Search results for: time perception

Authors: Zaw Min Tun

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The paper focuses on the spacecraft’s trajectory transition from interplanetary hyperbolic orbit to the planet’s orbit using the aerobraking in the atmosphere of the planet. A considerable mass of fuel is consumed during the spacecraft transition from the planet’s gravitation assist trajectory into the planet’s satellite orbit. To reduce the fuel consumption in this transition need to slow down the spacecraft’s velocity in the planet’s atmosphere and reduce its orbital transition time. The paper is devoted to the use of the planet’s atmosphere for slowing down the spacecraft during its transition into the satellite orbit with uncertain atmospheric parameters. To reduce the orbital transition time of the spacecraft is controlled by the change of attack angles’ values at the aerodynamic deceleration path and adjusting the minimum flight altitude of the spacecraft at the pericenter of the planet’s upper atmosphere.

Keywords: aerobraking, atmosphere of the planet, orbital transition time, Spacecraft’s trajectory

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Authors: Mohammed A. Hajeeh

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Pumping systems are an integral part of water desalination plants, their effective functioning is vital for the operation of a plant. In this research work, the reliability and availability of pressurized pumps in a reverse osmosis desalination plant are studied with the objective of finding configurations that provides optimal performance. Six configurations of a series system with different number of warm and cold standby components were examined. Closed form expressions for the mean time to failure (MTTF) and the long run availability are derived and compared under the assumption that the time between failures and repair times of the primary and standby components are exponentially distributed. Moreover, a cost/ benefit analysis is conducted in order to identify a configuration with the best performance and least cost. It is concluded that configurations with cold standby components are preferable especially when the pumps are of the size.

Keywords: availability, cost/benefit, mean time to failure, pumps

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Authors: Anup Anand Deshmukh, Catherine Soladie, Renaud Seguier

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Emotion plays a key role in many applications like healthcare, to gather patients’ emotional behavior. Unlike typical ASR (Automated Speech Recognition) problems which focus on 'what was said', it is equally important to understand 'how it was said.' There are certain emotions which are given more importance due to their effectiveness in understanding human feelings. In this paper, we propose an approach that models human stress from audio signals. The research challenge in speech emotion detection is finding the appropriate set of acoustic features corresponding to an emotion. Another difficulty lies in defining the very meaning of emotion and being able to categorize it in a precise manner. Supervised Machine Learning models, including state of the art Deep Learning classification methods, rely on the availability of clean and labelled data. One of the problems in affective computation is the limited amount of annotated data. The existing labelled emotions datasets are highly subjective to the perception of the annotator. We address the first issue of feature selection by exploiting the use of traditional MFCC (Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients) features in Convolutional Neural Network. Our proposed Emo-CNN (Emotion-CNN) architecture treats speech representations in a manner similar to how CNN’s treat images in a vision problem. Our experiments show that Emo-CNN consistently and significantly outperforms the popular existing methods over multiple datasets. It achieves 90.2% categorical accuracy on the Emo-DB dataset. We claim that Emo-CNN is robust to speaker variations and environmental distortions. The proposed approach achieves 85.5% speaker-dependant categorical accuracy for SAVEE (Surrey Audio-Visual Expressed Emotion) dataset, beating the existing CNN based approach by 10.2%. To tackle the second problem of subjectivity in stress labels, we use Lovheim’s cube, which is a 3-dimensional projection of emotions. Monoamine neurotransmitters are a type of chemical messengers in the brain that transmits signals on perceiving emotions. The cube aims at explaining the relationship between these neurotransmitters and the positions of emotions in 3D space. The learnt emotion representations from the Emo-CNN are mapped to the cube using three component PCA (Principal Component Analysis) which is then used to model human stress. This proposed approach not only circumvents the need for labelled stress data but also complies with the psychological theory of emotions given by Lovheim’s cube. We believe that this work is the first step towards creating a connection between Artificial Intelligence and the chemistry of human emotions.

Keywords: deep learning, brain chemistry, emotion perception, Lovheim's cube

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Authors: Sujeet Kumar, Arun Prasad

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The present work investigates the effect of multiple parameters on the unconfined compressive strength of the bauxite residue-lime mix. A number of unconfined compressive strength tests considering various curing time, lime content, dry density and moisture content were carried out. The results show that an empirical correlation may be successfully developed using volumetric lime content, porosity, moisture content, curing time unconfined compressive strength for the range of the bauxite residue-lime mix studied. The proposed empirical correlations efficiently predict the strength of bauxite residue-lime mix, and it can be used as a generalized empirical equation to estimate unconfined compressive strength.

Keywords: bauxite residue, curing time, porosity/volumetric lime ratio, unconfined compressive strength

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Authors: Tatsuya Otoshi, Masayuki Murata

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With the development and diversification of applications on the Internet, applications that require high responsiveness, such as video streaming, are becoming mainstream. Application responsiveness is not only a matter of communication delay but also a matter of time required to grasp changes in network conditions. The tradeoff between accuracy and measurement time is a challenge in network control. We people make countless decisions all the time, and our decisions seem to resolve tradeoffs between time and accuracy. When making decisions, people are known to make appropriate choices based on relatively small samples. Although there have been various studies on models of human decision-making, a model that integrates various cognitive biases, called ”quantum decision-making,” has recently attracted much attention. However, the modeling of small samples has not been examined much so far. In this paper, we extend the model of quantum decision-making to model decision-making with a small sample. In the proposed model, the state is updated by value-based probability amplitude amplification. By analytically obtaining a lower bound on the number of samples required for decision-making, we show that decision-making with a small number of samples is feasible.

Keywords: quantum decision making, small sample, MPEG-DASH, Grover's algorithm

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Authors: Jiwan P. Lavande, A. V. Chandewar

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In the present study, orodispersible tablets of diphenhydramine hydrochloride were prepared using croscarmellose sodium, crospovidone and camphor, menthol (as subliming agents) in different ratios and ODTs prepared with superdisintegrants were compared with ODTs prepared with camphor and menthol (subliming agents) for the following evaluation of in vitro disintegration time, dispersion time, wetting time, hardness and water absorption ratio. Results revealed that the tablets of all formulations have acceptable physical parameters. The drug and excipients compatibility study was evaluated using FTIR technique and has not detected any incompatibility. The in vitro release of drug from DC6 formulation was quick when compared to other formulations. Stability study was carried out as per ICH guidelines for three months and results revealed that upon storage disintegration time of tablets had not shown any significant difference. Microscopic study of different formulations of sublimed tablets showed formation of pores for the tablets prepared by sublimation method. Thus, conclusion can be made that the stable orodispersible tablets of diphenhydramine hydrochloride can be developed for the rapid release of diphenhydramine hydrochloride.

Keywords: orodispersible tablet, subliming agent, super disintegrants, diphenhydramine hydrochloride

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Authors: Laurie U. deBettencourt

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During pre-service field experiences teacher candidates are often asked to reflect as part of their training and in this investigation candidates’ reflective journal entries were reviewed, coded and analyzed with results suggesting teacher candidates need more direct instruction on how to describe, analyze, and make judgements on their instructional practices so that their practices improve over time. Teacher education programs often incorporate reflective-based activities during field experiences. The purpose of this investigation was to determine if special education teacher candidate’s reflective practices changed as they completed their two supervised field experiences and to determine what topics the candidates focused on in their reflections. The six females graduate students were completing two field experiences in special education classrooms within one academic year as part of their coursework leading to a master’s degree and special education teacher state certification. Each candidate wrote 15 reflection journal entries (approximately 200 words each) per field experience. Each of the journal entries were reviewed sentence by sentence to determine a reflective practice score and to determine the topics discussed. The reflective practice score was calculated using four dimensions of reflection (describe, analyze, judge, and apply) in order to create a continuous variable representing their reflective practice across four points of time. A One-way Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) suggested that special education teacher candidates did not change their reflective practices over time (i.e., at time-point one the practitioner’s mean score was 56.0 out of 100 (SD = 7.6), 53.8 (SD = 4.3) at time-point two, 51.2 (SD = 4.5) at time-point three, and 57.7 (SD = 8.2) at time-point four). Qualitative findings suggest candidates focused mostly on themselves in their reflections. Conclusions suggest the need for teacher preparation programs to provide more direct instruction on how a teacher should reflect. Specific implications are provided for teacher training and future research.

Keywords: field experiences, reflective practices, special educators, teacher preparation

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Authors: Joud Zagzoog, Amira Aldabbagh, Radiyah Hamidaddin

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This research aims to test out and observe whether artificial intelligence (AI) software and applications could actually be effective, useful, and time-saving for those who use them. Shaguf Bites, a web application that uses AI technology, claims to help students study and memorize information more effectively in less time. The website uses smart learning, or AI-powered bite-sized repetitive learning, by transforming documents or PDFs with the help of AI into summarized interactive smart flashcards (Bites, n.d.). To properly test out the websites’ effectiveness, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this research. An experiment was conducted on a number of students where they were first requested to use Shaguf Bites without any prior knowledge or explanation of how to use it. Second, they were asked for feedback through a survey on how their experience was after using it and whether it was helpful, efficient, time-saving, and easy to use for studying. After reviewing the collected data, we found out that the majority of students found the website to be straightforward and easy to use. 58% of the respondents agreed that the website accurately formulated the flashcard questions. And 53% of them reported that they are most likely to use the website again in the future as well as recommend it to others. Overall, from the given results, it is clear that Shaguf Bites have proved to be very beneficial, accurate, and time saving for the majority of the students.

Keywords: artificial intelligence (AI), education, memorization, spaced repetition, flashcards.

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Authors: Naydelis Brito Suárez, Deni Librado Torres Román, Fernando Hermosillo Reynoso

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Automatic detection and generation of a dynamic ROI (Region of Interest) in vehicle traffic surveillance videos based on a static camera in Intelligent Transportation Systems is challenging for computer vision-based systems. The dynamic ROI, being a changing ROI, should capture any other moving object located outside of a static ROI. In this work, the video is represented by a Tensor model composed of a Background and a Foreground Tensor, which contains all moving vehicles or objects. The values of each pixel over a time interval are represented by time series, and some pixel rows were selected. This paper proposes a pixel entropy-based algorithm for automatic detection and generation of a dynamic ROI in traffic videos under the assumption of two types of theoretical pixel entropy behaviors: (1) a pixel located at the road shows a high entropy value due to disturbances in this zone by vehicle traffic, (2) a pixel located outside the road shows a relatively low entropy value. To study the statistical behavior of the selected pixels, detecting the entropy changes and consequently moving objects, Shannon, Tsallis, and Approximate entropies were employed. Although Tsallis entropy achieved very high results in real-time, Approximate entropy showed results slightly better but in greater time.

Keywords: convex hull, dynamic ROI detection, pixel entropy, time series, moving objects

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Authors: Xinwen Zhu, Xingguang Li, Sun Yi

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Crack is one of the most common damages in buildings, bridges, roads and so on, which may pose safety hazards. However, cracks frequently happen in structures of various materials. Traditional methods of manual detection and measurement, which are known as subjective, time-consuming, and labor-intensive, are gradually unable to meet the needs of modern development. In addition, crack detection and measurement need be safe considering space limitations and danger. Intelligent crack detection has become necessary research. In this paper, an efficient method for crack detection and quantification using a 3D sensor, LiDAR, and depth camera is proposed. This method works even in a dark environment, which is usual in real-world applications. The LiDAR rapidly spins to scan the surrounding environment and discover cracks through lasers thousands of times per second, providing a rich, 3D point cloud in real-time. The LiDAR provides quite accurate depth information. The precision of the distance of each point can be determined within around  ±3 cm accuracy, and not only it is good for getting a precise distance, but it also allows us to see far of over 100m going with the top range models. But the accuracy is still large for some high precision structures of material. To make the depth of crack is much more accurate, the depth camera is in need. The cracks are scanned by the depth camera at the same time. Finally, all data from LiDAR and Depth cameras are analyzed, and the size of the cracks can be quantified successfully. The comparison shows that the minimum and mean absolute percentage error between measured and calculated width are about 2.22% and 6.27%, respectively. The experiments and results are presented in this paper.

Keywords: LiDAR, depth camera, real-time, detection and measurement

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Authors: Seyoung Kim, Jeongmin Kim, Kwang Ryel Ryu

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A database that records average traffic speeds measured at five-minute intervals for all the links in the traffic network of a metropolitan city. While learning from this data the models that can predict future traffic speed would be beneficial for the applications such as the car navigation system, building predictive models for every link becomes a nontrivial job if the number of links in a given network is huge. An advantage of adopting k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) as predictive models is that it does not require any explicit model building. Instead, k-NN takes a long time to make a prediction because it needs to search for the k-nearest neighbors in the database at prediction time. In this paper, we investigate how much we can speed up k-NN in making traffic speed predictions by reducing the amount of data to be searched for without a significant sacrifice of prediction accuracy. The rationale behind this is that we had a better look at only the recent data because the traffic patterns not only repeat daily or weekly but also change over time. In our experiments, we build several different k-NN models employing different sets of features which are the current and past traffic speeds of the target link and the neighbor links in its up/down-stream. The performances of these models are compared by measuring the average prediction accuracy and the average time taken to make a prediction using various amounts of data.

Keywords: big data, k-NN, machine learning, traffic speed prediction

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Authors: Ahmed Ghalem

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The research to be explained is a collection of information about several public and private economic institutions. This information is represented in highlighting the large and useful role in adopting the method of electronic marketing. Which is widespread and easy to use among community members at the local and international levels. Which generates large sums of money with little effort and little time, and also satisfies the customers. Do these things, despite what we have said, run the risk of losing large amounts of money in a moment or a short time.

Keywords: economic, finance, bank, development, marketing

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Authors: Susan Ka Yee Chow

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The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) reached Hong Kong in 2019 resulting in epidemic in late January 2020. Considering the epidemic development, tertiary institutions made announcements that all on-campus classes were suspended since 01/29/2020. In Tung Wah College, e-learning was adopted in all courses for all programmes. For the undergraduate nursing students, the contact hours and curriculum are bounded by the Nursing Council of Hong Kong to ensure core competence after graduation. Unlike the usual e-learning where students are allowed having flexibility of time and place in their learning, real time learning mode using Blackboard was used to mimic the actual classroom learning environment. Students were required to attend classes according to the timetable using online platform. For lectures, voice over PowerPoint file was the initial step for mass lecturing. Real time lecture was then adopted to improve interactions between teacher and students. Post-lecture quizzes were developed to monitor the effectiveness of lecture delivery. The seminars and tutorials were conducted using real time mode where students were separated into small groups with interactive discussions with teacher within the group. Live time demonstrations were conducted during laboratory sessions. All teaching sessions were audio/video recorded for students’ referral. The assessments including seminar presentation and debate were retained. The learning mode creates an atmosphere for students to display the visual, audio and written works in a non-threatening atmosphere. Other students could comment using text or direct voice as they desired. Real time online learning is the pedagogy to replace classroom contacts in the emergent and unforeseeable circumstances. The learning pace and interaction between students and students with teacher are maintained. The learning mode has the advantage of creating an effective and beneficial learning experience.

Keywords: e-learning, nursing curriculum, real time mode, teaching and learning

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Authors: Fatima Ghassan Al-Abtah, Naser Al-Huniti, Elsadig Mahdi

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As the lightest constructional metal on earth, magnesium alloys offer excellent potential for weight reduction in the transportation industry, and it was observed that some magnesium alloys exhibit superior ductility and superplastic behavior at high temperatures. The main limitation of the superplastic forming (SPF) includes the low production rate since it needs a long forming time for each part. Through this study, an SPF process that starts with a mechanical pre-forming stage is developed to promote formability and reduce forming time. A two-dimensional finite element model is used to simulate the process. The forming process consists of two steps. At the pre-forming step (deep drawing), the sheet is drawn into the die to a preselected level, using a mechanical punch, and at the second step (SPF) a pressurized gas is applied at a controlled rate. It is shown that a significant reduction in forming time and improved final thickness uniformity can be achieved when the hybrid forming technique is used, where the process achieved a fully formed part at 400°C. Investigation for the impact of different forming process parameters achieved by comparing forming time and the distribution of final thickness that were obtained from the simulation analysis. Maximum thinning decreased from over 67% to less than 55% and forming time significantly decreased by more than 6 minutes, and the required gas pressure profile was predicted for optimum forming process parameters based on the 0.001/sec target constant strain rate within the sheet.

Keywords: magnesium, plasticity, superplastic forming, finite element analysis

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Authors: Sheila R. Pai, Rekha D. Kini, Amrutha Mary

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Objective: To assess and compare the cardiac autonomic activity after mental stress among the wards of normal and hypertensive parents. Methods: The study included 67 subjects, 30 of them had a parental history of hypertension and rest 37 had normotensive parents. Subjects were divided into control group (wards of normotensive parents) and Study group (wards of hypertensive parents). The height, weight were noted, and Body Mass Index (BMI) was also calculated. The mental stress test was carried out. Blood pressure (BP) and electro cardiogram (ECG) was recorded during normal breathing and after mental stress test. Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis was done by time domain method HRV was recorded and analyzed by the time-domain method. Analysis of HRV in the time-domain was done using the software version 1.1 AIIMS, New Delhi. The data obtained was analyzed using student’s t-test followed by Mann-Whitney U-test and P < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: There was no significant difference in systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) between study group and control group following mental stress. In the time domain analysis, the mean value of pNN50 and RMSSD of the study group was not significantly different from the control group after the mental stress test. Conclusion: The study thus concluded that there was no significant difference in HRV between study group and control group following mental stress.

Keywords: heart rate variability, time domain analysis, mental stress, hypertensive

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Authors: Sayed-Mahdi Hashemi-Dehkordi, Ian Baker

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This paper investigates the benefits of implementing distance learning in training courses for the oil and gas industries to reduce lean. Due to the remote locations of many oil and gas operations, scheduling and organizing in-person training classes for employees in these sectors is challenging. Furthermore, considering that employees often work in periodic shifts such as day, night, and resting periods, arranging in-class training courses requires significant time and transportation. To explore the effectiveness of distance learning compared to in-class learning, a set of questionnaires was administered to employees of a far on-shore refinery unit in Iran, where both in-class and distance classes were conducted. The survey results revealed that over 72% of the participants agreed that distance learning saved them a significant amount of time by rating it 4 to 5 points out of 5 on a Likert scale. Additionally, nearly 67% of the participants acknowledged that distance learning considerably reduced transportation requirements, while approximately 64% agreed that it helped in resolving scheduling issues. Introducing and encouraging the use of distance learning in the training environments of oil and gas industries can lead to notable time and transportation savings for employees, ultimately reducing lean in a positive manner.

Keywords: distance learning, in-class learning, lean, oil and gas, scheduling, time, training programs, transportation

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Authors: Abdulaziz Alnajem, Amit Sharma

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Business Case: Project delivery and enhancing activities' completion in the shortest possible time is critical during execution to proceed with the subsequent phases of Procurement, C & C phases of Contracts to have the required Production facilities/Infrastructure in place to achieve the Company strategic objective of 4.0 MBOPD oil production. SOR (Statement of requirement): Design and Engineering phase of Projects execution takes a long time. It is observed that, in most of the cases, company has crossed the Project Design Submittals review time as per the Contract/Company Standards, resulting into delays in projects completion, and cost impact to the company. Study Scope: Scope of the study covers the process from date of first submission of D & E documents by the contractor to final approval by the controlling team to proceed with the procurement of materials. This scope covers projects handled by the company’s project management teams and includes only the internal review process by the company.

Keywords: business management system, project management, oil and gas, analysis, improvement, design, delays

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Authors: A. Javadi, H. Asad Beygi

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In line with the increasing demand for high-quality and safe food products, the present study is intended to examine the crude extract and juice of the fruit of Cucumis melo var. dudaim on tenderization of meat. Cubic pieces were selected from the biceps fermoris muscle of a five year-old female water buffalo; then, they were cut two or three hours after the buffalo was slaughtered. The selected samples were superficially exposed to the resolution obtained from the powder of the extract of Cucumis melo var. dudaim. Distilled water as a control sample and the powder of fruit extract of the mentioned plant with 0.5, 1 and 1.5 percent concentrations were experimented in the study. These samples were kept for three time spans of 2 hours, 7 and 14 days. Then, some tests were conducted on the samples both before and after cooking them. In general, with regard to the results obtained from the experiments and the investigations of the impact of time and different concentrations on the tenderization of buffalo meat, it can be argued that the time span of 2 hours and the concentration of 1.5 % can be considered as the best time and concentration for obtaining the most desirable tenderness. Also, tenderness increased in the samples kept for 7 and 14 days; however, due to the extraordinary decomposition, the samples were rather doughy and pasty.

Keywords: meat, Cucumis melo var. dudaim, tenderization, water buffalo

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Authors: Tuğçe Kök, Gözen Güner Aktaş, Nur Ayalp

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In a global world, Social and cultural sustainability are subjects which have gained significant importance in recent years. The concept of sustainability was included in the document of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) by World Charter for Nature, adopted in 1982 for the first time. However, merged with urban sustainability a new phenomenon has emerged. Sustainability is an essential fact, This fact is discussed via the socio-cultural field of sustainability. Together with central government and local authorities, conservation activities have been intensified on the protection of values on an area scale. Today, local authorities play an important role in the urban historic site rehabilitation and re-construction of traditional houses projects in Ankara, Turkey. Many conservative acts have occurred after 1980’s. To give a remarkable example about the conservation implementations of traditional Turkish houses is ‘Hamamönü, Ankara Re-Construction Project which is one of the historical parts that has suffered from deterioration and unplanned urban development. In this region, preexisting but unused historic fibre of the site has been revised and according to result of this case-study, the relationship between users and re-construction were discussed. Most of the houses were re-constructed in order to build a new tourist attraction area. This study discusses the socio-cultural relations between the new built environment and the visitors, from the point of cultural sustainability. This study questions the transmission of cultural stimulations. A case study was conducted to discuss the perception of cultural aspects of the visitors in the site. The relationship between the real cultural identities and existent ones after the re-constructed project, Which has been transmitted through the visitors and the users of those spaces will be discussed. The aim of the study is to analyze the relation between the cultural identities, which have been tried to be protected with the re-construction project and the users. The purposes of this study are to evaluate the implementations of Altındağ Municipality in Hamamönü and examine the socio-cultural sustainability with the user responses. After the assessment of implementation under socio-cultural sustainability, some proposals for the future of Hamamönü were introduced.

Keywords: social sustainability, cultural sustainability, Hamamönü, Turkey, re-construction

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Authors: Busaba Phurksaphanrat

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This research proposes a pre-emptive fuzzy goal programming model for multi-objective multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem. The objectives of the problem are minimization of the total time and the total cost of the project. Objective in a multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem is often a minimization of make-span. However, both time and cost should be considered at the same time with different level of important priorities. Moreover, all elements of cost functions in a project are not included in the conventional cost objective function. Incomplete total project cost causes an error in finding the project scheduling time. In this research, pre-emptive fuzzy goal programming is presented to solve the multi-objective multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem. It can find the compromise solution of the problem. Moreover, it is also flexible in adjusting to find a variety of alternative solutions.

Keywords: multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem, fuzzy set, goal programming, pre-emptive fuzzy goal programming

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Authors: Binyam Teferi

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In this paper, a theoretical analysis of blood flow in the presence of thermal radiation and chemical reaction under the influence of time dependent magnetic field intensity has been studied. The unsteady non linear partial differential equations of blood flow considers time dependent stretching velocity, the energy equation also accounts time dependent temperature of vessel wall, and concentration equation includes time dependent blood concentration. The governing non linear partial differential equations of motion, energy, and concentration are converted into ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations solved numerically by applying ode45. MATLAB code is used to analyze theoretical facts. The effect of physical parameters viz., permeability parameter, unsteadiness parameter, Prandtl number, Hartmann number, thermal radiation parameter, chemical reaction parameter, and Schmidt number on flow variables viz., velocity of blood flow in the vessel, temperature and concentration of blood has been analyzed and discussed graphically. From the simulation study, the following important results are obtained: velocity of blood flow increases with both increment of permeability and unsteadiness parameter. Temperature of the blood increases in vessel wall as Prandtl number and Hartmann number increases. Concentration of the blood decreases as time dependent chemical reaction parameter and Schmidt number increases.

Keywords: stretching velocity, similarity transformations, time dependent magnetic field intensity, thermal radiation, chemical reaction

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Authors: Zelalem Teshager

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The Choke Mountains have several endangered and endemic wildlife species and provide important ecosystem services. Despite their environmental importance, the Choke Mountains are found in dangerous conditions. This raised the need for an evaluation of the community's perception of deforestation and its major drivers and suggested possible solutions in the Choke Mountains of northwestern Ethiopia. For this purpose, household surveys, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions were used. A total sample of 102 informants was used for this survey. A purposive sampling technique was applied to select the participants for in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Both qualitative and quantitative data analyses were used. Computation of descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages, frequency, tables, figures, and graphs was applied to organize, analyze, and interpret the study. This study assessed smallholder agricultural land expansion, Fuel wood collection, population growth; encroachment, free grazing, high demand of construction wood, unplanned resettlement, unemployment, border conflict, lack of a strong forest protecting system, and drought were the serious causes of forest depletion reported by local communities. Loss of land productivity, Soil erosion, soil fertility decline, increasing wind velocity, rising temperature, and frequency of drought were the most perceived impacts of deforestation. Most of the farmers have a holistic understanding of forest cover change. Strengthening forest protection, improving soil and water conservation, enrichment planting, awareness creation, payment for ecosystem services, and zero grazing campaigns were mentioned as possible solutions to the current state of deforestation. Applications of Intervention measures, such as animal fattening, beekeeping, and fruit production can contribute to decreasing the deforestation causes and improve communities’ livelihood. In addition, concerted efforts of conservation will ensure that the forests’ ecosystems contribute to increased ecosystem services. The major drivers of deforestation should be addressed with government intervention to change dependency on forest resources, income sources of the people, and institutional set-up of the forestry sector. Overall, further reduction in anthropogenic pressure is urgent and crucial for the recovery of the afro-alpine vegetation and the interrelated endangered wildlife in the Choke Mountains.

Keywords: choke afro-alpine, deforestation, drivers, intervention measures, perceptions

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Authors: Navid Zanganeh, Hafez Balavi, Farbod Sharif, Mahla Zabet, Marzieh Bakhtiary Noodeh

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Cerium oxide (CeO2) also known as cerium dioxide or ceria is a pale yellow-white powder with various applications in the industry from wood coating to cosmetics, filtration, fuel cell electrolytes, gas sensors, hybrid solar cells and catalysts. In this research, attempts were made to synthesize and characterization of CeO2 nano-particles via sol-gel method. In addition, the effect of aging time on the size of particles was investigated. For this purpose, the aging times adjusted 48, 56, 64, and 72 min. The obtained particles were characterized by x-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmitted electron microscopy (TEM), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET). As a result, XRD patterns confirmed the formation of CeO2 nanoparticles. SEM and TEM images illustrated the nano-particles with cluster shape, spherical and a nano-size range which was in agreement with XRD results. The finest particles (7.3 nm) was obtained at the optimum condition which was aging time of 48 min, calcination temperature at 400 ⁰C, and cerium concentration of 0.004 mol. Average specific surface area of the particles at optimum condition was measured by BET analysis and recorded as 47.57 m2/g.

Keywords: aging time, CeO2 nanoparticles, size distribution, sol-gel

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Authors: Parham Bakhtiari

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The aesthetic characteristics of French keyboard music created during different time periods are examined through the utilization of compositional methods and the nurturing of specific musical styles. This article investigates the changes in style of keyboard compositions created by French musicians, starting from the initial stages from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s. It explores connections from the past and comparing the keyboard compositions of François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau in the Baroque era to those of Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel in the Impressionist era. The evolution of keyboard music in France, particularly for the piano which was a new instrument at the time, was greatly influenced by the French revolution. Hence, we will delve into this topic further. The article examines the development of a specific French fashion trend of keyboard music that were composed during this time when there was an increasing emphasis on technical proficiency and expression of a fresh group of young French music creators.

Keywords: music, keyboard, baroque, impressionism, performance

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Authors: Chetna Jaswal, Nishi Srivastava, Ahammedul Kabeer AP, Puja Prasad

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We are a culture of mass media consumers and cinema as its integral part has high visibility and potential influence on public attitude towards disability which maintains no sociocultural boundaries but experiences substantial social marginalization. Given the lack of awareness and direct experience with disability, on-screen or film representations can give powerful and memorable definitions for the public that can contribute to framing the perception and attitude change. Social representation refers to common ways of thinking, conceiving about and evaluating social reality. It is a product of collective cognition, common sense and thought system. This study aims at analyzing the representations and narratives of disability in Indian cinema and Hollywood with the help of a conceptual understanding of social representation and its theoretical framework.

Keywords: disability, social representation, mainstream cinema, diversity

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Authors: Comfort Mokgothu

Abstract:

This study investigated the relation between processing information and fitness level of active (fit) and sedentary (unfit) children drawn from rural and urban areas in Botswana. It was hypothesized that fit children would display faster simple reaction time (SRT), choice reaction times (CRT) and movement times (SMT). 60, third grade children (7.0 – 9.0 years) were initially selected and based upon fitness testing, 45 participated in the study (15 each of fit urban, unfit urban, fit rural). All children completed anthropometric measures, skinfold testing and submaximal cycle ergometer testing. The cognitive testing included SRT, CRT, SMT and Choice Movement Time (CMT) and memory sequence length. Results indicated that the rural fit group exhibited faster SMT than the urban fit and unfit groups. For CRT, both fit groups were faster than the unfit group. Collectively, the study shows that the relationship that exists between physical fitness and cognitive function amongst the elderly can tentatively be extended to the pediatric population. Physical fitness could be a factor in the speed at which we process information, including decision making, even in children.

Keywords: decision making, fitness, information processing, reaction time, cognition movement time

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Authors: Olga Shapovalova, Vladimir Vinogradov

Abstract:

Among many different sol – gel matrices only alumina can be successfully parenteral injected in the human body. And this is not surprising, because boehmite (aluminium oxyhydroxide) is the metal oxide approved by FDA and EMA for intravenous and intramuscular administrations, and also has been using for a longtime as adjuvant for producing of many modern vaccines. In our earlier study, it has been shown, that denaturation temperature of enzymes entrapped in sol-gel boehmite matrix increases for 30 – 60 °С with preserving of initial activity. It makes such matrices more attractive for long-term storage of non-stable drugs. In current work we present ultrasound-assisted sol-gel synthesis of nano-boehmite. This method provides bio-friendly, very stable, highly homogeneous alumina sol with using only water and aluminium isopropoxide as a precursor. Many parameters of the synthesis were studied in details: time of ultrasound treatment, US frequency, surface area, pore and nanoparticle size, zeta potential and others. Here we investigated the dependence of stability of colloidal sols and textural properties of the final composites as a function of the time of ultrasonic treatment. Chosen ultrasonic treatment time was between 30 and 180 minutes. Surface area, average pore diameter and total pore volume of the final composites were measured by surface and pore size analyzer Nova 1200 Quntachrome. It was shown that the matrices with ultrasonic treatment time equal to 90 minutes have the biggest surface area 431 ± 24 m2/g. On the other had such matrices have a smaller stability in comparison with the samples with ultrasonic treatment time equal to 120 minutes that have the surface area 390 ± 21 m2/g. It was shown that the stable sols could be formed only after 120 minutes of ultrasonic treatment, otherwise the white precipitate of boehmite is formed. We conclude that the optimal ultrasonic treatment time is 120 minutes.

Keywords: boehmite matrix, stabilisation, ultrasound-assisted sol-gel synthesis

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Authors: Yuzhi Ruan

Abstract:

This paper investigates the dual functionality of gossip in shaping the action of the comic character, Mrs. Cyrus Packard, in the play “He Said, She Said” by the Chicago playwright Alice Gerstenberg. During the American Little Theater Movement in the early 20th century, when small experimental centers of drama were established, Alice Gerstenberg challenged gender inequality through the use of social satire in her play. Incorporating textual evidence from the play, this study demonstrates that Mrs. Packard is both empowered and disempowered by her gossiping habit in terms of her self-perception and her social relationships within the play. It argues for the dramatic and satirical representation of female identity through the pragmatics of discourse analysis. These perspectives are evident in combining linguistics and literature.

Keywords: discursive power, female identity, feminism in little theater movement, gossip

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Authors: Jaehong Kim, Sunhee Park, HongSeop Shin, Kyongho Lim, Suhyun Kwon, Don-Gyou Lee, Pureum Kim, Moojong Lim, JongSang Baek

Abstract:

Transparent displays with OLEDs are the most commonly produced forms of see-through displays on the market or in development. In order to block the visual interruption caused by the light coming from the background, the special panel is combined with transparent displays with OLEDs. There is, however, few studies performance of optical shutter panel for transparent displays until now. This paper, therefore, describes the performance of optical shutter panels. The novel evaluation method was developed by measuring the amount of light which can form a transmitted background image. The new proposed method could tell how recognizable transmitted background images cannot be seen, and is consistent with viewer’s perception.

Keywords: optical shutter panel, optical performance, transparent display, visual interruption

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Authors: Domingos Viegas, Miguel Almeida, Carmen Rocha, Ilda Novo, Yolanda Luna

Abstract:

Forest fires along the more than 1200km of the Spanish-Portuguese border are more and more frequent, currently achieving around 2000 fire events per year. Some of these events develop to large international wildfire requiring concerted operations based on shared information between the two countries. The fire event of Valencia de Alcantara (2003) causing several fatalities and more than 13000ha burnt, is a reference example of these international events. Currently, Portugal and Spain have a specific cross-border cooperation protocol on wildfires response for a strip of about 30km (15 km for each side). It is recognized by public authorities the successfulness of this collaboration however it is also assumed that this cooperation should include more functionalities such as the development of a common risk information system for transboundary fire events. Since Portuguese and Spanish authorities use different approaches to determine the fire risk indexes inputs and different methodologies to assess the fire risk, sometimes the conjoint firefighting operations are jeopardized since the information is not harmonized and the understanding of the situation by the civil protection agents from both countries is not unique. Thus, a methodology aiming the harmonization of the fire risk calculation and perception by Portuguese and Spanish Civil protection authorities is hereby presented. The final results are presented as well. The fire risk index used in this work is the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), which is based on meteorological data. The FWI is limited on its application as it does not take into account other important factors with great effect on the fire appearance and development. The combination of these factors is very complex since, besides the meteorology, it addresses several parameters of different topics, namely: sociology, topography, vegetation and soil cover. Therefore, the meaning of FWI values is different from region to region, according the specific characteristics of each region. In this work, a methodology for FWI calibration based on the number of fire occurrences and on the burnt area in the transboundary regions of Portugal and Spain, in order to assess the fire risk based on calibrated FWI values, is proposed. As previously mentioned, the cooperative firefighting operations require a common perception of the information shared. Therefore, a common classification of the fire risk for the fire events occurred in the transboundary strip is proposed with the objective of harmonizing this type of information. This work is integrated in the ECHO project SpitFire - Spanish-Portuguese Meteorological Information System for Transboundary Operations in Forest Fires, which aims the development of a web platform for the sharing of information and supporting decision tools to be used in international fire events involving Portugal and Spain.

Keywords: data harmonization, FWI, international collaboration, transboundary wildfires

Procedia PDF Downloads 241