Search results for: direct current control

Authors: Helen Johnson-Egemba

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This paper will discuss the current effectiveness of music therapy for a range of conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Indeed, traditional forms of therapy have often been effective in treating various mental and physical health conditions. However, they are not with their limitations. Music therapy, on the other hand, is a non-invasive and cost-effective alternative that can produce similar or even better results. Music therapy can produce longer-lasting results. The research also highlights the underlying mechanisms of traditional music therapy, such as its complementary treatment. A systematic review of existing literature was conducted to gather relevant studies and establish a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Various research methods, including experimental studies, qualitative research, surveys, were utilized to explore the therapeutic potential of traditional music interventions. The findings reveal that traditional music therapy shows promise in managing anxiety and depression symptoms, with positive outcomes impacting brain activity, emotions, and stress regulation. The outcomes of this study contribute to evidence-based practice, providing insights for clinicians and therapists to incorporate traditional music therapy into their treatment approaches. Furthermore, the research promotes awareness and acceptance of traditional music as a legitimate and effective therapeutic intervention for anxiety and depression, potentially enhancing access to alternative and complementary treatment options. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential benefits of traditional music therapy in addressing anxiety and depression, offering valuable implications for mental health care and improving the well-being of individuals struggling with these conditions.

Keywords: anxiety, effectiveness, depression, traditional music, therapy, treatment

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Authors: Lian Yang

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Object-oriented programming (OOP) is the dominant programming paradigm in today’s software industry and it has literally enabled average software developers to develop millions of commercial strength software applications in the era of INTERNET revolution over the past three decades. On the other hand, the lack of strict mathematical model and domain constraint features at the language level has long perplexed the computer science academia and OOP engineering community. This situation resulted in inconsistent system qualities and hard-to-understand designs in some OOP projects. The difficulties with regards to fix the current situation are also well known. Although the power of OOP lies in its unbridled flexibility and enormously rich data modeling capability, we argue that the ambiguity and the implicit facade surrounding the conceptual model of a class and an object should be eliminated as much as possible. We listed the five major usage of class and propose to separate them by proposing new language constructs. By using well-established theories of set and FSM, we propose to apply certain simple, generic, and yet effective constraints at OOP language level in an attempt to find a possible solution to the above-mentioned issues regarding OOP. The goal is to make OOP more theoretically sound as well as to aid programmers uncover warning signs of irregularities and domain-specific issues in applications early on the development stage and catch semantic mistakes at runtime, improving correctness verifiability of software programs. On the other hand, the aim of this paper is more practical than theoretical.

Keywords: new language constructs, set theory, FSM theory, user defined value type, function groups, membership qualification attribute (MQA), check-constraint (CC)

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: Shehu Usman Hassan

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Published accounting information in financial statements are required to provide various users - shareholders, employees, suppliers, creditors, financial analysts, stockbrokers and government agencies – with timely and reliable information useful for making prudent, effective and efficient decisions. The widespread failure in the financial information quality has created the need to improve the financial information quality and to strengthen the control of managers by setting up good firms structures. This paper investigates firm attributes from perspective of structure, monitoring, performance elements of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study adopted correlational research design with balanced panel data of 14 banks as sample of the study using multiple regression as a tool of analysis. The result reveals that firms attributes (leverage, profitability, liquidity, bank size and bank growth) has as significant influence on earnings quality of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria after the adoption of IFRS, while the pre period shows that the selected firm attributes has no significant impact on earnings quality. It is therefore concluded that the adoption of IFRS is right and timely.

Keywords: earnings quality, firm attributes, listed deposit money bank, Nigeria

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Authors: Maryam Maleki, Esther Mead, Mohammad Arani, Nitin Agarwal

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The proliferation of social media platforms like Twitter has heightened the consequences of the spread of misinformation. To understand and model the spread of misinformation, in this paper, we leveraged the SEIZ (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, Skeptics) epidemiological model to describe the underlying process that delineates the spread of misinformation on Twitter. Compared to the other epidemiological models, this model produces broader results because it includes the additional Skeptics (Z) compartment, wherein a user may be Exposed to an item of misinformation but not engage in any reaction to it, and the additional Exposed (E) compartment, wherein the user may need some time before deciding to spread a misinformation item. We analyzed misinformation regarding the unrest in Washington, D.C. in the month of March 2020, which was propagated by the use of the #DCblackout hashtag by different users across the U.S. on Twitter. Our analysis shows that misinformation can be modeled using the concept of epidemiology. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to attempt to apply the SEIZ epidemiological model to the spread of a specific item of misinformation, which is a category distinct from that of rumor and hoax on online social media platforms. Applying a mathematical model can help to understand the trends and dynamics of the spread of misinformation on Twitter and ultimately help to develop techniques to quickly identify and control it.

Keywords: Black Lives Matter, epidemiological model, mathematical modeling, misinformation, SEIZ model, Twitter

Procedia PDF Downloads 172

Authors: H. Lahlali F. El Haouzi, A.M.Al-Baradi, I. El Aboudi, M. El Azhari, A. Mdarhri

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Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a high performance thermoplastic polymer with exceptional physical and chemical properties, such as a high melting temperature, high thermal stability, and very good chemical resistance. Nevertheless, manufacturing PTFE is problematic due to its high melt viscosity (10 12 Pa.s). In practice, it is by now well established that this property presents a serious problem when the classical methods are used to synthesized the dense PTFE materials in particularly hot pressing, high temperature extrusion. In this framework, we use here a new process namely spark plasma sintering (SPS) to elaborate PTFE samples from the micro metric particles powder. It consists in applying simultaneous electric current and pressure directly on the sample powder. By controlling the processing parameters of this technique, a series of PTFE samples are easy obtained and associated to remarkably short time as is reported in an early work. Our central goal in the present study is to understand how the non conventional SPS affects the mechanical properties at room temperature. For this end, a second commercially series of PTFE synthesized by using the extrusion method is investigated. The first data according to the tensile mechanical properties are found to be superior for the first set samples (SPS). However, this trend is not observed for the results obtained from the compression testing. The observed macro-behaviors are correlated to some physical properties of the two series of samples such as their crystallinity or density. Upon a close examination of these properties, we believe the SPS technique can be seen as a promising way to elaborate the polymer having high molecular mass without compromising their mechanical properties.

Keywords: PTFE, extrusion, Spark Plasma Sintering, physical properties, mechanical behavior

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Authors: Li Lin, Hein Roelfsema

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To achieve aggressive expansion goals, many Chinese companies are seeking resources and market around the world. To an increasing extent, Chinese enterprises recognized the Netherlands as their gateway to Europe Market. Yet, large cultural gaps (e.g. individualism/collectivism, power distance) may influence expat leaders’ influencing process, in turn affect intercultural teamwork. Lessons and suggestions from Chinese expat leaders could provide profound knowledge for managerial practice and future research. The current research focuses on the cultural difference between China and the Netherlands, along with leadership tactics for coping and handling differences occurring in the international business work. Exclusive 47 in-depth interviews with Chinese expat leaders were conducted. Within each interview, respondents were asked what were the main issues when working with Dutch employees, and what they believed as the keys to successful leadership in Dutch-Chinese cross-cultural workplaces. Consistent with previous research, the findings highlight the need to consider the cultural context within which leadership adapts. In addition, the findings indicated the importance of recognizing and applying the cultural advantages from which leadership originates. The results address observation ability as a crucial key for Chinese managers to lead Dutch/international teams. Moreover, setting a common goal help a leader to overcome the challenges due to cultural differences. Based on the analysis, we develop a process model to illustrate the dynamic mechanisms. Our study contributes to the better understanding of transference of management practices, and has important practical implications for managing Dutch employees.

Keywords: Chinese managers, Dutch employees, leadership, interviews

Procedia PDF Downloads 344

Authors: Hadiza Lawan Ismail

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Academic writing in Nigeria is fraught with a lot of grammatical errors which brings backward to education specifically at the tertiary institution level. This paper deals with the use of English quantifiers in academic writing, with particular emphasis on the use of ‘MANY.’ NCEI students of the Federal College of Education, Kano were used as the case study. The paper attempts to highlight the problems that arise due to incorrect use of quantifiers as well as identifying the causes of difficulties in the use of English quantifiers by some NCE1 students. To achieve this objective, the data was collected through sentence writing test by testing the students’ use of quantifiers, using only one quantifier as the variable of the study, which is MANY. In analyzing the data, the sentence writing tests are analyzed item by item and the scores of the correct responses as well as the wrong responses are converted into percentage forms. The findings revealed that students have difficulty in remembering and grasping the grammatical restrictions that control the use of English quantifiers specifically MANY; mother tongue also affects the use of quantifiers by some NCE1 students to the extent that they use one word to represent about three or four English quantifiers. The causes of difficulty in the use of English quantifiers by the students are attributed to poor background and inadequate use of English language and quantifiers, because we cannot use quantifiers alone and get the desired meaning without putting them in a sentence.

Keywords: academic writing, English quantifiers, grammatical restrictions, tertiary institution students

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Authors: Nicolás Rudas

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Sociologists have brought to light the fascination of contemporary societies with numbers but fall short of explaining it. In their accounts, people generally misunderstand the technical intricacies of statistical knowledge and therefore accept numbers as unassailable “facts”. It is due to such pervasive fascination, furthermore, that both old and new forms of social control find fertile ground. By focusing on the process whereby the fetishization of numbers reaches its zenith, i.e., when specific statistics become emblematic of an entire society, it is asserted that numbers primarily function as moral symbols with immense potential for galvanizing collective action. Their “facticity” is not solely a cognitive problem but one that is deeply rooted in myth and connected with social experiences of epiphany and ritual. Evidence from Colombia is used to illustrate how certain quantifications become canonical. In 2021, Colombia’s Peace Court revealed that the national army had executed 6,402 innocent civilians to later report them as members of illegal armed groups. Rapidly, “6,402” transformed into a prominent item in the country’s political landscape. This article reconstructs such a process by following the first six months of the figure’s circulation, both in traditional and social media. In doing so, it is developed a new cultural-sociological conceptualization of numbers as “fact-icons” that departs from traditional understandings of statistics as “technical” objects. Numbers are icons whose appropriation is less rational than aesthetic.

Keywords: culture, statistics, collective memory, social movements

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Authors: P. A. Broodryk, A. F. Van Der Merwe, H. W. J. P. Neomagus

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The production of the clear liquid fertilizer ammonium polyphosphate (APP) is best achieved by the pyrolysis of urea phosphate, as it produces a product that is free from any of the impurities present in the raw phosphoric acid it was made from. This is a multiphase, multi-step reaction that produces carbon dioxide and ammonia as gasses and ammonium polyphosphate as liquid products. The polyphosphate chain length affects the solubility and thus the applicability of the product as liquid fertiliser, thus proper control of the reaction conditions is thus required for the use of this reaction in the production of fertilisers. This study investigates the reaction kinetics of the aforementioned reaction, describing a mathematical model for the kinetics of the reaction along with the accompanying rate constants. The reaction is initially exothermic, producing only carbon dioxide as a gas product and ammonium diphosphate, at higher temperatures the reaction becomes endothermic, producing ammonia gas as an additional by-product and longer chain polyphosphates, which when condensed too far becomes highly water insoluble. The aim of this study was to (i) characterise the pyrolysis reaction of urea phosphate by determining the mechanisms and the associated kinetic constants, and (ii) to determine the optimum conditions for ammonium diphosphate production. A qualitative investigation was also done to find the rate of hydrolysis of APP as this provides an estimate of the shelf life of an APP clear liquid fertiliser solution.

Keywords: ammonium polyphosphate, kinetics, pyrolysis, urea phosphate

Procedia PDF Downloads 157

Authors: Elena Collino, Dario A. Ronzio, Goffredo Decimi, Maurizio Riva

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The rapid increase of renewable energy in Italy is led by wind and solar installations. The 2017 Italian energy strategy foresees a further development of these sustainable technologies, especially solar. This fact has resulted in new opportunities, challenges, and different problems to deal with. The growth of renewables allows to meet the European requirements regarding energy and environmental policy, but these types of sources are difficult to manage because they are intermittent and non-programmable. Operationally, these characteristics can lead to instability on the voltage profile and increasing uncertainty on energy reserve scheduling. The increasing renewable production must be considered with more and more attention especially by the Transmission System Operator (TSO). The TSO, in fact, every day provides orders on energy dispatch, once the market outcome has been determined, on extended areas, defined mainly on the basis of power transmission limitations. In Italy, six market zone are defined: Northern-Italy, Central-Northern Italy, Central-Southern Italy, Southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily. An accurate hourly renewable power forecasting for the day-ahead on these extended areas brings an improvement both in terms of dispatching and reserve management. In this study, an operational forecasting tool of the hourly solar output for the six Italian market zones is presented, and the performance is analysed. The implementation is carried out by means of a numerical weather prediction model, coupled with a statistical post-processing in order to derive the power forecast on the basis of the meteorological projection. The weather forecast is obtained from the limited area model RAMS on the Italian territory, initialized with IFS-ECMWF boundary conditions. The post-processing calculates the solar power production with the Analog Ensemble technique (AN). This statistical approach forecasts the production using a probability distribution of the measured production registered in the past when the weather scenario looked very similar to the forecasted one. The similarity is evaluated for the components of the solar radiation: global (GHI), diffuse (DIF) and direct normal (DNI) irradiation, together with the corresponding azimuth and zenith solar angles. These are, in fact, the main factors that affect the solar production. Considering that the AN performance is strictly related to the length and quality of the historical data a training period of more than one year has been used. The training set is made by historical Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) forecasts at 12 UTC for the GHI, DIF and DNI variables over the Italian territory together with corresponding hourly measured production for each of the six zones. The AN technique makes it possible to estimate the aggregate solar production in the area, without information about the technologic characteristics of the all solar parks present in each area. Besides, this information is often only partially available. Every day, the hourly solar power forecast for the six Italian market zones is made publicly available through a website.

Keywords: analog ensemble, electricity market, PV forecast, solar energy

Procedia PDF Downloads 159

Authors: Zahra Mohajer, Afsaneh Soltani

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Doping is a major issue in competitive sports and is favored by vast groups of athletes. The feeling of being higher-ranking than others and gaining fame has caused many athletes to misuse drugs. The definition of doping is to use prohibited substances and/or methods that help physical or mental performances or both. Doping counts as the illegal use of chemical substances or drugs, excessive amounts of physiological substances to increase the performance at or out of competition or even the use of inappropriate medications to treat an injury to gain the ability to participate in a competition. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have forbidden these substances to ensure fair and equal competition and also the health of the competitors. As of 2004 WADA has published an international list of illegal substances used for doping, which is updated annually. In the process of the Genome Project scientists have gained the ability to treat numerous diseases by gene therapy, which may result in bodily performance increase and therefore a potential opportunity to misuse by some athletes. Gene doping is defined as the non-therapeutic direct and indirect genetic modifications using genetic materials that can improve the performances in sports events. Biosynthetic drugs are a form of indirect genetic engineering. The method can be performed in three ways such as injecting the DNA directly into the muscle, inserting the genetically engineered cells, or transferring the DNA using a virus as a vector. Erythropoietin is a hormone majorly released by the kidney and in small amounts by the liver. Its function is to stimulate the erythropoiesis and therefore the more production of red blood cells (RBC) which causes an increase in Hemoglobin (Hb). During this process, the oxygen delivery to muscles will increase, which will improve athletic performance and postpone exhaustion. There are ways to increase the oxygen transferred to muscles such as blood transfusion, stimulating the production of red blood cells by using Erythropoietin (EPO), and also using allosteric effectors of Hemoglobin. EPO can either be injected as a protein or can be inserted into the cells as the gene which encodes EPO. Adeno-associated viruses have been employed to deliver the EPO gene to the cells. Employing the genes that naturally exist in the human body such as the EPO gene can reduce the risk of detecting gene doping. The first research about blood doping was conducted in 1947. The study has shown that an increase in hematocrit (HCT) up to 55% following homologous transfusion makes it more unchallenging for the body to perform the exercise at the altitude. Thereafter athletes’ attraction to blood infusion escalated. Also, a study has demonstrated that by reinfusing their own blood 4 weeks after being drawn, three men have shown a rise in Hb level which improved the oxygen uptake, and a delay in exhaustion. The list of performance-enhancing drugs is published by WADA annually and includes the following drugs: anabolic agents, hormones, Beta-2 agonists, Beta-blockers, Diuretics, Stimulants, narcotics, cannabinoids, and corticosteroids.

Keywords: doping, PEDs, sports, WADA

Procedia PDF Downloads 112

Authors: Felix Boehnisch, Alexander Lutz

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Based on the number of users and the amount of content posted daily, Facebook is considered the largest social network in the world. This content includes images or text posts from companies but also private persons, which are also commented on by other users. However, it can sometimes be difficult for companies to keep track of all the posts and the reactions to them, especially when there are several posts a day that contain hundreds to thousands of comments. To facilitate this, the following paper deals with the possible applications of sentiment analysis to social media comments in order to be able to support the work in social media marketing. In a first step, post comments were divided into positive and negative by a subjective rating, then the same comments were checked for their polarity value by the two german python libraries TextBlobDE and SentiWS and also grouped into positive, negative, or even neutral. As a control, the subjective classifications were compared with the machine-generated ones by a confusion matrix, and relevant quality criteria were determined. The accuracy of both libraries was not really meaningful, with 60% to 66%. However, many words or sentences were not evaluated at all, so there seems to be room for optimization to possibly get more accurate results. In future studies, the use of these specific German libraries can be optimized to gain better insights by either applying them to stricter cleaned data or by adding a sentiment value to emojis, which have been removed from the comments in advance, as they are not contained in the libraries.

Keywords: Facebook, German libraries, polarity, sentiment analysis, social media comments

Procedia PDF Downloads 184

Authors: Ibrahim A. Alhammad, Suleiman A. Al-Otaibi, Khalid S. Al-Gahtani, Naïf Al-Otaibi, Abdulaziz A. Bubshait

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In the last decade, the use of project delivery system of design build engineering contracts is increasing in North America due to the reasons of reducing the project duration and minimizing costs. The shift from traditional approach of Design-Bid-Build to Design-Build contracts have been attributed to many factors such as evolution of the regulatory and legal frameworks governing the engineering contracts and improvement in integrating design and construction. The aforementioned practice of contracting is more appropriate in North America; yet, it may not be the case in Saudi Arabia where the traditional approach of construction contracting remains dominant. The authors believe there are number of factors related to the gaps in the level of sophistication of the engineering and management of the construction projects in both countries. A step towards improving the Saudi construction practice by adopting the new trend of construction contracting, this paper identifies the reasons why Design/Build form of contracting are not frequently utilized. A field survey, which includes the questionnaire addressing the research problem, is distributed to three main parties of the construction contracts: clients, consultants, and contractors. The analyzed collected data were statistically sufficient to finding the reasons of not adopting the new trend of good practice of deign build approach in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the reasons are: (1) lack of regulation and legal framework; (2) absence of clear criteria of the owner for the trade-off between competing contractors, (3) and lack of experience, knowledge and skill.

Keywords: design built projects, Saudi Arabia, GCC, mega projects

Procedia PDF Downloads 222

Authors: Tolulope Allo, Mofoluwake P. Ajayi, Adenike E. Idowu, Emmanuel O. Amoo, Fadeke Esther Olu-Owolabi

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Breast cancer which was more prevalent in Europe and America in the past is gradually being mirrored across the world today with greater economic burden on low and middle income countries (LMCs). Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women globally and current studies have shown that a woman dies with the diagnosis of breast cancer every thirteen minutes. The economic cost of breast cancer is overwhelming particularly for developing economies. While it causes billion of dollar in losses of national income, it pushes millions of people below poverty line. This study examined the economic burden of breast cancer on Nigerian women, its impacts on their standard of living and its effects on Nigeria’s socio economic development. The study adopts a qualitative research approach using the in-depth interview technique to elicit valuable information from respondents with cancer experience from the Southern part of Nigeria. Respondents constituted women in their reproductive age (15-49 years) that have experienced and survived cancer and also those that are currently receiving treatment. Excerpts from the interviews revealed that the cost of treatment is one of the major factors contributing to the late presentation of breast cancer incidences among women as many of them could not afford to pay for their own treatment. The study also revealed that many women prefer to explore other options such as herbal treatments and spiritual consultations which is less expensive and affordable. The study therefore concludes that breast cancer diagnosis and treatment should be subsidized by the government in order to facilitate easy access and affordability thereby promoting early detection and reducing the economic burden of treatment on women.

Keywords: breast cancer, development, economic burden, women

Procedia PDF Downloads 361

Authors: Katie-Beth Webster

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Mucormycosis is a rare opportunistic fungal infection that, if left untreated, can cause large scale tissue necrosis and death. There are a number of cases of this in the literature, most commonly in the head and neck region arising from sinuses. It is also usually found in immunocompromised patient subgroups. This study reviewed a number of cases of mucormycosis in previously fit and healthy young trauma patients to assess predisposing factors for infection and adequacy of current treatment paradigms. These trauma patients likely contracted the fungal infection from the soil at the site of the incident. Despite early washout and debridement of the wounds at the scene of the injury and on arrival in hospital, both these patients contracted mucormycosis. It was suspected that inadequate early debridement of soil contaminated limbs was one of the major factors that can lead to catastrophic tissue necrosis. In both cases, this resulted in the patients having a higher level of amputation than would have initially been required based on the level of their injury. This was secondary to cutaneous and soft tissue necrosis secondary to the fungal infiltration leading to osteomyelitis and systemic sepsis. In the literature, it appears diagnosis is often protracted in this condition secondary to inadequate early treatment and long processing times for fungal cultures. If fungal cultures were sent at the time of first assessment and adequate debridements are performed aggressively early, it could lead to these critically unwell trauma patients receiving appropriate antifungal and surgical treatment earlier in their episode of care. This is likely to improve long term outcomes for these patients.

Keywords: mucormycosis, plastic surgery, osteomyelitis, trauma

Procedia PDF Downloads 210

Authors: Soofiyan Atar, Adil Shaikh, Sahil Rajpurkar, Pragnesh Bhalala, Aniket Desai, Irfan Siddavatam

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Deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) algorithms leverage the symbolic power of complex controllers by automating it by mapping sensory inputs to low-level actions. Deep RL eliminates the complex robot dynamics with minimal engineering. Deep RL provides high-risk involvement by directly implementing it in real-world scenarios and also high sensitivity towards hyperparameters. Tuning of hyperparameters on a pneumatic quadruped robot becomes very expensive through trial-and-error learning. This paper presents an automated learning control for a pneumatic quadruped robot using sample efficient deep Q learning, enabling minimal tuning and very few trials to learn the neural network. Long training hours may degrade the pneumatic cylinder due to jerk actions originated through stochastic weights. We applied this method to the pneumatic quadruped robot, which resulted in a hopping gait. In our process, we eliminated the use of a simulator and acquired a stable gait. This approach evolves so that the resultant gait matures more sturdy towards any stochastic changes in the environment. We further show that our algorithm performed very well as compared to programmed gait using robot dynamics.

Keywords: model-based reinforcement learning, gait stability, supervised learning, pneumatic quadruped

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Authors: Zahide Tepeli Temiz, Itir Tari Comert

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Attachment patterns based on early emotional interactions between infant and primary caregiver continue to be influential in adult life, in terms of mental health and behaviors of individuals. Several studies reveal that infant-caregiver relationships have impressed the affect regulation, coping with stressful and negative situations, general satisfaction of life, and self image in adulthood, besides the attachment styles. The present study aims to examine the relationships between university students’ attachment style and their self-esteem, alexithymic features, satisfaction of life, and level of resilience. In line with this aim, the hypothesis of the prediction of attachment styles (anxious and avoidant) over life satisfaction, self-esteem, alexithymia, and psychological resilience was tested. Additionally, in this study Structural Equational Modeling was conducted to investigate the mediational role of self-esteem in the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia, life satisfaction, and resilience. This model was examined with path analysis. The sample of the research consists of 425 university students who take education from several region of Turkey. The participants who sign the informed consent completed the Demographic Information Form, Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, The Satisfaction with Life Scale, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and Resilience Scale for Adults. According to results, anxious, and avoidant dimensions of insecure attachment predicted the self-esteem score and alexithymia in positive direction. On the other hand, these dimensions of attachment predicted life satisfaction in negative direction. The results of linear regression analysis indicated that anxious and avoidant attachment styles didn’t predict the resilience. This result doesn’t support the theory and research indicating the relationship between attachment style and psychological resilience. The results of path analysis revealed the mediational role self esteem in the relation between anxious, and avoidant attachment styles and life satisfaction. In addition, SEM analysis indicated the indirect effect of attachment styles over alexithymia and resilience besides their direct effect. These findings support the hypothesis of this research relation to mediating role of self-esteem. Attachment theorists suggest that early attachment experiences, including supportive and responsive family interactions, have an effect on resilience to harmful situations in adult life, ability to identify, describe, and regulate emotions and also general satisfaction with life. Several studies examining the relationship between attachment styles and life satisfaction, alexithymia, and psychological resilience draw attention to mediational role of self-esteem. Results of this study support the theory of attachment patterns with the mediation of self-image influence the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regulation of person throughout the adulthood. Therefore, it is thought that any intervention intended for recovery in attachment relationship will increase the self-esteem, life satisfaction, and resilience level, on the one side, decrease the alexithymic features, on the other side.

Keywords: alexithymia, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, life satisfaction, path analysis, resilience, self-esteem, structural equation

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Authors: Jean Berger, Nassirou Lo, Martin Noel

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Perfectly suited for natural or man-made emergency and disaster management situations such as flood, earthquakes, tornadoes, or tsunami, multi-target search path planning for a team of rescue agents is known to be computationally hard, and most techniques developed so far come short to successfully estimate optimality gap. A novel mixed-integer linear programming (MIP) formulation is proposed to optimally solve the multi-target multi-agent discrete search and rescue (SAR) path planning problem. Aimed at maximizing cumulative probability of successful target detection, it captures anticipated feedback information associated with possible observation outcomes resulting from projected path execution, while modeling agent discrete actions over all possible moving directions. Problem modeling further takes advantage of network representation to encompass decision variables, expedite compact constraint specification, and lead to substantial problem-solving speed-up. The proposed MIP approach uses CPLEX optimization machinery, efficiently computing near-optimal solutions for practical size problems, while giving a robust upper bound obtained from Lagrangean integrality constraint relaxation. Should eventually a target be positively detected during plan execution, a new problem instance would simply be reformulated from the current state, and then solved over the next decision cycle. A computational experiment shows the feasibility and the value of the proposed approach.

Keywords: search path planning, search and rescue, multi-agent, mixed-integer linear programming, optimization

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Authors: Enido Fabiano de Ramos, Ieda Kanashiro Makiya, Francisco I. Giocondo Cesar

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This study presents an analysis of the Digital Twin concept applied to the academic environment, focusing on the development of a Digital Twin Smart Campus Framework. Using bibliometric analysis methodologies and literature review, the research investigates the evolution and applications of the Digital Twin in educational contexts, comparing these findings with the advances of Industry 4.0. It was identified gaps in the existing literature and highlighted the need to adapt Digital Twin principles to meet the specific demands of a smart campus. By integrating Industry 4.0 concepts such as automation, Internet of Things, and real-time data analytics, we propose an innovative framework for the successful implementation of the Digital Twin in academic settings. The results of this study provide valuable insights for university campus managers, allowing for a better understanding of the potential applications of the Digital Twin for operations, security, and user experience optimization. In addition, our framework offers practical guidance for transitioning from a digital campus to a digital twin smart campus, promoting innovation and efficiency in the educational environment. This work contributes to the growing literature on Digital Twins and Industry 4.0, while offering a specific and tailored approach to transforming university campuses into smart and connected spaces, high demanded by Society 5.0 trends. It is hoped that this framework will serve as a basis for future research and practical implementations in the field of higher education and educational technology.

Keywords: smart campus, digital twin, industry 4.0, education trends, society 5.0

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Authors: Ying-Chang Yu, Yuan-Lung Lo

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Building ventilation performance is an important indicator of indoor comfort. However, in addition to the geometry of the building or the proportion of the opening, the ventilation performance is also very much related to the actual wind pressure of the building. There are more and more contemporary building designs built with multi-layer exterior envelope. Due to ventilation and view observatory requirement, the porous outer layer of the building is commonly adopted and has a significant wind damping effect, causing the phenomenon of actual wind pressure loss. However, the relationship between the wind damping effect and the actual wind pressure is not linear. This effect can make the indoor ventilation of the building rationalized to reasonable range under the condition of high wind pressure, and also maintain a good amount of ventilation performance under the condition of low wind pressure. In this study, wind tunnel experiments were carried out to simulate the different wind pressures flow through the porous outer layer, and observe the actual wind pressure strength engage with the window layer to find the decreasing relationship between the damping effect of the porous shell and the wind pressure. Experiment specimen scale was designed to be 1:50 for testing real-world building conditions; the study found that the porous enclosure has protective shielding without affecting low-pressure ventilation. Current study observed the porous skin may damp more wind energy to ease the wind pressure under high-speed wind. Differential wind speed may drop the pressure into similar pressure level by using porous skin. The actual mechanism and value of this phenomenon will need further study in the future.

Keywords: multi-layer facade, porous media, wind damping, wind tunnel test, building ventilation

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Authors: Jae-Young Lee, Woo-Young Jung, Myeong-Jun Nam

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Water hammer is a hydraulic transient problem which is commonly encountered in the penstocks of hydropower plants. The numerical model was developed to estimate the transient behavior of pressure waves in pipe systems. The computational algorithm was proposed to model the water hammer phenomenon in a pipe system with pump shutdown at midstream and sudden valve closure at downstream. To predict the pressure head and flow velocity as a function of time as a result of rapidly closing a valve and pump shutdown, two boundary conditions at the ends considering pump operation and valve control can be implemented as specified equations of the pressure head and flow velocity based on the characteristics method. It was shown that the effects of transient flow make it determine the needs for protection devices, such as surge tanks, surge relief valves, or air valves, at various points in the system against overpressure and low pressure. It produced reasonably good performance with the results of the proposed transient model for pipeline systems. The proposed numerical model can be used as an efficient tool for the safety assessment of hydropower plants due to water hammer.

Keywords: water hammer, hydraulic transient, pipe systems, characteristics method

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Authors: Hasibe Caballero-Gomez, Richard Pepino

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Childhood lead poisoning is an issue that continues to plague major U.S. cities. Lead poisoning has been linked to decreases in academic achievement and IQ at levels as low as 5 ug/dL. Despite efforts from the Philadelphia Health Department to curtail systemic childhood lead poisoning, children continue to be identified with elevated blood lead levels (EBLLs) above the CDC reference level for diagnosis. This problem disproportionately affects low-income Black communities. At the moment, remediation is costly, and with the current policies in place, comprehensive remediation seems unrealistic. This research investigates community engagement policy and the ways pre-exisiting resources in target communities can be adjusted to decrease childhood lead poisoning. The study was done with two methods: content analysis and case studies. The content analysis includes 12 interviews from stakeholders and five published policy recommendations. The case studies focus on Baltimore, Chicago, Rochester, and St. Louis, four cities with significant childhood lead poisoning. Target communities were identified by mapping five factors that indicate a higher risk for lead poisoning. Seven priority zipcodes were identified for the model developed in this study. For these urban centers, 28 policy solutions and suggestions were identified, with three being identified at least four times in the content analysis and case studies. These three solutions create an interdependent model that offers increased community awareness and engagement with the issue that could potentially improve health and social outcomes for at-risk children.

Keywords: at-risk populations, community engagement, environmental justice, policy translation

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Authors: Owen Cegielski, Kristi Maida, Danny Morales, Sylvia L. Mendez

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This study explores the challenges and threats US secondary educators experience in incorporating culturally relevant education (CRE) practices in their classrooms. CRE is a social justice pedagogical practice used to connect student’s cultural references to academic skills and content, to promote critical reflection, to facilitate cultural competence, and to critique discourses of power and oppression. Empirical evidence on CRE demonstrates positive student educational outcomes in terms of achievement, engagement, and motivation. Additionally, due to the direct focus on uplifting diverse cultures through the curriculum, students experience greater feelings of belonging, increased interest in the subject matter, and stronger racial/ethnic identities. When these teaching practices are in place, educators develop deeper relationships with their students and appreciate the multitude of gifts they (and their families) bring to the classroom environment. Yet, educators regularly report being unprepared to incorporate CRE in their daily teaching practice and identify substantive gaps in their knowledge and skills in this area. Often, they were not exposed to CRE in their educator preparation program, nor do they receive adequate support through school- or district-wide professional development programming. Through a descriptive phenomenological research design, 20 interviews were conducted with a diverse set of secondary school educators to explore the challenges and threats they experience in incorporating CRE practices in their classrooms. The guiding research question for this study is: What are the challenges and threats US secondary educators face when seeking to incorporate CRE practices in their classrooms? Interviews were grounded by the theory of challenge and threat states, which highlights the ways in which challenges and threats are appraised and how resources factor into emotional valence and perception, as well as the potential to meet the task at hand. Descriptive phenomenological data analysis strategies were utilized to develop an essential structure of the educators’ views of challenges and threats in regard to incorporating CRE practices in their secondary classrooms. The attitude of the phenomenological reduction method was adopted, and the data were analyzed through five steps: sense of the whole, meaning units, transformation, structure, and essential structure. The essential structure that emerged was while secondary educators display genuine interest in learning how to successfully incorporate CRE practices, they perceive it to be a challenge (and not a threat) due to lack of exposure which diminishes educator capacity, comfort, and confidence in employing CRE practices. These findings reveal the value of attending to emotional valence and perception of CRE in promoting this social justice pedagogical practice. Findings also reveal the importance of appropriately resourcing educators with CRE support to ensure they develop and utilize this practice.

Keywords: culturally relevant education, descriptive phenomenology, social justice practice, US secondary education

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Authors: Faik Derya Ince, Ugur Topgul, Alp Gunay, Can Bayoglu, Dante J. Dorantes-Gonzalez

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Explosive attacks are arguably the most lethal threat that may occur in terrorist attacks. In order to counteract this issue, explosive ordnance disposal operators put their lives on the line to dispose of a possible improvised explosive device. Robots can make the disposal process more accurately and saving human lives. For this purpose, there is a demand for more accurate and dexterous manipulating robotic hands that can be teleoperated from a distance. The aim of this project is to design a robotic hand that contains two active and two passive DOF for each finger, as well as a minimum set of tools for mechanical cutting and screw driving within the same robotic hand. Both hand and toolset, are teleoperated from a distance from a haptic robotic glove in order to manipulate dangerous objects such as improvised explosive devices. SolidWorks® Computer-Aided Design, computerized dynamic simulation, and MATLAB® kinematic and static analysis were used for the robotic hand and toolset design. Novel, dexterous and robust solutions for the fingers were obtained, and six servo motors are used in total to remotely control the multi-tooled robotic hand. This project is still undergoing and presents currents results. Future research steps are also presented.

Keywords: Explosive Manipulation, Robotic Hand, Tele-Operation, Tool Integration

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Authors: B. D. Nkosi, T. F. Mutavhatsindi, J. J. Baloyi, R. Meeske, T. M. Langa, I. M. M. Malebana, M. D. Motiang

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Potato hash (PH), a by-product from food production industry, contains 188.4 g dry matter (DM)/kg and 3.4 g water soluble carbohydrate (WSC)/kg DM, and was mixed with wheat bran (70:30 as is basis) to provide 352 g DM/kg and 315 g WSC/kg DM. The materials were ensiled with or without silage additives in 1.5L anaerobic jars (3 jars/treatment) that were kept at 25-280 C for 3 months. Four types of silages were produced which were: control (no additive, denoted as T1), celluclast enzyme (denoted as T2), emsilage bacterial inoculant (denoted as T3) and silosolve bacterial inoculant (denoted as T4). Three jars per treatment were opened after 3 months of ensiling for the determination of nutritive values, fermentation characteristics and aerobic stability. Aerobic stability was done by exposing silage samples to air for 5 days. The addition of enzyme (T2) was reduced (P<0.05) silage pH, fiber fractions (NDF and ADF) while increasing (P < 0.05) residual WSC and lactic acid (LA) production, compared to other treatments. Silage produced had pH of < 4.0, indications of well-preserved silage. Bacterial inoculation (T3 and T4) improved (P < 0.05) aerobic stability of the silage, as indicated by increased number of hours and lower CO2 production, compared to other treatments. However, the aerobic stability of silage was worsen (P < 0.05) with the addition of an enzyme (T2). Further work to elucidate these effects on nutrient digestion and growth performance on ruminants fed the silage is needed.

Keywords: by-products, digestibility, feeds, inoculation, ruminants, silage

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Authors: Haoyi Sheng

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China's aging tendency is becoming increasingly severe, which leads to the embarrassing situation of "getting old before getting wealthy". The traditional pension model does not comply with the need of today. Relying on "Internet Plus", it can efficiently integrate information and resources and meet the personalized needs of elderly care. It can reduce the operating cost of community elderly care facilities and lay a technical foundation for providing better services for the elderly. The key for providing help for the elderly in the future is to effectively integrate technology, make good use of technology, and improve the efficiency of elderly care services. The effective integration of traditional home care, community care, intelligent elderly care equipment and medical resources to create the "Internet Plus" community intelligent pension service mode has become the future development trend of aging care. The research method of this paper is to collect literature and conduct theoretical research on community pension firstly. Secondly, the combination of suitable aging design and "Internet Plus" is elaborated through research. Finally, this paper states the current level of intelligent technology in old-age care and looks into the future by understanding multiple levels of "Internet Plus". The development of community intelligent pension mode and content under "Internet Plus" has enormous development potential. In addition to the characteristics and functions of ordinary houses, residential design of endowment housing has higher requirements for comfort and personalization, and the people-oriented is the principle of design.

Keywords: ageing tendency, 'Internet Plus', community intelligent elderly care, elderly care service model, technology

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Authors: Bassey Rofem Inyang, Matshidze Pfarelo, Mabale Dolphin

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Using a qualitative descriptive design, this study established the consequences of the on-going transitional rites on youth morality in the Thulamela Local Municipality, South Africa. The participants were sampled using a non-random sampling procedure, specifically, a purposive sampling technique and a snowball sampling technique. A semi-structured interview guide was recruited to collect data from the Indigenous Knowledge (IK) custodians, the parents of the youths and the youths until the point of saturation. The analysis was performed using a thematic content method. With the emergence of themes and sub-themes, broad categories were generated to differentiate and explain the thoughts expressed by the various respondents and the observations made in the field. The study findings suggest that the on-going transitional rites are depicted by weekend social activities with the practice of substance use and abuse among the youths at recreational spots. The transitional rites are structured under the guise of “freaks” as an evolving culture among the youths. The freaks culture is a counterculture of the usual initiation schools for transitional rites of passage which is believed to instill morality among youths. The findings comprehensively show that the on-going transitional rites influence inappropriate youth morality. This study concluded that the on-going transitional rites activities and practices evolved as a current socialization standard for quick maturity status; as a result, it will be challenging to provide a complete turnaround of this evolving culture. The study, however, recommends building on the exciting transitional rites of passage to moderate appropriate youths’ morality in Thulamela communities.

Keywords: morality, transitional rites, youths, behaviour

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Authors: García López

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The Government Departments of Health have the task of informing and educating citizens about public health issues. For this, they use channels like Twitter, key in the search for health information and the propagation of content. The tweets, important in the virality of the content, may contain emotions that influence the contagion and exchange of knowledge. The goal of this study is to perform an analysis of the emotional projection of health information shared on Twitter by official American accounts: the disease control account CDCgov, National Institutes of Health, NIH, the government agency HHSGov, and the professional organization PublicHealth. For this, we used Tone Analyzer, an International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) tool specialized in emotion detection in text, corresponding to the categorical model of emotion representation. For 15 days, all tweets from these accounts were analyzed with the emotional analysis tool in text. The results showed that their tweets contain an important emotional load, a determining factor in the success of their communications. This exposes that official accounts also use subjective language and contain emotions. The predominance of emotion joy over sadness and the strong presence of emotions in their tweets stimulate the virality of content, a key in the work of informing that government health departments have.

Keywords: emotions in tweets, emotion detection in the text, health information on Twitter, American health official accounts, emotions on Twitter, emotions and content

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Authors: Rohollah Asadian Kohestani, Nazanin Sedghi

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As the number of banks and financial institutions working in Iran has been significantly increased, the attracting and retaining customers and encouraging them to continually use the modern banking services have been important and vital issues. Therefore, there would be a serious competition without a deep perception of consumers and fitness of banking services with their needs in the current economic conditions of Iran. It should be noted that concepts such as 'brand equity' is defined based on the view of consumers; however, it is also focused by shareholders, competitors and other beneficiaries of a firm in addition to bank and its consumers. This study examines the impact of brand equity on the competitive advantage in the banking industry as intensive competition between brands of different banks leads to pay more attention to the brands. This research is based on the Aaker’s model examining the impact of four dimensions of brand equity on the competitive advantage of private banks in Behshahr city. Moreover, conducting an applied research and data analysis has been carried out by a descriptive method. Data collection was done using literature review and questionnaire. A 'simple random' methodology was selected for sampling staff of banks while sampling methodology to select consumers of banks was the distribution of questionnaire between staff and consumers of five private banks including Tejarat, Mellat, Refah K., Ghavamin and, Tose’e Ta’avon banks. Results show that there is a significant relationship between brand equity and their competitive advantage. In this research, software of SPSS 16 and LISREL 8.5, as well as different methods of descriptive inferential statistics for analyzing data and test hypotheses, were employed.

Keywords: brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand equity, competitive advantage

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Authors: Waleerak Sittisom

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The objectives of this research were to analyze transportation route management, to identify potential cost reductions in logistic operation. In-depth interview techniques and small group discussions were utilized with 25 participants from various backgrounds in the areas of logistics. The findings of this research revealed that there were four areas that companies are able to effectively manage a logistic cost reduction: managing the space within the transportation vehicles, managing transportation personnel, managing transportation cost, and managing control of transportation. On the other hand, there were four areas that companies were unable to effectively manage a logistic cost reduction: the working process of transportation, the route planning of transportation, the service point management, and technology management. There are five areas that cost reduction is feasible: personnel management, process of working, map planning, service point planning, and technology implementation. To be able to reduce costs, the transportation companies should suggest that customers use a file system to save truck space. Also, the transportation companies need to adopt new technology to manage their information system so that packages can be reached easy, safe, and fast. Staff needs to be trained regularly to increase knowledge and skills. Teamwork is required to effectively reduce the costs.

Keywords: cost reduction, management, logistics, transportation

Procedia PDF Downloads 503