Search results for: middle level learning

Authors: Azeez Shaik, Amit Salvi, B. P. Gautham

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Fiber reinforced polymer resin composite materials are finding wide variety of applications in automotive and aerospace industry because of their high specific stiffness and specific strengths when compared to metals. New class of 2D and 3D textile and woven fabric composites offer excellent fracture toughens as they bridge the cracks formed during fracture. Due to complexity of their fiber architectures and its resulting composite microstructures, optimized design and analysis of these structures is very complicated. A traditional homogenization approach is typically used to analyze structures made up of these materials. This approach usually fails to predict damage initiation as well as damage propagation and ultimate failure of structure made up of woven and textile composites. This study demonstrates a methodology to analyze woven and textile composites by using the multi-level multi-scale modelling approach. In this approach, a geometric repetitive unit cell (RUC) is developed with all its constituents to develop a representative volume element (RVE) with all its constituents and their interaction modeled correctly. The structure is modeled based on the RUC/RVE and analyzed at different length scales with desired levels of fidelity incorporating the damage and failure. The results are passed across (up and down) the scales qualitatively as well as quantitatively from the perspective of material, configuration and architecture.

Keywords: cohesive zone, multi-scale modeling, rate dependency, RUC, woven textiles

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Authors: Pac Ordu

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The paper was conceived on the premise that employment of tertiary education graduates has become an endemic problem in Nigeria. Recognizing the objective of current education as schooling for paid employment, the paper identified that the basic objective of present-day education should be schooling to become self-employed. While schooling to become a successful employee was identified as the focus for the older generation, schooling to become self-employed was defined as the focus for 21st-century teaching and learning. Hence, the paper condemned the inability of curriculum implementers to teach creative trends to enable students to acquire practical skills and small business operation-oriented competencies. A review of some disciplines was made to show the new trend of education that would empower Nigerian students with small business enterprise operation skills for self-employment on graduation. This was further made to draw the attention of institutions and curriculum designers to the need for our curriculum to be functional in line with demands of the innovative economic environment. The paper also noted that at periods of recession with its attendant effects, was the best period for students of entrepreneurship to dream and create their small business enterprises. It highlighted the role of Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, Rivers State, Nigeria and the national recognition it has received for developing an innovative, practical model of teaching entrepreneurship education in Nigeria Colleges of Education system. In order to equip students for economic survival on graduation, the introduction of innovative teaching can only be successful if lecturers shift their focus away from the conventional emphasis on theory to students’ energy quotients. While the paper obviously recommended that lecturers should be creative and teach outside the curriculum box, it further recommended that students should use this period of their studentship to dream, create and operate their own small business enterprises.

Keywords: 21st century students, curriculum, entrepreneurship, hands-on-training, innovative

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Authors: Ahmed Chouari

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Although research methods has been an integral part of the curriculum in Moroccan higher education for decades, it seems that the research methods teaching pedagogy that teachers use suffers from a serious absence of a body of literature in the field. Also, the various challenges that both teachers and students of research methods face have received little interest by researchers in comparison to other fields such as applied linguistics. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to remedy to this situation by exploring one of the major issues in teaching research methods – that is, the phenomenon of students’ dissatisfaction with the research methods course in higher education in Morocco. The aim is also to understand students’ attitudes and perceptions on how to make the research methods course more effective in the future. Three qualitative research questions were used: (1) To what extent are graduate students satisfied with the pedagogies used by the teachers of the research methods course in Moroccan higher education? (2) To what extent are graduate students satisfied with the approach used in assessing research methods in Moroccan higher education? (3) What are students’ perceptions on how to make the research methods course more effective in Moroccan higher education? In this study, a qualitative content analysis was adopted to analyze students’ views and perspectives about the major factors behind their dissatisfaction with the course at the School of Arts and Humanities – University of Moulay Ismail. A semi-structured interview was used to collect data from 14 respondents from two different Master programs. The results show that there is a general consensus among the respondents about the major factors behind the ineffectiveness of the course. These factors include theory-practice gap, heavy reliance on theoretical knowledge at the expense of procedural knowledge, and ineffectiveness of some teachers. The findings also reveal that teaching research methods in Morocco requires more time, better equipment, and more competent teachers. Above all, the findings indicate that today there is an urgent need in Morocco to shift from teacher-centered approaches to learner-centered approaches in teaching the research methods course. These findings, thus, contribute to the existing literature by unraveling the factors that impede the learning process, and by suggesting a set of strategies that can make course more effective.

Keywords: competencies, learner-centered teaching, research methods, student autonomy, pedagogy

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Authors: Massimo Miccoli, Luca Marangoni, Alberto Aniello Scaringi, Alessandro Marceddu, Alessandro Amicone

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The susceptibility of deep neural networks (DNNs) to adversarial manipulations is a recognized challenge within the computer vision domain. Adversarial examples, crafted by adding subtle yet malicious alterations to benign images, exploit this vulnerability. Various defense strategies have been proposed to safeguard DNNs against such attacks, stemming from diverse research hypotheses. Building upon prior work, our approach involves the utilization of autoencoder models. Autoencoders, a type of neural network, are trained to learn representations of training data and reconstruct inputs from these representations, typically minimizing reconstruction errors like mean squared error (MSE). Our autoencoder was trained on a dataset of benign examples; learning features specific to them. Consequently, when presented with significantly perturbed adversarial examples, the autoencoder exhibited high reconstruction errors. The architecture of the autoencoder was tailored to the dimensions of the images under evaluation. We considered various image sizes, constructing models differently for 256x256 and 512x512 images. Moreover, the choice of the computer vision model is crucial, as most adversarial attacks are designed with specific AI structures in mind. To mitigate this, we proposed a method to replace image-specific dimensions with a structure independent of both dimensions and neural network models, thereby enhancing robustness. Our multi-modal autoencoder reconstructs the spectral representation of images across the red-green-blue (RGB) color channels. To validate our approach, we conducted experiments using diverse datasets and subjected them to adversarial attacks using models such as ResNet50 and ViT_L_16 from the torch vision library. The autoencoder extracted features used in a classification model, resulting in an MSE (RGB) of 0.014, a classification accuracy of 97.33%, and a precision of 99%.

Keywords: adversarial attacks, malicious images detector, binary classifier, multimodal transformer autoencoder

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Authors: Nadia A. Mohamed, Zakaria El-Khayat, Wagdy K. B. Khalil, Mehrez E. El-Naggar

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Drug nephrotoxicity is still a problem for patients who have taken drugs for elongated periods or permanently. Ultrasound-assisted sol−gel method was used to prepare hollow structured poroussilica nanoemulsion loaded with sodium salicylate as a model drug. The work was extended to achieve the target of the current work via investigating the protective role of this nanoemulsion model as anti-inflammatory drug or ginger for its antioxidant effect against cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity in male albino rats. The results clarify that the nanoemulsion model was synthesized using ultrasonic assisted with small size and well stabilization as proved by TEM and DLS analysis. Additionally, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), Serum creatinine (SC) and Urinary total protein (UTP) were increased, and the level of creatinine clearance (Crcl) was decreased. All those were met with disorders in oxidative stress and downregulation in the expression of the nephrin gene. Also, histopathological changes of the kidney tissue were observed. These changes back to normal by treatment with silica nanoparticles loaded sodium salicylate (Si-Sc-NPs), ginger or both. Conclusions oil/water nanoemulsion of (Si-Sc NPs) and ginger showed a protective and promising preventive strategy against nephrotoxicity due to their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and that offers a new approach in attenuating drug induced nephrotoxicity.

Keywords: sodium salicylate nanoencapsulation, nephrin mRNA, drug nephrotoxicity, cisplatin, experimental rats

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Authors: Elham Zabetian Targhi, Niusha Fardnava, Saba Saghafi

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Urban resilience to Corona Virus has become a major concern for cities these days. Our country also has not been safe from the destructive effects of this virus in social, economic, physical, governance, and management dimensions; and according to official statistics, hundreds of thousands of people in Iran have been infected with this virus and tens of thousands have died so far. Therefore, to measure urban resilience to this pandemic, some criteria and sub-criteria were developed based on the authors’ documentary and field studies, and their significance or weights were determined using analytical-comparative research method using a questionnaire of paired or L-Saati comparisons from the viewpoint of experts in urban sciences and urban development using AHP hierarchical analysis in EXPERT CHOICE software. Then, designing a questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale, the satisfaction of Tehran residents with the extracted criteria and sub-criteria was measured and the correlation between the important criteria in each dimension was assessed using correlation tests in SPSS16 software. According to the obtained results of AHP analysis and the scores of each sub-criterion, the weight of all criteria was normal. In the next stage, according to the pairwise correlation tests between the important criteria in each dimension from the viewpoint of urban science experts and Tehran residents, it was concluded that the reliability of the correlation between the criteria is 99%. In all the cases, the P-value or the same significance level was less than 0.05, which indicated the significance of the pairwise relations between the variables.

Keywords: Urban Resilience, Pandemics, Corona Virus (Covid-19), Criteria.

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Authors: Olusegun Adeleke Adenuga

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The study examined effect of fishbone creative thinking strategy on problem-solving skills of public teachers in Ogun state, Nigeria. A 2x2x2 factorial design was employed for the study which consisted of 80 participants made up of 40 male and 40 female public teachers randomly selected among public teaching personnel from the two local government area headquarters (Ijebu-ode and Ijebu-Igbo) within Ogun East Senatorial District. Each treatment group received 45minutes instructions and training per week for 8weeks. Data was collected from participants with the use of standardized instrument tagged ‘Problem Solving Inventory’ (PSI) developed by the researchers prior to the training to form a pre-test and immediately after eight weeks of training to form a post-test. One hypothesis was tested; the data obtained was analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) tested at significance level of 0.05. The result of the data analysis shows that there was a significant effect of the fishbone creative thinking technique on the participants (F (2,99) = 12.410; p <.05). Based on the findings, it is therefore recommended that the report of this study be used to effect organizational change and development of teaching service in Nigeria through teachers’ retraining and capacity building.

Keywords: fishbone, creative thinking strategy, and problem-solving skills, public teachers

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Authors: Luis Felipe Brito-Gaona, Emma M. Iglesias

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There is a growing literature that studies the main determinants and drivers of inequality and economic growth in several countries, using panel data and different estimation methods (fixed effects, Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) and Two Stages Least Squares (TSLS)). Recently, it was studied the evolution of these variables in the period 1980-2009 in the 18 countries of Latin-America and it was found that one of the main variables that explained their evolution was Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). We extend this study to the year 2015 in the same 18 countries in Latin-America, and we find that FDI does not have a significant role anymore, while we find a significant negative and positive effect of schooling levels on inequality and economic growth respectively. We also find that the point estimates associated with human capital are the largest ones of the variables included in the analysis, and this means that an increase in human capital (measured by schooling levels of secondary education) is the main determinant that can help to reduce inequality and to increase economic growth in Latin-America. Therefore, we advise that economic policies in Latin-America should be directed towards increasing the level of education. We use the methodologies of estimating by fixed effects, GMM and TSLS to check the robustness of our results. Our conclusion is the same regardless of the estimation method we choose. We also find that the international recession in the Latin-American countries in 2008 reduced significantly their economic growth.

Keywords: economic growth, human capital, inequality, Latin-America

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Authors: Afnan Khoja, Ittisak Subrungruang, Kritchaya Ritruechai, Linda Jones, David Wall

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Background: Some characteristics might be stated as an objective of the curriculum and some might be hidden. The hidden curriculum is the unwritten and unintended lessons and perspectives that students absorb in school. Though, the hidden characteristics are expected that tutors hope students might have in order to become medical educators. We suspected our faculty hoped we would develop skills, know and develop beyond the written outcomes. Our research question aimed to explore the hidden curriculum; as part of our learning; we had to design and report findings. Summary of Work: We undertook semi-structured interviews with a sample of the centre for medical education faculty at Dundee. Participants answered the question , of what are the hidden characteristics that they hope Dundee MMed graduates might have after graduation. Thematic analysis was carried out on the interview scripts. Summary of Results: A thematic analysis was carried out on the interview transcripts. Three main themes were identified from all respondents' comments. These were lifelong learners, being flexible and problem solvers. In addition individual respondents also described sense of humour, collaboration, humility, role model, inquisitiveness, optimism, and ability to express oneself clearly. Discussion: Tutors put great value on three behaviours lifelong learner, flexible, and problem solver, which are part of professional characteristics in leadership. Therefore, leadership characteristics is incorporated as the outcomes of hidden characteristics that tutors would like to see. Conclusion: Tutors in the Master's program of medical education at the University of Dundee hope that medical education students should present the three main hidden characteristics, which are lifelong learner, flexible, and problem solver after graduation. Take-home Messages: These hidden characteristics are considered as informal unless a change has been made to the formal curriculum. Therefore, to reach the tutors’ expectations, further studies might be held to make this personal characteristics transformation more accessible.

Keywords: characteristics, hidden curriculum, transformation, informal

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Authors: Osung Im, Neha Yadav, Eui Hoon Lee, Joong Hoon Kim

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Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach is commonly used in lots of fields for forecasting. In water resources engineering, forecast of water level or inflow of reservoir is useful for various kind of purposes. Due to advantages of ANN, many papers were written for inflow prediction in river networks, but in this study, ANN is used in urban sewer networks. The growth of severe rain storm in Korea has increased flood damage severely, and the precipitation distribution is getting more erratic. Therefore, effective pump operation in pump station is an essential task for the reduction in urban area. If real time inflow of pump station reservoir can be predicted, it is possible to operate pump effectively for reducing the flood damage. This study used ANN model for pump station reservoir inflow prediction using upstream sewer depth data. For this study, rainfall events, sewer depth, and inflow into Banpo pump station reservoir between years of 2013-2014 were considered. Feed – Forward Back Propagation (FFBF), Cascade – Forward Back Propagation (CFBP), Elman Back Propagation (EBP) and Nonlinear Autoregressive Exogenous (NARX) were used as ANN model for prediction. A comparison of results with ANN model suggests that ANN is a powerful tool for inflow prediction using the sewer depth data.

Keywords: artificial neural network, forecasting, reservoir inflow, sewer depth

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Authors: Juliana A. Knocikova

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Methods of nonlinear signal analysis are based on finding that random behavior can arise in deterministic nonlinear systems with a few degrees of freedom. Considering the dynamical systems, entropy is usually understood as a rate of information production. Changes in temporal dynamics of physiological data are indicating evolving of system in time, thus a level of new signal pattern generation. During last decades, many algorithms were introduced to assess some patterns of physiological responses to external stimulus. However, the reflex responses are usually characterized by short periods of time. This characteristic represents a great limitation for usual methods of nonlinear analysis. To solve the problems of short recordings, parameter of approximate entropy has been introduced as a measure of system complexity. Low value of this parameter is reflecting regularity and predictability in analyzed time series. On the other side, increasing of this parameter means unpredictability and a random behavior, hence a higher system complexity. Reduced neurophysiological data complexity has been observed repeatedly when analyzing electroneurogram and electromyogram activities during defence reflex responses. Quantitative phrenic neurogram changes are also obvious during severe hypoxia, as well as during airway reflex episodes. Concluding, the approximate entropy parameter serves as a convenient tool for analysis of reflex behavior characterized by short lasting time series.

Keywords: approximate entropy, neurophysiological data, nonlinear dynamics, reflex

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Authors: Wahyu Purnama Putra, Artono Isharanto

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Thoracic trauma is trauma that hits the thoracic wall or intrathoracic organs, either due to blunt trauma or sharp trauma. Thoracic trauma often causes impaired ventilation-perfusion due to damage to the lung parenchyma. This results in impaired tissue oxygenation, which is one of the causes of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). These changes are caused by the release of pro-inflammatory mediators, plasmatic proteins, and proteases into the alveolar space associated with ongoing edema, as well as oxidative products that ultimately result in severe inhibition of the surfactant system. This study aims to predict the incidence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) through human neutrophil elastase levels. This study examines the relationship between plasma elastase levels as a predictor of the incidence of ARDS in thoracic trauma patients in Malang. This study is an observational cohort study. Data analysis uses the Pearson correlation test and ROC curve (receiver operating characteristic curve). It can be concluded that there is a significant (p= 0.000, r= -0.988) relationship between elastase levels and BGA-3. If the value of elastase levels is limited to 23.79 ± 3.95, the patient will experience mild ARDS. While if the value of elastase levels is limited to 57.68 ± 18.55, in the future, the patient will experience moderate ARDS. Meanwhile, if the elastase level is between 107.85 ± 5.04, the patient will likely experience severe ARDS. Neutrophil elastase levels correlate with the degree of severity of ARDS incidence.

Keywords: ARDS, human neutrophil elastase, severity, thoracic trauma

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Authors: A. Das, L. Hitihamillage, S. Moridpour

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Natural disasters are inevitable to the biodiversity. Disasters such as flood, tsunami and tornadoes could be brutal, harsh and devastating. In Australia, flooding is a major issue experienced by different parts of the country. In such crisis, delays in evacuation could decide the life and death of the people living in those regions. Congestion management could become a mammoth task if there are no steps taken before such situations. In the past to manage congestion in such circumstances, many strategies were utilised such as converting the road shoulders to extra lanes or changing the road geometry by adding more lanes. However, expansion of road to resolving congestion problems is not considered a viable option nowadays. The authorities avoid this option due to many reasons, such as lack of financial support and land space. They tend to focus their attention on optimising the current resources they possess and use traffic signals to overcome congestion problems. Traffic Signal Management strategy was considered a viable option, to alleviate congestion problems in the City of Geelong, Victoria. Arterial road with signalised intersections considered in this paper and the traffic data required for modelling collected from VicRoads. Traffic signalling software SIDRA used to model the roads, and the information gathered from VicRoads. In this paper, various signal parameters utilised to assess and improve the corridor performance to achieve the best possible Level of Services (LOS) for the arterial road.

Keywords: congestion, constraints, management, LOS

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Authors: Rafael Ricieri, Rogerio Barros

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Objective: This study is to report a case of massive necrotizing enterocolitis in a six-month-old patient, requiring ileostomy and protective jejunostomy as a damage control measure in the first exploratory laparotomy surgery in massive enterocolitis without a previous diagnosis. Methods: This study is a case report of success in making and closing a protective jejunostomy. However, the low number of publications on this staged and risky measure of surgical resolution encouraged the team to study the indication and especially the correct time for closing the patient's protective jejunostomy. The main study instrument will be the six-month-old patient's medical record. Results: Based on the observation of the case described, it was observed that the time for the closure of the described procedure (protective jejunostomy) varies according to the level of compromise of the health status of your patient and of an individual of each person. Early closure, or failure to close, can lead to a favorable problem for the patient since several problems can result from this closure, such as new intestinal perforations, hydroelectrolyte disturbances. Despite the risk of new perforations, we suggest closing the protective jejunostomy around the 14th day of the procedure, thus keeping the patient on broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy and absolute fasting, thus reducing the chances of new intestinal perforations. Associated with the closure of the jejunostomy, a gastric tube for decompression is necessary, and care in an intensive care unit and electrolyte replacement is necessary to maintain the stability of the case.

Keywords: jejunostomy, ileostomy, enterocolitis, pediatric surgery, gastric surgery

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Authors: James Waide

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In music, subject typically denotes the initial idea to which the entire composition refers—a concept congruous with Aristotle's notion of subject as primary substance, in the sense of an irreducible this particular. Gioseffo Zarlino, who established subject (soggetto) as a musical term, insisted the composer as “rediscovering” the subject within their music in order to “[bring] it to perfection” and, furthermore, that if the composer had not rediscovered the subject already, then one would simply take the first part of the composition to be the subject. Meanwhile, Žižek reads the Hegelian subject (as negativity set against positive object) through Lacanian Psychoanalysis (in which the subject is a kind of fictive entity of the clinic: a mere appearance which sits atop the objects of analysis) in the concept of Absolute Recoil. For Žižek, subject exists retroactively in Absolute Recoil from object, meaning subject is a void which only has meaning because of the object it is seen through. Following the work of theorists such as Adorno and Althusser, one can understand the ideological construction of such a subject. It may be argued that in Zarlino, musical subject can be similarly read as retroactively constructed, either by the composer or the listener. Furthermore, in recent work, Samuel Wilson identifies different kinds of subjects in music which can be psychoanalytically examined, including the fictive subject: a purely musical entity raised to the level of psychoanalytic subject. On which basis if, as Adorno insisted, 'authentic' music constitutes 'cognition without concepts', where and what is this subject without concept?.

Keywords: absolute recoil, critical theory, ideology, music analysis, psychoanalysis, retroactivity, subject

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Authors: Akram Khelaifia, Nesreddine Djafar Henni

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Reinforced concrete shear walls are essential components in protecting buildings from seismic forces by providing both strength and stiffness. This study focuses on optimizing the placement of shear walls in a high seismic zone. Through nonlinear analyses conducted on an eight-story building, various scenarios of shear wall positions are investigated to evaluate their impact on seismic performance. Employing a performance-based seismic design (PBSD) approach, the study aims to meet acceptance criteria related to inter-story drift ratio and damage levels. The findings emphasize the importance of concentrating shear walls in the central area of the building during the design phase. This strategic placement proves more effective compared to peripheral distributions, resulting in reduced inter-story drift and mitigated potential damage during seismic events. Additionally, the research explores the use of shear walls that completely infill the frame, forming compound shapes like Box configurations. It is discovered that incorporating such complete shear walls significantly enhances the structure's reliability concerning inter-story drift. Conversely, the absence of complete shear walls within the frame leads to reduced stiffness and the potential deterioration of short beams.

Keywords: performance level, pushover analysis, shear wall, plastic hinge, nonlinear analyses

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Authors: Yefrem Yefremov

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In Kazakhstan, there are approximately 100,000 ethnic Koreans with the ethnonym "Koryo Saram". They are part of the global Korean diaspora around the world, deported to Kazakhstan by Stalin’s decree in 1937. Koryo Saram's diasporic identity is a composite of numerous identities based on a shared cultural heritage of the USSR and independent Kazakhstan and has mosaic character. The author has conducted a sociological survey to find out the main features of the identity of the Koryo Saram diaspora. The purpose of this paper is to depict the degree of ethnic, cultural, and diasporic identity of Koryo Saram and which effect on the preserving Korean diaspora in Kazakhstna do they have. The following elements impacting the above-mentioned identities were investigated in the survey: criteria by which Koryo Saram perceive themselves to be Korean, attitude of Koryo Saram to their ethnicity, degree of feeling of ethnocultural similarity between Koreans of Kazakhstan and Koreans of the Republic of Korea, degree of association of Koreans of Kazakhstan with other Koreans living in other CIS countries, degree of practicing Korean traditions Koryo Saram's attitudes towards interethnic marriages. The primary factor in defining the identity among the respondents is the factor of ethnic origin. Nationality is the second most significant component in establishing Koryo Saram’s identity. The maintenance of "Koreanness" of Koryo Sarams in the context of a multiethnic community, particularly in Kazakhstan, is based on genetic elements as well as the preservation of the culture. In conclusion, the high level of preserving Korean identity is being observed in the Korean Diaspora of Kazakhstan.

Keywords: diasporic identity, diaspora, ethnic identity, identity markers, korean diaspora, koreans of kazakhstan, koryo saram, multiethnicity

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Authors: Wildan Syafitri

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The main purpose of the development is to embody public welfare. Its indication is shown by the increasing of the public prosperity in which it will be related to the consumption level as a consequence of the increasing of public income. One of the government’s efforts to increase public welfare is to create development equity in order to alleviate poor people. Poverty’s problem is not merely about the number and percentage of the poor people, but also it includes the gap and severity of poverty.the analysis method used is Benefit Incidence Analysis (BIA) that is an analysis method used to disclose the impact of government policy or individual access based on the income distribution in society. Further, the finding of the study revealed is that the highest number of the poor people in the village is those who are unemployed and have family members who are still in the Junior High School. The income distribution calculation shows a fairly good budget allocation applied with good mass ratio that is 0.31. In addition, the finding of this study also discloses that Indonesian Government policy to subsidize education cost for Elementary and Junior High School students has reached the right target. It is indicated by more benefits received by Elementary and Junior High School students who are poor and very poor than other income group.

Keywords: benefit incidence analysis, budget allocation, poverty, education

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Authors: K. C. Sony

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This paper investigates the coping strategies of households confronting disease in large cardamom (Amomum Subulatum Roxb.) in eastern Nepal. Cardamom farmers draw on various coping strategies to reduce the impact of crop disease in their livelihoods. Yet farmers face tremendous decline in production with a constant effort for revival. Past evidences provides dearth of information about coping strategies employed by farmers and institutional intervention to combat disease. Using factual data from Ilam district, and conducting a political economic analysis, this research addresses the gap by 1) understanding the impact of crop disease in farmers’ livelihoods, 2) identifying the coping strategies adopted by farmers and, 3) examining the existing institutional arrangements to address the disease. Coping strategies vary by household’s status defined by size of land, alternative income, and access to supporting institutions. Measures adopted are burning the cardamom field, changing land use pattern, diversifying crops, and visiting institutions for support. The local government’s support is limited to providing trainings and producing new varieties of cardamom. During crisis, farmers expect institutions to help revive the cardamom production, despite customary practice to combat disease. To retain and improve the livelihoods of farmers, there needs to be institutional innovation at the community level and policies that endorse immediate and sustainable support during hazards.

Keywords: cardamom, coping strategy, disease, institutions, Nepal

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Authors: Eleanor K. P. Kwan

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English academic writing, it has been argued, is an acquired language even for English speakers. For research students whose English is not their first language, however, the acquisition process is often more challenging. Instead of hoping that students would acquire the conventions themselves through extensive reading, there is a need for the explicit teaching of linguistic conventions in academic writing, as explicit teaching could help students to be more aware of the different generic conventions in different disciplines in science. This paper presents an interuniversity effort to develop an online academic writing resource for research students in five subdisciplines in engineering, upon the completion of the needs analysis which indicates that students and faculty members are more concerned about students’ ability to organize an extended text than about grammatical accuracy per se. In particular, this paper focuses on the materials developed for thesis writing (also called dissertation writing in some tertiary institutions), as theses form an essential graduation requirement for all research students and this genre is also expected to demonstrate the writer’s competence in research and contributions to the research community. Drawing on Swalesian move analysis of research articles, this online resource includes authentic materials written by students and faculty members from the participating institutes. Highlight will be given to several aspects and challenges of developing this online resource. First, as the online resource aims at moving beyond providing instructions on academic writing, a range of interactive activities need to be designed to engage the users, which is one feature which differentiates this online resource from other equally informative websites on academic writing. Second, it will also include discussion on divergent textual practices in different subdisciplines, which help to illustrate different practices among these subdisciplines. Third, since theses, probably one of the most extended texts a research student will complete, require effective use of signposting devices to facility readers’ understanding, this online resource will also provide both explanation and activities on different components that contribute to text coherence. Finally results from piloting will also be included to shed light on the effectiveness of the materials, which could be useful for future development.

Keywords: academic writing, English for academic purposes, online language learning materials, scientific writing

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Authors: Wissal Ben Arfi, Lubica Hikkerova, Jean-Michel Sahut

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This study examines interfirm networks in the digital transformation era, and in particular, how tacit knowledge codification affects innovation success within digital platforms. Hence, one of the most important features of digital transformation and innovation process outcomes is the emergence of digital platforms, as an interfirm network, at the heart of open innovation. This research aims to illuminate how digital platforms influence inter-organizational innovation through virtual team interactions and knowledge sharing practices within an interfirm network. Consequently, it contributes to the respective strategic management literature on new product development (NPD), open innovation, industrial management, and its emerging interfirm networks’ management. The empirical findings show, on the one hand, that knowledge conversion may be enhanced, especially by the socialization which seems to be the most important phase as it has played a crucial role to hold the virtual team members together. On the other hand, in the process of socialization, the tacit knowledge codification is crucial because it provides the structure needed for the interfirm network actors to interact and act to reach common goals which favor the emergence of open innovation. Finally, our results offer several conditions necessary, but not always sufficient, for interfirm managers involved in NPD and innovation concerning strategies to increasingly shape interconnected and borderless markets and business collaborations. In the digital transformation era, the need for adaptive and innovative business models as well as new and flexible network forms is becoming more significant than ever. Supported by technological advancements and digital platforms, companies could benefit from increased market opportunities and creating new markets for their innovations through alliances and collaborative strategies, as a mode of reducing or eliminating uncertainty environments or entry barriers. Consequently, an efficient and well-structured interfirm network is essential to create network capabilities, to ensure tacit knowledge sharing, to enhance organizational learning and to foster open innovation success within digital platforms.

Keywords: interfirm networks, digital platform, virtual teams, open innovation, knowledge sharing

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Authors: Kwan Hee Han

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In today’s business environments, frequent change of customer requirements is a tough challenge to manufacturing company. To cope with these challenges, a production planning and scheduling (PP&S) function might be established to provide accountability for both customer service and operational efficiency. Nowadays, many manufacturing firms have utilized PP&S software solutions to generate a realistic production plan and schedule to adapt to external changes efficiently. However, companies which consider the introduction of PP&S software solution, still have difficulties for selecting adequate solution to meet their specific needs. Since the task of PP&S is the one of major building blocks of SCM (Supply Chain Management) architecture, which deals with short term decision making in the production process of SCM, it is needed that the functionalities of PP&S should be analysed within the whole SCM process. The aim of this paper is to analyse the PP&S functionalities and its system architecture from the SCM perspective by using the criteria of level of planning hierarchy, major 4 SCM processes and problem-solving approaches, and finally propose a classification framework of PP&S solutions to facilitate the comparison among various commercial software solutions. By using proposed framework, several major PP&S solutions are classified and positioned according to their functional characteristics in this paper. By using this framework, practitioners who consider the introduction of computerized PP&S solutions in manufacturing firms can prepare evaluation and benchmarking sheets for selecting the most suitable solution with ease and in less time.

Keywords: production planning, production scheduling, supply chain management, the advanced planning system

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Authors: Mostosi C., Stéphenne J., Kempeneers E.

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Introduction: Refuellers from Brussels South Charleroi Airport (BSCA) expressed concerns about the risks involved in handling JET-A1 fuel. The HSE Manager of BSCA, in collaboration with the occupational physician and the industrial hygiene unit of the External Service of Occupational Medicine, decided to assess the toxicological exposure of these workers. Materials and methods: Two measurement methods were used. The first was to assay three types of metabolites in urine to highlight the exposure to xylenes, toluene, and benzene in aircraft fuels. Out of 32 refuellers in the department, 26 participated in the sampling, and 23 samples were exploited. The second method targeted the assessment of environmental exposure to certain potentially hazardous substances that refuellers are likely to breathe in work areas at the airport. It was decided to carry out two ambient air measurement campaigns, using static systems on the one hand and, on the other hand, using individual sensors worn by the refuellers at the level of the respiratory tract. Volatile organic compounds and diesel particles were analyzed. Results: Despite the fears that motivated these analyzes, the overall results showed low levels of exposure, far below the existing limit values, both in air quality and in urinary measurements. Conclusion: These results are comparable to a study carried out in several French airports. The staff could be reassured, and then the medical surveillance was modified by the occupational physician. With the aviation development at BSCA, equipment and methods are evolving. Their exposure will have to be reassessed.

Keywords: refuelling, airport, exposure, fuel, occupational health, air quality

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Authors: Preet Gill, Danus Ravindran

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These The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread implications for medical specialist training programs worldwide, including radiology. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the Australian and New Zealand radiology trainee experience and well-being, as well as to compare the Australasian experience with that reported by other countries. An anonymised electronic online questionnaire was disseminated to all training members of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists who were radiology trainees during the 2020 – 2022 clinical years. Trainees were questioned about their experience from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australasia (March 2020) to the time of survey completion. Participation was voluntary. Questions assessed the impact of the pandemic across multiple domains, including workload (inpatient/outpatient & individual modality volume), teaching, supervision, external learning opportunities, redeployment and trainee wellbeing. Survey responses were collated and compared with other peer reviewed publications. Answer options were primarily in categorical format (nominal and ordinal subtypes, as appropriate). An opportunity to provide free text answers to a minority of questions was provided. While our results mirror that of other countries, which demonstrated reduced case exposure and increased remote teaching and supervision, responses showed variation in the methods utilised by training sites during the height of the pandemic. A significant number of trainees were affected by examination cancellations/postponements and had subspecialty training rotations postponed. The majority of trainees felt that the pandemic had a negative effect on their training. In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on radiology trainees across Australia and New Zealand. The present study has highlighted the extent of these effects, with most aspects of training impacted. Opportunities exist to utilise this information to create robust workplace strategies to mitigate these negative effects should the need arise in the future.

Keywords: COVID-19, radiology, training, pandemic

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Authors: Nela Milosevic, Sladjana Barjaktarovic Rakocevic, Sladjana Benkovic, Nemanja Milanovic

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Nowadays, performance measurement systems play a key role in evaluating the strategic performances of an organization. On the other hand, there has been a shift towards the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), which has been recognized as a valuable managerial approach. The main goal of this paper is to analyze the main performances of Serbian banks measured at the branches level, through the usage of the Balanced Scorecard framework. Although an extensive number of practitioners have an interest in the Balanced Scorecard approach, little empirical research has been conducted on the implementation of its concept in the service sector like banks, especially within developing countries. From the beginning of August till the end of September 2015, authors have been conducting in-depth interviews among a number of experts from the most successful banks in Serbia. The results show that the non-financial measures, especially, customer oriented indicators and product/ service oriented indicators, seem to be very important factors for improving not only the financial situation within the bank, but also overall business performances. Additionally, the findings prove that there is the cause-effect relationship between non-financial and financial dimensions of the Balanced Scorecard. Having in mind that the banks are still using outdated performance evaluation systems, such as annual, quarterly and monthly reports, we hope that this paper will contribute to the knowledge of how banks in Serbia may apply the Balanced Scorecard approach to evaluate their performance on the most efficient and effective way.

Keywords: balanced scorecard approach, bank management, performance measurement systems, strategic performances

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Authors: Arshad A. Narejo, M. Javed Sheikh, G. Mujtaba Khushk, Naeem A Qureshi, M. Ali Sheikh

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Climate change not only influences on agriculture activities but also has certain effects on daily human activities, as well as on overall human health. Keeping in view the significance and huge research gap on the issues, the researchers have found an opportunity to conduct a study in Sindh province of Pakistan, in which the issue of climate shifting/change regarding temperature and precipitation were discussed with the local farmers of district Hyderabad. The quantified perception was gathered on a reliable and valid scale from 200 respondents and was analyzed through SPSS and AMOS software. The result of this study revealed that the significant changes are being occurred in summer (r²=0.96; M=6.78) and winter seasons (r²=0.71; M=6.57), therefore it is leaving bad effects on human health (r²=0.96) and behavior of the local population (r²=0.70). In addition, the change in the cropping calendar, i.e., timing of sowing (r²=0.69; M=8.42) and harvesting (r²=0.79; M=8.27) of different crops have been altered due to changes in local weather patterns. Since the local farmers are also facing seed germination (r²=0.57; M=7.98) problems, it is therefore recommended that concerned authorities/departments should revise the agricultural calendar. Besides this, respondents were in opinion that actual summer starts even before the vacation and cold season starts when winter vacations ended. Thus, the government and other concerned departments should reconsider or reschedule the vacation regulation policy (r²=0.70) at least at the provincial level.

Keywords: climate, climate shifting/change, impact on daily life, impact on agricultural activities

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Authors: Ayman M. Ibrahim, Jinpeng Cai, Peilun Shen, Dianwen Liu

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The difference in promoting sulfurization between different ammonium salts and its anion's effect on the sulfurization of the malachite surface was systematically studied. Therefore, this study takes malachite, a typical copper oxide mineral, as the research object, field emission scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (FESEM‒EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and other analytical and testing methods, as well as pure mineral flotation experiments, were carried out to examine the superiority of the ammonium salts as the sulfurizing reagent of malachite at the microscopic level. Additionally, the promoting effects of ammonium sulfate and ammonium phosphate on the malachite sulfurization of xanthate-flotation were compared systematically from the microstructure of sulfurized products, elemental composition, chemical state of characteristic elements, and hydrophobicity surface evolution. The FESEM and AFM results presented that after being pre-treated with ammonium salts, the adhesion of sulfurized products formed on the mineral surface was denser; thus, the flake radial dimension product was significantly greater. For malachite sulfurization flotation, the impact of ammonium phosphate in promoting sulfurization is weaker than ammonium sulfate. The reason may be that hydrolyzing phosphate consumes a substantial quantity of H+ in the solution, which hastens the formation of the copper-sulfur products, decreasing the adhesion stability of copper-sulfur species on the malachite surface.

Keywords: sulfurization flotation, adsorption characteristics, malachite, hydrophobicity

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Authors: Saroj Bala Grover, Al Munther Alhasawi, Prem N. Sharma, P. S. N. Menon

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Background: Prisoners are considered one of the high-risk populations for the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Targeting this group is one of the strategies to reduce the incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the community. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among male inmates in Kuwait’s prison by administering three sets of questionnaires to assess the level of their knowledge and awareness about the mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS, their risky personal behavior that may lead to HIV infection, and the presence of any negative attitudes and stigmatization towards HIV infected individuals. Results: The study included 123 male inmates, with a mean ± SD age of 30.9 ± 8.4 years. Most participants had good general knowledge (90%) about the mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS, including sharing contaminated syringes, risky personal behaviors such as having unprotected sex and increased number of extramarital relationships (66%), and the avoidance of the regular use of condoms. The younger age group (< 35 years) had more extramarital relationships than those > 35 years (71.4% Vs. 46.4%; p=0.016). There was a perceived attitude of stigmatization among inmates towards HIV-infected persons. Conclusions: This vulnerable group of prisoners, especially young adults, need educational programs to improve knowledge about the transmission of HIV and to correct and change their risky personal behaviors to protect themselves and the community against HIV transmission.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Kuwait, prisoners, knowledge, awareness, personal behavior, extramarital relationships, safe sex, discrimination, stigmatization

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Authors: Vladimir A. Todiras

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Spatio-temporal models provide new possibilities for real-time action in pest risk analysis. It should be noted that estimation of the possibility and probability of introduction of a pest and of its economic consequences involves many uncertainties. We present a new mapping technique that assesses pest invasion risk using online BioClass software. BioClass is a GIS tool designed to solve multiple-criteria classification and optimization problems based on fuzzy logic and level set methods. This research describes a method for predicting the potential establishment and spread of a plant pest into new areas using a case study: corn rootworm (Diabrotica spp.), tomato leaf miner (Tuta absoluta) and plum fruit moth (Grapholita funebrana). Our study demonstrated that in BioClass we can combine fuzzy logic and geographic information systems with knowledge of pest biology and environmental data to derive new information for decision making. Pests are sensitive to a warming climate, as temperature greatly affects their survival and reproductive rate and capacity. Changes have been observed in the distribution, frequency and severity of outbreaks of Helicoverpa armigera on tomato. BioClass has demonstrated to be a powerful tool for applying dynamic models and map the potential future distribution of a species, enable resource to make decisions about dangerous and invasive species management and control.

Keywords: classification, model, pest, risk

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Authors: Diana Serbezeanu, Ionela-Daniela Carja, Tachita Vlad-Bubulac, Sergiu Sova

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New phosphorus-containing monomers having methoxy end functional groups were prepared from methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate and two different dichlorides with phosphorus, namely phenyl phosphonic dichloride and phenyl dichlorophosphate. The structures of the monomers were confirmed by FTIR and NMR spectroscopy. The assignments for the 1H, 13C and 31P chemical shifts are based on 1D and 2D NMR homo- and heteronuclear correlations (H,H-COSY (Correlation Spectroscopy), H,C-HMQC (Heteronuclear Multiple Quantum Correlation and H,C-HMBC (Heteronuclear Multiple Bond Correlation)) and 31P-13C couplings. The monomers exhibited good solubility in common organic solvents. Dimethyl sulfoxide was to be a good solvent to grow crystals of considerable size which were investigated by X-ray analysis. One of these two new monomers presented thermotropic liquid crystalline behaviour, as revealed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized light microscopy (PLM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The transition temperature from crystal to liquid crystalline state (K→LC) was 143°C and from the LC to isotropic state (LC→I) was 167°C. Upon heating, bis(4-(methoxycarbonyl)phenyl formed fine textures, difficult to be ascribed to smectic or nematic phases. Upon cooling from the isotropic state, bis(4-(methoxycarbonyl)phenyl exhibited a mosaic-type texture. X-ray diffraction measurements at small angles (SAXS) of bis(4-(methoxycarbonyl)phenyl showed two peaks at 1.8 Å and 3.5 Å, respectively suggesting organization at supramolecular level.

Keywords: phosphorus-containing monomers, polarized light microscopy, structure investigation, thermotropic liquid crystalline properties

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