Search results for: critical reading

Authors: Qi Wang

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In the classroom, teachers have been trained to complete the target task within the limited lecture time, meanwhile learners need to receive a lot of new knowledge, however, most of the time the learners come without the proper pre-class preparation to efficiently take in the contents taught in class. Under this circumstance, teachers do have no time to check whether the learners fully understand the content or not, how the learners communicate in the different contexts, until teachers see the results when the learners are tested. In the past decade, the teaching of Chinese has taken a trend. Teaching focuses less on the use of proper grammatical terms/punctuation and is now placing a heavier focus on the materials from real life contexts. As a result, it has become a greater challenge to teachers, as this requires teachers to fully understand/prepare what they teach and explain the content with simple and understandable words to learners. On the other hand, the same challenge also applies to the learners, who come from different countries. As they have to use what they learnt, based on their personal understanding of the material to effectively communicate with others in the classroom, even in the contexts of a day to day communication. To reach this win-win stage, Feynman’s Technique plays a very important role. This practical report presents you how the Feynman’s Technique is applied into Chinese courses, both writing & oral, to motivate the learners to practice more on writing, reading and speaking in the past few years. Part 1, analysis of different teaching styles and different types of learners, to find the most efficient way to both teachers and learners. Part 2, based on the theory of Feynman’s Technique, how to let learners build the knowledge from knowing the name of something to knowing something, via different designed target tasks. Part 3. The outcomes show that Feynman’s Technique is the interaction of learning style and teaching style, the double-edged sword of Teaching & Learning Chinese as a Second Language.

Keywords: Chinese, Feynman’s technique, learners, teachers

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Authors: Schnell Zsuzsanna

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Background: The interpretation of written texts, language processing in the visual domain, in other words, atypical reading abilities, also known as dyslexia, is an ever-growing phenomenon in today’s societies and educational communities. The much-researched problem affects cognitive abilities and, coupled with normal intelligence normally manifests difficulties in the differentiation of sounds and orthography and in the holistic processing of written words. The factors of susceptibility are varied: social, cognitive psychological, and linguistic factors interact with each other. Methods: The research will explain the psycholinguistics of dyslexia on the basis of several empirical experiments and demonstrate how domain-general abilities of inhibition, retrieval from the mental lexicon, priming, phonological processing, and visual modality transfer affect successful language processing and interpretation. Interpretation of visual stimuli is hindered, and the problem seems to be embedded in a sociocultural, psycholinguistic, and cognitive background. This makes the picture even more complex, suggesting that the understanding and resolving of the issues of dyslexia has to be interdisciplinary, aided by several disciplines in the field of humanities and social sciences, and should be researched from an empirical approach, where the practical, educational corollaries can be analyzed on an applied basis. Aim and applicability: The lecture sheds light on the applied, cognitive aspects of interpretation, social cognitive traits of language processing, the mental underpinnings of cognitive interpretation strategies in different languages (namely, Hungarian and English), offering solutions with a few applied techniques for success in foreign language learning that can be useful advice for the developers of testing methodologies and measures across ESL teaching and testing platforms.

Keywords: dyslexia, social cognition, transparency, modalities

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Authors: Jesse Rafeiro

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This paper discusses worldbuilding as a pedagogical approach to the first-year architectural design studio. The studio ran for three consecutive terms between 2016-2018. Taking its departure from the fifty-five city narratives in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, students collectively designed in a “nowhere” space where intersecting and diverging narratives could be played out. Along with Calvino, students navigated between three main exercises and their imposed limits to develop architectural insight at three scales simulating the considerations of architectural practice: detail, building, and city. The first exercise asked each student to design and model a ruin based on randomly assigned incongruent fragments. Each student was given one plan fragment and two section fragments from different Renaissance Treatises. The students were asked to translate these in alternating axonometric projection and model-making explorations. Although the fragments themselves were imposed, students were free to interpret how the drawings fit together by imagining new details and atypical placements. An undulating terrain model was introduced in the second exercise to ground the worldbuilding exercises. Here, students were required to negotiate with one another to design a city of ruins. Free to place their models anywhere on the site, the students were restricted by the negotiation of territories marked by other students and the requirement to provide thresholds, open spaces, and corridors. The third exercise introduced new life into the ruined city through a series of design interventions. Each student was assigned an atypical building program suggesting a place for an activity, human or nonhuman. The atypical nature of the programs challenged the triviality of functional planning through explorations in spatial narratives free from preconceived assumptions. By contesting, playing out, or dreaming responses to realities taught in other coursework, this third exercise actualized learnings that are too often self-contained in the silos of differing course agendas. As such, the studio fostered an initial worldbuilding space within which to sharpen sensibility and criticality for subsequent years of education.

Keywords: architectural pedagogy, critical pedagogy, Italo Calvino, worldbuilding

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Authors: Kwan Hee Han

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External environment of enterprise is rapidly changing majorly by global competition, cost reduction pressures, and new technology. In these situations, production scheduling function plays a critical role to meet customer requirements and to attain the goal of operational efficiency. It deals with short-term decision making in the production process of the whole supply chain. The major task of production scheduling is to seek a balance between customer orders and limited resources. In manufacturing companies, this task is so difficult because it should efficiently utilize resource capacity under the careful consideration of many interacting constraints. At present, many computerized software solutions have been utilized in many enterprises to generate a realistic production schedule to overcome the complexity of schedule generation. However, most production scheduling systems do not provide sufficient information about the validity of the generated schedule except limited statistics. Process mining only recently emerged as a sub-discipline of both data mining and business process management. Process mining techniques enable the useful analysis of a wide variety of processes such as process discovery, conformance checking, and bottleneck analysis. In this study, the performance of generated production schedule is evaluated by mining event log data of production scheduling software system by using the process mining techniques since every software system generates event logs for the further use such as security investigation, auditing and error bugging. An application of process mining approach is proposed for the validation of the goodness of production schedule generated by scheduling software systems in this study. By using process mining techniques, major evaluation criteria such as utilization of workstation, existence of bottleneck workstations, critical process route patterns, and work load balance of each machine over time are measured, and finally, the goodness of production schedule is evaluated. By using the proposed process mining approach for evaluating the performance of generated production schedule, the quality of production schedule of manufacturing enterprises can be improved.

Keywords: data mining, event log, process mining, production scheduling

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Authors: Silvia Ximena Barrios, Diego Armando Villamizar Mantilla, Raquel Elvira Ocazionez, , Elena E. Stashenko, María Pilar Vinardell, Jorge Luis Fuentes

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Introduction: Skin overexposure to solar radiation has been a serious public health concern, because of its potential carcinogenicity. Therefore, preventive protection strategies using photoprotective agents are critical to counteract the harmful effect of solar radiation. Plants may be a source of photoprotective compounds that inhibit cellular mutations involved in skin cancer initiation. This work evaluated the photoprotective and antigenotoxic effects against ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation of a mixture of Posoqueria latifolia flower extract and Kaempferol (MixPoKa). Methods: The photoprotective efficacy of MixPoka (Posoqueria latifolia flower extract 250 μg/ml and Kaempferol 349.5 μM) was evaluated using in vitro indices such as sun protection factor SPFᵢₙ ᵥᵢₜᵣₒ and critical wavelength (λc). The MixPoKa photostability (Eff) at human minimal erythema doses (MED), according to the Fitzpatrick skin scale, was also estimated. Cytotoxicity and genotoxicity/antigenotoxicity were studied in MRC5 human fibroblasts using the trypan blue exclusion and Comet assays, respectively. Kinetics of the genetic damage repair post irradiation in the presence and absence of the MixPoka, was also evaluated. Results: The MixPoka -UV absorbance spectrum was high across the spectral bands between 200 and 400 nm. The UVB photoprotection efficacy of MixPoka was high (SPFᵢₙ ᵥᵢₜᵣₒ = 25.70 ± 0.06), showed wide photoprotection spectrum (λc = 380 ± 0), and resulted photostable (Eff = 92.3–100.0%). The MixPoka was neither cytotoxic nor genotoxic in MRC5 human fibroblasts; but presented significant antigenotoxic effect against UVB radiation. Additionally, MixPoka stimulate DNA repair post-irradiation. The potential of this phytochemical mixture as sunscreen ingredients was discussed. Conclusion: MixPoka showed a significant antigenotoxic effect against UVB radiation and stimulated DNA repair after irradiation. MixPoka could be used as an ingredient in a sunscreen cream.

Keywords: flower extract, photoprotection, antigenotoxicity, cytotoxicity, genotoxicit

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Authors: Xiao Chen, Alice Ho, Mabel Tie, Xiaoheng Xu

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Background and Significance of the Study: School-enterprise cooperation has been the cornerstone of vocational education in China and many other countries. Researchers and policymakers have paid much attention to ensuring the implementation and improving the quality of school-enterprise cooperation. However, many problems still exist on the implementation level of the cooperation. On the one hand, the enterprises lack the motivation to participate in the cooperation. On the other hand, there is a lack of effective guidance and management during the cooperation. Furthermore, the current literature focuses greatly on policy recommendations on the national level while failing to provide a detailed practical understanding of how school-enterprise cooperation is carried out on the ground level. With emerging social problems, such as the aging population in China, there is an increasing need for diverse nursing services and better nursing quality. Methodology: To gain a deeper understanding of the influencing factors of the implementation of school-enterprise cooperation, this work conducted 37 exploratory interviews in four Chinese cities spanning first-tier to fourth-tier cities with hospital department directors, vocational school deans, nurses, and vocational students. Multiple critical policy documents that founded the current vocational education system in China were analyzed, along with the data collected from the interviews. Major Findings: Based on the policy and interview analyses, this work reveals a set of influencing factors for school-enterprise cooperation implementation. Findings from each region contribute to an overall model of influencing factors for implementing school-enterprise cooperation in vocational nursing education in China, which leads to practical insights for policy recommendation. The key influencing factors are found based on the policy, hospital, school, and social levels. Following practical policy recommendations were presented. Moving forward, further research on the implementation of school-enterprise cooperation in specific industries will become increasingly critical to improving the effectiveness of educational policies and the quality of vocational education.

Keywords: nursing, policy recommendation, school-enterprise cooperation, vocational education

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Authors: Linnan Zhang

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Linguists, as well as psychologists, have shown great interests in implicit causality in reference processing. However, most frequently-used approaches to this issue are psychological experiments (such as eye tracking or self-paced reading, etc.). This research is a corpus-based one and is assisted with statistical tool – software R. The main focus of the present study is about the competition between verb-based implicit causality and theme structure’s influence on anaphora bias in Mandarin Chinese sentences. In Accessibility Theory, it is believed that salience, which is also known as accessibility, and relevance are two important factors in reference processing. Theme structure, which is a special syntactic structure in Chinese, determines the salience of an antecedent on the syntactic level while verb-based implicit causality is a key factor to the relevance between antecedent and anaphora. Therefore, it is a study about anaphora, combining psychology with linguistics. With analysis of the sentences from corpus as well as the statistical analysis of Multinomial Logistic Regression, major findings of the present study are as follows: 1. When the sentence is stated in a ‘cause-effect’ structure, the theme structure will always be the antecedent no matter forward biased verbs or backward biased verbs co-occur; in non-theme structure, the anaphora bias will tend to be the opposite of the verb bias; 2. When the sentence is stated in a ‘effect-cause’ structure, theme structure will not always be the antecedent and the influence of verb-based implicit causality will outweigh that of theme structure; moreover, the anaphora bias will be the same with the bias of verbs. All the results indicate that implicit causality functions conditionally and the noun in theme structure will not be the high-salience antecedent under any circumstances.

Keywords: accessibility theory, anaphora, theme strcture, verb-based implicit causality

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Authors: Anna Papadopoulou

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Women’s relationship to the post-industrial city has been defined by a reciprocal relationship between women’s identity and urban form. Women’s place within the social structure has been influenced by often limiting conditions set by the built environment, and, concurrently, women’s active role in social processes has definitively impacted urban development. Cities in Cyprus present unique locations for urban investigations pertaining to gender because of the country’s particular urban history: unlike most prominent European cities that have experienced approximately five hundred years of urban growth spurred by industrial development, Cypriot cities did not begin to form until the end of the Ottoman occupation that occurred in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Consequently, Cyprus’ urban history is distinctive in that it coincides with international awakenings towards gender equality. This paper is drawn from a study of a contemporary urban narrative of Limassolian women and aims to elucidate spatial and perceptual boundaries that are inherent, constructed and implied. Within the context of this study, gender - in its socially constructed form - becomes a tool for reading and understanding the urban landscape, as well as a vehicle to impact the production and consumption of space. The investigation evaluates urban changes through the lens of women’s entry into the workforce which is a profound event in the social process and consequently explores issues of space and time, connectivity, and access, perceptions and awareness. A narrative of gendered urbanism has been derived from semi-structured interviews where the findings are studied, organised, analysed and synthesised through a grounded theory approach. These qualitative findings have been complemented and specialised by a series of informal observations and mappings.

Keywords: boundaries, gender, Limassol, urbanism

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Authors: Harshit Vallecha, Prabha Bhola

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‘Energy for all’, is a global issue of concern for the past many years. Despite the number of technological advancements and innovations, significant numbers of people are living without access to electricity around the world. India, an emerging economy, tops the list of nations having the maximum number of residents living off the grid, thus raising global attention in past few years to provide clean and sustainable energy access solutions to all of its residents. It is evident from developed economies that centralized planning and electrification alone is not sufficient for meeting energy security. Implementation of off-grid and consumer-driven energy models like Decentralized Renewable Energy (DRE) systems have played a significant role in meeting the national energy demand in developed nations. Cases of DRE systems have been reported in developing countries like India for the past few years. This paper attempts to profile the status of DRE projects in the Indian context with their scope and relevance to ensure universal electrification. Diversified cases of DRE projects, particularly solar, biomass and micro hydro are identified in different Indian states. Critical factors affecting the sustainability of DRE projects are extracted with their interlinkages in the context of developers, beneficiaries and promoters involved in such projects. Socio-techno-economic indicators are identified through similar cases in the context of DRE projects. Exploratory factor analysis is performed to evaluate the critical sustainability factors followed by regression analysis to establish the relationship between the dependent and independent factors. The generated EFA-Regression model provides a basis to develop the sustainability and replicability framework for broader coverage of DRE projects in developing nations in order to attain the goal of universal electrification with least carbon emissions.

Keywords: climate change, decentralized generation, electricity access, renewable energy

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Authors: Caiwen Wang, Yuling Liu

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Scientific and technical discourse is non-literary, and so it is often regarded as merely informative, free of the cultural context of both the source and the target language. Thus it is supposed that translators of sci-tech texts do not need to consider cultural factors in the translation process as readers only care for the information conveyed. This paper takes a different standpoint and shows that cultural context plays an important part in scientific and technical texts and thereafter in bridging the gap between different cultural communities of readers. The paper argues that the common cultural context for members of the same cultural community, such as morals, customs, and values, also underpins the sci-tech discourse of various text types, and therefore may pose difficulties for readers of a different cultural community if this is re-presented or translated literally. The research hypothesises that depending on how it is re-presented or translated; cultural context can either encourage or discourage readers’ reading experience and subsequently their interest to read and use translation texts. Drawing upon the Reception Theory by Hans Robert Jauss, the research investigates the relationship between cultural context and scientific and technical translation from English to Chinese. Citing 55 examples of sci-tech translations from magazines, newspapers and the website of Shell, a major international oil and gas company, the research shows that the source texts for these 55 cases all have bearing on the source cultural context, and translators will need to address this in the translation process instead of doing literal translation to be merely correct. The research then interviews 15 research subjects for their views of the translations. By assessing readers’ reception and perception of translated Chinese sci-tech discourse, the research concludes that cultural context contributes to the quality of scientific and technical translation in an important way and then discusses the implications of the findings for training scientific and technical translators.

Keywords: Chinese translation, cultural context, reception theory, scientific and technical texts

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Authors: Nalanda Roy

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The project will offer a fresh and critical perspective into the Tokyo Trial judgment led by the Indian Jurist Dr. Radha Binod Pal. The project will focus on the Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL) methodology to examine the relevance of international law from the post-colonial perspectives. The project will analyze Pal’s dissenting arguments from a new and comparative perspective, apply for work from other disciplines, and create an understanding of the significance of the historic judgment considering its contemporary relevance, and fill in the gaps that exist in the call for global justice.

Keywords: Tokyo trial, third world, judgment, international law

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Authors: Felipe Osorio Ospina, Maria Adelaida Mejia Arango, Esteban Onésimo Vallejo Agudelo, Victoria Lucía Dávila Osorio, Natalia Vargas Grisales, Lina María Martínez Sanchez, Camilo Andrés Agudelo Vélez, Ángela Maria Londoño García, Isabel Cristina Ortiz Trujillo

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Excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation, has shown to be a risk factor for photodamage, alteration of the immune mechanisms to recognize malignant cells and cutaneous pro-inflamatorios States and skin cancers. Objective: Identify the time of exposure to ultraviolet radiation for the production of chromosomal damage in human lymphocytes. Methodology: We conducted an in vitro study serial, in which samples were taken from heparinized blood of healthy people, who do not submit exposure to agents that could induce chromosomal alterations. The samples were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum, penicillin and streptomycin antibiotic. Subsequently, they were grouped and exposed to ultraviolet light for 1 to 20 seconds. At the end of the treatments, cytology samples were prepared, and it was colored with Giemsa (5%). Reading was carried out in an optical microscope and 100 metaphases analysed by treatment for posting chromosomal alterations. Each treatment was conducted at three separate times and each became two replicas. Results: We only presented chromosomal alterations in lymphocytes exposed to UV for a groups 1 to 3 seconds (p<0.05). Conclusions: Exposure to ultraviolet radiation generates visible damage in chromosomes from human lymphocytes observed in light microscopy, the highest rates of injury was observed between two and three seconds, and above this value, the reduction in the number of mitotic cells was evident.

Keywords: ultraviolet rays, lymphocytes, chromosome breakpoints, photodamage

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Authors: Felipe Osorio Ospina, Maria Adelaida Mejia Arango, Esteban Onésimo Vallejo Agudelo, Victoria Lucía Dávila Osorio, Natalia Vargas Grisales, Lina María Martínez Sanchez, Camilo Andrés Agudelo Vélez, Ángela Maria Londoño García, Isabel Cristina Ortiz Trujillo

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Excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation, has shown to be a risk factor for photodamage, alteration of the immune mechanisms to recognize malignant cells and cutaneous pro-inflamatorios states and skin cancers. Objective: To identify the time of exposure to ultraviolet radiation for the production of chromosomal damage in human lymphocytes. Methodology: We conducted an in vitro study serial, in which samples were taken from the heparinized blood of healthy people, who do not submit exposure to agents that could induce chromosomal alterations. The samples were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium containing 10% fetal bovine serum, penicillin, and streptomycin antibiotic. Subsequently, they were grouped and exposed to ultraviolet light for 1 to 20 seconds. At the end of the treatments, cytology samples were prepared, and it was colored with Giemsa (5%). Reading was carried out in an optical microscope and 100 metaphases analysed by treatment for posting chromosomal alterations. Each treatment was conducted at three separate times and each became two replicas. Results: We only presented chromosomal alterations in lymphocytes exposed to UV for groups 1 to 3 seconds (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Exposure to ultraviolet radiation generates visible damage in chromosomes from human lymphocytes observed in light microscopy, the highest rates of injury was observed between two and three seconds, and above this value, the reduction in the number of mitotic cells was evident.

Keywords: chromosome breakpoints, lymphocytes, photodamage, ultraviolet rays

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Authors: Ruel A. Welch

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Since the introduction of ServiceNow, the UK’s Science Museum Group’s (SMG) ICT service desk portal. There has not been an analysis of the tools available to SMG staff for just-in-time knowledge acquisition (knowledge management systems) and reporting ICT incidents with a focus on an aspect of professional identity, namely, gender. This study is conducted in the milieu of UK museums, galleries, arts, academic, charitable, and cultural heritage sectors. Numerous authors suggest that males and females experience ICT usage differently. Therefore, it is important for SMG to investigate the apparent disparities so that solutions can be derived to minimize this digital divide if one exists. It is acknowledged at SMG that there are challenges with keeping up with an ever-changing digital landscape. Subsequently, this entails the rapid upskilling of staff and developing an infrastructure that supports just-in-time technological knowledge acquisition and reporting technology-related issues. This problem was addressed by analyzing ServiceNow ICT incident reports and reports from knowledge articles from a six-month period from February to July. This study found a statistically significant relationship between gender and reporting an ICT incident. There is also a significant relationship between gender and the priority level of ICT incidents. Interestingly, there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and reading knowledge articles. Additionally, there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and reporting an ICT incident related to the knowledge article that was read by staff. The knowledge acquired from this study is useful to service desk management practice as it will help to inform the creation of future knowledge articles and ICT incident reporting processes.

Keywords: digital divide, ICT service desk practice, knowledge management systems, workplace learning

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Authors: Susana Sousa Machado

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The debate on the use of religious symbols has been highlighted in modern societies, especially in the field of labour relationships. As litigiousness appears to be growing, the matter requires a careful study from a legal perspective. In this context, a description and critical analysis of the most recent case law is conducted regarding the use of symbols by the employee in the workplace, delivered both by the European Court of Human Rights and by the Court of Justice of the European Union. From this comparative analysis we highlight the most relevant aspects in order to seek a common core regarding the juridical-argumentative approach of case law.

Keywords: religion, religious symbols, workplace, discrimination

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Authors: Pranjal Srivastava, Piyali Sengupta

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The performance of marine drilling risers is crucial in the offshore oil and gas industry to ensure safe drilling operation with minimum downtime. Experimental investigations on marine drilling risers are limited in the literature owing to the expensive and exhaustive test setup required to replicate the realistic riser model and ocean environment in the laboratory. Therefore, this study presents an analytical model of marine drilling riser for determining its fragility under ocean environmental loading. In this study, the marine drilling riser is idealized as a continuous beam having a concentric circular cross-section. Hydrodynamic loading acting on the marine drilling riser is determined by Morison’s equations. By considering the equilibrium of forces on the marine drilling riser for the connected and normal drilling conditions, the governing partial differential equations in terms of independent variables z (depth) and t (time) are derived. Subsequently, the Runge Kutta method and Finite Difference Method are employed for solving the partial differential equations arising from the analytical model. The proposed analytical approach is successfully validated with respect to the experimental results from the literature. From the dynamic analysis results of the proposed analytical approach, the critical design parameters peak displacements, upper and lower flex joint rotations and von Mises stresses of marine drilling risers are determined. An extensive parametric study is conducted to explore the effects of top tension, drilling depth, ocean current speed and platform drift on the critical design parameters of the marine drilling riser. Thereafter, incremental dynamic analysis is performed to derive the fragility functions of shallow water and deep-water marine drilling risers under ocean environmental loading. The proposed methodology can also be adopted for downtime estimation of marine drilling risers incorporating the ranges of uncertainties associated with the ocean environment, especially at deep and ultra-deepwater.

Keywords: drilling riser, marine, analytical model, fragility

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Authors: Joseph Ampratwum, Yaw Nyadu Offei, Afua Ntoaduro, Frank Twum

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The use of computer assistive technology has captured the attention of individuals with visual impairment. Children with visual impairments who are tactual learners have one unique need which is quite different from all other disability groups. They depend on the use of computer assistive technology for reading, writing, receiving information and sending information as well. The objective of the study was to assess students’ competencies in the use of computer assistive technology at Akropong School for the Blind in Ghana. This became necessary because little research has been conducted to document the competencies and challenges in the use of computer among students with visual impairments in Africa. A case study design with a mixed research strategy was adopted for the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to sample 35 students from Akropong School for the Blind in the eastern region of Ghana. The researcher gathered both quantitative and qualitative data to measure students’ competencies in keyboarding skills and Job Access with Speech (JAWS), as well as the other challenges. The findings indicated that comparatively students’ competency in keyboard skills was higher than JAWS application use. Thus students had reached higher stages in the conscious competencies matrix in the former than the latter. It was generally noted that challenges limiting effective use of students’ competencies in computer assistive technology in the School were more personal than external influences. This was because most of the challenges were due to the individual response to the training and familiarity in developing their competencies in using computer assistive technology. Base on this it was recommended that efforts should be made to stock up the laboratory with additional computers. Directly in line with the first recommendation, it was further suggested that more practice time should be created for the students to maximize computer use. Also Licensed JAWS must be acquired by the school to advance students’ competence in using computer assistive technology.

Keywords: computer assistive technology, job access with speech, keyboard, visual impairment

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Authors: Mhenga Agneta, Li Zhaomin, Zhang Chao

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When velocity is high enough, gas can entrain fluid and carry to the surface, but as time passes by, velocity drops to a critical point where fluids will start to hold up in the tubing and cause liquid loading which prevents gas production and may lead to the death of the well. Foam injection is widely used as one of the methods to unload liquid. Since wells have different characteristics, it is not guaranteed that foam can be applied in all of them and bring successful results. This research presents a technology to optimize the efficiency of foam to unload liquid by air compression. Two methods are used to explain optimization; (i) mathematical formulas are used to solve and explain the myth of how density and critical velocity could be minimized when air is compressed into foaming agents, then the relationship between flow rates and pressure increase which would boost up the bottom hole pressure and increase the velocity to lift liquid to the surface. (ii) Experiments to test foam carryover capacity and stability as a function of time and surfactant concentration whereby three surfactants anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), nonionic Triton 100 and cationic hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTAB) were probed. The best foaming agents were injected to lift liquid loaded in a created vertical well model of 2.5 cm diameter and 390 cm high steel tubing covered by a transparent glass casing of 5 cm diameter and 450 cm high. The results show that, after injecting foaming agents, liquid unloading was successful by 75%; however, the efficiency of foaming agents to unload liquid increased by 10% with an addition of compressed air at a ratio of 1:1. Measured values and calculated values were compared and brought about ± 3% difference which is a good number. The successful application of the technology indicates that engineers and stakeholders could bring water flooded gas wells back to production with optimized results by firstly paying attention to the type of surfactants (foaming agents) used, concentration of surfactants, flow rates of the injected surfactants then compressing air to the foaming agents at a proper ratio.

Keywords: air compression, foaming agents, gas well, liquid loading

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Authors: Muthana Saleh Alalaki, Michael Opoku Agyeman

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The growth in the number of Intellectual Properties (IPs) or the number of cores on the same chip becomes a critical issue in System-on-Chip (SoC) due to the intra-communication problem between the chip elements. As a result, Network-on-Chip (NoC) has emerged as a system architecture to overcome intra-communication issues. This paper presents a study of recent contributions on simulation tools for NoC. Furthermore, an overview of NoC is covered as well as a comparison between some NoC simulators to help facilitate research in on-chip communication.

Keywords: WiNoC, simulation tool, network-on-chip, SoC

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Authors: A. Kalaei, A. H. W. Ngan

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In this study, a mesoscopic continuum dislocation dynamics (CDD) approach is applied to simulate the intergranular slip transfer. The CDD scheme applies an efficient kinematics equation to model the evolution of the “all-dislocation density,” which is the line-length of dislocations of each character per unit volume. As the consideration of every dislocation line can be a limiter for the simulation of slip transfer in large scales with a large quantity of participating dislocations, a coarse-grained, extensive description of dislocations in terms of their density is utilized to resolve the effect of collective motion of dislocation lines. For dynamics closure, namely, to obtain the dislocation velocity from a velocity law involving the effective glide stress, mutual elastic interaction of dislocations is calculated using Mura’s equation after singularity removal at the core of dislocation lines. The developed scheme for slip transfer can therefore resolve the effects of the elastic interaction and pile-up of dislocations, which are important physics omitted in coarser models like crystal plasticity finite element methods (CPFEMs). Also, the length and timescales of the simulationareconsiderably larger than those in molecular dynamics (MD) and discrete dislocation dynamics (DDD) models. The present work successfully simulates that, as dislocation density piles up in front of a grain boundary, the elastic stress on the other side increases, leading to dislocation nucleation and stress relaxation when the local glide stress exceeds the operation stress of dislocation sources seeded on the other side of the grain boundary. More importantly, the simulation verifiesa phenomenological misorientation factor often used by experimentalists, namely, the ease of slip transfer increases with the product of the cosines of misorientation angles of slip-plane normals and slip directions on either side of the grain boundary. Furthermore, to investigate the effects of the critical stress-intensity factor of the grain boundary, dislocation density sources are seeded at different distances from the grain boundary, and the critical applied stress to make slip transfer happen is studied.

Keywords: grain boundary, dislocation dynamics, slip transfer, elastic stress

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Authors: Nazal Abdul Nasar RP

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This paper explores the intersection of Sufism and social justice, examining how Sufi principles and practices inform and inspire activism, community engagement, and advocacy for human rights. Drawing on Islamic mystical texts, contemporary Sufi movements, and critical theory, this study argues that Sufism's emphasis on love, compassion, and unity provides a powerful framework for addressing systemic oppression and promoting collective liberation. Sufism, Islamic mysticism has long emphasized the importance of love, compassion, and unity. This paper explores how these principles can inform social justice work, particularly in the context of contemporary activism. Sufi teachings on ma'rifa (spiritual knowledge) emphasize the importance of spiritual awareness and self-reflection in social justice work. Fana (annihilation) informs strategies for addressing privilege and oppression by emphasizing ego annihilation and humility. Tawhid (unity) underlies efforts to build inclusive, equitable communities. Case studies of Sufi-inspired activism in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia demonstrate the potential of Sufi principles to inform social justice work. Examples include Sufi-led protests and grassroots organizing in Egypt and Turkey, Sufi women's empowerment initiatives in Morocco and Tunisia, and Sufi-inspired environmental activism in India and Pakistan. This research demonstrates the potential of Sufi principles to inform and inspire social justice activism. By embodying love, compassion, and unity, activists can address systemic oppression and promote collective liberation. The implications of this research include interfaith dialogue, community building, and activism. Future directions include integrating Sufi principles with critical theory, examining additional Sufi-inspired activism globally, and developing practical guidelines for Sufi-inspired social justice activism.

Keywords: sufism, social justice, islamic mysticism, ego annihilation, love, unity

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Authors: Seyedeh Mozhgan Seyed-Talebi, Javad Beheshtian

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The toxicity of lead associated with the lifecycle of perovskite solar cells (PSCs( is a serious concern which may prove to be a major hurdle in the path toward their commercialization. The current proposed lead-free PSCs including Ag(I), Bi(III), Sb(III), Ti(IV), Ge(II), and Sn(II) low-toxicity cations are still plagued with the critical issues of poor stability and low efficiency. This is mainly because of their chemical stability. In the present research, utilization of all inorganic CsSnGeI₃ based materials offers the advantages to enhance resistance of device to degradation, reduce the cost of cells, and minimize the carrier recombination. The presence of inorganic halide perovskite improves the photovoltaic parameters of PCSs via improved surface coverage and stability. The inverted structure of simulated devices using a 1D simulator like solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS) version 3308 involves TCOHTL/Perovskite/ETL/Au contact layer. PEDOT:PSS, PCBM, and CsSnGeI₃ used as hole transporting layer (HTL), electron transporting layer (ETL), and perovskite absorber layer in the inverted structure for the first time. The holes are injected from highly stable and air tolerant Sn_0.5Ge_0.5I₃ perovskite composition to HTM and electrons from the perovskite to ETL. Simulation results revealed a great dependence of power conversion efficiency (PCE) on the thickness and defect density of perovskite layer. Here the effect of an increase in operating temperature from 300 K to 400 K on the performance of CsSnGeI₃ based perovskite devices is investigated. Comparison between simulated CsSnGeI₃ based PCSs and similar real testified devices with spiro-OMeTAD as HTL showed that the extraction of carriers at the interfaces of perovskite absorber depends on the energy level mismatches between perovskite and HTL/ETL. We believe that optimization results reported here represent a critical avenue for fabricating the stable, low-cost, efficient, and eco-friendly all-inorganic Cs-Sn-Ge based lead-free perovskite devices.

Keywords: hole transporting layer, lead-free, perovskite solar cell, SCAPS-1D, Sn-Ge based

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Authors: Yu-Hsuan Liu, Ying-Fang Wang

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The objectives of the present study are to characterize nanoparticles generated from the laser metal deposition (LMD) process and to estimate particle concentrations deposited in the head (H), that the tracheobronchial (TB) and alveolar (A) regions, respectively. The studied LMD chamber (3.6m × 3.8m × 2.9m) is installed with a robot laser metal deposition machine. Direct-reading instrument of a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS, Model 3082, TSI Inc., St. Paul, MN, USA) was used to conduct static sampling inside the chamber for nanoparticle number concentration and particle size distribution measurements. The SMPS obtained particle number concentration at every 3 minutes, the diameter of the SMPS ranged from 11~372 nm when the aerosol and sheath flow rates were set at 0.6 and 6 L / min, respectively. The resultant size distributions were used to predict depositions of nanoparticles at the H, TB, and A regions of the respiratory tract using the UK National Radiological Protection Board’s (NRPB’s) LUDEP Software. Result that the number concentrations of nanoparticles in indoor background and LMD chamber were 4.8×10³ and 4.3×10⁵ # / cm³, respectively. However, the nanoparticles emitted from the LMD process was in the form of the uni-modal with number median diameter (NMD) and geometric standard deviation (GSD) as 142nm and 1.86, respectively. The fractions of the nanoparticles deposited on the alveolar region (A: 69.8%) were higher than the other two regions of the head region (H: 10.9%), tracheobronchial region (TB: 19.3%). This study conducted static sampling to measure the nanoparticles in the LMD process, and the results show that the fraction of particles deposited on the A region was higher than the other two regions. Therefore, applying the characteristics of nanoparticles emitted from LMD process could be provided valuable scientific-based evidence for exposure assessments in the future.

Keywords: exposure assessment, laser metal deposition process, nanoparticle, respiratory region

Procedia PDF Downloads 285

Authors: Javier Comes Fayos, Isabel RodríGuez Moreno, Sara Bressanutti, Marisol Lila, Angel Romero MartíNez, Luis Moya Albiol

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Given the great impact produced by gender-based violence, its comprehensive approach seems essential. Consequently, research has focused on risk factors for violent behaviour, linking various psychosocial variables, as well as cognitive and neuropsychological deficits with the aggressors. However, studies on affective processing are scarce, so the present study investigates possible emotional alterations in men convicted of gender violence. The participants were 51 aggressors, who attended the CONTEXTO program with sentences of less than two years, and 47 men with no history of violence. The sample did not differ in age, socioeconomic level, education, or alcohol and other substances consumption. Anger, alexithymia and facial recognition of other people´s emotions were assessed through the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and Reading the mind in the eyes (REM), respectively. Men convicted of gender-based violence showed higher scores on the anger trait and temperament dimensions, as well as on the anger expression index. They also scored higher on alexithymia and in the identification and emotional expression subscales. In addition, they showed greater difficulties in the facial recognition of emotions by having a lower score in the REM. These results seem to show difficulties in different affective areas in men condemned for gender violence. The deficits are reflected in greater difficulty in identifying and expressing emotions, in processing anger and in recognizing the emotions of others. All these difficulties have been related to the use of violent behavior. Consequently, it is essential and necessary to include emotional regulation in intervention programs for men who have been convicted of gender-based violence.

Keywords: alexithymia, anger, emotional processing, emotional recognition, empathy, intimate partner violence

Procedia PDF Downloads 202

Authors: Manal Mohammed Hisham Said Najjar

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The Arab Grammarians shed light on the redundant kana (was) and gave it a considerable attention. However, their considerations and interpretations pertaining to using this verb varied: is it used to determine tense? Or used for further emphasis or for another function? Does it have a syntactic function? Morphologically, could it be used in other forms than the past? In addition, Arab Grammarians discussed the possibility of using kana to locate itself in between the syntactic constructs of a sentence, a phrase, or a collocation. Others questioned its position whether it is in initial or final. This study found out that the redundant kana (was) is cited in Quran and was used by the Arabs in their speech and poetry. This redundant kana, whether used in initial position or in a final position, or in between the constructs of a sentence, a phrase, or a collocation, implies pragmatic meanings intended by the speaker or the poet to serve different functions, such as to indicate the past tense, to provide emphasis, and to refer to the continuity of the effect and meaning of a verb or adjective. The study concludes that this verb kana can be utilized in different contexts to achieve a specific effect as did the old Arabs who used it to add specific shades of meanings. Kana as a redundant word could be added to further highlight the meaning aimed at in a specific utterance. In addition, this verb can be used in both the past and the present morphological form; and its availability in an utterance could be functional and could not be. In other words, the study found out that the redundant kana can be used in various positions in an utterance, initial, final, or in between a syntactic structure, provided that this use is pragmatically functional. In conclusion, this paper seeks to invite the scholars of the Arabic language to coin a new term which is the “pragmatic kana” to replace the term “kana alzae’da (redundant kana)” which might mean that its use is redundant and void of significance – a fact that is illogical due to its recurrent use in the Holy Quran. NOTE: Please take this study not the other one (sent by mistake) and titled kana alnaqisa

Keywords: redundan, kana, grammarians, quran

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: Chen-Ya Juan

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Problem-Based Learning uses vague questions to guide student thinking and enhance their self-learning and collaboration. Most teachers implement PBL in a physical classroom, where teachers can monitor and evaluate students’ learning progress and guide them to search resources for answers. However, the prevalence of the Covid-19 in the world had changed from physical teaching to distance teaching. This instruction used many cases and applied Problem-Based Learning combined on the distance teaching via the internet for college students. This study involved an experimental group with PBL and a control group without PBL. The teacher divided all students in PBL class into eight groups, and 7~8 students in each group. The teacher assigned different cases for each group of the PBL class. Three stages of instruction were developed, including background knowledge of Learning, case analysis, and solving problems for each case. This study used a quantitative research method, a two-sample t-test, to find a significant difference in groups with PBL and without PBL. Findings indicated that PBL incased the average score of special education knowledge. The average score was improved by 20.46% in the PBL group and 15.4% without PBL. Results didn’t show significant differences (0.589>0.05) in special education professional knowledge. However, the feedback of the PBL students implied learning more about the application, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking. PBL students were more likely to apply professional knowledge on the actual case, find questions, resources, and answers. Most of them understood the importance of collaboration, working as a team, and communicating with other team members. The suggestions of this study included that (a) different web-based teaching instruments influenced student’s Learning; (b) it is difficult to monitor online PBL progress; (c) online PBL should be implemented flexible and multi-oriented; (d) although PBL did not show a significant difference on the group with PBL and without PBL, it did increase student’s problem-solving skills and critical thinking.

Keywords: problem-based learning, college students, distance learning, case analysis, problem-solving

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Authors: Jose Flores, Nadia Gamboa

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A proper water quality management requires the establishment of a monitoring network. Therefore, evaluation of the efficiency of water quality monitoring networks is needed to ensure high-quality data collection of critical quality chemical parameters. Unfortunately, in some Latin American countries water quality monitoring programs are not sustainable in terms of recording historical data or environmentally representative sites wasting time, money and valuable information. In this study, multivariate statistical techniques, such as principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), are applied for identifying the most significant monitoring sites as well as critical water quality parameters in the monitoring network of the Jequetepeque River basin, in northern Peru. The Jequetepeque River basin, like others in Peru, shows socio-environmental conflicts due to economical activities developed in this area. Water pollution by trace elements in the upper part of the basin is mainly related with mining activity, and agricultural land lost due to salinization is caused by the extensive use of groundwater in the lower part of the basin. Since the 1980s, the water quality in the basin has been non-continuously assessed by public and private organizations, and recently the National Water Authority had established permanent water quality networks in 45 basins in Peru. Despite many countries use multivariate statistical techniques for assessing water quality monitoring networks, those instruments have never been applied for that purpose in Peru. For this reason, the main contribution of this study is to demonstrate that application of the multivariate statistical techniques could serve as an instrument that allows the optimization of monitoring networks using least number of monitoring sites as well as the most significant water quality parameters, which would reduce costs concerns and improve the water quality management in Peru. Main socio-economical activities developed and the principal stakeholders related to the water management in the basin are also identified. Finally, water quality management programs will also be discussed in terms of their efficiency and sustainability.

Keywords: PCA, HCA, Jequetepeque, multivariate statistical

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Authors: Chun-Shien Lu

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Privacy-preserving query has recently received considerable attention in the signal processing and multimedia community. It is also a critical step in wireless sensor network for retrieval of sensitive data. The purposes of privacy-preserving query in both the areas of signal processing and sensor network are the same, but the similarity and difference of the adopted technologies are not fully explored. In this paper, we first review the recently developed methods of privacy-preserving query, and then describe in a comprehensive manner what we can learn from the mutual of both areas.

Keywords: encryption, privacy-preserving, search, security

Procedia PDF Downloads 257

Authors: Budhvin T. Withana, Sulochana Rupasinghe

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The educational system faces a significant concern with regards to Dyslexia and Dysgraphia, which are learning disabilities impacting reading and writing abilities. This is particularly challenging for children who speak the Sinhala language due to its complexity and uniqueness. Commonly used methods to detect the risk of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia rely on subjective assessments, leading to limited coverage and time-consuming processes. Consequently, delays in diagnoses and missed opportunities for early intervention can occur. To address this issue, the project developed a hybrid model that incorporates various deep learning techniques to detect the risk of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. Specifically, Resnet50, VGG16, and YOLOv8 models were integrated to identify handwriting issues. The outputs of these models were then combined with other input data and fed into an MLP model. Hyperparameters of the MLP model were fine-tuned using Grid Search CV, enabling the identification of optimal values for the model. This approach proved to be highly effective in accurately predicting the risk of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia, providing a valuable tool for early detection and intervention. The Resnet50 model exhibited a training accuracy of 0.9804 and a validation accuracy of 0.9653. The VGG16 model achieved a training accuracy of 0.9991 and a validation accuracy of 0.9891. The MLP model demonstrated impressive results with a training accuracy of 0.99918, a testing accuracy of 0.99223, and a loss of 0.01371. These outcomes showcase the high accuracy achieved by the proposed hybrid model in predicting the risk of Dyslexia and Dysgraphia.

Keywords: neural networks, risk detection system, dyslexia, dysgraphia, deep learning, learning disabilities, data science

Procedia PDF Downloads 66

Authors: R. Morbidelli, C. Saltalippi, A. Flammini, A. Garcia-Marin, J. L. Ayuso-Munoz

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The climate change, mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions associated to human activities, has been modifying hydrologic processes with a direct effect on air surface temperature that has significantly increased in the last century at global scale. In this context the Mediterranean area is considered to be particularly sensitive to the climate change impacts on temperature indices. An analysis finalized to study the evolution of temperature indices and to check the existence of significant trends in the Umbria Region (Italy) is presented. Temperature data were obtained by seven meteorological stations uniformly distributed in the study area and characterized by very long series of temperature observations (at least 60 years) spanning the 1924-2015 period. A set of 39 temperature indices represented by monthly and annual mean, average maximum and average minimum temperatures, has been derived. The trend analysis was realized by applying the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test, while the non-parametric Pettit test and the parametric Standard Normal Homogeneity test (SNHT) were used to check the presence of breakpoints or in-homogeneities due to environmental changes/anthropic activity or climate change effects. The Umbria region, in agreement with other recent studies exploring the temperature behavior in Italy, shows a general increase in all temperature indices, with the only exception of Gubbio site that exhibits very light negative trends or absence of trend. The presence of break points and in-homogeneity was widely explored through the selected tests and the results were checked on the basis of the well-known metadata of the meteorological stations.

Keywords: reception theory, reading, literary translation, horizons of expectation, reader

Procedia PDF Downloads 164