Search results for: energetic process efficiency

Authors: Nguyen Viet Tan

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The Bahnar is one of 11 indigenous groups living in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It is one among the four most popular groups in this area, including the Mnong who speak the same language of Mon Khmer family, while both groups of the Jrai and the Rhade belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family. These groups once captured fertile plateaus, left their cultural and artistic heritage which affected the remaining small groups. Despite the difference in ethnic origins, these groups seem to share similar beliefs, customs and related folk arts after a very long time living beside each other. However, through an in-depth study, this paper points out the fact that the decorative patterns used by the Bahnar are different from the other ethnic groups, especially in color. Based on historical materials from the local museums and some studies in 1980s when all of the ethnic groups in this area had still lived in self-sufficient condition, this paper characterizes the traditional color scheme used by the Bahnar and identifies the difference in decorative motifs of this group compared to the others by pointing out they do not use green in their usual decorative patterns. Moreover, combined with some field surveys recently, through comparative analysis, it also discovers stylistic variations of these patterns in the process of cultural exchange with the other ethnic groups, both in and out of the region, in modern living conditions. This study helps to preserve and promote the traditional values and cultural identity of the Bahnar people in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, avoiding the fusion of styles among groups during the cultural exchange.

Keywords: Bahnar ethnic group, decorative patterns, the central highlands of Vietnam, the traditional color scheme

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Authors: Vesna Bosilj Vukšić, Lucija Ivančić, Dalia Suša Vugec

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While struggling to succeed in today’s complex market environment and provide better customer experience and services, enterprises encompass digital transformation as a means for reaching competitiveness and foster value creation. A digital transformation process consists of information technology implementation projects, as well as organizational factors such as top management support, digital transformation strategy, and organizational changes. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is little evidence about digital transformation endeavors in organizations and how they perceive it – is it only about digital technologies adoption or a true organizational shift is needed? In order to address this issue and as the first step in our research project, a literature review is conducted. The analysis included case study papers from Scopus and Web of Science databases. The following attributes are considered for classification and analysis of papers: time component; country of case origin; case industry and; digital transformation concept comprehension, i.e. focus. Research showed that organizations – public, as well as private ones, are aware of change necessity and employ digital transformation projects. Also, the changes concerning digital transformation affect both manufacturing and service-based industries. Furthermore, we discovered that organizations understand that besides technologies implementation, organizational changes must also be adopted. However, with only 29 relevant papers identified, research positioned digital transformation as an unexplored and emerging phenomenon in information systems research. The scarcity of evidence-based papers calls for further examination of this topic on cases from practice.

Keywords: digital strategy, digital technologies, digital transformation, literature review

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Authors: Poglajen Andrej, Malečihar Špela

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Social work in rehabilitation needs constant development and embetterment of its practitioners. This became even more evident during the covid pandemic at times when outside sources of help, care and support were non-existent, or the access to such sources was severely limited. Social workers are, at our core, researchers of the rehabilitated world – from a personal and intrapersonal to a systematic perspective. This is also why a method of research was used in order to see if clinical social work practice can be further improved. The first stage of research showcased how action research and social work practice share many of the core values, whereas the Implementation of the new behaviour principle was severely lacking and thus became the main focus of the follow-up research. Twenty randomly selected case files of clinical social work practice in rehabilitation were qualitatively analyzed and potential benefits of action research on practice were assessed in the process of intervention while also getting feedback of the usefulness by the patients themselves using pre and post evaluation forms where a mixed-method approach was used. Implementation of new behaviour principle was recognized as a potential, improving factor of clinical social work practice in most analyzed cases, while it wasn’t deemed necessary in all of them. Potential improvements of newly implemented behaviour span across different areas of life and were also noted in the feedback from the rehabilitates. Despite the benefits of practice embetterment, the inclusion and focus on Implementation of new behaviour principle also caused additional workload, lack of time and stressful situations for the practitioners, which showcased the need to address certain systemic obstacles in the context of social work in healthcare in Slovenia.

Keywords: action research, practice, rehabilitation, social work

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Authors: Sriram Kashyap Prasad, Ionut Florescu

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This study models the intraday asset prices as driven by Markov process. This work identifies the latent states of the Hidden Markov model, using limit order book data (trades and quotes) to continuously estimate the states throughout the day. This work builds a trading strategy using estimated states to generate signals. The strategy utilizes current state to recalibrate buy/ sell levels and the transition between states to trigger stop-loss when adverse price movements occur. The proposed trading strategy is tested on the Stevens High Frequency Trading (SHIFT) platform. SHIFT is a highly realistic market simulator with functionalities for creating an artificial market simulation by deploying agents, trading strategies, distributing initial wealth, etc. In the implementation several assets on the NASDAQ exchange are used for testing. In comparison to a strategy with static buy/ sell levels, this study shows that the number of limit orders that get matched and executed can be increased. Executing limit orders earns rebates on NASDAQ. The system can capture jumps in the limit order book prices, provide dynamic buy/sell levels and trigger stop loss signals to improve the PnL (Profit and Loss) performance of the strategy.

Keywords: algorithmic trading, Hidden Markov model, high frequency trading, limit order book learning

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Authors: Po-Fang Hsu, Chiching Wei

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In this paper, we present a novel neural graph matching approach applied to document comparison. Document comparison is a common task in the legal and financial industries. In some cases, the most important differences may be the addition or omission of words, sentences, clauses, or paragraphs. However, it is a challenging task without recording or tracing the whole edited process. Under many temporal uncertainties, we explore the potentiality of our approach to proximate the accurate comparison to make sure which element blocks have a relation of edition with others. In the beginning, we apply a document layout analysis that combines traditional and modern technics to segment layouts in blocks of various types appropriately. Then we transform this issue into a problem of layout graph matching with textual awareness. Regarding graph matching, it is a long-studied problem with a broad range of applications. However, different from previous works focusing on visual images or structural layout, we also bring textual features into our model for adapting this domain. Specifically, based on the electronic document, we introduce an encoder to deal with the visual presentation decoding from PDF. Additionally, because the modifications can cause the inconsistency of document layout analysis between modified documents and the blocks can be merged and split, Sinkhorn divergence is adopted in our neural graph approach, which tries to overcome both these issues with many-to-many block matching. We demonstrate this on two categories of layouts, as follows., legal agreement and scientific articles, collected from our real-case datasets.

Keywords: document comparison, graph matching, graph neural network, modification similarity, multi-modal

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Authors: Zeynep Karacor, Rahime Hulya Ozturk

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Located in developing countries but with the successful performance in recent years have shown in emerging economies , the labor factor has undoubtedly an important place in Turkish economy. The theorists have emphasized the importance of labor and human capital factors for many years. The importance of human capital is emerging in the process of determining the labor force participation rate. It is relatively easy to employ qualified labor force but employment of unskilled labor is particularly difficult. Another factor affecting the gender differences are employment opportunities in the labor force. In our country, the employment conditions of men and women differ. Factors causing these differentials are inherent job requirements, the social structure of society, women's point of view, working hours, working conditions. Crisis in our country in recent years have significantly affect the labor force participation rates. In particular, women's labor force participation rates have shown a decrease in crisis.In crisis female laborforce leave their job and go their home. It is the sole provider of social perception of men so in crisis period it is considered that woman lost their job. In the first part of this study the current situation in the world of female participation in the labor force in Turkey will examine. In the second part of the study literature will be examined. In the third and last part of the study factors of determinants of female labor force participation rate analysis will done by Granger Causality Analysis.

Keywords: female labour force, employment, labor force, Turkey

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Authors: Dylan Treger, Lujia Zhang, Xiaoxiao Jia, Jessica H. Hui, Munkh-Amgalan Gantumur, Mizhou Hui, Li Liu

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Hyaluronic acid (HA) is involved in wound healing via inflammation, granulation, and re-epithelialization mechanisms. The poor physical properties of natural high-molecular-weight polymers limit their direct use in the medical field. In this clinical study, we investigated whether the local injection of a tissue-permeable 35 kDa HA fragment (HA35) could favor the healing process in patients with chronic wounds accompanied by neuropathic pain. The HA35 fragments were freshly manufactured by degradation of high-molecular-weight HA with bovine testis-derived hyaluronidase PH20. Twenty patients in this study had nonhealing wounds and wound-related pain for more than 3 months. Freshly produced HA35 was locally injected into healthy skin immediately surrounding chronic wounds once a day for 10 days. Wound-associated pain and the degree of wound healing were evaluated. The injection of HA35 relieved the pain associated with chronic wounds in 24 hours. HA35 treatment significantly promoted the healing of chronic wounds, including expanded fresh granulation tissue on the wounds; reduced darkness or redness, dryness, and damaged areas on the surface of the skin surrounding the wounds; and decreased the size of the wound area. It can be concluded that the topical injection of tissue-permeable HA35 around chronic wounds has great potential to promote wound healing.

Keywords: 35 kDa hyaluronan fragment HA35, chronic wound, wound healing, tissue permeability

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Authors: Tal Remez, Or Litany, Alex Bronstein

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The pursuit of smaller pixel sizes at ever increasing resolution in digital image sensors is mainly driven by the stringent price and form-factor requirements of sensors and optics in the cellular phone market. Recently, Eric Fossum proposed a novel concept of an image sensor with dense sub-diffraction limit one-bit pixels (jots), which can be considered a digital emulation of silver halide photographic film. This idea has been recently embodied as the EPFL Gigavision camera. A major bottleneck in the design of such sensors is the image reconstruction process, producing a continuous high dynamic range image from oversampled binary measurements. The extreme quantization of the Poisson statistics is incompatible with the assumptions of most standard image processing and enhancement frameworks. The recently proposed maximum-likelihood (ML) approach addresses this difficulty, but suffers from image artifacts and has impractically high computational complexity. In this work, we study a variant of a sensor with binary threshold pixels and propose a reconstruction algorithm combining an ML data fitting term with a sparse synthesis prior. We also show an efficient hardware-friendly real-time approximation of this inverse operator. Promising results are shown on synthetic data as well as on HDR data emulated using multiple exposures of a regular CMOS sensor.

Keywords: binary pixels, maximum likelihood, neural networks, sparse coding

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Authors: Victor Emery David Jr., Jiang Wenchao, Yasinta John, Md. Sahadat Hossain

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Sludge originates from the process of treatment of wastewater. It is the byproduct of wastewater treatment containing concentrated heavy metals and poorly biodegradable trace organic compounds, as well as potentially pathogenic organisms (viruses, bacteria, etc.) which are usually difficult to treat or dispose of. China, like other countries, is no stranger to the challenges posed by an increase of wastewater. Treatment and disposal of sludge have been a problem for most cities in China. However, this problem has been exacerbated by other issues such as lack of technology, funding, and other factors. Suitable methods for such climatic conditions are still unavailable for modern cities in China. Against this background, this paper seeks to describe the methods used for treatment and disposal of sludge from industries and suggest a suitable method for treatment and disposal in Chongqing/China. From the research conducted, it was discovered that the highest treatment rate of sludge in Chongqing was 10.08%. The industrial waste piping system is not separated from the domestic system. Considering the proliferation of industry and urbanization, there is a likelihood that the production of sludge in Chongqing will increase. If the sludge produced is not properly managed, this may lead to adverse health and environmental effects. Disposal costs and methods for Chongqing were also included in this paper’s analysis. Research showed that incineration is the most expensive method of sludge disposal in China/Chongqing. Subsequent research, therefore, considered optional alternatives such as composting. Composting represents a relatively cheap waste disposal method considering the vast population, current technology and economic conditions of Chongqing, as well as China at large.

Keywords: Chongqing/China, disposal, industrial, sludge, treatment

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Authors: Suk Woo Hong, Chang Sung Seok, Jae Mean Koo

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Recently, the welding is widely used in modern industry for joining the structures. However, the waterworks pipes are exposed to the fatigue load by cars, earthquake and etc because of being buried underground. Moreover, the residual stress exists in weld zone by welding process and it is well known that the fatigue life of welded structures is degraded by residual stress. Due to such reasons, the crack can occur in the weld zone of pipeline. In this case, The ground subsidence or sinkhole can occur, if the soil and sand are washed down by fluid leaked from the crack of water pipe. These problems can lead to property damage and endangering lives. For these reasons, the estimation of fatigue characteristics for water pipeline weld zone is needed. Therefore, in this study, for fatigue characteristics estimation of spiral welded waterworks pipe, ASTM standard specimens and Curved Plate specimens were collected from the spiral welded waterworks pipe and the fatigue tests were performed. The S-N curves of each specimen were estimated, and then the fatigue life of weldment Curved Plate specimen was predicted by theoretical and analytical methods. After that, the weldment Curved Plate specimens were collected from the pipe and verification fatigue tests were performed. Finally, it was verified that the predicted S-N curve of weldment Curved Plate specimen was good agreement with fatigue test data.

Keywords: spiral welded pipe, prediction fatigue life, endurance limit modifying factors, residual stress

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Authors: Hang Ju, Changmin Zhu

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The development level of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) can strongly reflect national defense strength as an important spatial information infrastructure. BDS can be not only used for military purposes, such as intelligence gathering, nuclear explosion monitoring, emergency communications, but also for location services, transportation, mapping, precision agriculture. In order to ensure the national defense security and the wide application of BDS in civil and military areas, BDS must be autonomous and controllable. As a complex system of knowledge-intensive, knowledge transformation runs through the whole process of research and development, production, operation, and maintenance of BDS. Based on the perspective of knowledge transformation, this paper expounds on the meaning of socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization of knowledge transformation, and the coupling relationship of autonomy and control on the basis of analyzing the status quo and problems of the autonomy and control of BDS. The autonomous and controllable framework of BDS based on knowledge transformation is constructed from six dimensions of management capability, R&D capability, technical capability, manufacturing capability, service support capability, and application capability. It can provide support for the smooth implementation of information security policy, provide a reference for the autonomy and control of the upstream and downstream industrial chains in Beidou, and provide a reference for the autonomous and controllable research of aerospace components, military measurement test equipment, and other related industries.

Keywords: knowledge transformation, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, autonomy and control, framework

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Authors: S. Djaziri, F. Sket, A. Hynowska, S. Milenkovic

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The use of Fe-Al based intermetallics as an alternative to Cr/Ni based stainless steels is very promising for industrial applications that use critical raw materials parts under extreme conditions. However, the development of advanced Fe-Al based intermetallics with appropriate mechanical properties presents several challenges that involve appropriate processing and microstructure control. A processing strategy is being developed which aims at producing a net-shape porous Fe-based preform that is infiltrated with molten Al or Al-alloy. In the present work, porous Fe-based preforms produced by two different methods (selective laser melting (SLM) and Kochanek-process (KE)) are studied during infiltration with molten aluminum. In the objective to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the formation of Fe-Al intermetallic phases during infiltration, an in-house furnace has been designed for in situ observation of infiltration at synchrotron facilities combining x-ray radiography (XR) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The feasibility of this approach has been demonstrated, and information about the melt flow front propagation has been obtained. In addition, reactive infiltration has been achieved where a bi-phased intermetallic layer has been identified to be formed between the solid Fe and liquid Al. In particular, a tongue-like Fe₂Al₅ phase adhering to the Fe and a needle-like Fe₄Al₁₃ phase adhering to the Al were observed. The growth of the intermetallic compound was found to be dependent on the temperature gradient present along the preform as well as on the reaction time which will be discussed in view of the different obtained results.

Keywords: combined synchrotron radiography and diffraction, Fe-Al intermetallic compounds, in-situ molten Al infiltration, porous solid Fe preforms

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Authors: Ayoub Bouazza, Ali Faddouli, Said Amal, Rachid Benhida, Khaoula Khaless

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Brine waste generated from reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plants contains various valuable compounds, mainly salts, trace elements, and organic matter. These wastes are up to two times saltier than standard seawater. Therefore, there is a strong economic interest in recovering these salts. The current practice in desalination plants is to reject the brine back to the sea, which affects the marine ecosystem and the environment. Our study aims to bring forth a reliable management solution for the valorisation of waste brines. Natural evaporation, isothermal evaporation at 25°C and 50°C, and evaporation using continuous heating were used to crystallize valuable salts from a reverse osmosis desalination plant brine located on the Moroccan Atlantic coast. The crystallization sequence of the brine was studied in comparison with standard seawater. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) of the precipitated solid phases showed similar results, where halite was the main solid phase precipitated from both the brine and seawater. However, Jänecke diagram prediction, along with FREZCHEM simulations, showed that Kainite should crystallize before Epsomite and Carnallite. As the absence of kainite formation in many experiments in the literature has been related to the metastability of kainite and the critical relative humidity conditions, and the precipitation of K–Mg salts is very sensitive to climatic conditions. An evaporation process is proposed as a solution to achieve the predicted crystallization path and to affirm the recovery of Kainite.

Keywords: salts crystallization, reverse osmosis, solar evaporation, frezchem, ZLD

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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: Lobna Mnif Fakhfakh, Mohamed Chaieb

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Most ecological studies in North Africa arid bioclimate reveal a process of continuous degradation of pastoral ecosystems as a result of overgrazing during a long time. This degradation appears across the depletion of perennial grass species. Indeed, the majority of steppe ecosystems are characterized by a low density of perennial grasses. The objective of the present work is to examine the phenology and the above ground growth of several Stipagrostis ciliata accessions, growing under different arid bioclimate of North Africa (case of Tunisia). The results of the ANOVA test, next to the mean values of all measurements show significant differences in all morphological parameters of S. ciliata accessions. Plant diameter, biovolume, root biomass with protective sleeve and spike number show very significant. Differences between S. ciliata accessions. Significance tests for the differences of means indicate high distinctiveness of accessions. Pearson’s correlation analysis of the morphological traits suggests that these traits are significantly and positively correlated. Cluster analysis indicates overall differences among accessions and exhibits the presence of three clusters. The Principal component analysis (PCA) is applied on a table with four observations and 12 variables. Dispersion of Stipagrostis ciliata accessions on the first two axes of principal component analysis confirms the presence of three groups of plants. The characterization of Stipagrostis ciliata plants has shown that significant differences exist in terms of morphological and phenological parameters.

Keywords: accession, morphology, phenology, Stipagrostis ciliata

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Authors: Fatin Khairani Khairul 'Azam

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Reading comprehension requires the formation of an articulate mental representation of the information in a text. It involves three interdepended elements—the reader, the text, and the activity, all situated into an extensive sociocultural context. Incorporating metacognitive think-aloud strategy into teaching reading comprehension would improve learners’ reading comprehension skills as it helps to monitor their thinking as they read. Furthermore, by integrating Digital Educational Learning Initiative Malaysia (DELIMa) platform in teaching reading comprehension, it can make the process interactive and fun. A quasi-experimental one-group pre-test post-test design was used to identify the effectiveness of using metacognitive think-aloud strategy via DELIMa platform in improving pupils’ reading comprehension performance and their perceptions towards reading comprehension. The participants of the study comprised 82 of form 1 pupils from a secondary school in Pasir Gudang, Johor, Malaysia. All participants were required to sit for pre-and post-tests to track their reading comprehension performance and perceptions. The findings revealed that incorporating metacognitive think-aloud strategy is an effective strategy in teaching reading comprehension as the performance of pupils in reading comprehension and their perceptions towards reading comprehension were improved during the post tests. It is hoped that the findings of the study would be useful to the teachers incorporating the same strategy in teaching to improve pupils' reading skills. It is suggested that future study should involve the motivation factor of the participants on incorporating think-aloud strategy into teaching reading comprehension as well.

Keywords: DELIMa Platform, ESL Learners, Metacognitive Strategy, Pupils' Perceptions, Reading Comprehension, Think-Aloud Strategy

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Authors: Irsanti Hasyim, Christian Wibisono, Angela Teressia

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Social enterprises, as one of the way of doing business are on the rise and emerging from the innovations of decades of social initiatives. In simple way, social enterprises use the business platform to achieve social and/or environmental objectives whilst simultaneously seeking a financial return. In Indonesia, the number of social enterprises rapidly grows and most of them were using social media as their business platform. Social Media are perceived as tools for creating online communities of users who share interests, activities, and objectives. Many companies view the use of online communities in social media as a profitable marketing tool from which they can derive several benefits. Through social media, consumers share experiences with and suggest ideas to others while developing new relationships within their communities. Therefore, this study intends to identify the benefits that participants in online communities seek and examine the relationships between members’ levels of participation, brand trust, and brand commitment. Using convenience sampling method, 236 fully answered questioner was collected and used as a sample of this research. The sample of this research consisted of member or follower in several social media from selected social enterprise in Indonesia. Data collected in this research were process by using Partial Least Square and came up with the result that functional benefit and monetary benefit, are only two from five benefits that proposed were the only variable that has significant result even though from APC, ARS and AARS outcomes show that the model can be claimed to be significant.

Keywords: brand trust, brand commitment, social enterprise, social media

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Authors: Nourhan Hussein Fanaki, Hoda Mohamed Gamal El-Din Omar, Nihal Kadry Moussa, Eva Adel Edward Farid

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The resistance of staphylococci to various antibiotics has become a major concern for health care professionals. The efficacy of the combinations of selected glycopeptides (vancomycin and teicoplanin) with gentamicin or rifampicin, as well as that of gentamicin/rifampicin combination, was studied against selected pathogenic staphylococcus isolated from Egypt. The molecular distribution of genes conferring resistance to these four antibiotics was detected among tested clinical isolates. Antibiotic combinations were studied using the checkerboard technique and the time-kill assay (in both the stationary and log phases). Induction of resistance to glycopeptides in staphylococci was tried in the absence and presence of diclofenac sodium as inducer. Transmission electron microscopy was used to study the effect of glycopeptides on the ultrastructure of the cell wall of staphylococci. Attempts were made to cure gentamicin resistance plasmids and to study the transfer of these plasmids by conjugation. Trials for the transformation of the successfully isolated gentamicin resistance plasmid to competent cells were carried out. The detection of genes conferring resistance to the tested antibiotics was performed using the polymerase chain reaction. The studied antibiotic combinations proved their efficacy, especially when tested during the log phase. Induction of resistance to glycopeptides in staphylococci was more promising in presence of diclofenac sodium, compared to its absence. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the thickening of bacterial cell wall in staphylococcus clinical isolates due to the presence of tested glycopeptides. Curing of gentamicin resistance plasmids was only successful in 2 out of 9 tested isolates, with a curing rate of 1 percent for each. Both isolates, when used as donors in conjugation experiments, yielded promising conjugation frequencies ranging between 5.4 X 10-2 and 7.48 X 10-2 colony forming unit/donor cells. Plasmid isolation was only successful in one out of the two tested isolates. However, low transformation efficiency (59.7 transformants/microgram plasmid DNA) of such plasmids was obtained. Negative regulators of autolysis, such as arlR, lytR and lrgB, as well as cell-wall associated genes, such as pbp4 and/or pbp2, were detected in staphylococcus isolates with reduced susceptibility to the tested glycopeptides. Concerning rifampicin resistance genes, rpoBstaph was detected in 75 percent of the tested staphylococcus isolates. It could be concluded that in vitro studies emphasized the usefulness of the combination of vancomycin or teicoplanin with gentamicin or rifampicin, as well as that of gentamicin with rifampicin, against staphylococci showing varying resistance patterns. However, further in vivo studies are required to ensure the safety and efficacy of such combinations. Diclofenac sodium can act as an inducer of resistance to glycopeptides in staphylococci. Cell-wall thickness is a major contributor to such resistance among them. Gentamicin resistance in these strains could be chromosomally or plasmid mediated. Multiple mutations in the rpoB gene could mediate staphylococcus resistance to rifampicin.

Keywords: glycopeptides, combinations, induction, diclofenac, transmission electron microscopy, polymerase chain reaction

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Authors: Mosaad Attia Elkasaby

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The crude oil contains paraffines, aromatics, and asphaltenes in addition to some organic impurities, with increasing demands to reduce the cost of crude oil production, the uses of a pour point depressant is mandatory to maintain good flow rate. The wax materials cause many problems during production, storage, and transport, especially at low temperature, as these waxes tend, at low temperatures, to precipitate on the wall lines, thus leads to the high viscosity of crude oil and impede the flow rate, which represents an additional burden for crude oil pumping system from the place of production to the refinery. There are many ways to solve this problem, including, but not limited to, heat the crude and the use of organic solvents. But one of the most important disadvantages of these methods is the high economic cost. The aim of this innovation is to manufacture some polymeric materials (polymers based on aniline) that are processed locally that can be used as a pour point depressant of crude oil. For the first time, polymer based on aniline is modified and used with a number of organic solvents and tested with solvent (Styrene). It was found that the polymer based on aniline, when modified, had full solubility in styrene, unlike other organic solvent that was used in the past, such as chloroform and toluene. We also used a new solvent (PONA) that is obtained from the process of hydrotreating and separation of straight run naphtha to dissolve polymer based on aniline as a pour point depressant of crude oil. This innovative include studies conducted on highly paraffinic crude oil (C.O.1 and C.O.2). On using concentration (2500 ppm) of polymer based on aniline, the pour point of crude oil has decreased from +33 to - 9°C in case of crude oil (C.O.1) and from + 42 to – 6°C in case crude oil (C.O.2) at the same concentration.

Keywords: PPD, aniline, paraffinic crude oils, polymers

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Authors: Mostafa Gabr, Rania Abdul Galil, Nihal Salim

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Various interventions are applied in cities with the aim to improve living and acoustic environmental conditions. Noise is one of the most influential and critical factors in the environment that has an effect on the QOL (quality of life) and urban environment. It ranks second among environmental pollution issues according to EEAA. Traffic noise is a major source of noise. Noise barriers are one of the physical techniques in landscape design used to reduce the impact of noise pollution in urban areas. Roadways noise pollution can be best controlled by a noise barrier. The aim of this paper is to consider all facets of sustainability when designing a comfortable acoustic environment in roadways, through different strategies related to planning and the design process. The study focuses on the relation between the design of noise barriers as a landscape noise mitigation installation and their materiality in so far as it influences the sustainability of the open space and the acceptability of users. According to previous studies, design of noise barrier mainly depends on cost as a decisive factor. This study asserts that environmental and socioeconomic costs associated are equally important. Hence, the paper presents a strategy for sustainable soundscape design. It builds a framework focusing on materiality considering the environmental and socioeconomic impact of noise barriers shaping urban open space around the road ways, and the different academic and market positions on noise barrier types and materials. Finally, it concludes with a matrix of the relation between the noise barrier design consideration and the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic and environmental).

Keywords: traffic noise level, acoustic sustainability, noise barrier, noise reduction, noise control, acoustical level

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Authors: Mohamed Bendoukha, Mustapha Mosbah

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The Radiographic apparent assumed that the asymptomatic adjacent segment disease ASD is common after lumbar fusion, but this does not correlate with the functional outcomes while compensatory increased motion and stresses at the adjacent level of fusion is well-known to be associated to ASD. Newly developed, the hybrid stabilization are allocated to substituted for mostly the superior level of the fusion in an attempt to reduce the number of fusion levels and likelihood of degeneration process at the adjacent levels during the fusion with pedicle screws. Nevertheless, its biomechanical efficiencies still remain unknown and complications associated with failure of constructs such screw loosening and toggling should be elucidated In the current study, a finite element (FE) study was performed using a validated L2/S1 model subjected to a moment of 7.5 Nm and follower load of 400 N to assess the biomedical behavior of hybrid constructs based on dynamic topping off, semi rigid fusion. The residual range of motion (ROM), stress distribution at the fused and adjacent levels, stress distribution at the disc and the cage-endplate interface with respect to changes of bone quality were investigated. The hybrid instrumentation was associated with a reduction in compressive stresses compared to the fusion construct in the adjacent-level disc and showed high substantial axial force in the implant while fusion instrumentation increased the motion for both flexion and extension.

Keywords: intervertebral disc, lumbar spine, degenerative nuclesion, L4-L5, range of motion finite element model, hyperelasticy

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Authors: Abu Zafor Sadek

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Pharmaceuticals were one of the least impacted business sectors during the corona pandemic as they are the center point of Covid-19 fight. Emergency use authorization, unproven indication of some commonly used drugs, self-medication, research and production capacity of an individual country, capacity of producing vaccine by many countries, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) related uncertainty, information gap among manufacturer, practitioners and user, export restriction, duration of lock-down, lack of harmony in transportation, disruption in the regulatory approval process, sudden increased demand of hospital items and protective equipment, panic buying, difficulties in in-person product promotion, e-prescription, geo-politics and associated issues added a new dimension to this industry. Although the industry maintains a reasonable growth throughout Covid-19 days; however, it has been characterized by both long- and short-term effects. Short-term effects have already been visible to so many countries, especially those who are import-dependent and have limited research capacity. On the other hand, it will take a few more time to see the long-term effects. Nevertheless, supply chain disruption, changes in strategic planning, new communication model, squeezing of job opportunity, rapid digitalization are the major short-term effects, whereas long-term effects include a shift towards self-sufficiency, growth pattern changes of certain products, special attention towards clinical studies, automation in operations, the increased arena of ethical issues etc. Therefore, this qualitative and exploratory study identifies the post-covid-19 landscape of the global pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: covid-19, pharmaceutical, businees, landscape

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Authors: Abeer Tariq, Mohammed S. Aljawad, Khaldoun S. Alfarisi

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This paper aimed to estimate the petrophysical properties (porosity, permeability, and fluid saturation) of the Ajeel well (Aj-1) Shale reservoir. Petrophysical properties of the Naokelekan Formation at Ajeel field are determined from the interpretation of open hole log data of one well which penetrated the source rock reservoir. However, depending on these properties, it is possible to divide the Formation which has a thickness of approximately 28-34 m, into three lithological units: A is the upper unit (thickness about 9 to 13 m) consisting of dolomitized limestones; B is a middle unit (thickness about 13 to 20 m) which is composed of dolomitic limestone, and C is a lower unit (>22 m thick) which consists of shale-rich and dolomitic limestones. The results showed that the average formation water resistivity for the formation (Rw = 0.024), the average resistivity of the mud filtration (Rmf = 0.46), and the Archie parameters were determined by the picket plot method, where (m) value equal to 1.86, (n) value equal to 2 and (a) value equal to 1. Also, this reservoir proved to be economical for future developments to increase the production rate of the field by dealing with challenging reservoirs. In addition, Porosity values and water saturation Sw were calculated along with the depth of the composition using Interactive Petrophysics (IP) V4.5 software. The interpretation of the computer process (CPI) showed that the better porous zone holds the highest amount of hydrocarbons in the second and third zone. From the flow zone indicator FZI method, there are two rock types in the studied reservoir.

Keywords: petrophysical properties, porosity, permeability, ajeel field, Naokelekan formation, Jurassic sequences, carbonate reservoir, source rock

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Authors: Ibrahim M. Metwally

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Have you ever thought that earth was not the same earth we live on? Was it bigger or smaller? Was it a great continent surrounded by huge ocean as Alfred Wegener (1912) claimed? Earth is the most amazing planet in our Milky Way galaxy and may be in the universe. It is the only deformed planet that has a variable orbit around the sun and the only planet that has water on its surface. How did earth deformation take place? What does cause earth to deform? What are the results of earth deformation? How does its orbit around the sun change? First earth size computation can be achieved only considering the quantum of iron and nickel rested into earth core. This paper introduces a new theory “Earth expansion Theory”. The principles of “Earth Expansion Theory” are leading to new approaches and concepts to interpret whole earth dynamics and its geological and environmental changes. This theory is not an attempt to unify the two divergent dominant theories of continental drift, plate tectonic theory and earth expansion theory. The new theory is unique since it has a mathematical derivation, explains all the change to and around earth in terms of geological and environmental changes, and answers all unanswered questions in other theories. This paper presents the basic of the introduced theory and discusses the mechanism of earth expansion and how it took place, the forces that made the expansion. The mechanisms of earth size change from its spherical shape with radius about 3447.6 km to an elliptic shape of major radius about 6378.1 km and minor radius of about 6356.8 km and how it took place, are introduced and discussed. This article also introduces, in a more realistic explanation the formation of oceans and seas, the preparation of river formation. It also addresses the role of iron in earth size enlargement process within the continuum mechanics framework.

Keywords: earth size, earth expansion, continuum mechanics, continental and ocean formation

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Authors: Misha Ali, Qayyum Husain, Nida Alam, Masood Ahmad

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Improving the activity and stability of the enzyme is an important aspect in bioremediation processes. Immobilization of enzyme is an efficient approach to amend the properties of biocatalyst required during wastewater treatment. The present study was done to immobilize partially purified ginger peroxidase on amino functionalized silica coated titanium dioxide nanocomposite. Interestingly there was an enhancement in enzyme activity after immobilization on nanosupport which was evident from effectiveness factor (η) value of 1.76. Immobilized enzyme was characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Immobilized peroxidase exhibited higher activity in a broad range of pH and temperature as compared to free enzyme. Also, the thermostability of peroxidase was strikingly improved upon immobilization. After six repeated uses, the immobilized peroxidase retained around 62% of its dye decolorization activity. There was a 4 fold increase in Vmax of immobilized peroxidase as compared to free enzyme. Circular dichroism spectroscopy demonstrated conformational changes in the secondary structure of enzyme, a possible reason for the enhanced enzyme activity after immobilization. Immobilized peroxidase was highly efficient in the removal of acid yellow 42 dye in a stirred batch process. Our study shows that this bio-remediating system has remarkable potential for treatment of aromatic pollutants present in wastewater.

Keywords: acid yellow 42, decolorization, ginger peroxidase, immobilization

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Authors: Gladys Maame Akua Setordzie

Abstract:

Decision on one’s future career is said to have both beneficial and detrimental effects on one’s mental health, social and economic standing later in life, making it an important developmental problem for young people. In this light, the study’s overarching goal was to assess how different personality traits serve as a determinant of career decision-making difficulties experienced by university students in Ghana. Specifically, for the purpose of shaping the future of individualized career counselling support, the study investigated whether the “Big Five” personality traits influenced the difficulties students at the University of Ghana encounter while making career decisions. Cross-sectional survey design using a stratified random sampling technique, sampled 494 undergraduate students from the University of Ghana, who completed the Big Five Questionnaire and the Career Decision-making Difficulties Questionnaire. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that neuroticism, consciousness, and openness, accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in career decision-making difficulties. This study provides empirical evidence to support the idea that neuroticism is not necessarily a negative emotion when it comes to career decisionmaking, as has been suggested in previous studies, but rather it allows students to perform better in career decision-making. These results suggests that personality traits play a significant role in the career decision-making process of students of the University of Ghana. Therefore, a better understanding of how different personal and interpersonal factors impact career indecision in students could help career counsellors develop more focused vocational and career guidance interventions.

Keywords: career decision-making difficulties, dysfunctional career beliefs, personality traits, young people

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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: Rejane Maria P. da Silva, Mariana X. Milagre, João Victor de S. Araujo, Leandro A. de Oliveira, Renato A. Antunes, Isolda Costa

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The Al-Cu-Li alloys are advanced materials for aerospace application because of their interesting mechanical properties and low density when compared with conventional Al-alloys. However, Al-Cu-Li alloys are susceptible to localized corrosion. The near-surface deformed layer (NSDL) induced by the rolling process during the production of the alloy and its removal by polishing can influence on the corrosion susceptibility of these alloys. In this work, the influence of surface preparation effects on the electrochemical activity of AA2098-T351 (Al–Cu–Li alloy) was investigated using a correlation between surface chemistry, microstructure, and electrochemical activity. Two conditions were investigated, polished and as-received surfaces of the alloy. The morphology of the two types of surfaces was investigated using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and optical microscopy. The surface chemistry was analyzed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Global electrochemical techniques (potentiodynamic polarization and EIS technique) and a local electrochemical technique (Localized Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy-LEIS) were used to examine the electrochemical activity of the surfaces. The results obtained in this study showed that in the as-received surface, the near-surface deformed layer (NSDL), which is composed of Mg-rich bands, influenced the electrochemical behavior of the alloy. The results showed higher electrochemical activity to the polished surface condition compared to the as-received one.

Keywords: Al-Cu-Li alloys, surface preparation effects, electrochemical techniques, localized corrosion

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Authors: Masoud Mahdavi

Abstract:

During an earthquake, the structure is subjected to seismic loads that cause tension in the members of the building. The use of energy dissipation elements in the structure reduces the percentage of seismic forces on the main members of the building (especially the columns). Steel plate shear wall, as one of the most widely used types of energy dissipation element, has evolved today, and regular drilling of its inner plate is one of the common cases. In the present study, using a finite element method, the shear wall of the steel plate is designed as a floor (with dimensions of 447 × 6/246 cm) with Abacus software and in three different modes on which a cyclic load has been applied. The steel shear wall has a horizontal element (beam) with a reduced beam section (RBS). The hole in the interior plate of the models is created in such a way that it has the process of increasing the area, which makes the effect of increasing the surface area of the hole on the seismic performance of the steel shear wall completely clear. In the end, it was found that with increasing the opening level in the steel shear wall (with reduced cross-section beam), total displacement and plastic strain indicators increased, structural capacity and total energy indicators decreased and the Mises Monson stress index did not change much.

Keywords: steel plate shear wall with opening, cyclic loading, reduced cross-section beam, finite element method, Abaqus software

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Authors: Benjamin M Dauda, Esther Ibrahim, Sylvester Gadimoh, Asabe Mustapha, Jiyah Mohammed

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Despite diverse optimization techniques on natural hydrophilic fibers, hydrophobic synthetic fibers are still the best oil sorption materials. However, these hydrophobic fibers are not biodegradable, making their disposal problematic. To this end, this work sets out to develop Nonwoven sorbents from epoxy-coated Cotton fibers. As a way of improving the compatibility of the crude oil and reduction of moisture absorption, cotton fibers were coated with epoxy resin by immersion in acetone-thinned epoxy solution. A needle-punching machine was used to convert the fibers into coherent nonwoven sheets. An oil sorption experiment was then carried out. The result indicates that the developed epoxy-modified sorbent has a higher crude oil-sorption capacity compared with those of untreated cotton and commercial polypropylene sorbents. Absorption Curves show that the coated fiber and polypropylene sorbent saturated faster than the uncoated cotton fiber pad. The result also shows that the coated cotton sorbent adsorbed crude faster than the polypropylene sorbent, and the equilibrium exhaustion was also higher. After a simple mechanical squeezing process, the Nonwoven pads could be restored to their original form and repeatedly recycled for oil/water separation. The results indicate that the cotton-coated non-woven pads hold promise for the cleanup of oil spills. Our data suggests that the sorption behaviors of the epoxy-coated Nonwoven pads and their crude oil sorption capacity are relatively stable under various environmental conditions compared to the commercial sheet.

Keywords: oil spill, adsorption, cotton, epoxy, nonwoven

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