Search results for: hate speech detection

Authors: Alessandro Poma, Kal Karim, Sergey Piletsky, Giuseppe Battaglia

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The recent increasing emergency threat to public health of infectious influenza diseases has prompted interest in the detection of avian influenza virus (AIV) H5N1 in humans as well as animals. A variety of technologies for diagnosing AIV infection have been developed. However, various disadvantages (costs, lengthy analyses, and need for high-containment facilities) make these methods less than ideal in their practical application. Molecularly Imprinted Polymeric Nanoparticles (MIP NPs) are suitable to overcome these limitations by having high affinity, selectivity, versatility, scalability and cost-effectiveness with the versatility of post-modification (labeling – fluorescent, magnetic, optical) opening the way to the potential introduction of improved diagnostic tests capable of providing rapid differential diagnosis. Here we present our first results in the production and testing of MIP NPs for the detection of AIV H5N1. Recent developments in the solid-phase synthesis of MIP NPs mean that for the first time a reliable supply of ‘soluble’ synthetic antibodies can be made available for testing as potential biological or diagnostic active molecules. The MIP NPs have the potential to detect viruses that are widely circulating in farm animals and indeed humans. Early and accurate identification of the infectious agent will expedite appropriate control measures. Thus, diagnosis at an early stage of infection of a herd or flock or individual maximizes the efficiency with which containment, prevention and possibly treatment strategies can be implemented. More importantly, substantiating the practicability’s of these novel reagents should lead to an initial reduction and eventually to a potential total replacement of animals, both large and small, to raise such specific serological materials.

Keywords: influenza virus, molecular imprinting, nanoparticles, polymers

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Authors: Weena Siangphro, Orawon Chailapakul, Kriangsak Songsrirote

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A simple, rapid, sensitive, and economical method based on colorimetry for the determination of paraquat, a widely used herbicide, was developed. Citrate-coated silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were synthesized as colorimetric probe. The mechanism of the assay is related to aggregation of negatively charged AgNPs induced by positively-charged paraquat resulting from coulombic attraction which causes the color change from deep greenish yellow to pale yellow upon the concentrations of paraquat. Silica gel was exploited as paraquat adsorbent for purification and pre-concentration prior to the direct determination with negatively charged AgNPs without elution step required. The validity of the proposed approach was evaluated by spiking standard paraquat in water and plant samples. Recoveries of paraquat in water samples were 93.6-95.4%, while those in plant samples were 86.6-89.5% by using the optimized extraction procedure. The absorbance of AgNPs at 400 nm was linearly related to the concentration of paraquat over the range of 0.05-50 mg/L with detection limits of 0.05 ppm for water samples, and 0.10 ppm for plant samples.

Keywords: colorimetric assay, paraquat, silica gel, silver nanoparticles

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Authors: Kevin Klein-Cardeña

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For Julia Kristeva, contra Lacan, the instinctive body refuses to go away within discourse. Neither is the pre-Oedipal stage of maternal fusion vanquished by the emergence of language and with it, the law of the father. On the contrary, Kristeva argues, the pre-symbolic ambivalently haunts the society of speech, simultaneously animating and threatening the very foundations of signification. Kristeva invents the term “the semiotic” to refer to this continual breaking-through of the material unconscious onto the scene of meaning. This presentation examines Kristeva’s semiotic as a theoretical gesture that itself is a disruption of discourse, re-presenting the ‘return of the repressed’ body in theory—-the breaking-through of the unconscious onto the science of meaning. Faced with linguistic theories concerned with abstract sign-systems as well as Lacanian doctrine privileging the linguistic sign unequivocally over the bodily drive, Kristeva’s theoretical corpus issues the message of a psychic remainder that disrupts with a view toward replenishing theoretical accounts of language and sense. Reviewing Semiotic challenge across these two levels (the sense and science of language), the presentation suggests that Kristeva’s offerings constitute a coherent gestalt, providing an account of the feminist nature of her dual intervention. In contrast to other feminist critiques, Kristeva’s gesture hinges on its restoration of the maternal contribution to subjectivity. Against the backdrop of ‘phallogocentric’ and ‘necrophilic’ theories that strip language of a subject and strip the subject of a body, Kristeva recasts linguistic study through a metaphor of life and birthing. Yet the semiotic fragments the subject it produces, dialoguing with an unconscious curtailed by but also exceeding the symbolic order of signification. Linguistics, too, becomes fragmented in the same measure as it is more meaningfully renewed by its confrontation with the semiotic body. It is Kristeva’s own body that issues this challenge, on both sides of the boundary between the theory and the theorized. The Semiotic becomes comprehensible as a project unified by its concern to disrupt and rehabilitate language, the subject, and the scholarly discourses that treat them.

Keywords: Julia kristeva, the Semiotic, french feminism, psychoanalysic theory, linguistics

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Authors: Merve Begum Terzi, Orhan Arikan, Adnan Abaci, Mustafa Candemir

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Acute myocardial infarction is a major cause of death in the world. Therefore, its fast and reliable diagnosis is a major clinical need. ECG is the most important diagnostic methodology which is used to make decisions about the management of the cardiovascular diseases. In patients with acute myocardial ischemia, temporary chest pains together with changes in ST segment and T wave of ECG occur shortly before the start of myocardial infarction. In this study, a technique which detects changes in ST/T sections of ECG is developed for the early diagnosis of acute myocardial ischemia. For this purpose, a database of real ECG recordings that contains a set of records from 75 patients presenting symptoms of chest pain who underwent elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is constituted. 12-lead ECG’s of the patients were recorded before and during the PCI procedure. Two ECG epochs, which are the pre-inflation ECG which is acquired before any catheter insertion and the occlusion ECG which is acquired during balloon inflation, are analyzed for each patient. By using pre-inflation and occlusion recordings, ECG features that are critical in the detection of acute myocardial ischemia are identified and the most discriminative features for the detection of acute myocardial ischemia are extracted. A classification technique based on support vector machine (SVM) approach operating with linear and radial basis function (RBF) kernels to detect ischemic events by using ST-T derived joint features from non-ischemic and ischemic states of the patients is developed. The dataset is randomly divided into training and testing sets and the training set is used to optimize SVM hyperparameters by using grid-search method and 10fold cross-validation. SVMs are designed specifically for each patient by tuning the kernel parameters in order to obtain the optimal classification performance results. As a result of implementing the developed classification technique to real ECG recordings, it is shown that the proposed technique provides highly reliable detections of the anomalies in ECG signals. Furthermore, to develop a detection technique that can be used in the absence of ECG recording obtained during healthy stage, the detection of acute myocardial ischemia based on ECG recordings of the patients obtained during ischemia is also investigated. For this purpose, a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is used to represent the joint pdf of the most discriminating ECG features of myocardial ischemia. Then, a Neyman-Pearson type of approach is developed to provide detection of outliers that would correspond to acute myocardial ischemia. Neyman – Pearson decision strategy is used by computing the average log likelihood values of ECG segments and comparing them with a range of different threshold values. For different discrimination threshold values and number of ECG segments, probability of detection and probability of false alarm values are computed, and the corresponding ROC curves are obtained. The results indicate that increasing number of ECG segments provide higher performance for GMM based classification. Moreover, the comparison between the performances of SVM and GMM based classification showed that SVM provides higher classification performance results over ECG recordings of considerable number of patients.

Keywords: ECG classification, Gaussian mixture model, Neyman–Pearson approach, support vector machine

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Authors: Arvind Aggarwal

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We have developed a comprehensive global healthcare delivery System based on information technology. It has medical consultation system where a virtual consultant can give medical consultation to the patients and Doctors at the digital medical centre after reviewing the patient’s EMR file consisting of patient’s history, investigations in the voice, images and data format. The system has the surgical operation system too, where a remote robotic consultant can conduct surgery at the robotic surgical centre. The instant speech and text translation is incorporated in the software where the patient’s speech and text (language) can be translated into the consultant’s language and vice versa. A consultant of any specialty (surgeon or Physician) based in any country can provide instant health care consultation, to any patient in any country without loss of time. Robotic surgeons based in any country in a tertiary care hospital can perform remote robotic surgery, through patient friendly telemedicine and tele-surgical centres. The patient EMR, financial data and data of all the consultants and robotic surgeons shall be stored in cloud. It is a complete comprehensive business model with healthcare medical and surgical delivery system. The whole system is self-financing and can be implemented in any country. The entire system uses paperless, filmless techniques. This eliminates the use of all consumables thereby reduces substantial cost which is incurred by consumables. The consultants receive virtual patients, in the form of EMR, thus the consultant saves time and expense to travel to the hospital to see the patients. The consultant gets electronic file ready for reporting & diagnosis. Hence time spent on the physical examination of the patient is saved, the consultant can, therefore, spend quality time in studying the EMR/virtual patient and give his instant advice. The time consumed per patient is reduced and therefore can see more number of patients, the cost of the consultation per patients is therefore reduced. The additional productivity of the consultants can be channelized to serve rural patients devoid of doctors.

Keywords: e-health, telemedicine, telecare, IT-based healthcare

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Authors: T. Obateru, Samuel Olaniran

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In an era when the new media is affording easy access to packaging and dissemination of information, the social media have become a popular avenue for sharing information for good or ill. It is evident that the traditional role of journalists as ‘news breakers’ is fast being eroded. People now share information on happenings via the social media like Facebook, Twitter and the rest, such that journalists themselves now get leads on happenings from such sources. Beyond the access to information provided by the new media is the erosion of the gatekeeping role of journalists who by their training and calling, are supposed to handle information with responsibility. Thus, sensitive information that journalists would normally filter is randomly shared by social media activists. This was the experience of journalists in Jos, Plateau State in January 2010 when another of the recurring ethnoreligious crisis that engulfed the state resulted in another widespread killing, vandalism, looting, and displacements. Considered as one of the high points of crises in the state, journalists who had the duty of covering the crisis also relied on some of these sources to get their bearing on the violence. This paper examined the role of Facebook in the work of journalists who covered the 2010 crisis. Taking the gatekeeping perspective, it interrogated the extent to which Facebook impacted their professional duty positively or negatively vis-à-vis the peace journalism model. It employed survey to elicit information from 50 journalists who covered the crisis using questionnaire as instrument. The paper revealed that the dissemination of hate information via mobile phones and social media, especially Facebook, aggravated the crisis situation. Journalists became news followers rather than news breakers because a lot of them were put on their toes by information (many of which were inaccurate or false) circulated on Facebook. It recommended that journalists must remain true to their calling by upholding their ‘gatekeeping’ role of disseminating only accurate and responsible information if they would remain the main source of credible information on which their audience rely.

Keywords: crisis, ethnoreligious, Facebook, journalists

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Authors: Piyush Swami, Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi, Sneh Anand, Manvir Bhatia, Tapan Gandhi

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Visual inspection of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to detect epileptic signals is very challenging and time-consuming task even for any expert neurophysiologist. This problem is most challenging in under-developed and developing countries due to shortage of skilled neurophysiologists. In the past, notable research efforts have gone in trying to automate the seizure detection process. However, due to high false alarm detections and complexity of the models developed so far, have vastly delimited their practical implementation. In this paper, we present a novel scheme for epileptic seizure detection using empirical mode decomposition technique. The intrinsic mode functions obtained were then used to calculate the standard deviations. This was followed by probability density based classifier to discriminate between non-ictal and ictal patterns in EEG signals. The model presented here demonstrated very high classification rates ( > 97%) without compromising the statistical performance. The computation timings for each testing phase were also very low ( < 0.029 s) which makes this model ideal for practical applications.

Keywords: electroencephalogram (EEG), epilepsy, ictal patterns, empirical mode decomposition

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Authors: O. J. G. Somsen, G. P. M. Wagemakers

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Magnetic signature detection provides sensitive detection of metal objects, especially in the natural environment. Our group is developing a tabletop setup for magnetic signatures of various small and model objects. A particular issue is the separation of permanent and induced magnetization. While the latter depends only on the composition and shape of the object, the former also depends on the magnetization history. With common deperming techniques, a significant permanent signature may still remain, which confuses measurements of the induced component. We investigate a basic technique of separating the two. Measurements were done by moving the object along an aluminum rail while the three field components are recorded by a detector attached near the center. This is done first with the rail parallel to the Earth magnetic field and then with anti-parallel orientation. The reversal changes the sign of the induced- but not the permanent magnetization so that the two can be separated. Our preliminary results on a small iron block show excellent reproducibility. A considerable permanent magnetization was indeed present, resulting in a complex asymmetric signature. After separation, a much more symmetric induced signature was obtained that can be studied in detail and compared with theoretical calculations.

Keywords: magnetic signature, data analysis, magnetization, deperming techniques

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Authors: Gechbaia Badri

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The paper discusses in today's world of economic globalization and development of innovative economic integration is one of the issues of the day in the world. The article analyzes the innovation economy development trends in EU, showed the innovation economy formation of the main problems and results, also the development of innovative potential of the economy. The author reckons that the European economy will contribute to the development of innovative economic space of speech in recent years developed a financial and economic crisis.

Keywords: European Union, innovative system, innovative development, innovations

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Authors: Amos Olusola Akinola

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The aim of this study is to evaluate the internal control system on fraud prevention in Nigerian business organizations. A survey research was undertaken in five organizations from the banking and manufacturing sectors in Nigeria using the simple random sampling technique and primary data was obtained with the aid structured questionnaire drawn on five likert’s scale. Four Hypotheses were formulated and tested using the T-test Statistics, Correlation and Regression Analysis at 95% confidence interval. It was discovered that internal control has a significant positive relationship with fraud prevention and that a weak internal control system permits fraudulent activities among staff. Based on the findings, it was recommended that organizations should continually and methodically review and evaluate the components of its internal control system whether activities are working as planned or not and that every organization should have pre-determined guidelines for conducting its operations and ensures compliance with these set guidelines while proactive steps should be taken to establish the independence of the internal audit by making the audit reportable to the governing council of an organization and not the chief executive officer.

Keywords: internal control, internal system, internal audit, fraud prevention, fraud detection

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Authors: Sunghoon Park, Hank Kim, Jinwon An, Sungzoon Cho

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Internet of Things allows one to collect data from facilities which are then used to monitor them and even predict malfunctions in advance. Conventional quality control methods focus on setting a normal range on a sensor value defined between a lower control limit and an upper control limit, and declaring as an anomaly anything falling outside it. However, interactions among sensor values are ignored, thus leading to suboptimal performance. We propose a multivariate approach which takes into account many sensor values at the same time. In particular Gaussian Mixture Model is used which is trained to maximize likelihood value using Expectation-Maximization algorithm. The number of Gaussian component distributions is determined by Bayesian Information Criterion. The negative Log likelihood value is used as an anomaly score. The actual usage scenario goes like a following. For each instance of sensor values from a facility, an anomaly score is computed. If it is larger than a threshold, an alarm will go off and a human expert intervenes and checks the system. A real world data from Building energy system was used to test the model.

Keywords: facility anomaly detection, gaussian mixture model, anomaly score, expectation maximization algorithm

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Authors: Ather Saeed, Arif Khan, Jeffrey Gosper

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Sensor devices are prone to errors and sudden node failures, which are difficult to detect in a timely manner when deployed in real-time, hazardous, large-scale harsh environments and in medical emergencies. Therefore, the loss of data can be life-threatening when the sensed phenomenon is not disseminated due to sudden node failure, battery depletion or temporary malfunctioning. We introduce a set of partial differential equations for localizing faults, similar to Green’s and Maxwell’s equations used in Electrostatics and Electromagnetism. We introduce a node organization and clustering scheme for self-stabilizing sensor networks. Green’s theorem is applied to regions where the curve is closed and continuously differentiable to ensure network connectivity. Experimental results show that the proposed GTFD (Green’s Theorem fault-detection and Self-stabilization) protocol not only detects faulty nodes but also accurately generates network stability graphs where urgent intervention is required for dynamically self-stabilizing the network.

Keywords: Green’s Theorem, self-stabilization, fault-localization, RSSI, WSN, clustering

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Authors: Feiyu Yang, Chunfang Ni, Rong Wang, Yun Zou, Wenbin Liu, Chenggong Zhang, Fenjin Sun, Chun Wang

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Cocaine is the most frequently used illegal drug globally, with the global annual prevalence of cocaine used ranging from 0.3% to 0.4 % of the adult population aged 15–64 years. Growing consumption trend of abused cocaine and drug crimes are a great concern, therefore urine sample testing has become an important noninvasive sampling whereas cocaine and its metabolites (COCs) are usually present in high concentrations and relatively long detection windows. However, direct analysis of urine samples is not feasible because urine complex medium often causes low sensitivity and selectivity of the determination. On the other hand, presence of low doses of analytes in urine makes an extraction and pretreatment step important before determination. Especially, in gathered taking drug cases, the pretreatment step becomes more tedious and time-consuming. So developing a sensitive, rapid and high-throughput method for detection of COCs in human body is indispensable for law enforcement officers, treatment specialists and health officials. In this work, a new automated magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction (MDSPE) sampling method followed by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) was developed for quantitative enrichment of COCs from human urine, using prepared magnetic nanoparticles as absorbants. The nanoparticles were prepared by silanizing magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles and modifying them with divinyl benzene and vinyl pyrrolidone, which possesses the ability for specific adsorption of COCs. And this kind of magnetic particle facilitated the pretreatment steps by electromagnetically controlled extraction to achieve full automation. The proposed device significantly improved the sampling preparation efficiency with 32 samples in one batch within 40mins. Optimization of the preparation procedure for the magnetic nanoparticles was explored and the performances of magnetic nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer and infrared spectra measurements. Several analytical experimental parameters were studied, including amount of particles, adsorption time, elution solvent, extraction and desorption kinetics, and the verification of the proposed method was accomplished. The limits of detection for the cocaine and cocaine metabolites were 0.09-1.1 ng·mL-1 with recoveries ranging from 75.1 to 105.7%. Compared to traditional sampling method, this method is time-saving and environmentally friendly. It was confirmed that the proposed automated method was a kind of highly effective way for the trace cocaine and cocaine metabolites analyses in human urine.

Keywords: automatic magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction, cocaine detection, magnetic nanoparticles, urine sample testing

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Authors: Shimayali Kaushal, Nitesh Priyadarshi, Nitin Kumar Singhal

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Food borne bacterial species have been identified as major pathogens in most of the severe pathogen-related diseases among humans which result in great loss to human health and food industry. Conventional methods like plating and enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA) are time-consuming, laborious and require specialized instruments. Nanotechnology has emerged as a great field in case of rapid detection of pathogens in recent years. The AuNRs material has good electro-optical properties due to its larger light absorption band and scattering in surface plasmon resonance wavelength regions. By exploiting the sugar-based adhesion properties of microorganism, we can use the glycoconjugates capped gold nanorods as a potential nanobiosensor to detect the foodborne pathogen. In the present study, polyethylene glycol (PEG) coated gold nanorods (AuNRs) were prepared and functionalized with different types of carbohydrates and further characterized by UV-Visible spectrophotometry, dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The reactivity of above said nano-biosensor was probed by lectin binding assay and also by different strains of foodborne bacteria by using spectrophotometric and microscopic techniques. Due to the specific interaction of probe with foodborne bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa), our nanoprobe has shown significant and selective ablation of targeted bacteria. Our findings suggest that our nanoprobe can be an ideal candidate for selective optical detection of food pathogens and can reduce loss to the food industry.

Keywords: glyco-conjugates, gold nanorods, nanobiosensor, nanoprobe

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Authors: Balkibekova Venera Serikpaevna

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Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) poses significant challenges in both diagnosis and treatment. Existing therapeutic interventions often target specific symptoms, necessitating the exploration of alternative approaches. This study investigates the RITM (Rhythm Integration Tapping Music) developed by Balkibekova, aiming to create imitation, social engagement and a wide range of emotions through brain development. Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 100 participants diagnosed with ASD, aged 1 to 4 years. Participants were randomly assigned to either the RITM therapy group or a control group receiving standard care. The RITM therapy, rooted in tapping rhythm to music such as: marche on the drums, waltz on bells, lullaby on musical triangle, dancing on tambourine, polka on wooden spoons. Therapy sessions were conducted over a 3 year period, with assessments at baseline, midpoint, and post-intervention. Results: Preliminary analyses reveal promising outcomes in the RITM therapy group. Participants demonstrated significant improvements in social interactions, speech understanding, birth of speech, and adaptive behaviors compared to the control group. Careful examination of subgroup analyses provides insights into the differential effectiveness of the RITM approach across various ASD profiles. Conclusions: The findings suggest that RITM therapy, as developed by Balkibekova, holds promise as intervention for ASD. The integrative nature of the approach, addressing multiple domains simultaneously, may contribute to its efficacy. Further research is warranted to validate these preliminary results and explore the long-term impact of RITM therapy on individuals with ASD. This abstract presents a snapshot of the research, emphasizing the significance, methodology, key findings, and implications of the RITM therapy method for consideration in an autism conference.

Keywords: RITM therapy, tapping rhythm, autism, mirror neurons, bright emotions, social interactions, communications

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Authors: Nadwah Onwi, Puspa Maniam, Azmawanie A. Aziz, Fairus Mukhtar, Nor Azrita Mohamed Zin, Nurul Haslina Mohd Zin, Nurul Fatehah Ismail, Mohamad Safwan Yusoff, Susilidianamanalu Abd Rahman, Siti Munirah Harris, Maryam Aizuddin

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Objective: Malaysia has a growing number of individuals with complex communication needs (CCN). The initiation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention may facilitate individuals with CCN to understand and express themselves optimally and actively participate in activities in their daily life. AAC is defined as multimodal use of communication ability to allow individuals to use every mode possible to communicate with others using a set of symbols or systems that may include the symbols, aids, techniques, and strategies. It is consequently critical to evaluate the deficits to inform treatment for AAC intervention. However, no known measurement tools are available to evaluate the user with CCN available locally. Design: A systematic review (SR) is designed to analyze the psychometric properties of AAC assessment for adolescents with CCN published in peer-reviewed journals. Tools are rated by the methodological quality of studies and the psychometric measurement qualities of each tool. Method: A literature search identifying AAC assessment tools with psychometrically robust properties and conceptual framework was considered. Two independent reviewers screened the abstracts and full-text articles and review bibliographies for further references. Data were extracted using standardized forms and study risk of bias was assessed. Result: The review highlights the psychometric properties of AAC assessment tools that can be used by speech-language therapists applicable to be used in the Malaysian context. The work outlines how systematic review methods may be applied to the consideration of published material that provides valuable data to initiate the development of Malay Language AAC assessment tools. Conclusion: The synthesis of evidence has provided a framework for Malaysia Speech-Language therapists in making an informed decision for AAC intervention in our standard operating procedure in the Ministry of Health, Malaysia.

Keywords: augmentative and alternative communication, assessment, adolescents, complex communication needs

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Authors: Jifang Tao, Fei Gao, Hong Cai, Yuan Jin Zheng, Yuan Dong Gu

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Photoacoustic technology is used to measure effect absorption of a light by means of acoustic detection, which provides a high sensitive, low-cross response, cost-effective solution for gas molecular detection. In this paper, we proposed an integrated photoacoustic sensor for Indoor-air quality (IAQ) monitoring. The sensor consists of an acoustically resonant cavity, a high silicon acoustic transducer chip, and a low-cost light source. The light is modulated at the resonant frequency of the cavity to create an enhanced periodic heating and result in an amplified acoustic pressure wave. The pressure is readout by a novel acoustic transducer with low noise. Based on this photoacoustic sensor, typical indoor gases, including CO2, CO, O2, and H2O have been successfully detected, and their concentration are also evaluated with very high accuracy. It has wide potential applications in IAQ monitoring for agriculture, food industry, and ventilation control systems used in public places, such as schools, hospitals and airports.

Keywords: indoor-air quality (IAQ) monitoring, photoacoustic gas sensor, cavity enhancement, integrated gas sensor

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Authors: A. G. Barua, Uttam Rajkhowa, Pranjal Moni Nath, Nur Abdul Kadir

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Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) is one of the most closely-related intracellular bacterial pathogens, grouped as the M. tuberculosis complex (MTC). MTB, the primary agent of human tuberculosis (TB), can develop clinical TB in animals as 75 percent of canine mycobacterial infection is caused by close contact with an infected human being. In the present study, molecular detection of TB in dogs in three North-eastern states of India, Assam Mizoram, and Nagaland was carried out. So far, there has been a lack of systematic study in these regions, hampered by slow diagnostic methods and poor infrastructure. In an attempt to rectify this situation, molecular epidemiology was carried out for nine months to detect canine TB in a sample of 340 dogs. Isolation of DNA was done with swabs (throat/nasal), nodules of lungs and fluids from 100 suspected dogs and the molecular study were carried out with the help of conventional and real-time PCR. Post-mortem study was also carried out. Our results showed that the prevalence of clinical TB in dogs from a high-risk setting was 1 percent. However, the prevalence of immunological sensitization to M. tuberculosis antigen in dogs living in contact with sputum smeared positive TB cases was almost 50 percent. The latter setting had the maximum impact in terms of TB transmission. During the study period, a survey with a standard questionnaire was carried out in the TB hospitals to study reverse zoonosis. It was observed that an infected human being was one of the major risk factors for dogs to contract the infection. This observation was drawn by examining the probable airborne transmission from humans to their pets or strays. The present study helped to discover the nuances of TB transmission more clearly and systematically as compared to other sporadic tests to detect MTB in canine.

Keywords: Assam and Nagaland, canine TB, India, molecular detection, tuberculosis

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Authors: Aneta Daniel

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The subject of the study is the exploration of the origins and dynamics of the development of language studies, which have been labelled as neurolinguistics. It is worth mentioning that the origins of neurolinguistics are to be found in the research conducted by German scientists before the Second World War in Breslau Universität (presently Wroclaw). The dominant figure in these studies was professor Carl Wernicke, whose students continued and creatively developed projects of their master within this area. Professor Carl Wernicke, a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist, and neuropathologist, is primarily known for his influential research on aphasia. His research, as well as those conducted by professor Paul Broca, has led to breakthroughs in the location of brain functions, particularly speech. Years later the theses of the pioneers of cognitive neurology (Carl Wernicke and Paul Broca) were developed by other neurolinguists. The main objective of the investigation is the reconstruction of the group of scientists –the students of Carl Wernicke– who contributed to the development of neurolinguistics. The scholars were mainly neurologists and psychiatrists and dealt with the branch of science that had not been named neurolinguistics at that time. The profiles of the scholars will be analysed and presented as the members of the group of researchers who have contributed to the breakthroughs in psychology and neuroscience. The research material consists of archival records documenting the research of professor Carl Wernicke and the researchers from Breslau (presently Wroclaw) which is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe. In 1870, when Carl Wernicke became the medical doctor, Breslau was full of cultural events: festivals and circus shows were held in the city center. Today we can come back to these events due to 'Breslauer Zeitung (1870)', which precisely describes all the events that took place on particular days. It is worth noting that those were the beginnings of antisemitism in Breslau. Many theses and articles that have survived in the libraries in Wroclaw and all over the world contribute to the development of neuroscience. The history of research on the brain and speech analysis, including the history of psychology and neuroscience, areas from which neurolinguistics is derived, will be presented.

Keywords: Aphasia, brain injury, Carl Wernicke, language, neurolinguistics

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Authors: Francesco Buccafurri, Celeste Romolo

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Nowadays phishing is the most frequent starting point of cyber-attack vectors. Phishing is implemented both via email and social network messages. While a wide scientific literature exists which addresses the problem of contrasting email spam-phishing, no specific countermeasure has been so far proposed for phishing included into private messages of social network platforms. Unfortunately, the problem is severe. This paper proposes an approach against social network phishing, based on a non invasive collaborative information-sharing approach which leverages blockchain. The detection method works by filtering candidate messages, by distilling them by means of a distance-preserving hash function, and by publishing hashes over a public blockchain through a trusted smart contract (thus avoiding denial of service attacks). Phishing detection exploits social information embedded into social network profiles to identify similar messages belonging to disjoint contexts. The main contribution of the paper is to introduce a new approach to contrasting the problem of social network phishing, which, despite its severity, received little attention by both research and industry.

Keywords: phishing, social networks, information sharing, blockchain

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Authors: Farzane Yusef Ghanbari

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A sociological analysis on the ancient poetry of Vis and Ramin reveals important points about the political, cultural, and social conditions of the Iranian ancient history. The reciprocal relationship between the effect and structure of society helps the understanding and interpretation of the work. Therefore, informed by the Goldman genetic structuralism and through a glance at social epistemology, this study attempts to explain the role of spell in shaping the social knowledge of ancient people. The results suggest that due to the lack of a central government, and secularism in politics and freedom of speech and opinion, such romantic stories as Vis and Ramin, with a focal female character, has emerged.

Keywords: persian literature, Vis and Ramin, sociology, developmental structuralism

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Authors: Yili Liu, Honghao Ren, Mariko Kondo

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In the field of second language (L2) speech learning, it is well-known that that learner’s first language (L1) phonetic and phonological characteristics will be transferred into their L2 production and perception, which lead to foreign accent. For L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese, the confusion of /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences has been observed in their utterance frequently. L1 transfer is considered to be the cause of this issue, however, other factors which influence the identification of /Cju/ and /Cjo/ sequences still under investigation. This study investigates the perception of Japanese /Cju/ and /Cjo/ units by L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese. It further examined whether learners’ proficiency, syllable position, phonetic features of preceding consonants and background noise affect learners’ performance in perception. Fifty-two Mandarin-speaking learners of Japanese and nine native Japanese speakers were recruited to participate in an identification task. Learners were divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced level according to their Japanese proficiency. The average correct rate was used to evaluate learners’ perceptual performance. Furthermore, the comparison of the correct rate between learners’ groups and the control group was conducted as well to examine learners’ nativelikeness. Results showed that background noise tends to pose an adverse effect on distinguishing /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences. Secondly, Japanese proficiency has no influence on learners’ perceptual performance in the quiet and in background noise. Then all learners did not reach a native-like level without the distraction of noise. Beginner level learners performed less native-like, although higher level learners appeared to have achieved nativelikeness in the multi-talker babble noise. Finally, syllable position tends to affect distinguishing /Cju/ and /Cjo/ only under the noisy condition. Phonetic features of preceding consonants did not impact learners’ perception in any listening conditions. Findings in this study can give an insight into a further understanding of Japanese vowel acquisition by L1 Mandarin learners of Japanese. In addition, this study indicates that L1 transfer is not the only explanation for the confusion of /u/ and /o/ in /CjV/ sequences, factors such as listening condition and syllable position are also needed to take into consideration in future research. It also suggests the importance of perceiving speech in a noisy environment, which is close to the actual conversation required more attention to pedagogy.

Keywords: background noise, Chinese learners of Japanese, /Cju/ and /Cjo/ sequences, second language perception

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Authors: Danila Arbuzov

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In this article the author examines the communicative strategies used in the Colombian political discourse, following the example of the speeches of the Vice President of Colombia Francia Marquez, who took office in 2022 and marked a new development vector for the Colombian nation. The lexical and syntactic means are analyzed to achieve the communicative objectives. The material presented may be useful for those who are interested in investigating various aspects of discursive linguistics, particularly political discourse, as well as the implementation of communicative strategies in certain types of discourse.

Keywords: political discourse, communication strategies, Colombian political discourse, Colombia, manipulation

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Authors: Max Butler

Abstract:

Melanoma accounts for 80% of skin cancer-related deaths globally. The poor prognosis and increasing incidence of melanoma impose a significant burden on global healthcare systems. Early detection, precise diagnosis, and preventative strategies are critical to improving patient outcomes. Dermoscopy is the gold standard for specialist assessments of pigmented skin lesions, as it can differentiate between benign and malignant growths with greater accuracy than visual inspection. In the United Kingdom, guidelines from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) state dermoscopy should be used in all specialist assessments of pigmented skin lesions. Compliance with this guideline is low, resulting in missed and delayed melanoma diagnoses. To address this problem, a quality improvement project was initiated at Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust (BHT) within the plastic surgery department. The target group was a trainee and consultant plastic surgeons conducting outpatient skin cancer clinics. Analysis of clinic documentation over a one-month period found that only 62% (38/61) of patients referred with pigmented skin lesions were examined using dermoscopy. To increase dermoscopy rates, teaching was delivered to the department highlighting national guidelines and the evidence base for dermoscopic examination. In addition, clinic paperwork was redesigned to include a text box for dermoscopic examination. Reauditing after the intervention found a significant increase in dermoscopy rates (52/61, p = 0.014). In conclusion, implementing a quality improvement project with targeted teaching and documentation template templates successfully increased dermoscopy rates. This is a promising step toward improving early melanoma detection and patient outcomes.

Keywords: melanoma, dermoscopy, plastic surgery, quality improvement

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Authors: Natthawut Arin

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In forensic contexts, competency to stand trial assessments are the most common referrals. The defendants may attempt to endorse psychopathology symptoms and feign incompetent. Coaching, which can be teaching them test-taking strategies to avoid detection of psychopathological symptoms feigning. Recently, the Symptom Validity Testings (SVTs) were created to detect feigning. Moreover, the works of the literature showed that the effects of coaching on SVTs may be more robust to the effects of coaching. Thai Symptom Validity Test (SVT-Th) was designed as SVTs which demonstrated adequate psychometric properties and ability to classify between feigners and honest responders. Thus, the current study to examine the utility as the robustness of SVT-Th in the detection of feigned psychopathology. Participants consisted of 120 were recruited from undergraduate courses in psychology, randomly assigned to one of three groups. The SVT-Th was administered to those three scenario-experimental groups: (a) Uncoached group were asked to respond honestly (n=40), (b) Symptom-coached without warning group were asked to feign psychiatric symptoms to gain incompetency to stand trial (n=40), while (c) Test-coached with warning group were asked to feign psychiatric symptoms to avoid test detection but being incompetency to stand trial (n=40). Group differences were analyzed using one-way ANOVAs. The result revealed an uncoached group (M = 4.23, SD.= 5.20) had significantly lower SVT-Th mean scores than those both coached groups (M =185.00, SD.= 72.88 and M = 132.10, SD.= 54.06, respectively). Classification rates were calculated to determine the classification accuracy. Result indicated that SVT-Th had overall classification accuracy rates of 96.67% with acceptable of 95% sensitivity and 100% specificity rates. Overall, the results of the present study indicate that the SVT-Th yielded high adequate indices of accuracy and these findings suggest that the SVT-Th is robustness against coaching.

Keywords: incompetency to stand trial, coaching, robustness, classification accuracy

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Authors: Rabi Abdullahi Danjuma, Fatima Binta Attahir

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Classroom discourse is important, and it is worth examining what the phenomena is and how it helps both the teacher and students in a classroom situation. This paper looks at the classroom as a traditional social setting which has its own norms and values. The paper also explains what discourse is, as extended communication in speech or writing often interactively dealing with some particular topics. It also discusses classroom discourse as the language which teachers and students use to communicate with each other in a classroom situation. The paper also looks at some strategies for effective classroom discourse. Finally, implications and recommendations were drawn.

Keywords: classroom, discourse, learning, student, strategies, communication

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Authors: Michael Okeke, Andrew Blyth

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Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) as the state of the art Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are used in many different critical infrastructures, from smart home to energy systems and from locomotives train system to planes. Security of SCADA systems is vital since many lives depend on it for daily activities and deviation from normal operation could be disastrous to the environment as well as lives. This paper describes how No-Trust-Zone (NTZ) architecture could be incorporated into SCADA Systems in order to reduce the chances of malicious intent. The architecture is made up of two distinctive parts which are; the field devices such as; sensors, PLCs pumps, and actuators. The second part of the architecture is designed following lambda architecture, which is made up of a detection algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Hadoop framework for data processing and storage. Apache Spark will be a part of the lambda architecture for real-time analysis of packets for anomalies detection.

Keywords: industrial control system (ics, no-trust-zone (ntz), particle swarm optimisation (pso), supervisory control and data acquisition (scada), swarm intelligence (SI)

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Authors: Muhammad Suhail Ibrahim, Ahmad Mujtaba

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Background: The accuracy of the most frequently used tests for diagnosing Helicobacter pylori is always under consideration in clinical settings. A reliable diagnosis is crucial to confirm the success of therapy. Objective: The aim of this research was to study the isolation frequency of H. pylori from patients compatible with gastritis or gastric ulcer and to compare some feasible non-invasive and invasive methods for the diagnosis of infection. Materials and Methods: Ninety-six gastric biopsy and blood samples were obtained with various gastroduodenal symptoms after obtaining informed consent. The biopsies were analyzed and compared using the culture, microscopic examination, histopathology, Rapid urease RUT), serology, biochemical, antibiotic susceptibility test and molecular method. Results: A number of 40 (41.67%) were considered H. pylori positive in both histopathology and RUT. On the other hand, 46 patients were positive against anti IgA and IgG by ELISA. Eighteen biopsies were positive according to the culture test. This was further confirmed by endoscopic examination, urease, catalase and oxidase tests. A high percentage of resistance to polymyxin B, amoxicillin, and kanamycin was observed (100, 88.89, and 77.78%, respectively). A gene (Cag A) was also detected by using molecular technique which appeared positive in 16 patients. The sensitivity/specificity (%) of diagnostic method was 95/77 for histology, 100/83.5 for rapid urease, 85.7/90 for gram staining, 100/66.6 for IgG serology, 100/79.5 for IgA serology, 100/75.0 for PCR, 100/79.04 for combination of RUT and IgG serology and 100/92.4 for combination of RUT, gram staining and IgG serology. Conclusion: In view of the result obtained, PCR appeared to be the most reliable test. However, higher sensitivity and specificity were also recorded for other tests. So, for more accurate results, it is advisable not to rely solely on a single method for detection.

Keywords: helicobacter pylori, isolation, detection, culture, urease, polymerase chain reaction, antibiotic susceptibility test, dyspeptic patients

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Authors: Omnia Elkommos

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Language is communication on several discourse levels. The target of teaching a language and the literature of a foreign language is to communicate a message. Reading, appreciating, analysing, and interpreting poetry as a sophisticated rhetorical expression of human thoughts, emotions, and philosophical messages is more feasible through the use of linguistic pragmatic tools from a communicative discourse perspective. The poet's intention, speech act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary goal can be better understood when communicative situational context as well as linguistic discourse structure theories are employed. The use of linguistic theories in the teaching of poetry is, therefore, intrinsic to students' comprehension, interpretation, and appreciation of poetry of the different ages. It is the purpose of this study to show how both teachers as well as students can apply these linguistic theories and tools to dramatic poetic texts for an engaging, enlightening, and effective interpretation and appreciation of the language. Theories drawn from areas of pragmatics, discourse analysis, embedded discourse level, communicative situational context, and other linguistic approaches were applied to selected poetry texts from the different centuries. Further, in a simple statistical count of the number of poems with dialogic dramatic discourse with embedded two or three levels of discourse in different anthologies outweighs the number of descriptive poems with a one level of discourse, between the poet and the reader. Poetry is thus discourse on one, two, or three levels. It is, therefore, recommended that teachers and students in the area of ESL/EFL use the linguistics theories for a better understanding of poetry as communicative discourse. The practice of applying these linguistic theories in classrooms and in research will allow them to perceive the language and its linguistic, social, and cultural aspect. Texts will become live illocutionary acts with a perlocutionary acts goal rather than mere literary texts in anthologies.

Keywords: coda, commissives, communicative situation, context of culture, context of reference, context of utterance, dialogue, directives, discourse analysis, dramatic discourse interaction, duologue, embedded discourse levels, language for communication, linguistic structures, literary texts, poetry, pragmatic theories, reader response, speech acts (macro/micro), stylistics, teaching literature, TEFL, terms of address, turn-taking

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Authors: Harriet Jane R. Caleja, Joel I. Ballesteros, Florian R. Del Mundo

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The dengue fever belongs to the world’s major cause of death, especially in the tropical areas. In the Philippines, the number of dengue cases during the first half of 2015 amounted to more than 50,000. In 2012, the total number of cases of dengue infection reached 132,046 of which 701 patients died. Dengue Nonstructural 1 virus (Dengue NS1 virus) is a recently discovered biomarker for the early detection of dengue virus. It is present in the serum of the dengue virus infected patients even during the earliest stages prior to the formation of dengue virus antibodies. A biosensor for the dengue detection using NS1 virus was developed for faster and accurate diagnostic tool. Biotinylated anti-dengue virus NS1 was used as the receptor for dengue virus NS1. Using the Diffractive Optics Technology (dotTM) technique, real time binding of the NS1 virus to the biotinylated anti-NS1 antibody is observed. The dot®-Avidin sensor recognizes the biotinylated anti-NS1 and this served as the capture molecule to the analyte, NS1 virus. The increase in the signal of the diffractive intensity signifies the binding of the capture and the analyte. The LOD was found to be 3.87 ng/mL while the LOQ is 12.9 ng/mL. The developed biosensor was also found to be specific for the NS1 virus.

Keywords: avidin-biotin, diffractive optics technology, immunosensor, NS1

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