Search results for: water resource management

Authors: Ji Hoi Heo, Jun Seong Park, Hyo Kim

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Geopolymer is an inorganic material synthesized by alkali activation of source materials rich in soluble SiO₂ and Al₂O₃. Many researches have studied the effect of aluminum species on the synthesis of geopolymer. However, it is still unclear about the influence of Al additives on the properties of geopolymer. The current study identified the role of the Al additive on the thermal performance of fly ash based geopolymer and observing the microstructure development of the composite. NaOH pellets were dissolved in water for 14 M (14 moles/L) sodium hydroxide solution which was used as an alkali activator. The weight ratio of alkali activator to fly ash was 0.40. Sodium aluminate powder was employed as an Al additive and added in amounts of 0.5 wt.% to 2 wt.% by the weight of fly ash. The mixture of alkali activator and fly ash was cured in a 75°C dry oven for 24 hours. Then, the hardened geopolymer samples were exposed to 300°C, 600°C and 900°C for 2 hours, respectively. The initial compressive strength after oven curing increased with increasing sodium aluminate content. It was also observed in SEM results that more amounts of geopolymer composite were synthesized as sodium aluminate was added. The compressive strength increased with increasing heating temperature from 300°C to 600°C regardless of sodium aluminate addition. It was consistent with the ATR-FTIR results that the peak position related to asymmetric stretching vibrations of Si-O-T (T: Si or Al) shifted to higher wavenumber as the heating temperature increased, indicating the further geopolymer reaction. In addition, geopolymer sample with higher content of sodium aluminate showed better compressive strength. It was also reflected on the IR results by more shift of the peak position assigned to Si-O-T toward the higher wavenumber. However, the compressive strength decreased after being exposed to 900°C in all samples. The degree of reduction in compressive strength was decreased with increasing sodium aluminate content. The deterioration in compressive strength was most severe in the geopolymer sample without sodium aluminate additive, while the samples with sodium aluminate addition showed better thermal durability at 900°C. This is related to the phase transformation with the occurrence of nepheline phase at 900°C, which was most predominant in the sample without sodium aluminate. In this work, it was concluded that sodium aluminate could be a good additive in the geopolymer synthesis by showing the improved compressive strength at elevated temperatures.

Keywords: compressive strength, fly ash based geopolymer, microstructure development, Na-aluminate

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Authors: Siyuan Cai

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COVID-19 has triggered the planning circles to think about how to improve the city's ability to respond to public health emergencies. From the perspective of the community, this article reviews the risk cases in Wuhan Chenjiadun Community and other communities under the epidemic, and analyzes the response to public health emergencies such as infectious disease outbreaks in the excellent cases of resilient epidemic prevention communities. Then, combined with the planning of the living circle, it demonstrates the necessity of integrating the concept of resilience into the 15-minute community living circle to make up for the shortcomings of infectious disease prevention. Finally, it is proposed to strictly control the source and tail of the epidemic in the layout of the living circle, daily health and epidemic emergency should be taken into account in planning, community medical resources should be decentralized in management, and the application of smart technologies in the planning of living circle should be fully emphasized, so as to improve the community's ability to respond to public health emergencies.

Keywords: pandemic, resilient cities, resilient community, 15-minute community life circle

Procedia PDF Downloads 69

Authors: Arvind Dhingra, Tejinder Singh Saggu

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As the energy demands rise and the pollution levels grow, it becomes imperative for us to save energy in all the fields in which it is used. The industrial sector is the major commercial energy consuming sector in India, where electrical energy is the most common and widely used type of energy. As the demand and price of energy are increasing day by day, therefore, the subject of energy conservation is a concern for most energy users particularly industry. Judicious use of energy becomes imperative for third world developing country being presence of energy crisis. This paper provides some measure for energy saving that can be commonly recommended for a rolling unit of steel industry. A case of hot rolling unit in JSL Stainless Ltd., Hisar for energy conservation is given. Overall improvement in energy consumption in light of the stated recommendation is illustrated along with the proposed utilization of the techniques and their applications. Energy conservation in conventional motor with replacement or use of star delta star converter, reduction in cable losses, replacement of filament of LED lamps, replacement of conventional transformer with cast resin dry type transformer and provision of energy management system for energy conservation and per unit production cost reduction are elaborated in this paper.

Keywords: energy audit, energy conservation, energy efficient motors

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Authors: Apichaya Aneksampant, Xuefei Tu, Masami Fukushima, Mitsuo Yamamoto

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The restoration of seaweed beds recovery has been developed using a fertilization technique for supplying dissolved iron to barren coastal areas. The fertilizer is composed of iron oxides as a source of iron and compost as humic substance (HS) source, which can serve as chelator of iron to stabilize the dissolved species under oxic seawater condition. However, elution mechanisms of iron from iron oxide surfaces have not sufficiently elucidated. In particular, roles of microbial activities in the elution of iron from the fertilizer are not sufficiently understood. In the present study, a fertilizer (iron oxide/compost = 1/1, v/v) was incubated in a water tank at Mashike coast, Hokkaido Japan. Microorganisms in the 6-month fertilizer were isolated and identified as Exiguobacterium oxidotolerans sp. (T-2-2). The identified bacteria were inoculated to perform iron elution test in a postgate B medium, prepared in artificial seawater. Hematite was used as a model iron oxide and anthraquinone-2,7-disolfonate (AQDS) as a model for HSs. The elution test performed in presence and absence of bacteria inoculation. ICP-AES was used to analyze total iron and a colorimetric technique using ferrozine employed for the determination of ferrous ion. During the incubation period, sample contained hematite and T-2-2 in both presence and absence of AQDS continuously showed the iron elution and reached at the highest concentration after 9 days of incubation and then slightly decrease to stabilize within 20 days. Comparison to the sample without T-2-2, trace amount of iron was observed, suggesting that iron elution to seawater can be attributed to bacterial activities. The levels of total organic carbon (TOC) in the culture solution with hematite decreased. This may be to the adsorption of organic compound, AQDS, to hematite surfaces. The decrease in UV-vis absorption of AQDS in the culture solution also support the results of TOC that AQDS was adsorbed to hematite surfaces. AQDS can enhance the iron elution, while the adsorption of organic matter suppresses the iron elution from hematite.

Keywords: anthraquinone-2, 7-disolfonate, barren ground, E.oxidotolerans sp., hematite, humic substances, iron elution

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Authors: Allmin Susaiyah, Aki Härmä, Milan Petković

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Automatic generation of insights from data using insight mining systems (IMS) is useful in many applications, such as personal health tracking, patient monitoring, and business process management. Existing IMS face challenges in controlling insight extraction, scaling to large databases, and generalising to unseen domains. In this work, we propose a hybrid approach consisting of rule-based and neural components for generating insights from data while overcoming the aforementioned challenges. Firstly, a rule-based data 2CNL component is used to extract statistically significant insights from data and represent them in a controlled natural language (CNL). Secondly, a BERTSum-based CNL2NL component is used to convert these CNLs into natural language texts. We improve the model using task-specific and domain-specific fine-tuning. Our approach has been evaluated using statistical techniques and standard evaluation metrics. We overcame the aforementioned challenges and observed significant improvement with domain-specific fine-tuning.

Keywords: data mining, insight mining, natural language generation, pre-trained language models

Procedia PDF Downloads 119

Authors: Ali D. Omur, Betul Apaydin Yildirim, Yavuz S. Saglam, Selim Comakli, Mustafa Ozkaraca

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Twenty-eight male Sprague Dawley rats (aged 3 months) were used in the study. The animals were given feed and water as ad libitum. Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 4 groups as 7 rats in each group. Aflatoxin B1 (7.5 μg/200 g), resveratrol (60 mg/kg) was administered to rats in groups other than the control group. At the end of the 16th day, blood, semen and tissue specimens were taken by decapitation under ether anesthesia. The effects of aflatoxin B1 and resveratrol on spermatological, pathological and biochemical parameters were determined in rats. When we evaluate the spermatological parameters, it is understood that resveratrol has a statistically significant difference in terms of sperm motility and viability (membrane integrity) compared to the control group and aflatoxin B1 administration groups, indicating a protective effect on spermatological parameters (groups: control, resveratrol, aflatoxin B1 and Afb1 + res; respectively, values of motility: 71,42 ± 0,52b, 72,85 ± 1, 48c , 60,71 ± 1,30a, 57,14 ± 2, 40a; values of viability: 63,85 ± 1,33b, 70,42 ± 2,61c, 55,00 ± 1,54a, 56,57 ± 0,89a. In terms of pathological parameters -histopathological examination- in the control and resveratrol groups, seminiferous tubules were observed to be in normal structure. In the group treated with aflatoxin, the regular structure of the spermatogenic cells deteriorated, and the seminiferous tubules became necrotic and degenerative. In the group treated with Afb1 + res, the decreasing of necrotic and degenerative changes were determined compared with in the group treated with aflatoxin. As immunohistochemical examination, cleaved caspase 3 expression was found to be very low in the control and resveratrol groups. Cleaved caspase 3 expression was severely exacerbated in seminiferous tubules in aflatoxin group but cleaved caspase 3 expression level decreased in Afb1 + res. In the biochemical direction, resveratrol has been shown to inhibit the adverse effects of aflatoxin on antioxidant levels (GSH-mmol/L, CAT-kU/L, GPx-U/mL, SOD-EU/mL) and to show a protective effect. For this purpose, the use of resveratrol with antioxidant activity was investigated in preventing or ameliorating damage to aflatoxin B1. It has been concluded that resveratrol effectively prevents the aflatoxin-induced testicular damage and lipid peroxidation. It has also been shown that resveratrol has protective effects on sperm motility and viability.

Keywords: Aflatoxin B1, rat, resveratrol, sperm

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Authors: Olaide Ruth Aderibigbe, Oluwatoyin Oluwole

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Pigeon pea is one of the minor leguminous plants; though underutilised, it is used traditionally by farmers to alleviate hunger and malnutrition. Pigeon pea is cultivated in Nigeria by subsistence farmers. It is rich in protein and minerals, however, its utilisation as food is only common among the poor and rural populace who cannot afford expensive sources of protein. One of the factors contributing to its limited use is the high antinutrient content which makes it indigestible, especially when eaten by children. The development of value-added products that can reduce the antinutrient content and make the nutrients more bioavailable will increase the utilisation of the crop and contribute to reduction of malnutrition. This research, therefore, determined the effects of different roasting temperatures (130 0C, 140 0C, and 150 0C) on the proximate, mineral and antinutrient component of a pigeon pea snack. The brown variety of pigeon pea seeds were purchased from a local market- Otto in Lagos, Nigeria. The seeds were cleaned, washed, and soaked in 50 ml of water containing sugar and salt (4:1) for 15 minutes, and thereafter the seeds were roasted at 130 0C, 140 0C, and 150 0C in an electric oven for 10 minutes. Proximate, minerals, phytate, tannin and alkaloid content analyses were carried out in triplicates following standard procedures. The results of the three replicates were polled and expressed as mean±standard deviation; a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Least Significance Difference (LSD) were carried out. The roasting temperatures significantly (P<0.05) affected the protein, ash, fibre and carbohydrate content of the snack. Ready-to-eat snack prepared by roasting at 150 0C significantly had the highest protein (23.42±0.47%) compared the ones roasted at 130 0C and 140 0C (18.38±1.25% and 20.63±0.45%, respectively). The same trend was observed for the ash content (3.91±0.11 for 150 0C, 2.36±0.15 for 140 0C and 2.26±0.25 for 130 0C), while the fibre and carbohydrate contents were highest at roasting temperature of 130 0C. Iron, zinc, and calcium were not significantly (P<0.5) affected by the different roasting temperatures. Antinutrients decreased with increasing temperature. Phytate levels recorded were 0.02±0.00, 0.06±0.00, and 0.07±0.00 mg/g; tannin levels were 0.50±0.00, 0.57±0.00, and 0.68±0.00 mg/g, while alkaloids levels were 0.51±0.01, 0.78±0.01, and 0.82±0.01 mg/g for 150 0C, 140 0C, and 130 0C, respectively. These results show that roasting at high temperature (150 0C) can be utilised as a processing technique for increasing protein and decreasing antinutrient content of pigeon pea.

Keywords: antinutrients, pigeon pea, protein, roasting, underutilised species

Procedia PDF Downloads 143

Authors: Burcu Akyildiz, Cigdem Kadaifci, Y. Ilker Topcu, Burc Ulengin

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In today’s business environment, companies should make strategic decisions to gain sustainable competitive advantage. Order selection is a crucial issue among these decisions especially for steel production industry. When the companies allocate a high proportion of their design and production capacities to their ongoing projects, determining which customer order should be chosen among the potential orders without exceeding the remaining capacity is the major critical problem. In this study, it is aimed to identify and prioritize the evaluation factors for the customer order selection problem. Conjoint analysis is used to examine the importance level of each factor which is determined as the potential profit rate per unit of time, the compatibility of potential order with available capacity, the level of potential future order with higher profit, customer credit of future business opportunity, and the negotiability level of production schedule for the order.

Keywords: conjoint analysis, order prioritization, profit management, structural steel firm

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Authors: E. Bal Beşikçi, O. Arslan

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Fuel saving has become one of the most important issue for shipping in terms of fuel economy and environmental impact. Lowering fuel consumption is possible for both new ships and existing ships through enhanced energy efficiency measures, technical and operational respectively. The limitations of applying technical measures due to the long payback duration raise the potential of operational changes for energy efficient ship operations. This study identifies operational energy efficiency measures related voyage performance management. We use ‘noon’ data to examine the correlation between fuel consumption and operational parameters- revolutions per minute (RPM), draft, trim, (beaufort number) BN and relative wind direction, which are used as measures of ship energy efficiency. The results of this study reveal that speed optimization is the most efficient method as fuel consumption depends heavily on RPM. In conclusion, this study will provide ship operators with the strategic approach for evaluating the priority of the operational energy efficiency measures against high fuel prices and carbon emissions.

Keywords: ship, voyage related operational energy Efficiency measures, fuel consumption, pearson's correlation coefficient

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Authors: Shih-Jen Feng, Nai-Chia Chao, Meng-Chi Shih, Chien-Chi Chang

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Today, Taiwan agriculture operates under small business scale with economic insufficiency, due to aging population, unproductiveness, inadequate systematic management, insufficient agro-economic scale, and cultivation on agro-education. Moreover, because of farming special working method (physical tiring, shackled weather condition), environment (asymmetric distribution information), hours devoted (unbalance wealth), the willingness for younger generation to delicate into agriculture farming is rare. Although government had provided policies to harmonize the existing problem, significant result is unseen. Living lab (LL) is a methodology approach to sense, prototype and validate complex solutions in real life context. This paper contributes an innovative interaction methodology by probing under implementation of diverse LL sector merging big data analysis utilizing rural redevelopment and revitalization plan of Wufeng.

Keywords: living lab approach, historic rural redevelopment, innovation model, innovation approach

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Authors: Govindan Sudha, Mathumitha Subramaniam, Alamelu Govindasamy, Sasikala Gunasekaran

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The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of Hypsizygus ulmarius polysaccharides (HUP) on reducing oxidative stress, cognitive impairment and neurotoxicity in D-galactose induced aging mice. Mice were subcutaneously injected with D-galactose (150 mg/kg per day) for 6 weeks and were administered HUP simultaneously. Aged mice receiving vitamin E (100 mg/kg) served as positive control. Chronic administration of D-galactose significantly impaired cognitive performance oxidative defence and mitochondrial enzymes activities as compared to control group. The results showed that HUP (200 and 400 mg/kg) treatment significantly improved the learning and memory ability in Morris water maze test. Biochemical examination revealed that HUP significantly increased the decreased activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), mitochondrial enzymes-NADH dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase (MDH), isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH), Na+K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ATPase activities, elevated the lowered total anti-oxidation capability (TAOC), glutathione (GSH), vitamin C and decreased the raised acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activities, malondialdehyde (MDA), hydroperoxide (HPO), protein carbonyls (PCO), advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP) levels in brain of aging mice induced by D-gal in a dose-dependent manner. In conclusion, present study highlights the potential role of HUP against D-galactose induced cognitive impairment, biochemical and mitochondrial dysfunction in mice. In vitro studies on the effect of HUP on scavenging DPPH, ABTS, DMPD, OH radicals, reducing power, B-carotene bleaching and lipid peroxidation inhibition confirmed the free radical scavenging and antioxidant activity of HUP. The results suggest that HUP possesses anti-aging efficacy and may have potential in treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: aging, antioxidants, mushroom, neurotoxicity

Procedia PDF Downloads 530

Authors: Pham Quang Huy

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State budget is considered as an effective tool for controlling, adjusting and regulating the market economy of any countries. To ensure that the activities of the state in the fields of politics, economy and society has been efficiency, it requires major sources of certain budget. These financial funds are formed from tax revenues and tax revenues beyond. Therefore, the Governments need to have an accounting regime to manage the receipt, expenditure which are suitable for recording a full range of items. From that, it can help to increase the transparency and accountability in budget system. One of the main requirements in Vietnamese policies is to improve that accounting system of revenues and expenditures which can provide many reports to meet the information required of government and users, as well as directions to the trends of international standards requirements. By using quantitative research methods and analytical models to exploring factors, the main purpose of this article is to identify the factors affecting budget accounting and providing some direction for Vietnamese public sector in the future. The results indicated that Vietnam budget accounting has been impacted by seven factors and aims to implement three main orientations in the public sector units.

Keywords: state budget, accounting, IPSAS, budget management, government, public sector

Procedia PDF Downloads 270

Authors: Debashree Ghosh, Preethi Sridhar, Shloka Atul Dhavle

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The judicious and economic consumption of energy for sustainable growth and development is nowadays a thing of primary importance; Phase Change Materials (PCM) provide an ingenious option of storing energy in the form of Latent Heat. Energy storing mechanism incorporating phase change material increases the efficiency of the process by minimizing the difference between supply and demand; PCM heat exchangers are used to storing the heat or non-convectional energy within the PCM as the heat of fusion. The experimental study evaluates the effect of thermo-physical properties, variation in inlet temperature, and flow rate on charging period of a coiled heat exchanger. Secondly, a numerical study is performed on a PCM double pipe heat exchanger packed with two different PCMs, namely, RT50 and Fatty Acid, in the annular region. In this work, the simulation of charging of paraffin wax (RT50) using water as high-temperature fluid (HTF) is performed. Commercial software Ansys-Fluent 15 is used for simulation, and hence charging of PCM is studied. In the Enthalpy-porosity model, a single momentum equation is applicable to describe the motion of both solid and liquid phases. The details of the progress of phase change with time are presented through the contours of melt-fraction, temperature. The velocity contour is shown to describe the motion of the liquid phase. The experimental study revealed that paraffin wax melts with almost the same temperature variation at the two Intermediate positions. Fatty acid, on the other hand, melts faster owing to greater thermal conductivity and low melting temperature. It was also observed that an increase in flow rate leads to a reduction in the charging period. The numerical study also supports some of the observations found in the experimental study like the significant dependence of driving force on the process of melting. The numerical study also clarifies the melting pattern of the PCM, which cannot be observed in the experimental study.

Keywords: latent heat storage, charging period, discharging period, coiled heat exchanger

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Authors: Jan C. Droste, Justine Burns, Nithin Narayan

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Introduction: Life-threatening detrimental effects of inappropriate adrenaline (epinephrine) administration, e.g., by giving the wrong dose, in the context of anaphylaxis management is well documented in the medical literature. Half of the fatal anaphylactic reactions in the UK are iatrogenic, and the median time to a cardio-respiratory arrest can be as short as 5 minutes. It is therefore imperative that hospital doctors of all grades have active and accurate knowledge of the correct route, site, and dosage of administration of adrenaline. Given this time constraint and the potential fatal outcome with inappropriate management of anaphylaxis, it is alarming that surveys over the last 15 years have repeatedly shown only a minority of doctors to have accurate knowledge of adrenaline administration as recommended by the UK Resuscitation Council guidelines (2008 updated 2012). This comparison of survey results of the medical workforce over several years in a small NHS District General Hospital was conducted in order to establish the effect of the employment of multiple educational methods regarding adrenaline administration in anaphylaxis in adults. Methods: Between 2010 and 2017, several education methods and tools were used to repeatedly inform the medical workforce (doctors and advanced clinical practitioners) in a single district general hospital regarding the treatment of anaphylaxis in adults. Whilst the senior staff remained largely the same cohort, junior staff had changed fully in every survey. Examples included: (i) Formal teaching -in Grand Rounds; during the junior doctors’ induction process; advanced life support courses (ii) In-situ simulation training performed by the clinical skills simulation team –several ad hoc sessions and one 3-day event in 2017 visiting 16 separate clinical areas performing an acute anaphylaxis scenario using actors- around 100 individuals from multi-disciplinary teams were involved (iii) Hospital-wide distribution of the simulation event via the Trust’s Simulation Newsletter (iv) Laminated algorithms were attached to the 'crash trolleys' (v) A short email 'alert' was sent to all medical staff 3 weeks prior to the survey detailing the emergency treatment of anaphylaxis (vi) In addition, the performance of the surveys themselves represented a teaching opportunity when gaps in knowledge could be addressed. Face to face surveys were carried out in 2010 ('pre-intervention), 2015, and 2017, in the latter two occasions including advanced clinical practitioners (ACP). All surveys consisted of convenience samples. If verbal consent to conduct the survey was obtained, the medical practitioners' answers were recorded immediately on a data collection sheet. Results: There was a sustained improvement in the knowledge of the medical workforce from 2010 to 2017: Answers improved regarding correct drug by 11% (84%, 95%, and 95%); the correct route by 20% (76%, 90%, and 96%); correct site by 40% (43%, 83%, and 83%) and the correct dose by 45% (27%, 54%, and 72%). Overall, knowledge of all components -correct drug, route, site, and dose-improved from 13% in 2010 to 62% in 2017. Conclusion: This survey comparison shows knowledge of the medical workforce regarding adrenaline administration for treatment of anaphylaxis in adults can be considerably improved by employing a variety of educational methods.

Keywords: adrenaline, anaphylaxis, epinephrine, medical education, patient safety

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Authors: Jonathan Hinton Westover, Maureen S. Andrade, Doug Miller

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Research has been inconclusive in determining if men or women experience more job satisfaction. A global comparison examining extrinsic and intrinsic factors, work relations, and work-life balance determinants found few differences; however, work relations and work-life balance factors were more significant for male than female workers across occupations. The current study uses International Social Survey Program data representing 37 countries to explore gender differences in job satisfaction in the hospitality industry. Findings demonstrate that mean job satisfaction scores for females are lower across hospitality occupations except for hotel receptionists, housekeeping supervisors, and hotel cleaners. Regression results revealed additional differences such as the significance of co-worker relations, the negative impact of being discriminated against and harassed at work, working weekends, marital status, and supervisory status for women with autonomy, work stress, education, and employment relationship being more salient for men. Interesting work, work being useful to society, job security, pay, relations with management, and work interfering with family were significant for both males and females.

Keywords: job satisfaction, gender, hospitality, global comparisons

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: Wiwat Kittinaraporn, Napat Harnpornchai, Sutja Boonyachut

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This paper deals with the application of a novel neural network technique, so-called Support Vector Machine (SVM). The objective of this study is to explore the variable and parameter of forecasting factors in the construction industry to build up forecasting model for construction quantity in Thailand. The scope of the research is to study the non-residential construction quantity in Thailand. There are 44 sets of yearly data available, ranging from 1965 to 2009. The correlation between economic indicators and construction demand with the lag of one year was developed by Apichat Buakla. The selected variables are used to develop SVM models to forecast the non-residential construction quantity in Thailand. The parameters are selected by using ten-fold cross-validation method. The results are indicated in term of Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). The MAPE value for the non-residential construction quantity predicted by Epsilon-SVR in corporation with Radial Basis Function (RBF) of kernel function type is 5.90. Analysis of the experimental results show that the support vector machine modelling technique can be applied to forecast construction quantity time series which is useful for decision planning and management purpose.

Keywords: forecasting, non-residential, construction, support vector machines

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Authors: Wang Yongdong, Yeneayehu Fenetahun, You Yuan, Ogbue Chukwuka, Yahaya Ibrahim, Xu Xinwen

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This paper explores an innovative Ethiopian approach to combatting desertification, focusing on the semi-arid savanna grasslands in Southern Ethiopia. The study investigates the multifaceted strategies employed by Ethiopian communities, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations to address desertification challenges in the region. Through an analysis of legislative frameworks, community engagement, afforestation programs, and sustainable land management techniques, this research highlights the efficacy of Ethiopia's strategy in reducing the effects of desertification. The results emphasize how crucial it is to build effective measures for halting desertification in fragile ecosystems by utilizing local knowledge, community involvement, and adaptive governance. In addition, this study also addresses how the Ethiopian approach may be applied to other areas with comparable environmental problems. In summary, this research adds significant perspectives to the worldwide conversation about desertification and provides useful guidance for sustainable land use.

Keywords: adaptive governance, community engagement, desertification, policy frameworks

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Authors: Oluwasgun Moses Jolayemi

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Violence has become a fairly often occurrence in sports (within our tertiary institutions), a development that is giving every society in the world sleepless night. School violence is part of youth violence, a broader salient public health problem. This study employing a questionnaire-based survey strategy aimed at investigates psychological factors as predictors of sports violence among Oyo state tertiary institution. A sample of Two hundred athletes and three tertiary institutions were selected through purposive sampling from the Oyo State tertiary institution. The estimated reliability co-efficient of the instrument was found to be 0.89 using cronbach Alpha technique. Data were analyzed at 0.05 level of significance using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 20.0. Five hypotheses were tested using Pearson Correlation. Result revealed that personality, anxiety, mental health has no significant influence on sports violence; mental stress has a significant influence on sports violence. Based on the findings, it was recommended that sport management should reduce work overload and that they should organized seminars and social activities to help athletes lose up.

Keywords: Ibadan, mental health, personality, psychology, violence

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Authors: Tahsien Okasha

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Transplantation medicine is one of the most challenging and complex areas of modern medicine. Some of the key areas for medical management are the problems of transplant rejection, during which the body has an immune response to the transplanted organ, possibly leading to transplant failure and the need to immediately remove the organ from the recipient. When possible, transplant rejection can be reduced through serotyping to determine the most appropriate donor-recipient match and through the use of immunosuppressant drugs. Postoperative care actually begins before the surgery in terms of education, discharge planning, nutrition, pulmonary rehabilitation, and patient/family education. This also allows for expectations to be managed. A multidisciplinary approach is the key, and collaborative team meetings are essential to ensuring that all team members are "on the same page." .The following clinical pathway map and guidelines with the aim to decrease alteration in clinical practice and are intended for those healthcare professionals who look after organ transplant patients. They are also intended to be useful to both medical and surgical trainees as well as nurse specialists and other associated healthcare professionals involved in the care of organ transplant patients. This pathway is general pathway include the general guidelines that can be applicable for all types of organ transplant with special considerations to each organ.

Keywords: postoperative care, organ transplant, clinical pathway, patient

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Authors: Bernard Doherty, Andrew Jelfs, Aveek Dasgupta, Patrick Holden

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Many companies have moved to agile and hybrid agile methodologies where portions of the Software Design Life-cycle (SDLC) and Software Test Life-cycle (STLC) can be time boxed in order to enhance delivery speed, quality and to increase flexibility to changes in software requirements. Despite widespread proliferation of agile practices, implementation often fails due to lack of adequate project management support, decreased motivation or fear of increased interaction. Consequently, few organizations effectively adopt agile processes with tailoring often required to integrate agile methodology in large scale environments. This paper provides an overview of the challenges in implementing an innovative large-scale tailored realization of the agile methodology termed the Agile Factory Model (AFM), with the aim of comparing and contrasting issues of specific importance to organizations undertaking large scale agile development. The conclusions demonstrate that agile practices can be effectively translated to a globally distributed development environment.

Keywords: agile, agile factory model, globally distributed development, large-scale agile

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Authors: Turki Alotaibi

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Student counseling programs can provide many benefits to students in schools all around the world. In theory, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia) has committed itself to school counseling programs in educational institutions throughout the country. Student counselors face a number of burdens and obstacles that impact student counseling programs. It is also widely known that Saudi Arabia has extremely high prevalence rates for overweight and obesity, anxiety and depression, and diabetes in children. It has also been demonstrated that teachers and staff are inadequately prepared when dealing with health issues relating to diabetes in schools in Saudi Arabia. This study will clearly demonstrate how student counselors in Saudi Arabia could become 'New Educators' in Saudi schools in relation to these health issues. This would allow them to leverage their position as student counselor to improve the management of these health issues in Saudi schools, to improve the quality of care provided to school children, and to overcome burdens and obstacles that are currently negatively affecting student counseling in Saudi schools.

Keywords: anxiety and depression, diabetes, overweight and obesity, policy recommendations, student counseling, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Procedia PDF Downloads 357

Authors: Ahasanul Haque, Noor Hazilah Abd Manaf, Zohurul Anis, Tarekol Islam

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Sustainable community health (SCH) is an example of a new healthcare concept formed from applying the Maqasid al-Shariah principle to hospital management and delivery services. Because the idea is novel, it needs comprehensive and ongoing investigation to be improved. However, there is a lack of research on the necessity of developing sustainable community health (SCH), particularly its organizational structure. Furthermore, there is a misconception about the order of components in Maqasid al-Shariah, particularly in a hospital setting. Furthermore, the use of medicines and treatment by conventional recommendations to carry out the treatment by the Maqasid al Shariah. As such, this study focuses on the essential prerequisite for establishing a sustainable community health system based on Maqasid al-Shariah. This study discusses the use of Maqasid al-Shariah in administration and treatment. In this qualitative research approach, a literature search and interviews with specialists are conducted. The gathered data is examined using content analysis, emphasizing inductive and deductive reasoning. The research reveals that the Shariah Advisory Council and Shariah Critical Point are necessary for sustainable community health. In conclusion, by discussing the causes for each instance, this research adds to the creation of methods for determining the level of Maasid al-Shariah in-hospital care.

Keywords: empowering, sustainability, community health, maqasid al shariah, hospital and malaysia

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Authors: Bassem Boshra Thabet, Mohammed Ibrahim Elsabagh, Mohammad Adly Talaat

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The number of cellular mobile phone users has increased enormously worldwide over the last two decades. Consequently, the monitoring of the performance of the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in terms of network coverage and broadband signal strength has become vital for both of the MNOs and regulators. This monitoring helps telecommunications operators and regulators keeping the market playing fair and most beneficial for users. However, the adopted methodologies to facilitate this continuous monitoring process are still problematic regarding cost, effort, and reliability. This paper introduces My Operator Coverage (MOC) system that is using Internet of Things (IoT) concepts and tools to monitor the MNOs performance using a crowd-sourced real-time methodology. MOC produces robust and reliable geographical maps for the user-perceived quality of the MNOs performance. MOC is also meant to enrich the telecommunications regulators with concrete, and up-to-date information that allows for adequate mobile market management strategies as well as appropriate decision making.

Keywords: mobile performance monitoring, crowd-sourced applications, mobile broadband performance, cellular networks monitoring

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Authors: Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi, Chung Ming Zhe, Nurul Anida Mohamad

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This research paper aims to examine the lack of the idea of democracy and its concept among Malaysia’s citizens. In fact, all civil servants, whether federal or state departments, are the machinery of citizens. The objective of this research is to evaluate the administrative buildings in Selangor from the perspective of democratic architecture. The methodology used in this research is by reviewing and evaluating the selected administrative building, Majlis Bandaraya Petaling Jaya, as a case study, and the interview was conducted. The data collection was recorded based on a few criteria of the following architectural characteristic and management principles (public square, town hall, meeting rooms, convenient parking space, humanitarian spaces, public spaces) and architectural design elements (scale and massing, ornament, elevational language, accessibility, and spatial hierarchy). The analysis result shows that the administrative building elements which show the idea of democracy are not reflected well in some of the criteria that restrict the public, but those setbacks could be improved.

Keywords: democratic architecture, case study, design elements, administrative buildings

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Authors: Chin-Tsu Ma, Yi-Jhen Wu, Hsia Ying Cheng, Han Hsiang Huang, Shyh Ming Kuo

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The use of specific molecules including nutrients and pharmacological agents has been tried in modulation of stem cells differentiation (MSCs) to insulin producing cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the ability of nano collagen molecules (nutrient or scaffold) to enhance the MSCs differentiation into insulin-producing cells in combination with nicotinamide and exendin-4 (pharmacological agents) in vitro and in vivo. The results demonstrated that the cells exhibit morphologically islet-like clusters after treatment with nano collagen molecules, nicotinamide and exendin-4. MSCs extra treated with nano collagen molecules showed significant increases in Nkx6.1 and insulin mRNA expression at 14-d and 21-d culture compared with those merely treated with nicotinamide and exendin-4. Early 7-day elevation in PDX-1 mRNA expression was observed. Furthermore, the MSCs exposed to nano collagen molecules produced the highest secretion of insulin (p ＜ 0.05). Type-2 diabetes induced by high-fat diet and low dose of streptozotocin in rat model was built in this study. This rat exhibited higher food intake, water intake, lower glucose tolerance, lower-insulin tolerance, and higher HbA1C (significant increases, p ＜ 0.01) as compared with the normal rat that demonstrated the model of type-2 diabetes was successfully built. Biopsy examinations also showed that obvious destruction of islet. After injection of differentiated MSCs into the destructed pancreas of diabetes rat, more regenerated islet were observed at the rats that treated with nano collagen molecules and exhibited much lower HbA1C as compared with the normal rat and diabetes rat after 4 weeks (significant deceases, p ＜ 0.001). These results indicate that the culturing MSCs with nano collagen molecules, nicotinamide, and exendin-4 are beneficial for MSCs differentiation into islet-like cells. These nano collagen molecules may lead to alternations or up-regulation of gene expression and influence the differentiated outcomes induced by nicotinamide and exendin-4.

Keywords: nano collagen molecules, nicotinamide, MSCs, diabetes

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Authors: Giulio Mangano, Alberto De Marco, Giovanni Zenezini

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The concept of City Logistics (CL) has emerged to improve the impacts of last mile freight distribution in urban areas. In this paper, a System Dynamics (SD) model exploring the dynamics of the diffusion of a ICT platform for CL management across different populations is proposed. For the development of the model two sources have been used. On the one hand, the major diffusion variables and feedback loops are derived from a literature review of existing diffusion models. On the other hand, the parameters are represented by the value propositions delivered by the platform as a response to some of the users’ needs. To extract the most important value propositions the Business Model Canvas approach has been used. Such approach in fact focuses on understanding how a company can create value for her target customers. These variables and parameters are thus translated into a SD diffusion model with three different populations namely municipalities, logistics service providers, and own account carriers. Results show that, the three populations under analysis fully adopt the platform within the simulation time frame, highlighting a strong demand by different stakeholders for CL projects aiming at carrying out more efficient urban logistics operations.

Keywords: city logistics, simulation, system dynamics, business model

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Authors: Aziza S. Al Adhoobi, Amna Al Ruheili, Saud M. Al Jufaili

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This study investigates the potential effects of climate change on the habitat suitability of two Aphaniops species (Teleostei: Aphaniidae) found in the Oman Mountains and the Southwestern Arabian Coast. Aphaniops kruppi, an endemic species, is found in various water bodies such as wadis, springs, aflaj, spring-fed streams, and some coastal backwaters. Aphaniops stoliczkanus, on the other hand, inhabits brackish and freshwater habitats, particularly in the lower parts of wadies and aflaj, and exhibits euryhaline characteristics. Using Maximum Entropy Modeling (MaxEnt) in conjunction with ArcGIS (10.8.2) and CHELSA bioclimatic variables, topographic indices, and other pertinent environmental factors, the study modeled the potential impacts of climate change based on three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 2.6, 7.0, 8.5) for the periods 2011-2040, 2041-2070, and 2071-2100. The model demonstrated exceptional predictive accuracy, achieving AUC values of 0.992 for A. kruppi and 0.983 for A. stoliczkanus. For A. kruppi, the most influential variables were the mean monthly climate moisture index (Cmi_m), the mean diurnal range (Bio2), and the sediment transport index (STI), accounting for 39.9%, 18.3%, and 8.4%, respectively. As for A. stoliczkanus, the key variables were the sediment transport index (STI), stream power index (SPI), and precipitation of the coldest quarter (Bio19), contributing 31%, 20.2%, and 13.3%, respectively. A. kruppi showed an increase in habitat suitability, especially in low and medium suitability areas. By 2071-2100, high suitability areas increased slightly by 0.05% under RCP 2.6, but declined by -0.02% and -0.04% under RCP 7.0 and 8.5, respectively. A. stoliczkanus exhibited a broader range of responses. Under RCP 2.6, all suitability categories increased by 2071-2100, with high suitability areas increasing by 0.01%. However, low and medium suitability areas showed mixed trends under RCP 7.0 and 8.5, with declines of -0.17% and -0.16%, respectively. The study highlights that climatic and topographical factors significantly influence the habitat suitability of Aphaniops species in Oman. Therefore, species-specific conservation strategies are crucial to address the impacts of climate change.

Keywords: Aphaniops kruppi, Aphaniops stoliczkanus, Climate change, Habitat suitability, MaxEnt

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Authors: Mahkameh Asadi, Habibollah Dadgar

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The precise definition margin of high and low-grade glioma is crucial for choosing best treatment approach after surgery and radio-chemotherapy. The aim of the current study was to assess the O-(2-18F-fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (18F-FET) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in patients with low (LGG) and high grade glioma (HGG). We retrospectively analyzed 18F-FET PET/CT of 10 patients (age: 33 ± 12 years) with suspicious for recurrent LGG and HGG. The final decision of recurrence was made by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and registered clinical data. While response to radio-chemotherapy by MRI is often complex and sophisticated due to the edema, necrosis, and inflammation, emerging amino acid PET leading to better interpretations with more specifically differentiate true tumor boundaries from equivocal lesions. Therefore, integrating amino acid PET in the management of glioma to complement MRI will significantly improve early therapy response assessment, treatment planning, and clinical trial design.

Keywords: positron emission tomography, amino acid positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, low and high grade glioma

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Authors: Yixiu Liu, Yunzhou Zhang, Jianning Chi, Hao Chu, Rui Zheng, Libo Sun, Guanghao Chen, Fangtong Zhou

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In the last few years, large-scale person re-identification has attracted a lot of attention from video surveillance since it has a potential application prospect in public safety management. However, it is still a challenging job considering the variation in human pose, the changing illumination conditions and the lack of paired samples. Although the accuracy has been significantly improved, the data dependence of the sample training is serious. To tackle this problem, a new strategy is proposed based on bag of visual words (BoVW) model of designing the feature representation which has been widely used in the field of image retrieval. The local features are extracted, and more discriminative feature representation is obtained by cross-view dictionary learning (CDL), then the assignment map is obtained through k-means clustering. Finally, the BoVW histograms are formed which encodes the images with the statistics of the feature classes in the assignment map. Experiments conducted on the CUHK03, Market1501 and MARS datasets show that the proposed method performs favorably against existing approaches.

Keywords: bag of visual words, cross-view dictionary learning, person re-identification, reranking

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Authors: Nancy Daly

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Migrant youth who have experienced traumatic events in their home countries or in their passage to the United States may require interventions or formal services to support varying levels and types of needs. The manner in which such youth are engaged and evaluated, as well as the framework of evaluation, can impact their educational services and placement. Evidenced-based trauma-informed practices that engage and support migrant youth serve as an important bridge to stabilization; however, ensuring long-term growth may require a range of integrated services, including special education and mental health services. Special education evaluations which consider the eligibility of Emotional Disturbance for migrant youth must carefully weigh issues of mental health needs against the exclusionary criteria of lack of access to education, limited language skills, as well as other environmental factors. Case studies of recently arrived migrant youth reveal both commonalities and differences in types and levels of need which underscores the importance of adept evaluation and case management to ensure the provision of services that support growth and resiliency.

Keywords: migrant youth, trauma-informed care, mental health services, special education

Procedia PDF Downloads 125