Search results for: balance training

Authors: Arthur C. Tsai, Chii-Shyang Kuo, Vincent S. C. Chien, Michelle Liou, Philip E. Cheng

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Meditation enhances mental abilities and it is an antidote to anxiety. However, very little is known about brain mechanisms and cortico-subcortical interactions underlying meditation-induced anxiety relief. In this study, the changes of phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) in which the amplitude of the beta frequency band were modulated in phase with delta rhythm were investigated after eight-week of meditation training. The study hypothesized that through a concentrate but relaxed mental training the delta-beta coupling in the frontal regions is attenuated. The delta-beta coupling analysis was applied to within and between maximally-independent component sources returned from the extended infomax independent components analysis (ICA) algorithm on the continuous EEG data during mediation. A unique meditative concentration task through relaxing body and mind was used with a constant level of moderate mental effort, so as to approach an ‘emptiness’ meditative state. A pre-test/post-test control group design was used in this study. To evaluate cross-frequency phase-amplitude coupling of component sources, the modulation index (MI) with statistics to calculate circular phase statistics were estimated. Our findings reveal that a significant delta-beta decoupling was observed in a set of frontal regions bilaterally. In addition, beta frequency band of prefrontal component were amplitude modulated in phase with the delta rhythm of medial frontal component.

Keywords: phase-amplitude coupling, ICA, meditation, EEG

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Authors: X. Li, Y. Liu, H. Wong, B. Pardoen, A. Fabbri, F. McGregor, E. Liu

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The target of this paper is to investigate how saturated poroelastic soils subject to freezing temperatures behave and how different boundary conditions can intervene and affect the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) responses, based on a particular but classical configuration of a finite homogeneous soil layer studied by Terzaghi. The essential relations on the constitutive behavior of a freezing soil are firstly recalled: ice crystal - liquid water thermodynamic equilibrium, hydromechanical constitutive equations, momentum balance, water mass balance, and the thermal diffusion equation, in general, non-linear case where material parameters are state-dependent. The system of equations is firstly linearized, assuming all material parameters to be constants, particularly the permeability of liquid water, which should depend on the ice content. Two analytical solutions solved by the classic Laplace transform are then developed, accounting for two different sets of boundary conditions. Afterward, the general non-linear equations with state-dependent parameters are solved using a commercial code COMSOL based on finite elements method to obtain numerical results. The validity of this numerical modeling is partially verified using the analytical solution in the limiting case of state-independent parameters. Comparison between the results given by the linearized analytical solutions and the non-linear numerical model reveals that the above-mentioned linear computation will always underestimate the liquid pore pressure and displacement, whatever the hydraulic boundary conditions are. In the nonlinear model, the faster growth of ice crystals, accompanying the subsequent reduction of permeability of freezing soil layer, makes a longer duration for the depressurization of water liquid and slower settlement in the case where the ground surface is swiftly covered by a thin layer of ice, as well as a bigger global liquid pressure and swelling in the case of the impermeable ground surface. Nonetheless, the analytical solutions based on linearized equations give a correct order-of-magnitude estimate, especially at moderate temperature variations, and remain a useful tool for preliminary design checks.

Keywords: chemical potential, cryosuction, Laplace transform, multiphysics coupling, phase transformation, thermodynamic equilibrium

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Authors: N. Uaphongsathorn, C. Worawong, S. Thaewpia

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Background and significance: The population is aging in Thai society, the elderly dependent is at great risk of various functional, psychological, and socio-economic problems as well as less access to health care. They may require long term care at home to maximize their functional abilities and activities of daily living and to improve their quality of life during their own age. Therefore, there is a need to develop a home-based long term care to meet the long term care needs of elders dependent. Methods: The research purpose was to develop long term care model among the elderly dependent in Chaiyaphum province in Northeast region of Thailand. Action Research which is composing of planning, action, observation, and reflection phases was used. Research was carried out for 12 months in all sub-districts of 6 districts in Chaiyaphum province. Participants (N = 1,010) participating in the processes of model development were comprised of 3 groups: a) a total of 110 health care professionals, b) a total of 600 health volunteers and family caregivers and c) a total of 300 the elderly dependent with chronically medical illnesses or disabilities. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyze data. Findings: Results have shown that the most common health problems among elders dependent with physical disabilities to function independently were cardiovascular disease, dementia, and traffic injuries. The development of home-based long term care model among elders dependent in Chaiyaphum province was composed of six key steps. They are: a) initiating policies supporting formal and informal caregivers for the elder dependent in all sub-districts, b) building network and multidisciplinary team, c) developing 3-day care manager training program and 3-day care provider training program d) training case managers and care providers for the elderly dependent through team and action learning, e) assessing, planning and providing care based on care individual’s needs of the elderly dependent, and f) sharing experiences for good practice and innovation for long term care at homes in district urban and rural areas. Among all care managers and care providers, the satisfaction level for training programs was high with a mean score of 3.98 out of 5. The elders dependent and family caregivers addressed that long term care at home could contribute to improving life’s daily activities, family relationship, health status, and quality of life. Family caregivers and volunteers have feeling a sense of personal satisfaction and experiencing providing meaningful care and support for elders dependent. Conclusion: In conclusion, a home-based long term care is important to Thai elders dependent. Care managers and care providers play a large role and responsibility to provide appropriate care to meet the elders’ needs in both urban and rural areas in Thai society. Further research could be rigorously studied with a larger group of populations in similar socio-economic and cultural contexts.

Keywords: elderly people, care manager, care provider, long term care

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Authors: Jacqueline P. Davies

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Introduction: Student nurses must develop skills in observation, communication and reflection as well as public health knowledge from their first year of training. This paper will explain a method developed for students to collect their own findings about public health in urban areas. These areas are both rich in the history of old public health that informs the content of many traditional public health walks, but are also locations where new public health concerns about chronic disease are concentrated. The learning method explained in this paper enables students to collect their own data and write original work as first year students. Examples of their findings will be given. Methodology: In small groups, health care students are instructed to walk in neighbourhoods near to the hospitals they will soon attend as apprentice nurses. On their walks, they wander slowly, engage in conversations, and enter places open to the public. As they drift, they observe with all five senses in the real three dimensional world to collect data for their reflective accounts of old and new public health. They are encouraged to stop for refreshments and taste, as well as look, hear, smell, and touch while on their walk. They reflect as a group and later develop an individual reflective account in which they write up their deep reflections about what they observed on their walk. In preparation for their walk, they are encouraged to look at studies of quality of Life and other neighbourhood statistics as well as undertaking a risk assessment for their walk. Findings: Reflecting on their walks, students apply theoretical concepts around social determinants of health and health inequalities to develop their understanding of communities in the neighbourhoods visited. They write about the treasured historical architecture made of stone, bronze and marble which have outlived those who built them; but also how the streets are used now. The students develop their observations into thematic analyses such as: what we drink as illustrated by the empty coke can tossed into a now disused drinking fountain; the shift in home-life balance illustrated by streets where families once lived over the shop which are now walked by commuters weaving around each other as they talk on their mobile phones; and security on the street, with CCTV cameras placed at regular intervals, signs warning trespasses and barbed wire; but little evidence of local people watching the street. Conclusion: In evaluations of their first year, students have reported the health walk as one of their best experiences. The innovative approach was commended by the UK governing body of nurse education and it received a quality award from the nurse education funding body. This approach to education allows students to develop skills in the real world and write original work.

Keywords: education, innovation, nursing, urban

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Authors: Hana A. Jameel Alsaeed, Rayyan Ibrahim Khaleel, Hanaa Hussein Mukhlif

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Background: Contamination in Iraq's hospitals is a localized problem with high rates of disease And deaths that mainly affect poor areas. Thus, this study aims to evaluate hospital infections in the city of Mosul and to identify the etiology. So to assess environmental infection prevention in pediatric wards and newborn critical care units in Mosul city. Methods: The present study is a cross-sectional hospital based in Mosul-Iraq between (10th February to 1st April 2022). Purposive sample of 60 nurses from neonatal intensive care units and pediatric wards in three pediatric teaching hospitals in Mosul city; Data was gathered using a questionnaire created by the researchers after reviewing previous studies. Results: The study showed that the majority of the study infection prevention and control policy isn't available in 46.7% of departments, and 45% of hospital workers in Iraq don't know if there is an Iraqi version of it. 70% of the study group had participated in an infection control training program. Conclusions: In the majority of samples 55% of respondents to the study claimed not to be aware of these rules. 60% of the study's participants had never attended a course on infection prevention and control, according to the study's findings on education and training programs. In the neonatal and critical care unit, nurses' skill levels, years of experience, and actual duties varied by wide statistically significant differences.

Keywords: pediatric, infection control, assessment, mosul city

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Authors: Mona Heydari, Ehsan Motamedian, Seyed Abbas Shojaosadati

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Prediction of perturbations after genetic manipulation (especially gene knockout) is one of the important challenges in systems biology. In this paper, a new algorithm is introduced that integrates microarray data into the metabolic model. The algorithm was used to study the change in the cell phenotype after knockout of Gss gene in Escherichia coli BW25113. Algorithm implementation indicated that gene deletion resulted in more activation of the metabolic network. Growth yield was more and less regulating gene were identified for mutant in comparison with the wild-type strain.

Keywords: metabolic network, gene knockout, flux balance analysis, microarray data, integration

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Authors: Kasbparast Mehdi, Hassani Zainab

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Aim: The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of therapeutical sensorimotor exercise. The statistical population of women who were diagnosed with patellofemoral pain syndrome by a doctor and were between the ages of 35 and 45 and registered for the first time in a sports club in the 4th district of Tehran, 30 people by random sampling and according to The include and exclude criteria were selected and divided into 2 equal control and experimental and homogeneous groups (in terms of height, weight and BMI).In both control and experimental groups, the pain was measured using a Visual Analog Scale(VAS) functionality was measured using the step-down test and quality of life was measured using a World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale (WHOQOL-BREF) (pre-test). Then, only the experimental group performed sensorimotor exercises for 12 weeks and 3 sessions each week, a total of 24 sessions and each session for 1 hour, and during this period, the control group only continued their daily activities. After the end of the training period, the desired factors were evaluated again (post-test) in the same way as the pre-test was done for them (experimental group and control group), with the same quality. Findings: The statistical results showed that in the experimental group, the amount of pain, function and quality of life had a statistical improvement (P≤0.05). Conclusion: In general conclusion, it can be stated that using sensorimotor exercises not only improved functionality and quality of life but also reduced the amount of pain in people with patellofemoral pain syndrome.

Keywords: pain, PFPS, sensori motor training, functionality

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Authors: Jennifer Bradley

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With opportunities to live and work abroad on the rise, effective preparation and support for international employees needs to be addressed within the work-site. International employees must build new habits, routines and social networks in an unfamiliar culture. Culture shock typically occurs within the first year and can affect both physical and psychological health. Employers have the opportunity to support staff through the adaptation process and foster healthy habits and routines. Cross-cultural training that includes a combination of instructional teaching, cultural experiences, and practice, is shown to increase the international employee adaptation process. However, little evidence demonstrates that organizations provide all of these aspects for international employees. The occupational therapy practitioner (OTP) offers a unique perspective focusing on the employee transactional relationship and engagement of meaningful occupations to enhance and enable participation in roles, habits and routines within new cultural contexts. This paper examines one such program developed and implemented by an OTP at the New England Center for Children, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The effectiveness of the program was assessed via participant feedback and concluded that an international employee support program that focuses on a variety of meaningful experiences and knowledge can empower employees to navigate healthy practices, develop habits and routines, and foster positive inter-cultural relationships in the organization and community.

Keywords: occupational therapy practitioner, cross cultural training, international employee health, international employee support

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Authors: Kebede Mairie, Getahun Belete, Mitike Abeba

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Background: Leishmania aethiopica is a peculiar parasite causing cutaneous leishmaniasis in Ethiopia and its mainstay treatment is Sodium Stibogluconate. However, its treatment outcome in Ethiopia is not well documented. Objectives: To determine the treatment outcome of admitted cutaneous leishmaniasis patients and its associated factors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted from 1st November 2021 to 30th March 2022. Medical records of all cutaneous leishmaniasis-diagnosed and admitted patients who received parenteral sodium stibogluconate at All Africa Leprosy Rehabilitation and Training Center (ALERT) hospital, the main Leishmania treatment center in Ethiopia from July 2011 to September 2021 were reviewed. Results: A total of 827 charts of admitted cases from July 2011 to September 2021 were retrieved, but 667 (80.65%) were reviewed. Improvement in the treatment outcome was recorded in 93.36 % in the first course of SSG treatment and 96.23%, 94.62%, and 96.97% subsequently in the second, third and fourth treatment courses, respectively. Female gender and diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis were the two predictive determinants in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis. Conclusion: The study shows that parenteral sodium stibogluconate therapy treats hospitalized cutaneous leishmaniasis patients well, with female gender and diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis having poor outcomes suggesting the need for a different approach for diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis patients.

Keywords: cutaneous leishmaniasis, leishmania aethiopica, sodium stibogluconate, diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis, pentostam

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Authors: K. Manmi, Q. X. Wang

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This paper investigates microbubble dynamics subject to ultrasound in a weakly viscous fluid near a rigid boundary. The phenomenon is simulated using a boundary integral method. The weak viscous effects are incorporated into the model through the normal stress balance across the bubble surface. The model agrees well with the Rayleigh-Plesset equation for a spherical bubble for several cycles. The effects of the fluid viscosity in the bubble dynamics are analyzed, including jet development, centroid movement and bubble volume.

Keywords: microbubble dynamics, bubble jetting, viscous effect, boundary integral method

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Authors: Wageeh A. Nafei

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This paper explores the role of Paradoxical Leadership (PL) in enhancing Organizational Success (OS) at private hospitals in Egypt. Based on the collected data from employees in private hospitals (doctors, nursing staff, and administrative staff). The researcher has adopted a sampling method to collect data for the study. The appropriate statistical methods, such as Alpha Correlation Coefficient (ACC), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA), are used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The research has reached a number of results, the most important of which are (1) there is a statistical relationship between the independent variable represented by PL and the dependent variable represented by Organizational Success (OS). The paradoxical leader encourages employees to express their opinions and builds a work environment characterized by flexibility and independence. Also, the paradoxical leader works to support specialized work teams, which leads to the creation of new ideas, on the one hand, and contributes to the achievement of outstanding performance on the other hand. (2) the mentality of the paradoxical leader is flexible and capable of absorbing all suggestions from all employees. Also, the paradoxical leader is interested in enhancing cooperation among them and provides an opportunity to transfer experience and increase knowledge-sharing. Also, the sharing of knowledge creates the necessary diversity that helps the organization to obtain rich external information and enables the organization to deal with a rapidly changing environment. (3) The PL approach helps in facing the paradoxical demands of employees. A paradoxical leader plays an important role in reducing the feeling of instability in the work environment and lack of job security, reducing negative feelings for employees, restoring balance in the work environment, improving the well-being of employees, and increasing the degree of job satisfaction of employees in the organization. The study referred to a number of recommendations, the most important of which are (1) the leaders of the organizations must listen to the views of employees and their needs and move away from the official method of control. The leader should give sufficient freedom to employees to participate in decision-making and maintain enough space among them. The treatment between the leaders and employees must be based on friendliness, (2) the need for organizational leaders to pay attention to sharing knowledge among employees through training courses. The leader should make sure that every information provided by the employee is valuable and useful, which can be used to solve a problem that may face his/her colleagues at work, (3) the need for organizational leaders to pay attention to sharing knowledge among employees through brainstorming sessions. The leader should ensure that employees obtain knowledge from their colleagues and share ideas and information among them. This is in addition to motivating employees to complete their work in a new creative way, which leads to employees’ not feeling bored of repeating the same routine procedures in the organization.

Keywords: paradoxical leadership, organizational success, human resourece, management

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Authors: Michael A. Kraus, Navid Pourmoghaddam, Martin Botz, Jens Schneider, Geralt Siebert

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Fragmentation analysis of tempered glass gives insight into the quality of the tempering process and defines a certain degree of safety as well. Different standard such as the European EN 12150-1 or the American ASTM C 1048/CPSC 16 CFR 1201 define a minimum number of fragments required for soda-lime safety glass on the basis of fragmentation test results for classification. This work presents an approach for the glass breakage pattern prediction using a Voronoi Tesselation over Random Fields. The random Voronoi tessellation is trained with and validated against data from several breakage patterns. The fragments in observation areas of 50 mm x 50 mm were used for training and validation. All glass specimen used in this study were commercially available soda-lime glasses at three different thicknesses levels of 4 mm, 8 mm and 12 mm. The results of this work form a Bayesian framework for the training and prediction of breakage patterns of tempered soda-lime glass using a Voronoi Random Field Tesselation. Uncertainties occurring in this process can be well quantified, and several statistical measures of the pattern can be preservation with this method. Within this work it was found, that different Random Fields as basis for the Voronoi Tesselation lead to differently well fitted statistical properties of the glass breakage patterns. As the methodology is derived and kept general, the framework could be also applied to other random tesselations and crack pattern modelling purposes.

Keywords: glass breakage predicition, Voronoi Random Field Tessellation, fragmentation analysis, Bayesian parameter identification

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Authors: Peter C. St. John, Michael F. Crowley, Yannick J. Bomble

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Production of chemicals from engineered organisms in a batch culture typically involves a trade-off between productivity, yield, and titer. However, strategies for strain design typically involve designing mutations to achieve the highest yield possible while maintaining growth viability. Such approaches tend to follow the principle of designing static networks with minimum metabolic functionality to achieve desired yields. While these methods are computationally tractable, optimum productivity is likely achieved by a dynamic strategy, in which intracellular fluxes change their distribution over time. One can use multi-stage fermentations to increase either productivity or yield. Such strategies would range from simple manipulations (aerobic growth phase, anaerobic production phase), to more complex genetic toggle switches. Additionally, some computational methods can also be developed to aid in optimizing two-stage fermentation systems. One can assume an initial control strategy (i.e., a single reaction target) in maximizing productivity - but it is unclear how close this productivity would come to a global optimum. The calculation of maximum theoretical yield in metabolic engineering can help guide strain and pathway selection for static strain design efforts. Here, we present a method for the calculation of a maximum theoretical productivity of a batch culture system. This method follows the traditional assumptions of dynamic flux balance analysis: that internal metabolite fluxes are governed by a pseudo-steady state and external metabolite fluxes are represented by dynamic system including Michealis-Menten or hill-type regulation. The productivity optimization is achieved via dynamic programming, and accounts explicitly for an arbitrary number of fermentation stages and flux variable changes. We have applied our method to succinate production in two common microbial hosts: E. coli and A. succinogenes. The method can be further extended to calculate the complete productivity versus yield Pareto surface. Our results demonstrate that nearly optimal yields and productivities can indeed be achieved with only two discrete flux stages.

Keywords: A. succinogenes, E. coli, metabolic engineering, metabolite fluxes, multi-stage fermentations, succinate

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Authors: Subir Gupta, Subhas Ganguly

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In this paper, we demonstrate the new area of application of image processing in metallurgical images to develop the more opportunity for structure-property correlation based approaches of alloy design. The present exercise focuses on the development of image processing tools suitable for phrase segmentation, grain boundary detection and recognition of micro-constituents in SEM micrographs of ferrite and pearlite steels. A comprehensive data of micrographs have been experimentally developed encompassing the variation of ferrite and pearlite volume fractions and taking images at different magnification (500X, 1000X, 15000X, 2000X, 3000X and 5000X) under scanning electron microscope. The variation in the volume fraction has been achieved using four different plain carbon steel containing 0.1, 0.22, 0.35 and 0.48 wt% C heat treated under annealing and normalizing treatments. The obtained data pool of micrographs arbitrarily divided into two parts to developing training and testing sets of micrographs. The statistical recognition features for ferrite and pearlite constituents have been developed by learning from training set of micrographs. The obtained features for microstructure pattern recognition are applied to test set of micrographs. The analysis of the result shows that the developed strategy can successfully detect the micro constitutes across the wide range of magnification and variation of volume fractions of the constituents in the structure with an accuracy of about +/- 5%.

Keywords: SEM micrograph, metallurgical image processing, ferrite pearlite steel, microstructure

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Authors: Sajee A. Gamage, Champa J. Wijesinghe, Patricia Burtner, Ananda R. Wickremasinghe

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Background: Teachers working in the context of special education have an enormous responsibility of enhancing performance skills of children in their classroom settings. Fine Motor Skills (FMS) are essential functional skills for children to gain independence in Activities of Daily Living. Children with Down Syndrome (DS) are predisposed to specific challenges due to deficits in FMS. This study is aimed to determine the teachers’ experience on improving FMS of children with DS in the context of special education of Southern Province, Sri Lanka. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among all consenting eligible teachers (n=147) working in the context of special education in government schools of Southern Province of Sri Lanka. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literature and expert opinion to assess teachers’ experience regarding deficits of FMS, limitations of classroom activity performance and barriers to improve FMS of children with DS. Results: Approximately 93% of the teachers were females with a mean age ( ± SD) of 43.1 ( ± 10.1) years. Thirty percent of the teachers had training in special educationand 83% had children with DS in their classrooms. Major deficits of FMS reported were deficits in grasping (n=116; 79%), in-hand manipulation (n=103; 70%) and bilateral hand use (n=99; 67.3%). Paperwork (n=70; 47.6%), painting (n=58; 39.5%), scissor work (n=50; 34.0%), pencil use for writing (n=45; 30.6%) and use of tools in the classroom (n=41; 27.9%) were identified as major classroom performance limitations of children with DS. Parental factors (n=67; 45.6%), disease specific characteristics (n=58; 39.5%) and classroom factors (n=36; 24.5%), were identified as major barriers to improve FMS in the classroom setting. Lack of resources and standard tools, social stigma and late school admission were also identified as barriers to FMS training. Eighty nine percent of the teachers informed that training fine motor activities in a special education classroom was more successful than work with normal classroom setting. Conclusion: Major areas of FMS deficits were grasping, in-hand manipulation and bilateral hand use; classroom performance limitations included paperwork, painting and scissor work of children with DS. Teachers recommended regular practice of fine motor activities according to individual need. Further research is required to design a culturally specific FMS assessment tool and intervention methods to improve FMS of children with DS in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: classroom activities, Down syndrome, experience, fine motor skills, special education, teachers

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Authors: Mohammed Alateeq, Abdulaziz Alrshoud

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Objectives: To examine the attitude and practice of family physicians in giving smoking cessation advice at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City for National Guard, Riyadh. Methods: Cross sectional study using validated self-reported questionnaire that distributed to all family physicians and primary health care doctors at the four main family medicine and primary health care centers, KAMC, Riyadh. Results: 73 physicians are contributed in this study. 28 (38.4%) physicians were from (KASHM ALAN) clinic, 26 (35.6%) physicians were from (UM ALHAMAM) Clinic. 13 (17.8%) physicians were from (ISKAN) clinic. 6 (8.2%) physicians were from the Employee Health Clinic. 73 (100%) of the target population agreed that giving brief smoking cessation advice is part of their duties. 67 (91.7%) agreed that Presence of hospital guidelines and special clinics for smoking cessation will encourage them to provide advice. Only 5 (6.84%) received training courses (1-4 weeks) in smoking cessation interventions. Conclusion: Most of the target population agreed that brief smoking cessation advice is part of their duties. Also, they agreed that Presence of hospital guidelines and special clinics for smoking cessation will encourage them to provide advice although most of them did not received a formal training in smoking cessation advice.

Keywords: advice, attitude, cessation, family physicians, smoking

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Authors: Basanta Raj Adhikari

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Large and small scale earthquakes are frequent in the Nepal, Himalaya, and many co-seismic landslides are resulted out of it. Recently, Gorkha earthquake-2015 has triggered many co-seismic landslides destroying many lives and properties. People have displaced their original places due to having many cracks and unstable ground. Therefore, Nepal has been adopting a pronged development strategy to address the earthquake issues through reconstruction and rehabilitation policy, plans and budgets. Landslides are major threat for the mountain livelihood, and it is very important to investigate and mitigate to improve human wellbeing factoring in considerations of economic growth, environmental safety, and sustainable development. Community based landslide investigation was carried with the involvement of the local community in the Sindhupalchowk District of Central Nepal. Landslide training and field orientation were the major methodological approach of this study. Combination of indigenous and modern scientific knowledge has created unique working environment which enhanced the local capacity and trained people for replication. Local topography of the landslide was created with the help of Total Station and bill of quantity was derived based on it. River training works, plantation of trees and grasses, support structures, surface and sub-surface drainage management are the recommended mitigative measures. This is a very unique example of how academia and local community can work together for sustainable development by reducing disaster risk at the local level with very low-cost technology.

Keywords: community, earthquake, landslides, Nepal

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Authors: Sangeeta Dhamdhere, G. V. P. Rao

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Adolescent students need more energy, proteins, vitamins, and minerals because they grow to maturity in this age. Balanced diet plays important role in their wellbeing and health. The study conducted showed 48% students are not normal in their height and weight. 26% students found underweight, 18% overweight and 4% students found obese. The annual income group of underweight students was below 7 Lac and more than 90% students were staying at their home. The researcher has analysed the eating pattern of these students and concluded that there is need of awareness among the parents and students about balance diet and nutrition. The present research will help students improve their dietary habits and health, increase the number of attendees, and achieve academic excellence.

Keywords: balanced diet, nutrition, malnutrition, obesity, health education

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Authors: Ali Oveysi Sarabi

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In this paper, controller design for the attitude and altitude dynamics of an outdoor quadrotor, which is constructed with low cost actuators and drivers, is aimed. Before designing the controller, the quadrotor is modeled mathematically in Matlab-Simulink environment. To control attitude dynamics, linear quadratic regulator (LQR) based controllers are designed, simulated and applied to the system. Two different proportional-integral-derivative action (PID) controllers are designed to control yaw and altitude dynamics. During the implementation of the designed controllers, different test setups are used. Designed controllers are implemented and tuned on the real system using xPC Target. Tests show that these basic control structures are successful to control the attitude and altitude dynamics.

Keywords: helicopter balance, flight dynamics, autonomous landing, control robotics

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Authors: Chia-Yi Liu, Bo-Bin Xiao, Wen-Bin Lin, Hsiang-Ning Wu, Liang-Hsun Huang

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In order to reduce the risk of radiation damage that personnel may suffer during operations in the radiation environment, the use of automated guided vehicles to assist or replace on-site personnel in the radiation environment has become a key technology and has become an important trend. In this paper, we demonstrate our proof of concept for autonomous self-learning radiation source searcher in an unknown environment without a map. The research uses GPU version of Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic network (GA3C) of deep reinforcement learning to search for radiation sources. The searcher network, based on GA3C architecture, has self-directed learned and improved how search the anomalous radiation source by training 1 million episodes under three simulation environments. In each episode of training, the radiation source position, the radiation source intensity, starting position, are all set randomly in one simulation environment. The input for searcher network is the fused data from a 2D laser scanner and a RGB-D camera as well as the value of the radiation detector. The output actions are the linear and angular velocities. The searcher network is trained in a simulation environment to accelerate the learning process. The well-performance searcher network is deployed to the real unmanned vehicle, Dashgo E2, which mounts LIDAR of YDLIDAR G4, RGB-D camera of Intel D455, and radiation detector made by Institute of Nuclear Energy Research. In the field experiment, the unmanned vehicle is enable to search out the radiation source of the 18.5MBq Na-22 by itself and avoid obstacles simultaneously without human interference.

Keywords: deep reinforcement learning, GA3C, source searching, source detection

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Authors: Nadezhda Kvatashidze, Elena Kharabadze

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It is broadly known that lease is a flexible means of funding enterprises. Lease reduces the risk related to access and possession of assets, as well as obtainment of funding. Therefore, it is important to refine lease accounting. The lease accounting regulations under the applicable standard (International Accounting Standards 17) make concealment of liabilities possible. As a result, the information users get inaccurate and incomprehensive information and have to resort to an additional assessment of the off-balance sheet lease liabilities. In order to address the problem, the International Financial Reporting Standards Board decided to change the approach to lease accounting. With the deficiencies of the applicable standard taken into account, the new standard (IFRS 16 ‘Leases’) aims at supplying appropriate and fair lease-related information to the users. Save certain exclusions; the lessee is obliged to recognize all the lease agreements in its financial report. The approach was determined by the fact that under the lease agreement, rights and obligations arise by way of assets and liabilities. Immediately upon conclusion of the lease agreement, the lessee takes an asset into its disposal and assumes the obligation to effect the lease-related payments in order to meet the recognition criteria defined by the Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting. The payments are to be entered into the financial report. The new lease accounting standard secures supply of quality and comparable information to the financial information users. The International Accounting Standards Board and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board jointly developed IFRS 15: ‘Revenue from Contracts with Customers’. The standard allows the establishment of detailed revenue recognition practical criteria such as identification of the performance obligations in the contract, determination of the transaction price and its components, especially price variable considerations and other important components, as well as passage of control over the asset to the customer. IFRS 15: ‘Revenue from Contracts with Customers’ is very similar to the relevant US standards and includes requirements more specific and consistent than those of the standards in place. The new standard is going to change the recognition terms and techniques in the industries, such as construction, telecommunications (mobile and cable networks), licensing (media, science, franchising), real property, software etc.

Keywords: assessment of the lease assets and liabilities, contractual liability, division of contract, identification of contracts, contract price, lease identification, lease liabilities, off-balance sheet, transaction value

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Authors: Sekkak Abdelmalek

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The aim of this paper is to establish an energy balance of the drivetrain of a low power electric vehicle (around ten kilowatts). The study is based on two topologies of power electronics converter, the voltage source inverter and cascaded H-Bridge inverter. For each of these solutions, two voltage levels are studied for the drivetrain. At first a discussion of cascaded H-Bridge inverters will be performed on the potential benefits of this structure for its use to other functions such as macroscopic batteries management system. In a second step, the performances of the traction chain are compared according to the structure of the power converter and the voltage level of the traction chain.

Keywords: power electronics, static converters, cascaded H-Bridge, traction chain, efficiency, losses, batteries balancing

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Authors: Balimu Mwiya, Mundia Muya, Chabota Kaliba, Peter Mukalula

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Factors affecting construction unit cost vary depending on a country’s political, economic, social and technological inclinations. Factors affecting construction costs have been studied from various perspectives. Analysis of cost factors requires an appreciation of a country’s practices. Identified cost factors provide an indication of a country’s construction economic strata. The purpose of this paper is to identify the essential factors that affect unit cost estimation and their breakdown using artificial neural networks. Twenty-five (25) identified cost factors in road construction were subjected to a questionnaire survey and employing SPSS factor analysis the factors were reduced to eight. The 8 factors were analysed using the neural network (NN) to determine the proportionate breakdown of the cost factors in a given construction unit rate. NN predicted that political environment accounted 44% of the unit rate followed by contractor capacity at 22% and financial delays, project feasibility, overhead and profit each at 11%. Project location, material availability and corruption perception index had minimal impact on the unit cost from the training data provided. Quantified cost factors can be incorporated in unit cost estimation models (UCEM) to produce more accurate estimates. This can create improvements in the cost estimation of infrastructure projects and establish a benchmark standard to assist the process of alignment of work practises and training of new staff, permitting the on-going development of best practises in cost estimation to become more effective.

Keywords: construction cost factors, neural networks, roadworks, Zambian construction industry

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Authors: Vinicius G. Goecks, Gregory M. Gremillion, William D. Nothwang

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Modern approaches to train intelligent agents rely on prolonged training sessions, high amounts of input data, and multiple interactions with the environment. This restricts the application of these learning algorithms in robotics and real-world applications, in which there is low tolerance to inadequate actions, interactions are expensive, and real-time processing and action are required. This paper addresses this issue introducing CyberSteer, a novel approach to efficiently design intrinsic reward functions based on human intention to guide deep reinforcement learning agents with no environment-dependent rewards. CyberSteer uses non-expert human operators for initial demonstration of a given task or desired behavior. The trajectories collected are used to train a behavior cloning deep neural network that asynchronously runs in the background and suggests actions to the deep reinforcement learning module. An intrinsic reward is computed based on the similarity between actions suggested and taken by the deep reinforcement learning algorithm commanding the agent. This intrinsic reward can also be reshaped through additional human demonstration or critique. This approach removes the need for environment-dependent or hand-engineered rewards while still being able to safely shape the behavior of autonomous robotic agents, in this case, based on human intention. CyberSteer is tested in a high-fidelity unmanned aerial vehicle simulation environment, the Microsoft AirSim. The simulated aerial robot performs collision avoidance through a clustered forest environment using forward-looking depth sensing and roll, pitch, and yaw references angle commands to the flight controller. This approach shows that the behavior of robotic systems can be shaped in a reduced amount of time when guided by a non-expert human, who is only aware of the high-level goals of the task. Decreasing the amount of training time required and increasing safety during training maneuvers will allow for faster deployment of intelligent robotic agents in dynamic real-world applications.

Keywords: human-robot interaction, intelligent robots, robot learning, semisupervised learning, unmanned aerial vehicles

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Authors: Yunyong Guo, Man Wang, Bryan Guo, Nathan Guo

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This paper introduces an advanced security and privacy model tailored for Telehealth systems, emphasizing end-to-end protection across IoT, Fog, and Cloud components. The proposed model integrates encryption, key management, intrusion detection, and privacy-preserving measures to safeguard patient data. A comprehensive simulation study evaluates the model's effectiveness in scenarios such as unauthorized access, physical breaches, and insider threats. Results indicate notable success in detecting and mitigating threats yet underscore areas for refinement. The study contributes insights into the intricate balance between security and usability in Telehealth environments, setting the stage for continued advancements.

Keywords: cloud, enhancing security, fog, IoT, telehealth

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Authors: Deokho Kim, Wonwoo Lee, Jaewoong Lee, Teresa Ng, Gun-Ill Lee, Jiwon Jeong

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This paper presents a method for improving object search accuracy using a deep learning model. A major limitation to provide accurate similarity with deep learning is the requirement of huge amount of data for training pairwise similarity scores (metrics), which is impractical to collect. Thus, similarity scores are usually trained with a relatively small dataset, which comes from a different domain, causing limited accuracy on measuring similarity. For this reason, this paper proposes a deep learning model that can be trained with a significantly small amount of data, a clustered data which of each cluster contains a set of visually similar images. In order to measure similarity distance with the proposed method, visual features of two images are extracted from intermediate layers of a convolutional neural network with various pooling methods, and the network is trained with pairwise similarity scores which is defined zero for images in identical cluster. The proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art object similarity scoring techniques on evaluation for finding exact items. The proposed method achieves 86.5% of accuracy compared to the accuracy of the state-of-the-art technique, which is 59.9%. That is, an exact item can be found among four retrieved images with an accuracy of 86.5%, and the rest can possibly be similar products more than the accuracy. Therefore, the proposed method can greatly reduce the amount of training data with an order of magnitude as well as providing a reliable similarity metric.

Keywords: visual search, deep learning, convolutional neural network, machine learning

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Authors: Michel Berthiaume, Daniel Chamberland-Tremblay, Elaine Paiva Mosconi, Jérôme Blanchet-Brisson

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This presentation documents the overall failure of North-American universities to build an effective IT Policies communication with their primary users: the students. A sample of 12 universities was selected. A set of indicators based on usability principles to assess the content of IT Policies vas devised. Then, IT Policies were rated according to the indicators and the results analyzed to build an overall picture of the potential of communication problems in policy communication. The initial finding is that network security professionals in Universities have to reach a delicate balance between asset protection, asset valorization and user security awareness.

Keywords: computer security, IT policy, security awareness, network user rules

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Authors: Selva Georgena D., Videcoq Etienne, Caner Julien, Benselama Adel, Girault Manu

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A Two-Phase Thermosyphon Loop (TPTL) is a passive cooling system which does not require a pump to function. Therefore, TPTL is a simple and robust device and its physics is complex to describe because of the coupled phenomena: heat flux, nucleation, fluid dynamics and gravitational effects. Moreover, the dynamic behavior of TPTL shows some physical instabilities and the actual occurrence of such a behavior remains unknown. The aim of this study is to propose a thermal balance of the TPTL to better identify the fundamental reasons for the appearance of the instabilities.

Keywords: Two-phase flow, passive cooling system, thermal reliability, thermal experimental study, liquid-vapor phase change

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Authors: Yu-Chu Yeh, WeiChin Hsu, Chih-Yen Chang

Abstract:

Substitution, combination, modification, putting to other uses, elimination, and rearrangement (SCAMPER) has been regarded as an effective technique that provides a structured way to help people to produce creative ideas and solutions. Although some neuroscience studies regarding creativity training have been conducted, no study has focused on SCAMPER. This study therefore aimed at examining whether the learning of SCAMPER through video tutorials would result in alternations of neural activation. Thirty college students were randomly assigned to the experimental group or the control group. The experimental group was requested to watch SCAMPER videos, whereas the control group was asked to watch natural-scene videos which were regarded as neutral stimulating materials. Each participant was brain scanned in a Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine while undertaking a creativity test before and after watching the videos. Furthermore, a two-way ANOVA was used to analyze the interaction between groups (the experimental group; the control group) and tasks (C task; M task; X task). The results revealed that the left precuneus significantly activated in the interaction of groups and tasks, as well as in the main effect of group. Furthermore, compared with the control group, the experimental group had greater activation in the default mode network (left precuneus and left inferior parietal cortex) and the motor network (left postcentral gyrus and left supplementary area). The findings suggest that the SCAMPER training may facilitate creativity through the stimulation of the default mode network and the motor network.

Keywords: creativity, default mode network, neural activation, SCAMPER

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Authors: Gikunda Aloise, Mjema Saida, Barasa Herbert, Wanyungu John, Kimani Maureen

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Background: Community Health Workforce (CHW) is health care providers at the community level (Level 1) and serves as a bridge between the community and the formal healthcare system. This human resource has enormous potential to extend healthcare services and ensures that the vulnerable, marginalized, and hard-to-reach populations have access to quality healthcare services at the community and primary health facility levels. However, these cadres are neither recognized, remunerated, nor in most instances, registered in a master list. Management and supervision of CHWs is not easy if their individual demographics, training capacity and incentives is not well documented through a centralized registry. Description: In February 2022, Amref supported the Kenya Ministry of Health in developing a community health workforce database called Community Health Workers Master List Registry (CHWML), which is hosted in Kenya Health Information System (KHIS) tracker. CHW registration exercise was through a sensitization meeting conducted by the County Community Health Focal Person for the Sub-County Community Health Focal Person and Community Health Assistants who uploaded information on individual demographics, training undertaken and incentives received by CHVs. Care was taken to ensure compliance with Kenyan laws on the availability and use of personal data as prescribed by the Data Protection Act, 2019 (DPA). Results and lessons learnt: By June 2022, 80,825 CHWs had been registered in the system; 78,174 (96%) CHVs and 2,636 (4%) CHAs. 25,235 (31%) are male, 55,505 (68%) are female & 85 (1%) are transgender. 39,979. (49%) had secondary education and 2500 (3%) had no formal education. Only 27 641 (34%) received a monthly stipend. 68,436 CHVs (85%) had undergone basic training. However, there is a need to validate the data to align with the current situation in the counties. Conclusions/Next steps: The use of CHWML will unlock opportunities for building more resilient and sustainable health systems and inform financial planning, resource allocation, capacity development, and quality service delivery. The MOH will update the CHWML guidelines in adherence to the data protection act which will inform standard procedures for maintaining, updating the registry and integrate Community Health Workforce registry with the HRH system.

Keywords: community health registry, community health volunteers (CHVs), community health workers masters list (CHWML), data protection act

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