Search results for: climate change risks

Authors: Pshtiwan Shafiq Ahmed

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The invasion of Iraq was a turning point in Iraq, destroying the economic infrastructure of several important strategic and historic cities, including Mosul, Anbar and Diyala, which will take decades to rebuild It left 18,805 people dead and 37,000 injured, destroying hundreds of villages and cities, displacing 2.3 million people, and increasing the number of orphans The increase in the number of windows and the destruction of society and the structure of the population so that the number of children, women and the elderly has increased. Religious clashes have increased and religious cleansing has begun, trying to eradicate Christianity, Yazidis and Kakais from the whole of Iraq, causing the largest number of Christians, Yazidis and Kakais to leave Iraq and many of them went missing.

Keywords: ISIS, population change, geographical change, Iraq

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Authors: C. Iitake, K. Iitake

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Background and Aims: The number of diabetic patients based on obesity is increasing drastically in Asia. Since most patients have multiple complications, if one medicine can treat those at the same time, it would contribute to financial savings and patients’ compliance. A Japanese-made DPP-4 inhibitor, Anagliptin is only sold in Japan and South Korea. It is said to have its unique aspect of lowering LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels together with lowering blood glucose. We have assessed 63 patients in our faculty to investigate this fact clinically and statistically. Method: Patients with type 2 diabetes who has been treated with Anagliptin for the first time was investigated changes in HbA1c, fasting and random blood glucose and LDL-C levels from the baseline at 1 month, 6 months and 1 year. Results: 29 patients (46.1%) were given DPP-4 inhibitors for the first time (original group), and 34 patients (53.9%) were using other DPP-4 inhibitors before Anagliptin (exchanged group). The change in HbA1c and fasting glucose from the baseline were -2.0% (P < 0.001) and -38.3mg/dl (P < 0.01) respectively with original group, -0.5% (P < 0.01) and -29.4mg/dl (P < 0.01) respectively with exchanged group. 23 patients (36.5%) were using statins or fibrates and 28 patients (44.4%) were using none, and its LDL-C change were -8.1mg/dl (P = 0.2582) and -10.1mg/dl(P < 0.05) respectively. 16 patients(25%) with LDL-C level ≥ 140mg/dl, change were -21.7mg/dl(P < 0.05). LDL-C change did not have a correlation coefficient (=-0.03238) with change in HbA1c and was not affected by other diabetic drugs. Conclusion: These findings indicate that Anagliptin is a potential treatment option for type 2 diabetes complicated by hyperlipidemia.

Keywords: DPP-4 inhibitors, anagliptin, LDL-cholesterol, type 2 diabetes

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Authors: Chang Li Yu

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Resistances commonly happened during sexual offenders treatment program (SOTP), and removing resistances was one of the treatment goals on it. Studies concerning treatment effectiveness relied on pre- and post-treatment evaluations, however, no significant difference on resistance revealed after treatment, and the above consequences generally contributed to the low motivation for change instead. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the resistance across each stage of change among sexual offenders (SO). The present study recruited prisoned SO in Taiwan, excluding those with literacy difficulties; finally, 272 participants were included. Of all participants completed revised version of URICA (University of Rhode Island Change Assessment) and resistance scale specifically for SO. The former included four stages of change: pre-contemplation (PC), contemplation (C), action (A), and maintain (M); the later composed eight types of resistance: system blaming, victims blaming, problems with treatment alliance, social justification, hopelessness, isolation, psychological reactance, and passive reactance. Both of the instruments were with well reliability and validity. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were performed. All of 272 participants, age under 25 were 18(6.6%), 25-39 were 133(48.9%), 40-54 were 102(37.5%), and age over 55 were 19(7.0%); college level and above were 53(19.5%), high school level were 110(40.4%), and under high school level were 109(40.1%); first offended were 117(43.0%), and recidivist were 23(8.5%). Further deleting data with missing values and invalid questionnaires, SO with stage of change on PC were 43(18.9%), C were 109(47.8%), A were 70(30.7%), and on M were 6(2.6%). One-way ANOVA showed significant differences on every kind of resistances, excepting isolation and passive reactance. Post-hoc analysis showed that SO with different stages had their main resistance. There are two contributions to the present study. First, this study provided a clinical and theoretical measurement of evaluation that was never used in the past. Second, this study used an evidence-based methodology to prove a clinical perspective differed from the past, suggesting that resistances to treatment on SO appear the whole therapeutic process, when SO progress into the next stage of change, clinicians have to deal with their main resistance for working through the therapy.

Keywords: resistance, sexual offenders treatment program (SOTP), motivation for change, prisoned sexual offender

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Authors: Sergey Nikitenko, Vladimir Klishin, Yury Malakhov, Elena Goosen

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Transition to renewable energy sources (solar, wind, bioenergy, etc.) and launching of alternative energy generation has weakened the role of coal as a source of energy. The Paris Agreement and assumption of obligations by many nations to orderly reduce CO₂ emissions by means of technological modernization and climate change adaptation has abridged coal demand yet more. This paper aims to assess current resilience of the coal industry to stress and to define prospects for coal production optimization using high technologies pursuant to global challenges and requirements of energy transition. Our research is based on the resilience concept adapted to the coal industry. It is proposed to divide the coal sector into segments depending on the prevailing value chains (VC). Four representative models of VC are identified in the coal sector. The most promising lines of upgrading VC in the coal industry include: •Elongation of VC owing to introduction of clean technologies of coal conversion and utilization; •Creation of parallel VC by means of waste management; •Branching of VC (conversion of a company’s VC into a production network). The upgrade effectiveness is governed in many ways by applicability of advanced coal processing technologies, usability of waste, expandability of production, entrance to non-rival markets and localization of new segments of VC in receiving regions. It is also important that upgrade of VC by means of formation of agile high-tech inter-industry production networks within the framework of operating surface and underground mines can reduce social, economic and ecological risks associated with closure of coal mines. Such promising route of VC upgrade is application of methanotrophic bacteria to produce protein to be used as feed-stuff in fish, poultry and cattle breeding, or in production of ferments, lipoids, sterols, antioxidants, pigments and polysaccharides. Closed mines can use recovered methane as a clean energy source. There exist methods of methane utilization from uncontrollable sources, including preliminary treatment and recovery of methane from air-and-methane mixture, or decomposition of methane to hydrogen and acetylene. Separated hydrogen is used in hydrogen fuel cells to generate power to feed the process of methane utilization and to supply external consumers. Despite the recent paradigm of carbon-free energy generation, it is possible to preserve the coal mining industry using the differentiated approach to upgrade of value chains based on flexible technologies with regard to specificity of mining companies.

Keywords: resilience, resilience concept, resilience indicator, resilience in the Russian coal industry, value chains

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Authors: Mohamed Aljarallah, Mohamed Nurullah, George Saridakis

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This paper aims and objectives are to investigate how the structural change of the financial regulatory bodies affect the financial supervision and how the regulators can design such a structure with taking into account; the Central Bank, the conduct of business and the prudential regulators, it will also consider looking at the structure of the international regulatory bodies and what barriers are found. There will be five questions to be answered; should conduct of business and prudential regulation be separated? Should the financial supervision and financial stability be separated? Should the financial supervision be under the Central Bank? To what extent the politician should intervene in changing the regulatory and supervisory structure? What should be the regulatory and supervisory structure when there is financial conglomerate? Semi structure interview design will be applied. This research sample selection contains a collective of financial regulators and supervisors from the emerged and emerging countries. Moreover, financial regulators and supervisors must be at a senior level at their organisations. Additionally, senior financial regulators and supervisors would come from different authorities and from around the world. For instance, one of the participants comes from the International Bank Settlements, others come from European Central Bank, and an additional one will come from Hong Kong Monetary Authority and others. Such a variety aims to fulfil the aims and objectives of the research and cover the research questions. The analysis process starts with transcription of the interview, using Nvivo software for coding, applying thematic interview to generate the main themes. The major findings of the study are as follow. First, organisational structure changes quite frequently if the mandates are not clear. Second, measuring structural change is difficult, which makes the whole process unclear. Third, effective coordination and communication are what regulators looking for when they change the structure and that requires; openness, trust, and incentive. In addition to that, issues appear during the event of crisis tend to be the reason why the structure change. Also, the development of the market sometime causes a change in the regulatory structure. And, some structural change occurs simply because of the international trend, fashion, or other countries' experiences. Furthermore, when the top management change the structure tends to change. Moreover, the structure change due to the political change, or politicians try to show they are doing something. Finally, fear of being blamed can be a driver of structural change. In conclusion, this research aims to provide an insight from the senior regulators and supervisors from fifty different countries to have a clear understanding of why the regulatory structure keeps changing from time to time through a qualitative approach, namely, semi-structure interview.

Keywords: financial regulation bodies, financial regulatory structure, global financial regulation, financial crisis

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Authors: Jiajia Peng, Jianqing Qiu, Jianjun Ren, Yu Zhao

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Background: Insufficient sleep has been focused on as a public health epidemic. However, a comprehensive analysis of disease trajectory associated with unhealthy sleep habits is still unclear currently. Objective: This study sought to comprehensively clarify the disease's trajectory in relation to the overall poor sleep pattern and unhealthy sleep behaviors separately. Methods: 410,682 participants with available information on sleep behaviors were collected from the UK Biobank at the baseline visit (2006-2010). These participants were classified as having high- and low risk of each sleep behavior and were followed from 2006 to 2020 to identify the increased risks of diseases. We used Cox regression to estimate the associations of high-risk sleep behaviors with the elevated risks of diseases, and further established diseases trajectory using significant diseases. The low-risk unhealthy sleep behaviors were defined as the reference. Thereafter, we also examined the trajectory of diseases linked with the overall poor sleep pattern by combining all of these unhealthy sleep behaviors. To visualize the disease's trajectory, network analysis was used for presenting these trajectories. Results: During a median follow-up of 12.2 years, we noted 12 medical conditions in relation to unhealthy sleep behaviors and the overall poor sleep pattern among 410,682 participants with a median age of 58.0 years. The majority of participants had unhealthy sleep behaviors; in particular, 75.62% with frequent sleeplessness, and 72.12% had abnormal sleep durations. Besides, a total of 16,032 individuals with an overall poor sleep pattern were identified. In general, three major disease clusters were associated with overall poor sleep status and unhealthy sleep behaviors according to the disease trajectory and network analysis, mainly in the digestive, musculoskeletal and connective tissue, and cardiometabolic systems. Of note, two circularity disease pairs (I25→I20 and I48→I50) showed the highest risks following these unhealthy sleep habits. Additionally, significant differences in disease trajectories were observed in relation to sex and sleep medication among individuals with poor sleep status. Conclusions: We identified the major disease clusters and high-risk diseases following participants with overall poor sleep health and unhealthy sleep behaviors, respectively. It may suggest the need to investigate the potential interventions targeting these key pathways.

Keywords: sleep, poor sleep, unhealthy sleep behaviors, disease trajectory, UK Biobank

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Authors: Lea Lachaud, Aida Raoult, Marion Trousselard, Francois B. Vialatte

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This paper addresses mindfulness from a psychological and neuroscientific perspective, by studying how it modulates attention. Being mindful defines a state characterized by 1-an attention directed to the subjective experience of present moment, 2-an unconditional acceptance of this experience, and 3-the rejection of systematic rationalization in favor of plain awareness. The aim of this study is to investigate whether perceptual salience filters are lowered in a ‘mindful’ condition by exploring the role of being mindful in focused visual attention. Over the past decade, mindfulness therapies have seen a surge in popularity. While the outcomes of these therapies have been widely discussed, the mechanisms whereby meditation affects the brain remain mostly unknown. To explore the role of mindfulness in focused visual attention, we conducted a change blindness experiment on 24 subjects, 12 of them being mindful according to the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) scale. Our results suggest that mindful subjects are less affected by change blindness than non-mindful subjects. Furthermore, EEG measurements performed during the experiments may expose neural correlates specific to the mindful state on P300 evoked potentials. Finally, the analysis of both amplitude and latency caused by the perception of a change over 864 recordings may reveal biomarkers that are typical of this state. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these results for further research.

Keywords: EEG, change blindness, mindfulness, p300, perception, visual attention

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Authors: Rehema Kabare

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As urban development initiatives continue to emerge and are implemented amid rapid urbanization and climate change effects in the global south, the plight of women is only being noticed. The pandemic exposed the atrocities, violence and unsafety women and girls face daily both in their homes and in public urban spaces. This is a result of poorly implemented and managed urban structures, which women have been left out of during design and implementation for centuries. The UN Habitat’s HerCity toolkit provides a unique opportunity to change course for both governments and civil society actors where women and girls are onboarded onto urban development initiatives, with their designs and ideas being the focal point. This toolkit proves that when women and girls design, they design for everyone. The HerCity HerStreets, Public Space Improvement Initiative, resulted in a design that focused on two aspects: Streets are a shared resource, and Streets are public spaces. These two concepts illustrate that for streets to be experienced effectively as cultural spaces, they need to be user-friendly, safe and inclusive. This report demonstrates how the HerCity HerStreets as a pilot project can be a benchmark for designing urban spaces in African cities. The project focused on five dimensions to improve the air quality of the space, the space allocation to street vending and bodaboda (passenger motorcycle) stops parking and the green coverage. The process displays how digital tools such as Minecraft and Kobo Toolbox can be utilized to improve citizens’ participation in the development of public spaces, with a special focus on including vulnerable groups such as women, girls and youth.

Keywords: urban space, sustainable development, gender and the city, digital tools and urban development

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Authors: Sirapop Nuannimnoi, Hojjat Baghban, Ching-Yao Huang

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Over the past decade, with the fast development of blockchain technology since the birth of Bitcoin, there has been a massive increase in the usage of Cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are not seen as an investment opportunity due to the market’s erratic behavior and high price volatility. With the recent success of deep reinforcement learning (DRL), portfolio management can be modeled and automated. In this paper, we propose a novel DRL-based multi-agent system to automatically make proper trading decisions on multiple cryptocurrencies and gain profits in the highly volatile cryptocurrency market. We also extend this multi-agent system with horizontal federated transfer learning for better adapting to the inclusion of new cryptocurrencies in our portfolio; therefore, we can, through the concept of diversification, maximize our profits and minimize the trading risks. Experimental results through multiple simulation scenarios reveal that this proposed algorithmic trading system can offer three promising key advantages over other systems, including maximized profits, minimized risks, and adaptability.

Keywords: cryptocurrency portfolio management, algorithmic trading, federated learning, multi-agent reinforcement learning

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Authors: Victoria Siriaki Jorry, I. S. Mbalawata, Hayong Shin

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The main objective in a change detection problem is to develop algorithms for efficient detection of gradual and/or abrupt changes in the parameter distribution of a process or time series data. In this paper, we present a modified cumulative (MCUSUM) algorithm to detect the start and end of a time-varying linear drift in mean value of a time series data based on likelihood ratio test procedure. The design, implementation and performance of the proposed algorithm for a linear drift detection is evaluated and compared to the existing CUSUM algorithm using different performance measures. An approach to accurately approximate the threshold of the MCUSUM is also provided. Performance of the MCUSUM for gradual change-point detection is compared to that of standard cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart designed for abrupt shift detection using Monte Carlo Simulations. In terms of the expected time for detection, the MCUSUM procedure is found to have a better performance than a standard CUSUM chart for detection of the gradual change in mean. The algorithm is then applied and tested to a randomly generated time series data with a gradual linear trend in mean to demonstrate its usefulness.

Keywords: average run length, CUSUM control chart, gradual change detection, likelihood ratio test

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Authors: Huayun Zhai, Quan Hu, Wei-Chih Chiang, Jianjun Du

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By applying experimental methodology in the framework of the behavior-perception theory, this paper studies the relationship between information quality of corporates’ social responsibility (CSR) and individual investors’ risk perception, intermediated with individual investors’ perception on CSR. The findings are as follows: In general, the information quality of CSR significantly influences individual investors’ perception on investment risks. Furthermore, certification on CSR can help reinforce such perceptions. The higher the reporting quality of CSR is, accompanied by the certification by an independent third party, the more likely individual investors recognize the responsibilities. The research also found that the perception on CSR not only plays a role of intermediation between information quality about CSR and investors’ perception on investment risk but also intermediates the certification of CSR reports and individual investors’ judgment on investment risks. The main contributions of the research are in two folds. The first is that it supplements the research on CSR from the perspective of investors’ perceptions. The second is that the research provides theoretical and experimental evidence for enterprises to implement and improve reports on their social responsibilities.

Keywords: information quality, corporate social responsibility, report certification, individual investors’ perception on risk, perception of corporate social responsibility

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Authors: Taekyun Kim, Jongho Park, Jinwoong Choi, Sun-Kyu Park

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Recently, the abnormal climate phenomenon has enlarged due to the global warming. As a result, temperature variation is increasing and the term is being prolonged, frequency of high and low temperature is increasing by heat wave and severe cold. Especially for reinforced concrete structure, the corrosion of reinforcement has occurred by concrete crack due to temperature change and the durability of the structure that has decreased by concrete crack. Accordingly, the textile reinforced concrete (TRC) which does not corrode due to using textile is getting the interest and the investigation of TRC is proceeding. The study of TRC structure behavior has proceeded, but the characteristic study of the concrete used in TRC is insufficient. Therefore, characteristic of the concrete by changing mixing ratio is studied in this paper. As a result, mixing ratio with different water-binder ratio has influenced to the strength of concrete. Also, as the water-binder ratio has decreased, strength of concrete has increased.

Keywords: concrete, mixing ratio, textile, TRC

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Authors: Hazem Bunkheila

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Ghadames is an oasis on the edge of the Sahara Desert in southwestern Libya at the border with Algeria and Tunisia. It is the oldest oasis in the world that provides a fascinating example of traditional urban in the desert environment. The urban of the small city is considered a genuine adaptation to the harsh desert climate. The historic city of Ghadames remained unaffected by the rapid after oil changes. That makes it a good field to study sustainable, vernacular, earth architecture and urban design. The aim of this paper is to investigate the urban structure, concept, and fabric of the old oasis. The research also surveys the environmental considerations in the city that shades the sustainable features in this traditional residential area. In addition, the paper addresses the modern applications in the new city of Ghadams and sides of success and failure compared to the traditional urban fabric.

Keywords: dessert climate design, Ghadames, sustainable urban design, traditional urban design

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Authors: Shamini Dhana, G. Subrahmanya VRK Rao

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The fashion industry is advancing towards a mindset of zero waste, personalization, creativity, and circularity. The trend of upcycling clothing and materials into personalized fashion is being demanded by the next generation. There is a need for a digital tool to accelerate the process towards mass customization. Dhana’s D/Sphere fashion technology platform uses digital tools to accelerate upcycling. In essence, advanced fashion garments can be designed and developed via reuse, repurposing, recreating activities, and using existing fabric and circulating materials. The D/Sphere platform has the following objectives: to provide (1) An opportunity to develop modern fashion using existing, finished materials and clothing without chemicals or water consumption; (2) The potential for an everyday customer and designer to use the medium of fashion for creative expression; (3) A solution to address the global textile waste generated by pre- and post-consumer fashion; (4) A solution to reduce carbon emissions, water, and energy consumption with the participation of all stakeholders; (5) An opportunity for brands, manufacturers, retailers to work towards zero-waste designs and as an alternative revenue stream. Other benefits of this alternative approach include sustainability metrics, trend prediction, facilitation of disassembly and remanufacture deep learning, and hyperheuristics for high accuracy. A design tool for mass personalization and customization utilizing existing circulating materials and deadstock, targeted to fashion stakeholders will lower environmental costs, increase revenues through up to date upcycled apparel, produce less textile waste during the cut-sew-stitch process, and provide a real design solution for the end customer to be part of circular fashion. The broader impact of this technology will result in a different mindset to circular fashion, increase the value of the product through multiple life cycles, find alternatives towards zero waste, and reduce the textile waste that ends up in landfills. This technology platform will be of interest to brands and companies that have the responsibility to reduce their environmental impact and contribution to climate change as it pertains to the fashion and apparel industry. Today, over 70% of the $3 trillion fashion and apparel industry ends up in landfills. To this extent, the industry needs such alternative techniques to both address global textile waste as well as provide an opportunity to include all stakeholders and drive circular fashion with new personalized products. This type of modern systems thinking is currently being explored around the world by the private sector, organizations, research institutions, and governments. This technological innovation using digital tools has the potential to revolutionize the way we look at communication, capabilities, and collaborative opportunities amongst stakeholders in the development of new personalized and customized products, as well as its positive impacts on society, our environment, and global climate change.

Keywords: circular fashion, deep learning, digital technology platform, personalization

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Authors: Ayoola T. Brimmo, Mohamed I. Hassan

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The push to mitigate the aluminum smelting industry’s enormous energy consumption and high emission releases is now even more persistent with the recent climate change happenings. Common approaches to achieve this have been focused on improving energy efficiency in the pot line and cast house sections of the smelter. However, the conventional energy efficiency analyses are based on the first law of thermodynamics, which do not shed proper light on the smelter’s degradation of energy. This just gives a general idea of the furnace’s performance with no reference to locations where improvement is a possibility based on the second law of thermodynamics. In this study, we apply exergy analyses on the pot line and cast house sections of the smelter to identify the locality and causes of energy degradation. The exergy analyses, which are based on a real life smelter conditions, highlight the possible locations for technology improvement in a typical smelter. With this established, methods of minimizing the smelter’s exergy losses are assessed.

Keywords: exergy analysis, electrolytic cell, furnace, heat transfer

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Authors: Ruchika Malhotra, Megha Khanna

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The development of change prediction models can help the software practitioners in planning testing and inspection resources at early phases of software development. However, a major challenge faced during the training process of any classification model is the imbalanced nature of the software quality data. A data with very few minority outcome categories leads to inefficient learning process and a classification model developed from the imbalanced data generally does not predict these minority categories correctly. Thus, for a given dataset, a minority of classes may be change prone whereas a majority of classes may be non-change prone. This study explores various alternatives for adeptly handling the imbalanced software quality data using different sampling methods and effective MetaCost learners. The study also analyzes and justifies the use of different performance metrics while dealing with the imbalanced data. In order to empirically validate different alternatives, the study uses change data from three application packages of open-source Android data set and evaluates the performance of six different machine learning techniques. The results of the study indicate extensive improvement in the performance of the classification models when using resampling method and robust performance measures.

Keywords: change proneness, empirical validation, imbalanced learning, machine learning techniques, object-oriented metrics

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Authors: Pierre-Andre Mudry, Jean Decaix, Jeremy Schmid, Cesar Papilloud, Cecile Munch-Alligne

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In most of the Swiss Alpine regions, the availability of water resources is usually adequate even in times of drought, as evidenced by the 2003 and 2018 summers. Indeed, important natural stocks are for the moment available in the form of snow and ice, but the situation is likely to change in the future due to global and regional climate change. In addition, alpine mountain regions are areas where climate change will be felt very rapidly and with high intensity. For instance, the ice regime of these regions has already been affected in recent years with a modification of the monthly availability and extreme events of precipitations. The current research, focusing on the municipality of Val de Bagnes, located in the canton of Valais, Switzerland, is part of a project led by the Altis company and achieved in collaboration with WSL, BlueArk Entremont, and HES-SO Valais-Wallis. In this region, water occupies a key position notably for winter and summer tourism. Thus, multiple actors want to apprehend the future needs and availabilities of water, on both the 2050 and 2100 horizons, in order to plan the modifications to the water supply and distribution networks. For those changes to be salient and efficient, a good knowledge of the current water distribution networks is of most importance. In the current case, the water drinking network is well documented, but this is not the case for the irrigation one. Since the water consumption for irrigation is ten times higher than for drinking water, data acquisition on the irrigation network is a major point to determine future scenarios. This paper first presents the instrumentation and simulation of the irrigation network using custom-designed IoT devices, which are coupled with a digital clone simulated to reduce the number of measuring locations. The developed IoT ad-hoc devices are energy-autonomous and can measure flows and pressures using industrial sensors such as calorimetric water flow meters. Measurements are periodically transmitted using the LoRaWAN protocol over a dedicated infrastructure deployed in the municipality. The gathered values can then be visualized in real-time on a dashboard, which also provides historical data for analysis. In a second phase, a digital clone of the irrigation network was modeled using EPANET, a software for water distribution systems that performs extended-period simulations of flows and pressures in pressurized networks composed of reservoirs, pipes, junctions, and sinks. As a preliminary work, only a part of the irrigation network was modelled and validated by comparisons with the measurements. The simulations are carried out by imposing the consumption of water at several locations. The validation is performed by comparing the simulated pressures are different nodes with the measured ones. An accuracy of +/- 15% is observed on most of the nodes, which is acceptable for the operator of the network and demonstrates the validity of the approach. Future steps will focus on the deployment of the measurement devices on the whole network and the complete modelling of the network. Then, scenarios of future consumption will be investigated. Acknowledgment— The authors would like to thank the Swiss Federal Office for Environment (FOEN), the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (OFAG) for their financial supports, and ALTIS for the technical support, this project being part of the Swiss Pilot program 'Adaptation aux changements climatiques'.

Keywords: hydraulic digital clone, IoT water monitoring, LoRaWAN water measurements, EPANET, irrigation network

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Authors: Kwok Tak Kit

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Combating climate change is becoming a hot topic in various sectors. Building construction and infrastructure sectors contributed a significant proportion of waste and GHGs emissions in the economy of different countries and cities. Many types of research had conducted and discussed the topic of waste management and waste management being a macro-level control is well developed in the building and construction industry. However, there is little research and studies on the micro-level of waste management, “building construction material wastage management,” and fewer reviews about regulatory control in the building construction sector. In this paper, we will focus on the potentialities and importance of material wastage management and review the deficiencies of the current standard to take into account the reduction of material wastage in a systematic and quantitative approach.

Keywords: quantitative measurement, material wastage management plan, waste management, uncalculated waste, circular economy

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Authors: T. M. Buthelezi, E. O. Olagundoye, R. G. L. Cele

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This article argues that whilst African folklore has mainly been used for entertainment, it also has an educational value that has power to change young people’s attitudes and behavior. The paper is informed by the findings from the data that was generated from 154 university students who were coming from diverse backgrounds. The qualitative data was thematically analysed. Referring to the six steps of the behaviour change model, we found that African Folklore provides relevant cultural knowledge and instills values that enable young people to engage on self-reflection that eventually leads them towards attitudinal changes and behaviour modification. Using the transformative learning theory, we argue that African Folklore in itself is a pedagogical strategy that integrates cultural knowledge, values with entertainment elements concisely enough to take the young people through a transformative phase which encompasses psychological, convictional and life-style adaptation. During data production stage all ethical considerations were observed including obtaining gatekeeper’s permission letter and ethical clearance certificate from the Ethics Committee of the University. The paper recommends that African Folklore approach should be incorporated into the school curriculum particularly in life skills education with aims to change behaviour.

Keywords: African folklore, young people, attitudinal, behavior change, university students

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Authors: Ailene B. Anonuevo

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The aim of the study was to evaluate the quality of life presently available for the IP students in selected schools in the Division of Panabo City. This further explores their future dreams and current status in classes and examines some implications relative to their studies. The study adopted the mixed methodology and used a survey research design as the operational framework for data gathering. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaires and interviews with sixty students from three schools in Panabo City. In addition, this study describes the learners’ background and school climate as variables that might influence their performance in school. The study revealed that an IP student needs extra attention due to their unfavorable learning environment. The study also found out that like any other students, IP learners yearns for a brighter future with the support of our government.

Keywords: IP learners, learning landscape, school climate, quality of life

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Authors: Zhengrong Wu, Haibo Yang

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In the context of escalating global climate change and environmental degradation, the complexity and frequency of natural disasters are continually increasing. Confronted with an abundance of information regarding natural disasters, traditional knowledge graph construction methods, which heavily rely on grammatical rules and prior knowledge, demonstrate suboptimal performance in processing complex, multi-source disaster information. This study, drawing upon past natural disaster reports, disaster-related literature in both English and Chinese, and data from various disaster monitoring stations, constructs question-answer templates based on large language models. Utilizing the P-Tune method, the ChatGLM2-6B model is fine-tuned, leading to the development of a disaster knowledge graph based on large language models. This serves as a knowledge database support for disaster emergency response.

Keywords: large language model, knowledge graph, disaster, deep learning

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Authors: Djehich Mohamed Yousri

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Nowadays, migration has become a phenomenon that attracts the attention of researchers, countries, agencies, and national and international bodies. Wars and climate change, demographics, poverty, natural disasters, and epidemics are all threats that are contributing daily to forcing more people to migrate. There are those who resort to emigration because of the deteriorating political conditions in their country, others resort to emigration to improve their financial situation, and others emigrate from their country for fear of some penalties and judgments issued against them. In the field of migration, becoming a member of the United Nations as a "relevant organization" gives the United Nations a clear mandate on migration. Its primary goal is to facilitate the management of international migration in an orderly and humane manner. In order to achieve this goal, the organization adopts an international policy to meet the challenges posed in the field of migration. This paper attempts to study the structure of this international organization and its strategy in dealing with the phenomenon of international migration.

Keywords: international organization for migration, immigrants, immigrant rights, resettlement, migration organization strategy

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Authors: S. Curtin, A. Trace

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Introduction: As patients can often be ambivalent about or resistant to any change in their smoking behavior the traditional ‘5 A’ model may be limited as it assumes that patients are ready and motivated to change. However, there is a stage model that is helpful to give guidance for dental students: the Transtheoretical Model (TTM). This model allows students to understand the tasks and goals for the pre-contemplation stage. The TTM was introduced in early stages as a core component of a smoking cessation programme that was integrated into a Behavioral Science programme as applied to dentistry. The aim of the present study is to evaluate and illustrate the students’ current level of knowledge from the questions the students generated in order to engage patients in the tasks and goals of the pre-contemplation stage. Method: N=47 responses of fifth-year undergraduate dental students. These responses were the data set for this study and related to their knowledge base of appropriate questions for a dentist to ask at the pre-contemplation stage of change. A deductive -descriptive analysis was conducted on the data. The goals and tasks of the pre-contemplation stage of the TTM provided a template for this deductive analysis. Results: 51% of students generated relevant, open, exploratory questions for the pre-contemplation stage, whilst 100% of students generated closed questions. With regard to those questions appropriate for the pre-contemplation stage, 19% were open and exploratory, while 66% were closed questions. A deductive analysis of the open exploratory questions revealed that 53% of the questions addressed increased concern about the current pattern of behavior, 38% of the questions concerned increased awareness of a need for change and only 8% of the questions dealt with the envisioning of the possibility of change. Conclusion: All students formulated relevant questions for the pre-contemplation stage, and half of the students generated the open, exploratory questions that increased patients’ awareness of the need to change. More training is required to facilitate a shift in the formulation from closed to open questioning, especially given that, traditionally, smoking cessation was modeled on the ‘5 As’, and that the general training for dentists supports an advisory and directive approach.

Keywords: behaviour change, pre-contemplation stage, trans-theoretical model, undergraduate dentistry students

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Authors: Jonas Palmer, Leon Brüning, Lukas Himmelsbach

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The worldwide ambitions to transform the transportation sector are increasingly affecting the safety conditions for all traffic participants and the required infrastructure. To contribute to the transformation and for health aspects, individuals search for carbon-free alternatives that include physical excitation. Especially e-bikes experience a growing demand within the last few years and consequently change the safety requirements. E-cyclists are exposed to amplified risks due to higher velocity in comparison to classic cyclists. Furthermore, cyclists suffer from a lack of infrastructure, rider assistance systems as well as awareness of other road users. For minimizing the risk of accidents, it is crucial to identify, develop and implement safety measures for cyclists. The paper aims to contribute to future research with delivering an overview of the latest publications and to subsequently identify essential research gaps. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the areas of technical adjustments as well as legal aspects and the correlation of both. The review`s insights can intensify the awareness of safety issues related to e-bikes and promote the development and implementation of appropriate measures.

Keywords: e-bike safety measures, future mobility, risk management, road safety

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Authors: Khin Mar Yee, Mu Mu Than, Kyi Lint, Aye Aye Oo, Chan Mya Hmway, Khin Zar Chi Winn

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The dynamic changes of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes in Yangon have generally resulted the improvement of human welfare and economic development since the last twenty years. Making map of LULC is crucially important for the sustainable development of the environment. However, the exactly data on how environmental factors influence the LULC situation at the various scales because the nature of the natural environment is naturally composed of non-homogeneous surface features, so the features in the satellite data also have the mixed pixels. The main objective of this study is to the calculation of accuracy based on change detection of LULC changes by Support Vector Machines (SVMs). For this research work, the main data was satellite images of 1996, 2006 and 2015. Computing change detection statistics use change detection statistics to compile a detailed tabulation of changes between two classification images and Support Vector Machines (SVMs) process was applied with a soft approach at allocation as well as at a testing stage and to higher accuracy. The results of this paper showed that vegetation and cultivated area were decreased (average total 29 % from 1996 to 2015) because of conversion to the replacing over double of the built up area (average total 30 % from 1996 to 2015). The error matrix and confidence limits led to the validation of the result for LULC mapping.

Keywords: land use and land cover change, change detection, image processing, support vector machines

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Authors: Luziane De Fatima Kirchner, Maria De Jesus Dutra Dos Reis, Francine Nathalie Ferraresi Rodrigues Queluz

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This study evaluated the effect of two components of analytic-behavioral intervention (1-management of conditions of the physical environment, 2-management of the interpersonal relationship) of women with fibromyalgia (FM), besides Clinical Significance and Reliable Change at the end of the intervention. Self-report instruments were used to evaluate stress, anxiety, depression, social skills and disability due to pain and Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR). Four women with a medical diagnosis of FM (mean age 52.7; sd = 6.65), participated of the following procedures: initial evaluation, 10 sessions of component 1, intermediate evaluation, 10 sessions of component 2, and final evaluation. The 20 sessions were effective, with positive changes in the scores of all the self-report instruments, highlighting the results of the stress symptoms that had improvement in the intermediate evaluation. There was, however, no change in the cortisol response on awakening. The Clinical Significance or Reliable Change observed, according to the scores of the stress, anxiety, depression and social skills instruments, corroborated the reports of the participants in the session and the objectives of the treatment. Implications for future studies are discussed, above all, the importance in conducting evaluations with the use of direct measures together with self-report measures.

Keywords: behavioral intervention, clinical significance, fibromyalgia, reliable change

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Authors: Miraç Savaş Turhan, Ali Danışman

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New institutional theorists in organization theory have used institutional logics perspective to explain the contradictory practices in modern western societies. Accordingly, distinct institutional logics are embedded in central institutions such as the market, state, democracy, family, and religion. Individual and organizational actors and their practices are restricted and guided by institutional logics in a particular field. Through this perspective, actors are assumed to have a situated, embedded, boundedly intentional, and adaptive role against the structure in social, cultural and political context. Since the early 1990's, increasing number of studies has attempted to explain the role of actors in creating, maintaining, and changing institutions. Yet, most of these studies have focused on organizational field-level actors, ignoring the role that can be played by individual actors within organizations. As a result, we have much information about what organizational field level actors can do, but relatively little knowledge about the ability of organizational change agents within organization in relation to institutional orders. This study is an attempt to find out how the ability of individual actors who attempt to change their organization is constrained and shaped by institutional logics dominating the field. We examine this issue in a private school in the Turkish Education field. We first describe dominating institutional logics in the Turkish Education field. Then we conducted in-depth interviews and content analysis in the school. The early results indicate that attempts and actions of organizational change agents are remarkably directed and shaped by the dominating institutional logics in the Turkish Education field.

Keywords: Institutional logics, individual actors, organizational change, organizational change agent

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Authors: Cherdvong Saengsupavanich

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Human utilizes coastal resources as well as deteriorates them. Coastal tourism may degrade the environment if poorly managed. This research investigated the shoreline change at Koa Toa Island, one of the most famous tourist destinations. Aerial photographs and satellite images from three different periods were collected and analyzed. The results showed that the noticeable shoreline change before and after the tourism on the island had expanded. Between 1995 and 2002 when the tourism on Koh Toa Island was not intensive, sediment deposition occurred along most of the coastline. However, after the tourism had grown during 2002 to 2015, the coast evidently experienced less deposition and more erosion. The erosion resulted from less land-based sediment being provided to the littoral system. If the coastline of Koh Toa Island is not carefully sustained, the tourism will disappear along with the beautiful beach.  

Keywords: coastal engineering and management, coastal erosion, coastal tourism, Koh Toa Island, Thailand

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Authors: Bastien Sanglard, Lou Magnat, Ligia Barna, Julian Carrey, Sébastien Lachaize

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Cooking is a primary need for humans, several techniques being used around the globe based on different sources of energy: electricity, solid fuel (wood, coal...), fuel or liquefied petroleum gas. However, all of them leads to direct or indirect greenhouse gas emissions and sometimes health damage in household. Therefore, the solar concentrated power represent a great option to lower the damages because of a cleaner using phase. Nevertheless, the construction phase of the solar cooker still requires primary energy and materials, which leads to environmental impacts. The aims of this work is to analyse the ecological impacts of a commercialaluminium parabola and to compare it with other means of cooking, taking the boiling of 2 litres of water three times a day during 40 years as the functional unit. Life cycle assessment was performed using the software Umberto and the EcoInvent database. Calculations were realized over more than 13 criteria using two methods: the international panel on climate change method and the ReCiPe method. For the reflector itself, different aluminium provenances were compared, as well as the use of recycled aluminium. For the structure, aluminium was compared to iron (primary and recycled) and wood. Results show that climate impacts of the studied parabola was 0.0353 kgCO2eq/kWh when built with Chinese aluminium and can be reduced by 4 using aluminium from Canada. Assessment also showed that using 32% of recycled aluminium would reduce the impact by 1.33 and 1.43 compared to the use of primary Canadian aluminium and primary Chinese aluminium, respectively. The exclusive use of recycled aluminium lower the impact by 17. Besides, the use of iron (recycled or primary) or wood for the structure supporting the reflector significantly lowers the impact. The impact categories of the ReCiPe method show that the parabola made from Chinese aluminium has the heaviest impact - except for metal resource depletion - compared to aluminium from Canada, recycled aluminium or iron. Impact of solar cooking was then compared to gas stove and induction. The gas stove model was a cast iron tripod that supports the cooking pot, and the induction plate was as well a single spot plate. Results show the parabolic solar cooker has the lowest ecological impact over the 13 criteria of the ReCiPe method and over the global warming potential compared to the two other technologies. The climate impact of gas cooking is 0.628kgCO2/kWh when used with natural gas and 0.723 kgCO2/kWh when used with a bottle of gas. In each case, the main part of emissions came from gas burning. Induction cooking has a global warming potential of 0.12 kgCO2eq/kWh with the electricity mix of France, 96.3% of the impact being due to electricity production. Therefore, the electricity mix is a key factor for this impact: for instance, with the electricity mix of Germany and Poland, impacts are 0.81kgCO2eq/kWh and 1.39 kgCO2eq/kWh, respectively. Therefore, the parabolic solar cooker has a real ecological advantages compared to both gas stove and induction plate.

Keywords: life cycle assessement, solar concentration, cooking, sustainability

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Authors: R. S. Yadav, J. Havlica, I. Kuřitka, Z. Kozakova, J. Masilko, L. Kalina, M. Hajdúchová, V. Enev, J. Wasserbauer

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In this work, copper ferrite CuFe2O4 spinel ferrite nanoparticles with different particle size at different annealing temperature were synthesized using the starch-assisted sol-gel auto-combustion method. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by conventional powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer. The XRD patterns confirmed the formation of CuFe2O4 spinel ferrite nanoparticles. Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy revealed that particles are of spherical morphology with particle size 5-20 nm at lower annealing temperature. An infrared spectroscopy study showed the presence of two principal absorption bands in the frequency range around 530 cm-1 (ν1) and around 360 cm-1 (ν2); which indicate the presence of tetrahedral and octahedral group complexes, respectively, within the spinel ferrite nanoparticles. Raman spectroscopy study also indicated the change in octahedral and tetrahedral site related Raman modes in copper ferrite nanoparticles with change of particle size. This change in magnetic behavior with change of particle size of CuFe2O4 nanoparticles was also observed. The change in magnetic properties with change of particle size is due to cation redistribution, which was confirmed by X-Ray photoelectron study.

Keywords: copper ferrite, nanoparticles, magnetic property, CuFe2O4

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