Punyadarshini P. Tripathy

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Drying is one of the most critical unit operations for prolonging the shelf-life of food grains in order to ensure global food security. Photovoltaic integrated solar dryers can be a sustainable solution for replacing energy intensive thermal dryers as it is capable of drying in off-sunshine hours and provide better control over drying conditions. But, performance and reliability of PV based solar dryers depend hugely on climatic conditions thereby, drastically affecting process parameters. Therefore, to ensure quality and prolonged shelf-life of paddy, optimization of process parameters for solar dryers is critical. Proper moisture distribution within the grains is most detrimental factor to enhance the shelf-life of paddy therefore; modeling of mass transport can help in providing a better insight of moisture migration. Hence, present work aims at optimizing the process parameters and to develop a 3D finite element model (FEM) for predicting moisture profile in paddy during solar drying. Optimization of process parameters (power level, air velocity and moisture content) was done using box Behnken model in Design expert software. Furthermore, COMSOL Multiphysics was employed to develop a 3D finite element model for predicting moisture profile. Optimized model for drying paddy was found to be 700W, 2.75 m/s and 13% wb with optimum temperature, milling yield and drying time of 42˚C, 62%, 86 min respectively, having desirability of 0.905. Furthermore, 3D finite element model (FEM) for predicting moisture migration in single kernel for every time step has been developed. The mean absolute error (MAE), mean relative error (MRE) and standard error (SE) were found to be 0.003, 0.0531 and 0.0007, respectively, indicating close agreement of model with experimental results. Above optimized conditions can be successfully used to dry paddy in PV integrated solar dryer in order to attain maximum uniformity, quality and yield of product to achieve global food and energy security

Keywords: finite element modeling, hybrid solar drying, mass transport, paddy, process optimization

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Authors: A. Q. Sobia, M. S. Hamidah, I. Azmi, S. F. A. Rafeeqi

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Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) structures are susceptible to intense deterioration when exposed to elevated temperatures, particularly in the incident of fire. FRP has the tendency to lose bond with the substrate due to the low glass transition temperature of epoxy; the key component of FRP matrix.  In the past few decades, various types of high performance cementitious composites (HPCC) were explored for the protection of RC structural members against elevated temperature. However, there is an inadequate information on the influence of elevated temperature on the ultra high performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites (UHPFRCC) containing ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as a replacement of high alumina cement (HAC) in conjunction with hybrid fibres (basalt and polypropylene fibres), which could be a prospective fire resisting material for the structural components. The influence of elevated temperatures on the compressive as well as flexural strength of UHPFRCC, made of HAC-GGBS and hybrid fibres, were examined in this study. Besides control sample (without fibres), three other samples, containing 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of basalt fibres by total weight of mix and 1 kg/m³ of polypropylene fibres, were prepared and tested. Another mix was also prepared with only 1 kg/m³ of polypropylene fibres. Each of the samples were retained at ambient temperature as well as exposed to 400, 700 and 1000 °C followed by testing after 28 and 56 days of conventional curing. Investigation of results disclosed that the use of hybrid fibres significantly helped to improve the ambient temperature compressive and flexural strength of UHPFRCC, which was found to be 80 and 14.3 MPa respectively. However, the optimum residual compressive strength was marked by UHPFRCC-CP (with polypropylene fibres only), equally after both curing days (28 and 56 days), i.e. 41%. In addition, the utmost residual flexural strength, after 28 and 56 days of curing, was marked by UHPFRCC– CP and UHPFRCC– CB2 (1 kg/m³ of PP fibres + 1% of basalt fibres) i.e. 39% and 48.5% respectively.

Keywords: fibre reinforced polymer materials (FRP), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), high-alumina cement, hybrid, fibres

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Authors: Yuanda Ma, Zhiyong Zhang, Zailin Yang, Guanxixi Jiang

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Anisotropy is very common in underground media, such as rock, sand, and soil. Hence, the dynamic response of anisotropy medium under elastic waves is significantly different from the isotropic one. Moreover, underground heterogeneities and structures, such as pipelines, cylinders, or tunnels, are usually made by composite materials, leading to the anisotropy of these heterogeneities and structures. Both the anisotropy of the underground medium and the heterogeneities have an effect on the surface motion of the ground. Aiming at providing theoretical references for earthquake engineering and seismology, the surface motion of anisotropic half-space with a cylindrical anisotropic inclusion embedded under the SH wave is investigated in this work. Considering the anisotropy of the underground medium, the governing equation with three elastic parameters of SH wave propagation is introduced. Then, based on the complex function method and multipolar coordinates system, the governing equation in the complex plane is obtained. With the help of a pair of transformation, the governing equation is transformed into a standard form. By means of the same methods, the governing equation of SH wave propagation in the cylindrical inclusion with another three elastic parameters is normalized as well. Subsequently, the scattering wave in the half-space and the standing wave in the inclusion is deduced. Different incident wave angle and anisotropy are considered to obtain the reflected wave. Then the unknown coefficients in scattering wave and standing wave are solved by utilizing the continuous condition at the boundary of the inclusion. Through truncating finite terms of the scattering wave and standing wave, the equation of boundary conditions can be calculated by programs. After verifying the convergence and the precision of the calculation, the validity of the calculation is verified by degrading the model of the problem as well. Some parameters which influence the surface displacement of the half-space is considered: dimensionless wave number, dimensionless depth of the inclusion, anisotropic parameters, wave number ratio, shear modulus ratio. Finally, surface displacement amplitude of the half space with different parameters is calculated and discussed.

Keywords: anisotropy, complex function method, sh wave, surface displacement amplitude

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Authors: Carolina Zambrana, Grover Zurita

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The food loss production that occurs in deficient agricultural production is one of the major problems worldwide. This puts the population's food security and the efficiency of farming investments at risk. It is to be expected that this food security will be achieved with the own and efficient production of each country. It will have an impact on the well-being of its population and, thus, also on food sovereignty. The production losses in quantity and quality occur due to the lack of efficient detection of diseases at an early stage. It is very difficult to solve the agriculture efficiency using traditional methods since it takes a long time to be carried out due to detection imprecision of the main diseases, especially when the production areas are extensive. Therefore, the main objective of this research study is to perform a systematic literature review, of the latest five years, of Precision Agriculture (PA) to be able to understand the state of the art of the set of new technologies, procedures, and optimization processes with Artificial Intelligence (AI). This study will focus on Corns, Potatoes, and Rice diagnostic diseases. The extensive literature review will be performed on Elsevier, Scopus, and IEEE databases. In addition, this research will focus on advanced digital imaging processing and the development of software and hardware for PA. The convolution neural network will be handling special attention due to its outstanding diagnostic results. Moreover, the studied data will be incorporated with artificial intelligence algorithms for the automatic diagnosis of crop quality. Finally, precision agriculture with technology applied to the agricultural sector allows the land to be exploited efficiently. This system requires sensors, drones, data acquisition cards, and global positioning systems. This research seeks to merge different areas of science, control engineering, electronics, digital image processing, and artificial intelligence for the development, in the near future, of a low-cost image measurement system that allows the optimization of crops with AI.

Keywords: precision agriculture, convolutional neural network, deep learning, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Zarana Dave

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Cerium-doped lanthanum bromide, LaBr₃ (Ce), scintillator shows attracting properties for spectroscopy that makes it a suitable solution for security, medical, geophysics and high energy physics applications. Here, the performance parameters of a cylindrical LaBr₃ (Ce) scintillator was investigated. The first aspect is the determination of the efficiency for γ - ray detection, measured with GEANT4 simulation toolkit from 10keV to 10MeV energy range. The second is the detailed study of background radiation of LaBr₃ (Ce). It has relatively high intrinsic radiation background due to naturally occurring ¹³⁸La and ²²⁷Ac radioisotopes.

Keywords: LaBr₃(Ce), GEANT4, efficiency, background radiation

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Authors: Farah Al-Fityani, Aljohara Alsowail, Shatha Bindawood, Heba Balrbeah

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Locket is a popular app that lets users share spontaneous photos with a close circle of friends. The app offers a unique way to stay connected with loved ones by allowing users to see glimpses of their day through photos displayed on a widget on their home screen. This summary outlines the process of developing an app like Locket, highlighting the importance of user privacy and security. It also details the findings of a study on user engagement with the Locket app, revealing positive sentiment towards its features and concept but also identifying areas for improvement. Overall, the summary portrays Locket as a successful app that is changing the way people connect on social media.

Keywords: locket, app, machine learning, connect

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Authors: Luca Indovina, Carmela Coppola, Carlo Altucci, Riccardo Barberi, Rocco Romano

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In this paper a real court case, held in Italy at the Court of Nola, in which a correct physical description, conducted with both a Monte Carlo and biophysical analysis, would have been sufficient to arrive at conclusions confirmed by documentary evidence, is considered. This will be an example of how forensic physics can be useful in confirming documentary evidence in order to reach hardly questionable conclusions. This was a libel trial in which the defendant, Mr. DS (Defendant for Slander), had falsely accused one of his neighbors, Mr. OP (Offended Person), of having caused him some damages. The damages would have been caused by an external plaster piece that would have detached from the neighbor’s property and would have hit Mr DS while he was in his garden, much more than a meter far away from the facade of the building from which the plaster piece would have detached. In the trial, Mr. DS claimed to have suffered a scratch on his forehead, but he never showed the plaster that had hit him, nor was able to tell from where the plaster would have arrived. Furthermore, Mr. DS presented a medical certificate with a diagnosis of contusion of the cerebral cortex. On the contrary, the images of Mr. OP’s security cameras do not show any movement in the garden of Mr. DS in a long interval of time (about 2 hours) around the time of the alleged accident, nor do they show any people entering or coming out from the house of Mr. DS in the same interval of time. Biophysical analysis shows that both the diagnosis of the medical certificate and the wound declared by the defendant, already in conflict with each other, are not compatible with the fall of external plaster pieces too small to be found. The wind was at a level 1 of the Beaufort scale, that is, unable to raise even dust (level 4 of the Beaufort scale). Therefore, the motion of the plaster pieces can be described as a projectile motion, whereas collisions with the building cornice can be treated using Newtons law of coefficients of restitution. Numerous numerical Monte Carlo simulations show that the pieces of plaster would not have been able to reach even the garden of Mr. DS, let alone a distance over 1.30 meters. Results agree with the documentary evidence (images of Mr. OP’s security cameras) that Mr. DS could not have been hit by plaster pieces coming from Mr. OP’s property.

Keywords: biophysics analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, Newton’s law of restitution, projectile motion

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Authors: Tariq A. El Shheibia, Halima Mohamed Belhamad

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This paper is considered securing data based on multi-path protocol (SDMP) in mobile ad hoc network utilizing OPNET simulator modular 14.5, including the AODV routing protocol at the network as based multi-path algorithm for message security in MANETs. The main idea of this work is to present a way that is able to detect the attacker inside the MANETs. The detection for this attacker will be performed by adding some effective parameters to the network.

Keywords: MANET, AODV, malicious node, OPNET

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Authors: Jared Abuga, Wesley Too

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Medical error is the third leading cause of death in US, with approximately 98,000 deaths occurring every year as a result of medical errors. The world financial burden of medication errors is roughly USD 42 billion. Medication errors may lead to at least one death daily and injure roughly 1.3 million people every year. Medical error reporting is essential in creating a culture of accountability in our healthcare system. Studies have shown that attitudes and practice of healthcare workers in reporting medical errors showed that the major factors in under-reporting of errors included work stress and fear of medico-legal consequences due to the disclosure of error. Further, the majority believed that increase in reporting medical errors would contribute to a better system. Most hospitals depend on nurses to discover medication errors because they are considered to be the sources of these errors, as contributors or mere observers, consequently, the nurse’s perception of medication errors and what needs to be done is a vital feature to reducing incidences of medication errors. We sought to explore knowledge among nurses on medical errors and factors affecting or hindering reporting of medical errors among nurses working at the emergency unit, KNH. Critical care nurses are faced with many barriers to completing incident reports on medication errors. One of these barriers which contribute to underreporting is a lack of education and/or knowledge regarding medication errors and the reporting process. This study, therefore, sought to determine the availability and the use of reporting systems for medical errors in critical care unity. It also sought to establish nurses’ perception regarding medical errors and reporting and document factors facilitating timely identification and reporting of medical errors in critical care settings. Methods: The study used cross-section study design to collect data from 76 critical care nurses from Kenyatta Teaching & Research National Referral Hospital, Kenya. Data analysis and results is ongoing. By October 2022, we will have analysis, results, discussions, and recommendations of the study for purposes of the conference in 2023

Keywords: errors, medical, kenya, nurses, safety

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Authors: Siamak Dawazdah Emami, Amin Khodaei, Harith Bin Ahmad, Hairul A. Adbul-Rashid

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The Fano resonance effect on plasmonic nanoparticle materials results in such materials possessing a number of unique optical properties, and the potential applicability for sensing, nonlinear devices and slow-light devices. A Fano resonance is a consequence of coherent interference between superradiant and subradiant hybridized plasmon modes. Incident light on subradiant modes will initiate excitation that results in superradiant modes, and these superradient modes possess zero or finite dipole moments alongside a comparable negligible coupling with light. This research work details the derivation of an electrodynamics coupling model for the interaction of dipolar transitions and radiation via plasmonic nanoclusters such as quadrimers, pentamers and heptamers. The directivity calculation is analyzed in order to qualify the redirection of emission. The geometry of a configured array of nanostructures strongly influenced the transmission and reflection properties, which subsequently resulted in the directivity of each antenna being related to the nanosphere size and gap distances between the nanospheres in each model’s structure. A well-separated configuration of nanospheres resulted in the structure behaving similarly to monomers, with spectra peaks of a broad superradiant mode being centered within the vicinity of 560 nm wavelength. Reducing the distance between ring nanospheres in pentamers and heptamers to 20~60 nm caused the coupling factor and charge distributions to increase and invoke a subradiant mode centered within the vicinity of 690 nm. Increasing the outside ring’s nanosphere distance from the centered nanospheres caused the coupling factor to decrease, with the coupling factor being inversely proportional to cubic of the distance between nanospheres. This phenomenon led to a dramatic decrease of the superradiant mode at a 200 nm distance between the central nanosphere and outer rings. Effects from a superradiant mode vanished beyond a 240 nm distance between central and outer ring nanospheres.

Keywords: fano resonance, optical antenna, plasmonic, nano-clusters

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Authors: Ines Nitoi, Petruta Oancea, Lucian Constantin, Laurentiu Dinu, Maria Crisan, Malina Raileanu, Ionut Cristea

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2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is the most common pollutant identified in wastewater generated from munitions plants where this explosive is synthesized or handled (munitions load, assembly and pack operations). Due to their toxic and suspected carcinogenic characteristics, nitroaromatic compounds like TNT are included on the list of prioritary pollutants and strictly regulated in EU countries. Since their presence in water bodies is risky for human health and aquatic life, development of powerful, modern treatment methods like photocatalysis are needed in order to assures environmental pollution mitigation. The photocatalytic degradation of TNT was carried out at pH=7.8, in aqueous TiO2 based catalyst suspension, under sunlight irradiation. The enhanced photo activity of catalyst in visible domain was assured by 0.5% Fe doping. TNT degradation experiments were performed using a tubular collector type solar photoreactor (26 UV permeable silica glass tubes series connected), plug in a total recycle loops. The influence of substrate concentration and catalyst dose on the pollutant degradation and mineralization by-products (NO2-, NO3-, NH4+) formation efficiencies was studied. In order to compare the experimental results obtained in various working conditions, the pollutant and mineralization by-products measured concentrations have been considered as functions of irradiation time and cumulative photonic energy Qhν incident on the reactor surface (kJ/L). In the tested experimental conditions, at tens mg/L pollutant concentration, increase of 0,5%-TiO2 dose up to 200mg/L leads to the enhancement of CB degradation efficiency. Since, doubling of TNT content has a negative effect on pollutant degradation efficiency, in similar experimental condition, prolonged irradiation time from 360 to 480 min was necessary in order to assures the compliance of treated effluent with limits imposed by EU legislation (TNT ≤ 10µg/L).

Keywords: wastewater treatment, TNT, photocatalysis, environmental engineering

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Authors: Betelhem M. Negede, Maarten Voors, Hugo De Groote, Bart Minten

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Farmers in Ethiopia produce most of their own food during one agricultural season per year. Therefore, they need to use on-farm storage technologies to bridge the lean season and benefit from price arbitrage. Maize stored using traditional storage bags offer no protection from insects and molds, leading to high storage losses. In Ethiopia access to and use of modern storage technologies are still limited, restraining farmers to benefit from local maize price fluctuations. We used a randomized controlled trial among 871 maize farmers to evaluate the impacts of Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags, also known as hermetic bags, on storage losses, and especially on behavioral changes with respect to consumption, marketing, and income among maize farmers in Ethiopia. This study builds upon the limited previous experimental research that has tried to understand farmers’ grain storage and post-harvest losses and identify mechanisms behind the persistence of these challenges. Our main hypothesis is that access to PICS bags allows farmers to increase production, storage and maize income. Also delay the length of maize storage, reduce maize post-harvest losses and improve their food security. Our results show that even though farmers received only three PICS bags that represent 10percent of their total maize stored, they delay their length of maize storage for sales by two weeks. However, we find no treatment effect on maize income, suggesting that the arbitrage of two weeks is too small. Also, we do not find any reduction in storage losses due to farmers’ reaction by selling early and by using cheap and readily available but potentially harmful storage chemicals. Looking at the heterogeneity treatment effects between the treatment variable and highland and lowland villages, we find a decrease in the percentage of maize stored by 4 percent in the highland villages. This confirms that location specific factors, such as agro-ecology and proximity to markets are important factors that influence whether and how much of the harvest a farmer stores. These findings highlight the benefits of hermetic storage bags, by allowing farmers to make inter-temporal arbitrage and by reducing potential health risks from storage chemicals. The main policy recommendation that emanates from our study is that postharvest losses reduction throughout the whole value chain is an important pathway to food and income security in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, future storage loss interventions with hermetic storage technologies should take into account the agro-ecology of the study area and quantify storage losses beyond farmers self-reported losses, such as the count and weigh method. Finally, studies on hermetic storage technologies indicate positive impacts on post-harvest losses and in improving food security, but the adoption and use of these technologies is currently still low in SSA. Therefore, future works on the scaling up of hermetic bags, should consider reasons why farmers only use PICS bags to store grains for consumption, which is usually related to a safety-first approach or due to lack of incentives (higher price from maize not treated with chemicals), and no grain quality check.

Keywords: arbitrage, PICS hermetic bags, post-harvest storage loss, RCT

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Authors: O. Iyare, A. H. Afolayan, O. T. Oluwadare, B. K. Alese

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Access to advanced medical services has been one of the medical challenges faced by our present society especially in distant geographical locations which may be inaccessible. Then the need for telemedicine arises through which live videos of a doctor can be streamed to a patient located anywhere in the world at any time. Patients’ medical records contain very sensitive information which should not be made accessible to unauthorized people in order to protect privacy, integrity and confidentiality. This research work focuses on a more robust security measure which is biometric (fingerprint) as a form of access control to data of patients by the medical specialist/practitioner.

Keywords: biometrics, telemedicine, privacy, patient information

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Authors: Hailye Tekleselassie

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Edge computing is a spread computing outline that transports initiative applications closer to data sources such as IoT devices or local edge servers, and possible happenstances would skull the action of new technologies. However, this investigation was attained to investigation the consciousness of technology and communications organization workers and computer users who support the service cloud. Surveys were used to achieve these objectives. Surveys were intended to attain these aims, and it is the functional using survey. Enquiries about confidence are also a key question. Problems like data privacy, integrity, and availability are the factors affecting the company’s acceptance of the service cloud.

Keywords: IoT, data, security, edge computing

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Authors: Padmaja Kaja, Kiran Kumar Gellaboina

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A lion’s share of agricultural work is contributed by women in India as it is the case in many developing countries, yet women are not securing the pride as a farmer. Many policies are supporting women empowerment in India, especially in agriculture sector considering the importance of sustainable food security. However these policies many times failed to achieve the targeted results of mainstreaming gender. Implementing the principles of governance would lead to gender equality in agriculture. This paper deals with the social norms and obligations prevailed with reference to Indian context which abstain women from having resources. This paper is formulated by using primary research done in eight districts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states of India supported by secondary research. Making amendments to Hindu Succession Act in united Andhra Pradesh much prior to the positioning of the amended act in the whole country lead to a better land holding a share of women in Andhra Pradesh. The policies like registering government distributed lands in the name of women in the state also have an added value. However, the women participation in decision-making process in agriculture is limited in elite families when compared to socially under privileged families, further too it was higher in drought affected districts like Mahbubnagar in Telangana when compared to resource-rich East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. Though National Gender Resource Centre for Agriculture (NGRCA) at centre and Gender Cells in the states were established a decade ago, extension reach to the women farmers is still lagging behind. Capturing the strength of women self groups in India especially in Andhra Pradesh to link up with agriculture extension might improve the extension reach of women farmers. Maintenance of micro level women data sets, creating women farmers networks with government departments like agriculture, irrigation, revenue and formal credit institutes would result in good governance to mainstream gender in agriculture. Further to add that continuous monitoring and impact assessments of the programmes and projects for gender inclusiveness would reiterate the government efforts.

Keywords: food security, gender, governance, mainstreaming

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Authors: Dawd Ahmed, Venkatesh Uddameri

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Agriculture in Ethiopia is the main economic sector influenced by agricultural drought. A simultaneous assessment of drought trends using multiple drought indicators is useful for drought planning and management. Intra-season and seasonal drought trends in Ethiopia were studied using a suite of drought indicators. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), and Z-index for long-rainy, dry, and short-rainy seasons are used to identify drought-causing mechanisms. The Statistical software package R version 3.5.2 was used for data extraction and data analyses. Trend analysis indicated shifts in late-season long-rainy season precipitation into dry in the southwest and south-central portions of Ethiopia. Droughts during the dry season (October–January) were largely temperature controlled. Short-term temperature-controlled hydrologic processes exacerbated rainfall deficits during the short rainy season (February–May) and highlight the importance of temperature- and hydrology-induced soil dryness on the production of short-season crops such as tef. Droughts during the long-rainy season (June–September) were largely driven by precipitation declines arising from the narrowing of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). Increased dryness during long-rainy season had severe consequences on the production of corn and sorghum. PDSI was an aggressive indicator of seasonal droughts suggesting the low natural resilience to combat the effects of slow-acting, moisture-depleting hydrologic processes. The lack of irrigation systems in the nation limits the ability to combat droughts and improve agricultural resilience. There is an urgent need to monitor soil moisture (a key agro-hydrologic variable) to better quantify the impacts of meteorological droughts on agricultural systems in Ethiopia.

Keywords: autocorrelation, climate change, droughts, Ethiopia, food security, palmer z-index, PDSI, SPEI, SPI, trend analysis

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Authors: Muhammad Tanveer Altaf, Mehmet Bedir, Waqas Liaqat, Gönül Cömertpay, Volkan Çatalkaya, Celaluddin Barutçular, Nergiz Çoban, Ibrahim Cerit, Muhammad Azhar Nadeem, Tolga Karaköy, Faheem Shehzad Baloch

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Food production needs to be almost double by 2050 in order to feed around 9 billion people around the Globe. Plant production mostly relies on fertilizers, which also have one of the main roles in environmental pollution. In addition to this, climatic conditions are unpredictable, and the earth is expected to face severe drought conditions in the future. Therefore, water and fertilizers, especially nitrogen are considered as main constraints for future food security. To face these challenges, developing integrative approaches for germplasm characterization and selecting the resilient genotypes performing under limiting conditions is very crucial for effective breeding to meet the food requirement under climatic change scenarios. This study is part of the European Research Area Network (ERANET) project for the characterization of the diversity panel of 172 sorghum accessions and six hybrids as control cultivars under limiting (+N/-H2O, -N/+H2O) and non-limiting conditions (+N+H2O). This study was planned to characterize the sorghum diversity in relation to resource Use Efficiency (RUE), with special attention on harnessing the interaction between genotype and environment (GxE) from a physiological and agronomic perspective. Experiments were conducted at Adana, a Mediterranean climate, with augmented design, and data on various agronomic and physiological parameters were recorded. Plentiful diversity was observed in the sorghum diversity panel and significant variations were seen among the limiting water and nitrogen conditions in comparison with the control experiment. Potential genotypes with the best performance are identified under limiting conditions. Whole genome resequencing was performed for whole germplasm under investigation for diversity analysis. GWAS analysis will be performed using genotypic and phenotypic data and linked markers will be identified. The results of this study will show the adaptation and improvement of sorghum under climate change conditions for future food security.

Keywords: germplasm, sorghum, drought, nitrogen, resources use efficiency, sequencing

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Authors: Pedram Behyar, Zahra Bayat

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The internet and web are changing ways of “far reaching scope and potential for transformation of the marketing functions”. The web is developing in a faster rate than any previous new communication medium. The website of destination has become a crucial branding channel, that is why all businesses are changing their way to communicate with their customers to encounter their needs and wants in better ways. Website provides numerous opportunities for businesses to strengthen their relationship with their customers. One of these opportunities is website component that enables internet users to make two-way communication with the businesses.

Keywords: marketing communication, brand image, usability, privacy and security, personalization and customization, responsiveness, customer online web experience

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Authors: Saradha Priya

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Developing virtual human is very important to meet the challenges occurred in many applications where human find difficult or risky to perform the task. A robot is a machine that can perform a task automatically or with guidance. Robotics is generally a combination of artificial intelligence and physical machines (motors). Computational intelligence involves the programmed instructions. This project proposes a robotic vehicle that has a camera, PIR sensor and text command based movement. It is specially designed to perform surveillance and other few tasks in the most efficient way. Serial communication has been occurred between a remote Base Station, GUI Application, and PC.

Keywords: Zigbee, camera, pirsensor, wireless transmission, DC motor

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Authors: Marko Niinimaki

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

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

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Authors: Nur Iman Subono, Meidi Kosandi

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This paper examines the role of regional cooperation in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the fight against human trafficking for Indonesia. Many among scholars suggest that regional cooperation is necessary for combating human trafficking for its transnational and organized character as a crime against humanity. ASEAN members have been collectively active in responding transnational security issues with series of talks and collaboration agreement since early 2000s. Lately in 2015, ASEAN agreed on ASEAN Convention against Trafficking in Persons, particularly Women and Children (ACTIP) that requires each member to collaborate in information sharing and providing effective safeguard and protection of victims. Yet, the frequency of human trafficking crime occurrence remains high and tend to increase in Indonesian in 2017-2018. The objective of this paper is to examine the effectiveness and success of ACTIP implementation in the fight against human trafficking in Indonesia. Based on two years of research (2017-2018) in three provinces with the largest number of victims in Indonesia, this paper shows the tendency of persisting crime despite the implementation of regional and national anti-trafficking policies. The research was conducted by archive study, literature study, discourse analysis, and depth interviews with local government officials, police, prosecutors, victims, and traffickers. This paper argues that the relative success of ASEAN in establishing convention at the high-level meetings has not been followed with the success in its implementation in the society. Three main factors have contributed to the ineffectiveness of the agreements, i.e. (1) ASEAN institutional arrangement as a collection of sovereign states instead of supranational organization with binding authority; (2) the lack of commitment of ASEAN sovereign member-states to the agreements; and (3) the complexity and variety of the nature of the crime in each member-state. In effect, these factors have contributed to generating the regionalism paradox in ASEAN where states tend to revert to national policies instead of seeking regional collective solution.

Keywords: human trafficking, transnational security, regionalism, anti trafficking policy

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Authors: Enayatollah Yazdani

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In the post-Cold War era, the world is facing a new emerging global order with the rise of multiple actors in the international arena. China, as a rising global power, has great leverage in internal relations. In particular, during the last two decades, China has rapidly transformed its economy into a global leader in advanced technologies. As a rising power and as one of the two major founding members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China has tried to use this regional organization, which has the potential to become an important political and security organization of the major states located in the vast Eurasian landmass, for its “go global” strategy. In fact, for Beijing, the SCO represents a new and unique cooperation model, reflecting its vision of a multipolar world order. China has used the SCO umbrella as a multilateral platform to address external threats posed by non-state actors on its vulnerable western border; to gain a strong economic and political foothold in Central Asia without putting the Sino-Russian strategic partnership at risk; and to enhance its energy security through large-scale infrastructure investment in, and trade with, the Central Asian member states. In other words, the SCO is one of the successful outcomes of Chines foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. The expansion of multilateral ties all over the world by dint of pursuing institutional strategies as SCO identifies China as a more constructive power. SCO became a new model of cooperation that was formed on the remains of collapsed Soviet system and predetermined China's geopolitical role in the region. As the fast developing effective regional mechanism, SCO now has more of an external impact on the international system and forms a new type of interaction for promoting China's grand strategy of 'peaceful rise.' This paper aims to answer this major question: How the Chinese government has manipulated the SCO for its foreign policy and global and regional influence? To answer this question, the main discussion is that with regard to the SCO capabilities and politico-economic potential, this organization has been used by China as a platform to expand influence beyond its borders.

Keywords: China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Central Asia, global policy, foreign policy

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Authors: Rachel Goh, Alexander McNab, Brent Alsop, David O'Hare

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In a busy airport, the decision whether to take passengers aside and search their luggage for dangerous items can have important consequences. If an officer fails to search and stop a bag containing a dangerous object, a life-threatening incident might occur. But stopping a bag unnecessarily means that the officer might lose time searching the bag and face an angry passenger. Passengers’ bags, however, are often cluttered with personal belongings of varying shapes and sizes. It can be difficult to determine what is dangerous or not, especially if the decisions must be made quickly in cases of busy flight schedules. Additionally, the decision to search bags is often made with input from the surrounding officers on duty. This scenario raises several questions: 1) Past findings suggest that humans are more reliant on an automated aid when under time pressure in a visual search task, but does this translate to human-human reliance? 2) Are humans more likely to agree with another person if the person is assumed to be an expert or a novice in these ambiguous situations? In the present study, forty-one participants performed a simulated luggage-screening task. They were partnered with an advisor of two different statuses (expert vs. novice), but of equal accuracy (90% correct). Participants made two choices each trial: their first choice with no advisor input, and their second choice after advisor input. The second choice was made within either 2 seconds or 8 seconds; failure to do so resulted in a long time-out period. Under the 2-second time pressure, participants were more likely to disagree with their own first choice and agree with the expert advisor, regardless of whether the expert was right or wrong, but especially when the expert suggested that the bag was safe. The findings indicate a tendency for people to assume less responsibility for their decisions and defer to their partner, especially when a quick decision is required. This over-reliance on others’ opinions might have negative consequences in real life, particularly when relying on fallible human judgments. More awareness is needed regarding how a stressful environment may influence reliance on other’s opinions, and how better techniques are needed to make the best decisions under high stress and time pressure.

Keywords: advisors, decision-making, time pressure, trust

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Authors: Lancer Scott

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Purpose: High quality clinical disaster medicine requires providers working collaboratively to care for multiple patients in chaotic environments; however, many providers lack adequate training. To address this deficit, we created a competency-based, 5-hour Emergency Preparedness Training (EPT) curriculum using didactics, small-group discussion, and kinetic learning. The goal was to evaluate the effect of a short course on improving provider knowledge, confidence and skills in disaster scenarios. Methods: Diverse groups of medical university students, health care professionals, and community members were enrolled between 2011 and 2014. The course consisted of didactic lectures, small group exercises, and two live, multi-patient mass casualty incident (MCI) scenarios. The outcome measures were based on core competencies and performance objectives developed by a curriculum task force and assessed via trained facilitator observation, pre- and post-testing, and a course evaluation. Results: 708 participants completed were trained between November 2011 and August 2014, including 49.9% physicians, 31.9% medical students, 7.2% nurses, and 11% various other healthcare professions. 100% of participants completed the pre-test and 71.9% completed the post-test, with average correct answers increasing from 39% to 60%. Following didactics, trainees met 73% and 96% of performance objectives for the two small group exercises and 68.5% and 61.1% of performance objectives for the two MCI scenarios. Average trainee self-assessment of both overall knowledge and skill with clinical disasters improved from 33/100 to 74/100 (overall knowledge) and 33/100 to 77/100 (overall skill). The course assessment was completed by 34.3% participants, of whom 91.5% highly recommended the course. Conclusion: A relatively short, intensive EPT course can improve the ability of a diverse group of disaster care providers to respond effectively to mass casualty scenarios.

Keywords: clinical disaster medicine, training, hospital preparedness, surge capacity, education, curriculum, research, performance, training, student, physicians, nurses, health care providers, health care

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