Search results for: granularity issue

Authors: Hagar Elsayed

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This case study examines the framing of the diverse populations of Arab, Muslim and South Asian immigrants and their descendants in local communities by both federal and local law enforcement agencies. It explores how urban spaces and policing are constructed as necessary components of national security in the context of the war on terror by focusing on practices employed in local spaces such as Dearborn, Michigan and training methods adopted on a national level. The proliferation of American Arabs as ‘terrorist’ works to legitimize not only increasing state surveillance, but also military strategies which infringe on ‘inside’ spaces. Sustaining these progressively militarized civil policing operations, which demand intense mobilization of state power, requires that whole neighborhoods and districts are reimagined to portray these geographies in a certain light. This case study is central in understanding how Arab, South Asian, and Muslim civilians’ transformation into a “national security” issue have created militarized police enforcement agencies that employ military tactics to map the terrain of Otherness. This study looks at how race factors into key recent incidents, and asks whether this militarization builds from past forms of racist policing, and whether these specific incidents are reflective of larger patterns or whether they are just isolated incidents.

Keywords: American-Muslims, Arabs, militarization, policing

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Authors: Selma Sbit, Mohamed Bechir Dadi, Belgacem Chibani Rhaimi

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Incorporating Home eNodeB (HeNB) in cellular networks, e.g. Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A), is beneficial for extending coverage and enhancing capacity at low price especially within the non-line-of sight (NLOS) environments such as homes. HeNB or femtocell is a small low powered base station which provides radio coverage to the mobile users in an indoor environment. This deployment results in a heterogeneous network where the available spectrum becomes shared between two layers. Therefore, a problem of Inter Cell Interference (ICI) appears. This issue is the main challenge in LTE-A. To deal with this challenge, various techniques based on frequency, time and power control are proposed. This paper deals with the impact of carrier aggregation and higher order MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) schemes on the LTE-Advanced performance. Simulation results show the advantages of these schemes on the system capacity (4.10⁹ b/s/Hz when bandwidth B=100 MHz and when applying MIMO 8x8 for SINR=30 dB), maximum theoretical peak data rate (more than 4 Gbps for B=100 MHz and when MIMO 8x8 is used) and spectral efficiency (15 b/s/Hz and 30b/s/Hz when MIMO 4x4 and MIMO 8x8 are applying respectively for SINR=30 dB).

Keywords: capacity, carrier aggregation, LTE-Advanced, MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), peak data rate, spectral efficiency

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Authors: Qazi Sarah Rasheed

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Feminism and religion have been regarded as opposing binaries. The reason being that religion is regarded as a tool to legitimize the patriarchal control over women, and therefore, it stands in contrast with the basic feminist principle of gender equity. Hence, the issue of incompatibility between religion and gender parity is often discussed by the feminist as well as secular/liberal discourses, but the feminist discourse has suffered a serious backlash in the recent times for it alienates those women who want to liberate but not at the expense of their religious identity. Though in the Western feminist thought, religion is regarded as a tool of patriarchy that promotes women’s suppression, but for many women, religion can be a source of liberation that advances their rights. The feminists in general, fail to realize that religion, as a social phenomenon may not necessarily promote a series of dogmatic doctrines which are inevitably retrogressive or instinctively status-quoist especially when it comes to the social reforms affecting gender orders. The traditional institution of religion could be instrumental to provide what the women in contemporary situation demand. This paper highlights how the Muslim women in India negotiate and mediate this opposition in an Islamic context. To advance the socio-legal recognition of women’s rights, they question the male privilege and patriarchy in a meaningful way without challenging their Islamic doctrines and try to build a feminist consciousness from within religion.

Keywords: feminism, Islam, Muslim women's rights, religious identity

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Authors: Disaya Jaroensattayatham

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Nowadays, infectious diseases are prevalent and severe health problems as they render the increment of casualty, illness, and global economic recession. Along with the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, the potency of typically used antibiotics can be affected to a considerable degree. As a result, unorthodox antibiotics have become an urgent issue in the pharmaceutical field. Piper betle L., known as betle leaf, has been used for many purposes, such as a traditional home remedy, and has shown its ability in inhibiting bacteria as well as fungus. Thus, in this study, the investigation of antimicrobial activities of the Piper betle L. extracts was carried out using the Agar disk-diffusion method and Broth microdilution, aiming to evaluate and determine its efficacy to inhibit bacterial and fungal growth of Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, and Candida albicans. In the agar disk-diffusion test, the extracts of Piper betle L. gave the maximum zone of inhibition of 15.1 mm (S. aureus), 7.7 mm (S. typhi), and 11.7 mm (C. albicans), while its MIC values were 1000 µg/ml in S. aureus and greater than 2000 µg/ml in S. typhi and C. albicans. According to the results, the Piper betle L. obtains an antimicrobial activity and shows a higher effect towards gram-positive bacteria than gram-negative bacteria. To determine the mechanism behind its ability, more research is needed to be performed in the future.

Keywords: antimicrobial activity, Candida albicans, Piper betle L., Salmonella typhi, Staphylococcus aureus

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Authors: Jeong Hwa Ryong

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Numerous characters appear in the works of England’s most prominent play writer, William Shakespeare. Most of the time, his male protagonists possess various and complex characteristics throughout the storyline of his work, making it interesting for the readers to analyze their actions in many different aspects. However, some critics argue that unlike male characters, Shakespeare’s female characters are rather more flat and one-sided, pointing out that they are either the extreme version of good or evil. Especially, it is a significant topic to discuss in the modern days, considering the fact that gender stereotype is now a sensitive issue. Starting from such argument, it is important to address their purpose of being in the play and suggest their meaning to the modern readers of today. In this context, this paper analyzes several female characters of Shakespeare’s work by closely examining their actions and lines. The characters analyzed are Ophelia from Hamlet, Cordelia from King Lear, Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew, Goneril from King Lear and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth. Nevertheless, some female protagonists of Shakespeare’s work do not fall in to this category and exceed the limitations of others. Therefore this paper proposes alternative characters such as Juliet from Romeo and Juliet and Portia from The Merchant of Venice that are rather more complex and difficult to include in just one category. By doing so, this paper critically analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of many female characters in Shakespeare’s play.

Keywords: female characters, gender stereotype, William Shakespeare

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Authors: Asmat Siddiqui, Noor Us Saher

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Heavy metal contamination in the marine environment is a global issue, and in past decades, this problem has intensified due to an increase in urbanization and industrialization, especially in developing countries. Marine sediments act as a preliminary indicator of heavy metal contamination in the coastal and estuarine environment, which has adverse effects on biota as well as in the marine system. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the contamination status, enrichment, and flux of heavy metals in two monitoring years from coastal sediments of Pakistan. A total of 74 sediment samples were collected from seven coastal areas of Pakistan in two monitoring years, 2001-03 (MY-I) and 2011-13 (MY-II). The geochemical properties (grain size analysis, organic contents and eight heavy metals, i.e. Fe, Zn, Cu, Cr, Ni, Co, Pb, and Cd) of all sediment samples were analyzed. A significant increase in Fe, Ni and Cr concentrations detected between the years, whereas no significant differences were exhibited in Cu, Zn, Co, Pb and Cd concentrations. The extremely high enrichment (>50) of Cu, Zn, Pb and Cd were scrutinized in both monitoring years. The annual deposition flux of heavy metals ranged from 0.63 to 66.44 and 0.78 to 68.27 tons per year in MY-I and MY-II, respectively, with the lowest flux evaluated for Cd and highest for Zn in both monitoring years. A significant increase (p <0.05) was observed in the burial flux of Cr and Ni during the last decade in coastal sediments. The use of geo-indicators is helpful to assess the contamination analysis for management and conservation of the marine environment.

Keywords: coastal contamination, enrichment factor, geo-indicator, heavy metal flux

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Authors: Asim Majeed, Rehan Bhana, Mak Sharma, Rebecca Goode, Nizam Bolia, Mike Lloyd-Williams

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This study aims to investigate and explore the underlying causes of security concerns of customers emerged when WHSmith transformed its physical system to virtualized business model through NetSuite. NetSuite is essentially fully integrated software which helps transforming the physical system to virtualized business model. Modern organisations are moving away from traditional business models to cloud based models and consequently it is expected to have a better, secure and innovative environment for customers. The vital issue of the modern age race is the security when transforming virtualized through cloud based models and designers of interactive systems often misunderstand privacy and even often ignore it, thus causing concerns for users. The content analysis approach is being used to collect the qualitative data from 120 online bloggers including TRUSTPILOT. The results and finding provide useful new insights into the nature and form of security concerns of online users after they have used the WHSmith services offered online through their website. Findings have theoretical as well as practical implications for the successful adoption of cloud computing Business-to-Business model and similar systems.

Keywords: innovation, virtualization, cloud computing, organizational flexibility

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Authors: C. Asha Poorna, P. G. Vinod, A. R. R. Menon

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Currently increasing population and their activities like urbanization and industrialization generating the greatest environmental, issue called Waste. And the major problem in waste management is selection of an appropriate site for waste disposal. The selection of suitable site have constrains like environmental, economical and political considerations. In this paper we discuss the strategies to be followed while selecting a site for decentralized system for solid waste disposal, using Geographic Information System (GIS), the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the remote sensing method for Thiruvananthapuram corporation area. It is located on the west coast of India near the extreme south of the mainland. It lies on the shores of Killiyar and Karamana River. Being on the basin the waste managements must be regulated with the water body. The different criteria considered for waste disposal site selection are lithology, surface water, aquifer, groundwater, land use, contours, aspect, elevation, slope, and distance to road, distance from settlement are examined in relation to land fill site selection. Each criterion was identified and weighted by AHP score and mapped using GIS technique and suitable map is prepared by overlay analysis.

Keywords: waste disposal, solid waste management, Geographic Information System (GIS), Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

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Authors: Maria Francesca Maunes

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Life is never the same when an adolescent becomes a teenage parent. Living in a developing country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the Asia-Pacific region, it is necessary to address the psychological well-being of Filipino teenage parents and be put into consideration. Thus, this quantitative study used both descriptive statistics and quantitative techniques on a total of 70 participants, consisting of 32 teenage fathers and 38 teenage mothers to describe the level of psychological well-being among teenage parents according to the six domains of Ryff’s eudaimonic well-being—autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance, and to determine the difference between the psychological well-being of teenage fathers and teenage mothers. Results show that there is no significant difference in the overall psychological well-being between the two groups of participants, yet, when compared by each domain, it is found that there is a significant difference between their purpose in life. While both teenage fathers and teenage mothers are high scorers across all the domains, this does not serve as an assurance that the sustained increase in the number of teenage pregnancies in the Philippines does not anymore pose as a national issue. This could only signify that despite dire circumstances, Filipino teenage parents are able to continue make meaning in their lives and strive to keep living in comfort and contentment, not only for themselves but for their children as well. Additional findings as well as its implications are further discussed. Recommendations and suggestions for further study are presented.

Keywords: adolescence, adolescent psychology, eudaimonic psychological well-being, positive psychology, teenage fathers, teenage mothers, teenage parents, teenage pregnancy in the Philippines

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Authors: M. Elham Ghabouli

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Intermediate cities which also called medium size cities have an important role in the process of globalization. It is argued that, in some cases this type of cities may be depopulated or in otherwise may be transformed as the periphery of metropolitans so that the personal identity of the city and its local cultural heritage could suffer from its neighbor metropolitan. Over the last decades, the role of tourism in development process and the cultural heritage is increased. The effect of tourism in socio-economic growth makes motivation for study on tourism development in regional and urban planning process. Tourism potentially has a specific role in promoting sustainable development especially by its economic and socio-cultural effects. The positive role of tourism in local development and in cultural heritage should be empowered by urban and regional planning. Damavand is an intermediate city located in Tehran province, Iran. Considering its local specific characteristic like social structure, antiquities and natural monuments made a suitable case study for studying on urban tourism planning method. Focusing on recognition of historical and cultural heritage of Damavand, this paper tried to peruse cultural-historical heritage protecting issue through “base plan methodology” which is introduced as a first step of urban planning for intermediate cities.

Keywords: urban planning, tourism, cultural heritage, intermediate cities

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Authors: Beata Hornickova, Sona Lorencova

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The study deals with the presentation of the results of qualitatively oriented research, which was carried out in the scope of determining the attitudes of parents to preschool education in the Czech Republic. The research is conceived as an entry into the field of the researched issue and aimed to support the effectiveness of the items of the questionnaire, which was subsequently created based on the parents’ statements from interviews. The research method was interview with 15 parents of preschool children. The main aim of the interviews was to find out their views on the compulsory attendance of their children in kindergarten. Compulsory pre-school attendance has been introduced in the Czech Republic since 2017/18 with the aim of reducing delays in the entry of children into primary school and eliminating subsequent school failures. The findings offered a look at the differing views on compulsory kindergarten school influenced by the different socio-economic status of parents. Parents with a higher socio-economic status attached greater importance to the educational component of compulsory preschool attendance as a preparation for primary school, while parents with a lower socio-economic status emphasized the educational component. An interesting finding is also a statement from interviews of a parent who does not find benefits in compulsory preschool attendance.

Keywords: compulsory pre-school education, education of pre-school children, kindergarten, parents’ opinions on pre-school education

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Authors: Souad Romdhane, Lotfi Belkacem

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When referring to actuarial analysis of lifetime, only models accounting for observable risk factors have been developed. Within this context, Cox proportional hazards model (CPH model) is commonly used to assess the effects of observable covariates as gender, age, smoking habits, on the hazard rates. These covariates may fail to fully account for the true lifetime interval. This may be due to the existence of another random variable (frailty) that is still being ignored. The aim of this paper is to examine the shared frailty issue in the Cox proportional hazard model by including two different parametric forms of frailty into the hazard function. Four estimated methods are used to fit them. The performance of the parameter estimates is assessed and compared between the classical Cox model and these frailty models through a real-life data set from the Quebec Pension Plan and then using a more general simulation study. This performance is investigated in terms of the bias of point estimates and their empirical standard errors in both fixed and random effect parts. Both the simulation and the real dataset studies showed differences between classical Cox model and shared frailty model.

Keywords: life insurance-pension plan, survival analysis, risk factors, cox proportional hazards model, multivariate failure-time data, shared frailty, simulations study

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Authors: Nadia Pourabbas Tahvildari

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National identity is formed in the process of time and in the community while influenced by the historical events. The country which has a more coherent national and historical identity would be successful as well as strengthening solidarity and social cohesion. Among the international community where the various likes challenge the subject of identity, taking into consideration the components which using identity seems to be very critical. Handicrafts as reflecting the historical and cultural characteristics of the product location can be used as an important component in order to introduce the culture and identity to be evaluated. As one of the most durable crafts for man, handicrafts have played a continuous role in sustaining human culture. Today without the presence of handicrafts, restoration of culture and national identity and religious beliefs of the past clans and people, is not only difficult but is even impossible also. Due to its brilliant historical experience and having rich culture and civilization, Iran has accomplished to the high competence in the field of traditional arts and handicrafts. This article is a scientific approach which by using descriptive – analytic method based on library studies tried to address the issue of handicrafts looking to examine the position of the industry to consolidate the national identity. Studies indicate that Iran as one of the original human habitats in the field of handicrafts has adequate enrichment and in case there will be an appropriate planning and investment away from oil-based industry, it would be beneficent. Furthermore, the quality and variety of handicrafts can be used as an essential yardstick for the consolidation of Iran national identity in the age of globalization.

Keywords: handicrafts, Iran national identity, globalization, cultural heritage

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Authors: Monica Alzate, Marcos Dono, Jose Manuel Sabucedo

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As long as collective action and its predictors constitute a big body of work in the field of political psychology, context-dependent studies and moral variables are a relatively new issue. The main goal of this presentation is to examine the differences in the predictors of collective action when taking into account two different types of protest, and also focus on the role of moral obligation as a predictor of collective action. To do so, we sampled both protesters and non-protesters from two mobilizations (N=376; N=563) of different nature (catalan Independence, and an 'indignados' march) and performed a logistic regression and a 2x2 MANOVA analysis. Results showed that the predictive variables that were more discriminative between protesters and non-protesters were identity, injustice, efficacy and moral obligation for the catalan Diada and injustice and moral obligation for the 'indignados'. Also while the catalans scored higher in the identification and efficacy variables, the indignados did so in injustice and moral obligation. Differences are evidenced between two types of collective action that coexist within the same protest cycle. The frames of injustice and moral obligation gain strength in the post-2010 mobilizations, a fact probably associated with the combination of materialist and post-materialist values that distinguish the movement. All of this emphasizes the need of studying protest from a contextual point of view. Besides, moral obligation emerges as key predictor of collective action engagement.

Keywords: collective action, identity, moral obligation, protest

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Authors: Ching-Pin Tseng

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Cultural heritages are tangible and intangible catalysts for recollecting collective memories and cultural signification. Through visiting the heritage and with the aid of exhibition and visual indications, the visitor may visually and spatially grasp some fragments of the stories and occurrences of the site. However, there may be some discrepancies between the narration of historical happenings that occurred at the place and the spatial exhibition of the historic monument. Narratives of collective events may not be revealed merely by physical relics or objects. In order to build up a connection between the past and the present, the paper thus intends to discuss what means can engender vitalizations within cultural heritages. As the preservation of cultural heritages has been a universal consensus and common interests, its association with modern lives has also been an important issue. The paper will explore some site-specific theatres held in the art festivals in the south of Taiwan so as to examine the correlation between site-specific performances and the conservation of historic monuments. In the light of Victor Hugo’s argument that the place where events happened before can be silent characters for representing the reality of art and for impressing the spectator, this paper argues that site-specific theatres may bring vitality into tangible cultural heritages. At the end of this paper, the notion of localization will be utilized to examine the spatial setting and the materiality of scenic design in relation to the site-specific theatres within cultural heritages.

Keywords: site-specificity, cultural heritage, localization, materiality

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Authors: Surendra Kumar Patel

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Disability is not just a health problem; it is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s age and physiology. Population ageing is a major demographic issue for India in the 21st century. Older population of India constituted 8% of total population, while 5.19% has affected by disability of older age group. Objective of the present research paper is to examine the state wise differential in disability among 60+ population and to access the health care of disabled population especially the 60+ disabled persons. The data sources of the present paper are census 2001 and 2011. For analyzing the state wise differentials by disability types and comparative advantage of data, rate, ratio, and percentage have been used. The Standardized Index of Diversity of Disability (SIDD) studies differential and diversity in disability. The results show that there are 5.19% persons have disability among 60+ population and sex differential not very significant, as it is 5.3 % of male and 5.05% in female in India but place of residence shows significant variation from 2001 to 2011 census. There is huge diversity in disability prevalence among 60+ in India, highest in Sikkim followed by Rajasthan, approximately, they comprise 11%, and the lowest found in Tamil Nadu as 2.53%. This huge gap in prevalence percentage shows the health care needs of highly prevailing states.

Keywords: disability, Standardized Index of Diversity of Disability (SIDD), differential and diversity in disability, 60+ population

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Authors: Jaegu Choi, Jae-Mean Koo, Chang-Sung Seok, Byungwoo Moon

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Since massive earthquakes in the world have been reported recently, the safety of nuclear power plants for seismic loading has become a significant issue. Seismic loading is the reverse cyclic loading, consisting of repeated tensile and compression by longitudinal and transverse wave. Up to this time, the study on characteristics of fracture toughness under reverse cyclic loading has been unsatisfactory. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain the fracture toughness under reverse cyclic load for the integrity estimation of nuclear power plants under seismic load. Fracture resistance (J-R) curves, which are used for determination of fracture toughness or integrity estimation in terms of elastic-plastic fracture mechanics, can be derived by the fracture resistance test using single specimen technique. The objective of this paper is to study the effects of reverse cyclic loading on a fracture resistance curve of ESG specimen, having a similar stress gradient compared to the crack surface of the real pipe. For this, we carried out the fracture toughness test under the reverse cyclic loading, while changing incremental plastic displacement. Test results showed that the J-R curves were decreased with a decrease of the incremental plastic displacement.

Keywords: reverse cyclic loading, j-r curve, ESG specimen, incremental plastic displacement

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Authors: Levente Varga, Dávid Deritei, Mária Ercsey-Ravasz, Răzvan Florian, Zsolt I. Lázár, István Papp, Ferenc Járai-Szabó

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One of the major shortcomings of widely used scientometric indicators is that different disciplines cannot be compared with each other. The issue of cross-disciplinary normalization has been long discussed, but even the classification of publications into scientific domains poses problems. Structural properties of citation networks offer new possibilities, however, the large size and constant growth of these networks asks for precaution. Here we present a new tool that in order to perform cross-field normalization of scientometric indicators of individual publications relays on the structural properties of citation networks. Due to the large size of the networks, a systematic procedure for identifying scientific domains based on a local community detection algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is tested with different benchmark and real-world networks. Then, by the use of this algorithm, the mechanism of the scientometric indicator normalization process is shown for a few indicators like the citation number, P-index and a local version of the PageRank indicator. The fat-tail trend of the article indicator distribution enables us to successfully perform the indicator normalization process.

Keywords: citation networks, cross-field normalization, local cluster detection, scientometric indicators

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Authors: Q. J. Yang

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This paper presents a case study of geotechnical design of bridge foundations and approaches in hilly granite formation in northern New South Wales of Australia. Firstly, the geological formation and existing cut slope conditions which have high risks of rock fall will be described. The bridge has three spans to be constructed using balanced cantilever method with a middle span of 150 m. After concept design option engineering, it was decided to change from pile foundation to pad footing with ground anchor system to optimize the bridge foundation design. The geotechnical design parameters were derived after two staged site investigations. The foundation design was carried out to satisfy both serviceability limit state and ultimate limit state during construction and in operation. It was found that the pad footing design was governed by serviceability limit state design loading cases. The design of bridge foundation also considered presence of weak rock layer intrusion and a layer of “no core” to ensure foundation stability. The precast mass concrete block system was considered for the retaining walls for the bridge approaches to resolve the constructability issue over hilly terrain. The design considered the retaining wall block sliding stability, while the overturning and internal stabilities are satisfied.

Keywords: pad footing, Hilly formation, stability, block works

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Authors: Frederik Schulte, Stefan Voß

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The adverse effects of air pollution on public health are an increasingly vital problem in planning for urban regions in many parts of the world. The issue is addressed from various angles and by distinct disciplines in research. Epidemiological studies model the relative increase of numerous diseases in response to an increment of different forms of air pollution. A significant share of air pollution in urban regions is related to transport emissions that are often measured and stored in emission inventories. Though, most approaches in transport planning, engineering, and operational design of transport activities are restricted to general emission limits for specific air pollutants and do not consider more nuanced exposure models. We conduct an extensive literature review on exposure models and emission inventories used to study the health impact of transport emissions. Furthermore, we review methods applied in both domains and use emission inventory data of transportation hubs such as ports, airports, and urban traffic for an in-depth analysis of public health impacts deploying medical exposure models. The results reveal specific urban health risks related to transport emissions that may improve urban planning for environmental health by providing insights in actual health effects instead of only referring to general emission limits.

Keywords: emission inventories, exposure models, transport emissions, urban health

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Authors: Mohammed Aladalah

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The emergence of digital citizens is no longer mere speculation; therefore, governments’ use of Web 2.0 tools (hereafter Gov 2.0) should be a part of all current and future e-government plans. The potential of Gov 2.0 to facilitate greater communication, participation, and collaboration with citizens has been highlighted and discussed extensively in recent literature. However, the current levels of citizens’ participation in Gov 2.0 have not lived up to the hype. Therefore, governments need to rethink the way in which they implement Gov 2.0, and take advantage of the digitally-engaged population. We propose a two-dimensional framework to tackle this issue: first, on the supply side, governments tend to use Gov 2.0 mainly for the dissemination of information and for self-promotion without the desire to encourage any interaction with citizens; this is due to many reasons, including the lack of time and the possibility of loss of control. The second dimension of the framework is the demand side; citizens are unwilling to participate in Gov 2.0 activities because they do not perceive its value or trust the government. We attempt to consider the elements of both supply and demand in order to provide a comprehensive solution whereby the potential of Gov 2.0 can be fully utilized. Our framework is based on the theoretical foundation of service science and value co-creation theory. This paper makes two significant contributions: (a) it provides an initial framework intended to increase citizens’ participation in Gov 2.0; and (b) it enhances the understanding of the government’s Gov 2.0 applications, particularly in terms of factors that ensure their attractiveness for citizens. This work is the first step in a comprehensive research undertaking, the purpose of which is to study public’s engagement with the Gov 2.0 concept. It contributes to providing a better understanding of e-government and its future.

Keywords: e-government, Gov 2.0, citizens participation, digital citizen

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Authors: Duduku Krishnaiah, S. M. Anisuzzaman, Kumaran Govindaraj, Chiam Chel Ken, Zykamilia Kamin

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Pure essential oil is highly demanded in the market since most of the so-called pure essential oils in the market contains alcohol. This is because of the usage of alcohol in separating oil and water mixture. Removal of pure essential oil from water without using any chemical solvent has become a challenging issue. Adsorbents generally have the properties of separating hydrophobic oil from hydrophilic mixture. Polypropylen nanofiber is a thermoplastic polymer which is produced from propylene. It was used as an adsorbent in this study. Based on the research, it was found that the polypropylene nanofiber was able to adsorb peppermint oil from the aqueous solution over a wide range of concentration. Based on scanning electron microscope (SEM), nanofiber has very small nano diameter fiber size in average before the adsorption and larger scaled average diameter of fibers after adsorption which indicates that smaller diameter of nanofiber enhances the adsorption process. The adsorption capacity of peppermint oil increases as the initial concentration of peppermint oil and amount of polypropylene nanofiber used increases. The maximum adsorption capacity of polypropylene nanofiber was found to be 689.5 mg/g at (T= 30°C). Moreover, the adsorption capacity of peppermint oil decreases as the temperature of solution increases. The equilibrium data of polypropylene nanofiber is best represented by Freundlich isotherm with the maximum adsorption capacity of 689.5 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics of polypropylene nanofiber was best represented by pseudo-second order model.

Keywords: nanofiber, adsorption, peppermint essential oil, isotherms, adsorption kinetics

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Authors: Hossam El-Sayed Emam

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As an essential issue for life, water while it’s important for all living organisms. However, the world is dangerously facing the serious problem for the deficiency of the sources of drinking water. Within the aquatic systems, there are various gases, microbes, and other toxic ingredients (chemical compounds and heavy metals) occurred owing to the draining of agricultural and industrial wastewater, resulting in water pollution. On the other hand, fuel (gaseous, liquid, or in solid phase) is one of the extensively consumable energy sources, and owing to its origin from fossil, it contains some sulfur-, nitrogen- and oxygen-based compounds that cause serious problems (toxicity, catalyst poisoning, corrosion, and gum formation andcarcinogenic effects), to be ascribed as undesirable pollutants.MOFs as porous coordinating polymers are superiorly exploited in the adsorption and separationof contaminants for wastewater treatment and fuel purification. The inclusion of highly adsorbent materials like MOFs to be immobilized within cellulosic materialscould be investigated as a new challenge for the separation of contaminants with high efficiency and opportunity for recyclability. Therefore, the current approach ascribes the exploitation of different MOFsimmobilized within cellulose (powder, films, and fabrics)for applications in environmental. Herein, using cellulose containing MOFs in dye removal (degradation and adsorption), pharmaceutical intermediates removal, and fuel purification were summarized.

Keywords: cellulose, MOFs, dye removal, pharmaceutical intermediates, fuel purification

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Authors: Swati Gupta, Shagun Sodhani, Dhaval Patel, Biplab Banerjee

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It is generic that news sources publish news in different broad categories. These categories can either be generic such as Business, Sports, etc. or time-specific such as World Cup 2015 and Nepal Earthquake or both. It is up to the news agencies to build the categories. Extracting news categories automatically from numerous online news sources is expected to be helpful in many applications including news source recommendations and time specific news category extraction. To address this issue, existing systems like DMOZ directory and Yahoo directory are mostly considered though they are mostly human annotated and do not consider the time dynamism of categories of news websites. As a remedy, we propose an approach to automatically extract news category URLs from news websites in this paper. News category URL is a link which points to a category in news websites. We use the news category URL as a prior knowledge to develop a news source recommendation system which contains news sources listed in various categories in order of ranking. In addition, we also propose an approach to rank numerous news sources in different categories using various parameters like Traffic Based Website Importance, Social media Analysis and Category Wise Article Freshness. Experimental results on category URLs captured from GDELT project during April 2016 to December 2016 show the adequacy of the proposed method.

Keywords: news category, category network, news sources, ranking

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Authors: Angelyn Del Mundo

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Bullying cases are a proliferating issue that schools need to address. This calls for a challenge in providing effective measures to reduce bullying. The study aimed to determine which among the socio-emotional aspects of adolescent males could predict bullying. The respondents of the study were the grades 10 and 11 level and the selection of the respondents was based on the names listed by the teachers and guidance counselors through the Student Nomination Questionnaire. The Bullying Survey Questionnaire Checklist was answered by the respondents to be able to identify their most observed bullying behavior. On the other hand, the level of their mental ability was measured through the use of Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, while their socio-emotional aspects was is classified into 2 contexts: emotional intelligence and personality traits which were determined with the use of Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version (BarOn EQ-i:YV) and the Five-Factor Personality Inventory-Children (FFPI-C). Results indicated that majority of the respondents have average level of mental ability and socio-emotional aspects. However, many students have low to markedly low level interpersonal scale. Furthermore, general mood and emotional regulation were found as predictors of bullying behaviors. These findings became the basis for a proposed bullying intervention program.

Keywords: bullying, emotional intelligence, mental ability, personality traits

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Authors: Francis N. Okpaleke

Abstract:

The threat of Fulani herder militancy in Nigeria has led to a volatile security situation characterized by communal strife, arms proliferation, rural banditry, and insurgency. The exigency of this situation resonates in the eco-survivalist theory of farmer-herder conflict which holds that the herder deems the farmers’ unwarranted incursions into his grazing terrain as an effrontery that must reprised and a call to war. In spite of the rising incidence of Fulani militancy in Nigeria, only little is known concerning the phenomenon. The bulk of prevailing ideas on the subject has been largely and unnecessarily journalistic and anecdotal, lacking in intellectual depth, fecundity and rigour. The issue has remained scarcely documented by way of organized research. There is therefore a need for a systematic investigation that would leverage scholarly and policy insights on the subject which is the purpose of this study. The study will therefore, seek to examine the nexus between nomadic pastoralism and the incidence of herder-farmer conflicts in Nigeria with particular reference to the central region of the country. By means of qualitative descriptive analysis predicated on the theory of eco-violence, the paper explores the contemporary historical and structural drivers of this conflict, its relationship with the dynamics of climate change in Nigeria and its implication of human security in Nigeria. The paper also proffers theoretical and policy recommendations to mitigate the onto ward conflict.

Keywords: eco-survivalism, conflict, pastoralism, nomads

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Authors: Sofiane Bououden, Ilyes Boulkaibet

Abstract:

In this paper, a robust fault-tolerant predictive control (FTPC) strategy is proposed for systems with linear parameter varying (LPV) models and input constraints subject to sensor faults. Generally, virtual observers are used for improving the observation precision and reduce the impacts of sensor faults and uncertainties in the system. However, this type of observer lacks certain system measurements which substantially reduce its accuracy. To deal with this issue, a real observer is then designed based on the virtual observer, and consequently a real observer-based robust predictive control is designed for polytopic LPV systems. Moreover, the proposed observer can entirely assure that all system states and sensor faults are estimated. As a result, and based on both observers, a robust fault-tolerant predictive control is then established via the Lyapunov method where sufficient conditions are proposed, for stability analysis and control purposes, in linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) form. Finally, simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords: linear parameter varying systems, fault-tolerant predictive control, observer-based control, sensor faults, input constraints, linear matrix inequalities

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Authors: Young Mun Lee, Seon Ho Kim, Seok Min Choi, JeongJu Kim, Seungyeong Choi, Hyung Hee Cho

Abstract:

To decrease sulfur oxide in the flue gas from coal power plant, a flue gas de-sulfurization facility is operated. In the reactor, a chemical reaction occurs with a temperature change of the gas so that sulfur oxide is removed and cleaned air is emitted. In this process, temperature change induces a serious problem which is a cold erosion of stack. To solve this problem, the rotary heat exchanger is managed before the stack. In the heat exchanger, a heating element is equipped to increase a heat transfer area. Heat transfer and pressure loss is a big issue to improve a performance. In this research, thermal-fluid characteristics of the heating element are analyzed by computational fluid dynamics. Fouling simulation is also conducted to calculate a performance of heating element. Numerical analysis is performed on the situation where plugging phenomenon has already occurred and existed in the inlet region of the heating element. As the pressure of the rear part of the plugging decreases suddenly and the flow velocity becomes slower, it is found that the flow is gathered from both sides as it develops in the flow direction, and it is confirmed that the pressure difference due to plugging is increased.

Keywords: heating element, plugging, rotary heat exchanger, thermal fluid characteristics

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Authors: Chenyu Huang, Minrong Cui, Hua Fang, Luqing Zhang, Yunlong Yu

Abstract:

The emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) have become a pressing issue in global agricultural production. However, understanding how these ARGs spread across different spatial scales, especially when exposed to both pesticides and antibiotics, has remained a challenge. Here, metagenomic assembly and binning methodologies were used to determine the mechanism of ARG propagation within soil-lettuce systems exposed to both fungicides and antibiotics. The results of our study showed that the presence of fungicide and antibiotic stresses had a significant impact on certain bacterial communities. Notably, we observed that ARGs were primarily transferred from the soil to the plant through plasmids. The selective pressure exerted by fungicides and antibiotics contributed to an increase in unique ARGs present on lettuce leaves. Moreover, ARGs located on chromosomes and plasmids followed different transmission patterns. The presence of diverse selective pressures, a result of compound treatments involving antibiotics and fungicides, amplifies this phenomenon. Consequently, there is a higher probability of bacteria developing multi-antibiotic resistance under the combined pressure of fungicides and antibiotics. In summary, our findings highlight that combined fungicide and antibiotic treatments are more likely to drive the acquisition of ARGs within the soil-plant system and may increase the risk of human ingestion.

Keywords: soil-lettuce system, fungicide, antibiotic, ARG, transmission

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Authors: Riddhi Trivedi, Shrenik Shah

Abstract:

For Si RNA to be delivered various biodegradable polymers are trialed by many researchers. One of them is Chitosan (CS) nanoparticles which have been extensively studied for siRNA delivery but the stability and efficacy of such particles are highly dependent on the types of cross-linker used. Hence the attempts are made in this study with PGA To address this issue, three common cross-linkers; Ethylene glycol diacrylate (ED) and poly-D-glutamic acid (PGA) were used to prepare siRNA loaded CS-ED/PGA nanoparticles by ionic gelation method. The nanoparticles which were obtained were compared for its characterization in terms of its physicochemical properties i.e. particle size of the resultant particles, zeta potential, its encapsulation capacity in the polymer. Among all the formulations prepared with different crosslinker PGA siRNA had the smallest particle size (ranged from 120 ± 1.7 to 500 ± 10.9 nm) with zeta potential ranged from 22.1 ± 1.5 to +32.4 ± 0.5 mV, and high entrapment ( > 91%) and binding efficiencies. Similarly, CS-ED nanoparticles showed better siRNA protection during storage at 4˚C and as determined by serum protection assay. TEM micrographs revealed the assorted morphology of CS-PGA-siRNA nanoparticles in contrast to irregular morphology displayed by CS-ED-siRNA. All siRNA loaded nanoparticles were found to give initial burst release which after some time followed by a sustained release of siRNA which were loaded inside. All the formulations showed concentration-dependent cytotoxicity with when cytotoxicity performed by HeLa and normal vero cell lines.

Keywords: chitosan, siRNA, cytotoxicity, cell line study

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