Search results for: adaptation of text

Authors: Neha Bhadauria, Indu Gaur, Shilpi Shilpi, Susmita Goswami, Prabir K. Paul

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The aerial surface of plants colonized by Human Enteric Pathogens ()has been implicated in outbreaks of enteric diseases in humans. Practice of organic farming primarily using animal dung as manure and sewage water for irrigation are the most significant source of enteric pathogens on the surface of leaves, fruits and vegetables. The present work aims to have an insight into the molecular mechanism of interaction of Human Enteric Pathogens or their metabolites with cell wall receptors in plants. Tomato plants grown under aseptic conditions at 12 hours L/D photoperiod, 25±1°C and 75% RH were inoculated individually with S. fonticola and K. pneumonia. The leaves from treated plants were sampled after 24 and 48 hours of incubation. The cell wall and cytoplasmic proteins were extracted and isocratically separated on 1D SDS-PAGE. The sampled leaves were also subjected to formaldehyde treatment prior to isolation of cytoplasmic proteins to study protein-protein interactions induced by Human Enteric Pathogens. Protein bands extracted from the gel were subjected to MALDI-TOF-TOF MS analysis. The foremost interaction of Human Enteric Pathogens on the plant surface was found to be cell wall bound receptors which possibly set ups a wave a critical protein-protein interaction in cytoplasm. The study revealed the expression and suppression of specific cytoplasmic and cell wall-bound proteins, some of them being important components of signaling pathways. The results also demonstrated HEP induced rearrangement of signaling pathways which possibly are crucial for adaptation of these pathogens to plant surface. At the end of the study, it can be concluded that controlling the over-expression or suppression of these specific proteins rearrange the signaling pathway thus reduces the outbreaks of food-borne illness.

Keywords: cytoplasmic protein, cell wall-bound protein, Human Enteric Pathogen (HEP), protein-protein interaction

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Authors: Samaneh Khalili

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Natural law theory, in moral philosophy, refers to a system of unchanging values held to be mutual to all humans and can be discovered through reason. The natural law theory is commonly associated with western Philosophers. In contrast, discussions on notions of natural law in Islamic intellectual history were relatively rare. This paper aims to show that the moral theory developed by the Mu'tazilite thinkers can be classified in the ideas of natural law. In doing so, this study will demonstrate that the objective and unchanging values, according to Mu'tazilite theologians, provide the guidelines for assessing the Islamic law rules in the field of human coexistence. The focus of the paper lies on ʿAbd al-Ğabbār, who was the most influential thinker in the late epoch of the Muʿtazila. Although ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār did not leave a text with a systematic discussion of natural law, his teaching of nature, human reason, and the moral values of actions are all scattered throughout his work -'al-Muġnī fī abwāb at-tawḥīd wa-l-'adl'. It is necessary to focus on ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār's theories on reason, nature, and ethics since natural law revolves around the basic concepts of nature, reason, and moral value. While analyzing the concept of the Nature, it will attempt to answer how he explains the world's physical structure and God's relationship to natural events. Moreover, from ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār's point of view, is nature a self-determined system that follows its inner principle in every kind of change, or is nature guided by an external power? Does causality govern natural events? About the concept of reason, an attempt is made to examine how human reason, according to ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār, conceives moral attributes. Finally, the Autor will discuss the concepts of objective values and the place of rights and duties derived from Islamic law in ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār's thought.

Keywords: Islamic law, Mu'tazilite theology, natural law in Islamic theology, objective and unchanging values.

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Authors: Marie Komorna, Katerina Hadkova

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One reason why hearing disabilities as compared to other disabilities are considered to be less serious, is the belief that deaf and hard of hearing persons can read and write without problems and can therefore fairly easily compensate for problems related to their limited ability to hear sound. However in reality this is not the case, especially as regards written Czech, deaf persons are often not able to communicate their message clearly to its recipients. Their inability to communicate fully in written language is one of the most severe problems facing a number of deaf persons, a problem which they face and which makes it difficult for them to function in a sound-based environment. Despite this fact, this issue is one which has been given only a minimum of attention in the Czech Republic. That is why we decided to focus our research on this issue, specifically targeting written communication of deaf pupils in primary and secondary schools. The paper summarizes the background and objectives of this research. The written work of deaf respondents was obtained in response to a narrative based on a series of images which depicted a continuous storyline. Based on an analysis of the obtained written work we tried to describe the specifics of the narrative abilities of the deaf authors of these texts. We also analyzed other aspects and specific traits of text written by deaf authors at a phonetic-phonological, lexical-semantic, morphological and syntactic, respectively pragmatic level. Based on the results of the project it will be possible to increase knowledge of the communication abilities of deaf persons in written Czech. The obtained data may be used during future research and for teaching purposes and/or education concepts for teaching Czech to deaf pupils.

Keywords: communication competence, deaf, narrative, written texts

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Authors: Parthiban Srinivasan

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With recent advances in computational power and access to enough data in biosciences, artificial intelligence methods are increasingly being used in drug discovery research. These methods are essentially a series of advanced statistics based exercises that review the past to indicate the likely future. Our goal is to develop a model that accurately predicts biological activity and toxicity parameters for novel compounds. We have compiled a robust library of over 150,000 chemical compounds with different pharmacological properties from literature and public domain databases. The compounds are stored in simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES), a commonly used text encoding for organic molecules. We utilize an automated process to generate an array of numerical descriptors (features) for each molecule. Redundant and irrelevant descriptors are eliminated iteratively. Our prediction engine is based on a portfolio of machine learning algorithms. We found Random Forest algorithm to be a better choice for this analysis. We captured non-linear relationship in the data and formed a prediction model with reasonable accuracy by averaging across a large number of randomized decision trees. Our next step is to apply deep neural network (DNN) algorithm to predict the biological activity and toxicity properties. We expect the DNN algorithm to give better results and improve the accuracy of the prediction. This presentation will review all these prominent machine learning and deep learning methods, our implementation protocols and discuss these techniques for their usefulness in biomedical and health informatics.

Keywords: deep learning, drug discovery, health informatics, machine learning, toxicity prediction

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Authors: Sara Piccirillo

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The integrated urban regeneration represents a great opportunity to deliver correct management of the territory if implemented through the reuse, enhancement, and transformation of abandoned industrial areas, according to sustainability strategies. In environmental terms, recycling abandoned sites by demolishing buildings and regenerating the urban areas means promoting adaptation to climate change and a new sensitivity towards city living. The strategic vision of 'metabolism' can be implemented through diverse actions made on urban settlements, and planning certainly plays a primary role. Planning an urban transformation in a sustainable way is more than auspicable. It is necessary to introduce innovative urban soil management actions to mitigate the environmental costs associated with current land use and to promote projects for the recovery/renaturalization of urban or non-agricultural soils. However, by freeing up these through systematic demolition of the disused heritage, new questions open up in terms of environmental costs deriving from the inevitable impacts caused by the disposal of waste. The mitigation of these impacts involves serious reflection on the recycling supply chains aimed at the production and reuse of secondary raw materials in the construction industry. The recent developments in R&D of recycling materials are gradually becoming more and more pivotal in consideration of environmental issues such as increasing difficulties in exploiting natural quarries or strict regulations for the management and disposal of waste sites. Therefore, this contribution, set as a critical essay, presents the reconstruction outputs of the regulatory background on the material recycling chain up to the 'end of waste' stage, both at a national and regional scale. This extended approach to this urban design practice goes beyond the cultural dimension that has relegated urban regeneration to pure design only. It redefines its processes through an interdisciplinary system that affects human, environmental and financial resources.

Keywords: waste management, C&D waste, recycling, urban trasformation

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Authors: Macky Kato, Takeshi Sato, Mizuki Nakajima

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One major problem related to the use of smartphones is texting while simultaneously engaging in other things, resulting in serious road accidents. Apart from texting while driving being one of the most dangerous behaviors, texting while walking is also dangerous because it narrows the pedestrians’ field of vision. However, many of pedestrian text while walking very habitually. Smartphone users often overlook the potential harm associated with this behavior even while crossing roads. The successful texting while walking make them think that they are safe. The purpose of this study is to reveal of the influence of peripheral vision to the stability of walking trajectory with texting while walking. In total, 9 healthy male university students participated in the experiment. Their mean age was 21.4 years, and standard deviation was 0.7 years. They attempted to walk 10 m in three conditions. First one is the control (CTR) condition, with no phone and no restriction. The second one is the texting while walking (TWG) with no restrictions. The third one is restriction condition (PRS), with phone restricted by experimental peripheral goggles. The horizontal distances (HDS) and directions are measured as the scale of horizontal stability. The longitudinal distances (LDS) between the footprints were measured as the scale of the walking rhythm. The results showed that the HDS of the footprints from the straight line increased as the participants walked in the TWG and PRS conditions. In the PRS condition, this tendency was particularly remarkable. In addition, the LDS between the footprints decreased in the order of the CTR, TWG, and PRS conditions. The ANOVA results showed significant differences in the three conditions with respect to HDS. The differences among these conditions showed that the narrowing of the Pedestrian's vision because of smartphone use influences the walking trajectory and rhythm. It can be said that the pedestrians seem to use their peripheral vision marginally on texting while walking. Therefore, we concluded that the texting while walking narrows the peripheral vision so danger to increase the risk of the accidents.

Keywords: peripheral vision, stability, texting while walking, walking trajectory

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Authors: Khairani Binti Supyan, Fatimah Khalid, Mas Rina Mustaffa, Azreen Bin Azman, Amirul Azuani Romle

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Perennial plant classification plays a significant role in various agricultural and environmental applications, assisting in plant identification, disease detection, and biodiversity monitoring. Nevertheless, attaining high accuracy in perennial plant image classification remains challenging due to the complex variations in plant appearance, the diverse range of environmental conditions under which images are captured, and the inherent variability in image quality stemming from various factors such as lighting conditions, camera settings, and focus. This paper proposes an adaptation approach to optimize perennial plant image classification by fine-tuning the pre-trained DNNs model. This paper explores the efficacy of fine-tuning prevalent architectures, namely VGG16, ResNet50, and InceptionV3, leveraging transfer learning to tailor the models to the specific characteristics of perennial plant datasets. A subset of the MYLPHerbs dataset consisted of 6 perennial plant species of 13481 images under various environmental conditions that were used in the experiments. Different strategies for fine-tuning, including adjusting learning rates, training set sizes, data augmentation, and architectural modifications, were investigated. The experimental outcomes underscore the effectiveness of fine-tuning deep neural networks for perennial plant image classification, with ResNet50 showcasing the highest accuracy of 99.78%. Despite ResNet50's superior performance, both VGG16 and InceptionV3 achieved commendable accuracy of 99.67% and 99.37%, respectively. The overall outcomes reaffirm the robustness of the fine-tuning approach across different deep neural network architectures, offering insights into strategies for optimizing model performance in the domain of perennial plant image classification.

Keywords: perennial plants, image classification, deep neural networks, fine-tuning, transfer learning, VGG16, ResNet50, InceptionV3

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Authors: Shobhit Mittal

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Headcount budgeting stands as a pivotal element in organizational financial management, extending beyond traditional budgeting to encompass strategic resource allocation for workforce-related expenses. This process is integral to maintaining financial stability and fostering a productive workforce, requiring a comprehensive analysis of factors such as market trends, business growth projections, and evolving workforce skill requirements. It demands a collaborative approach, primarily involving Human Resources (HR) and finance departments, to align workforce planning with an organization's financial capabilities and strategic objectives. The dynamic nature of headcount budgeting necessitates continuous monitoring and adjustment in response to economic fluctuations, business strategy shifts, technological advancements, and market dynamics. Its significance in talent management is also highlighted, aligning financial planning with talent acquisition and retention strategies to ensure a competitive edge in the market. The consequences of incorrect headcount budgeting are explored, showing how it can lead to financial strain, operational inefficiencies, and hindered strategic objectives. Examining case studies like IBM's strategic workforce rebalancing and Microsoft's shift for long-term success, the importance of aligning headcount budgeting with organizational goals is underscored. These examples illustrate that effective headcount budgeting transcends its role as a financial tool, emerging as a strategic element crucial for an organization's success. This necessitates continuous refinement and adaptation to align with evolving business goals and market conditions, highlighting its role as a key driver in organizational success and sustainability.

Keywords: strategic planning, fiscal budget, headcount planning, resource allocation, financial management, decision-making, operational efficiency, risk management, headcount budget

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Authors: Irena Baranowska-Bosiacka, Mateusz Bosiacki, Patrycja Kupnicka, Anna Lubkowska, Dariusz Chlubek

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Physical activity and a balanced diet are among the key factors of "healthy ageing". Physical effort, including swimming in cold water (including bathing in natural water reservoirs), is widely recognized as a hardening factor, with a positive effect on the mental and physical health. At the same time, there is little scientific evidence to verify this hypothesis. In the literature to date, it is possible to obtain data on the impact of these factors on selected physiological and biochemical parameters of the blood, at the same time there are no results of research on the effect of immersing in cold water on mineral metabolism, especially bones, hence it seems important to perform such an analysis in relation to the key elements such as calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and phosphorus (P). Taking the above into account, a hypothesis was put forward about the possibility of a positive effect of exercise in cold water on mineral metabolism and bone density in aging rats. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of an 8-week swimming training on mineral metabolism and bone density in aging rats in response to exercise in cold water (5oC) in comparison to swimming in thermal comfort (36oC) and sedentary (control) rats of both sexes. The examination of the concentration of the examined elements in the bones was carried out using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The mineral density of the femurs of the rats was measured using the Hologic Horizon DEXA System® densitometer. The results of our study showed that swimming in cold water affects bone mineral metabolism in aging rats by changing the Ca, Mg, P concentration and at the same time increasing their bone density. In males, a decrease in Mg concentration and no changes in bone density were observed. In the light of the research results, it seems that swimming in cold water may be a factor that positively modifies the bone aging process by improving the mechanisms affecting their density.

Keywords: swimming in cold water, adaptation to cold water, bone mineral metabolism, aging

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Authors: Zewdneh Zana Zate

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The study focuses on the evolutionary and ecological genomics of both wild and cultivated Coffea arabica L. at its center of origin, Ethiopia, aiming to uncover how this vital species may withstand future climate changes. Utilizing bioclimatic models, we project the future distribution of Arabica under varied climate scenarios for 2050 and 2080, identifying potential conservation zones and immediate risk areas. Through whole-genome resequencing of accessions from Ethiopian gene banks, this research assesses genetic diversity and divergence between wild and cultivated populations. It explores relationships, demographic histories, and potential hybridization events among Coffea arabica accessions to better understand the species' origins and its connection to parental species. This genomic analysis also seeks to detect signs of natural or artificial selection across populations. Integrating these genomic discoveries with ecological data, the study evaluates the current and future ecological and genomic vulnerabilities of wild Coffea arabica, emphasizing necessary adaptations for survival. We have identified key genomic regions linked to environmental stress tolerance, which could be crucial for breeding more resilient Arabica varieties. Additionally, our ecological modeling predicted a contraction of suitable habitats, urging immediate conservation actions in identified key areas. This research not only elucidates the evolutionary history and adaptive strategies of Arabica but also informs conservation priorities and breeding strategies to enhance resilience to climate change. By synthesizing genomic and ecological insights, we provide a robust framework for developing effective management strategies aimed at sustaining Coffea arabica, a species of profound global importance, in its native habitat under evolving climatic conditions.

Keywords: coffea arabica, climate change adaptation, conservation strategies, genomic resilience

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Authors: Mohd Noah A. Rahman, Afzaal H. Seyal, Sharul T. Tajuddin, Hartiny Md Azmi

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Taking into consideration the real time situation specifically the higher academic institutions, small, medium to large companies, public to private sectors and the remaining sectors, do experience the inventory or asset shrinkages due to theft, loss or even inventory tracking errors. This happening is due to a zero or poor security systems and measures being taken and implemented in their organizations. Henceforth, implementing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology into any manual or existing web-based system or web application can simply deter and will eventually solve certain major issues to serve better data retrieval and data access. Having said, this manual or existing system can be enhanced into a mobile-based system or application. In addition to that, the availability of internet connections can aid better services of the system. Such involvement of various technologies resulting various privileges to individuals or organizations in terms of accessibility, availability, mobility, efficiency, effectiveness, real-time information and also security. This paper will look deeper into the integration of mobile devices with RFID technologies with the purpose of asset tracking and control. Next, it is to be followed by the development and utilization of MongoDB as the main database to store data and its association with RFID technology. Finally, the development of a web based system which can be viewed in a mobile based formation with the aid of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), MongoDB, Hyper-Text Markup Language 5 (HTML5), Android, JavaScript and AJAX programming language.

Keywords: RFID, asset tracking system, MongoDB, NoSQL

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Authors: Jude K. Safo

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Knowledge Graphs KG) and their relation to Graph Embeddings (GE) represent a unique data structure in the landscape of machine learning (relative to image, text and acoustic data). Unlike the latter, GEs are the only data structure sufficient for representing hierarchically dense, semantic information needed for use-cases like supply chain data and protein folding where the search space exceeds the limits traditional search methods (e.g. page-rank, Dijkstra, etc.). While GEs are effective for compressing low rank tensor data, at scale, they begin to introduce a new problem of ’data retreival’ which we observe in Large Language Models. Notable attempts by transE, TransR and other prominent industry standards have shown a peak performance just north of 57% on WN18 and FB15K benchmarks, insufficient practical industry applications. They’re also limited, in scope, to next node/link predictions. Traditional linear methods like Tucker, CP, PARAFAC and CANDECOMP quickly hit memory limits on tensors exceeding 6.4 million nodes. This paper outlines a topological framework for linear mapping between concepts in KG space and GE space that preserve cardinality. Most importantly we introduce a traceable framework for composing dense linguistic strcutures. We demonstrate performance on WN18 benchmark this model hits. This model does not rely on Large Langauge Models (LLM) though the applications are certainy relevant here as well.

Keywords: representation theory, large language models, graph embeddings, applied algebraic topology, applied knot theory, combinatorics

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Authors: Ghadeer M Alkusayer, Adelicia Yu, Pamela Orr

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Study objective: To report a case of postpartum pulmonary cryptococcal infection (CCI) in an otherwise healthy 35-year-old woman. Additionally, the cases of pulmonary cryptococcal infections either in the antepartum or the postpartum period with pregnancy outcomes, were systematically reviwed. Methods: A systematic search of Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, and EMBASE was conducted for peer-reviewed studies without date restrictions, published in English and relating to CCI during pregnancy or postpartum period. Conference press, editorials, opinion pieces and letters were excluded. Two authors independently screened citations and full-text articles, extracted data and assessed study quality. Given the heterogeneity of study designs, a narrative synthesis was conducted. Results: The search identified 128 references, of which 22 case reports and series met the inclusion criteria. This is a total of 29 women (including the current case) . The mean age of the women was 28.3 ± 12.3 years. Nine (31.03%) presented and were diagnosed in the postpartum period. Two (6.90%) of the patients were reported as immunocompromised with HIV. Four maternal deaths (13.79%) were found in this case series with one (4.3%) patient with severe neurological deficits. Four (17.4%) infant deaths were reported. Women primary presentation varied with chest pain 13 (44.82%), headache 10 (35.70%), dyspnea 19 (65.51%), or fever 12 (41.38%). Three studies reported placental pathology positive for C. neoformans. Conclusion: This case of pulmonary cryptococcal infection in the postpartum period is an important addition to the literature of this rare infection in pregnancy. The patient is not immunocompromised. The patient was successfully treated with 4 months of Fluconazole 400 mg and continued to breastfeed the healthy baby.

Keywords: pulmonary cryptococcus, pregnancy, cryptococci , postpartum

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Authors: Ifeanyichukwu Valerie Oguafor

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Women generally have been categorized and placed under the chain of business industry, sometimes highly regarded and other times merely. The social construction of womanhood does not in all sense support a woman going into business, let alone succeed in it because it is believed that it a man’s world. In a typical patriarchal setting, a woman is expected to know nothing more domestic roles. For some women, this is not the case as they have been able to break these barriers to excel in business amidst these social setting and stereotypes. This study examines media representation of Nigerians business women, using content analysis of TV interviews as media text, framing analysis as an approach in qualitative methodology, The study further aims to analyse media frames of two Nigerian business women: FolorunshoAlakija, a business woman in the petroleum industry with current net worth 1.1 billion U.S dollars, emerging as the richest black women in the world 2014. MosunmolaAbudu, a media magnate in Nigeria who launched the first Africa’s global black entertainment and lifestyle network in 2013. This study used six predefined frames: the business woman, the myth of business women, the non-traditional woman, women in leading roles, the family woman, the religious woman, and the philanthropist woman to analyse the representation of Nigerian business women in the media. The analysis of the aforementioned frames on TV interviews with these women reveals that the media perpetually reproduces existing gender stereotype and do not challenge patriarchy. Women face challenges in trying to succeed in business while trying to keep their homes stable. This study concludes that the media represent and reproduce gender stereotypes in spite of the expectation of empowering women. The media reduces these women’s success insignificant rather than a role model for women in society.

Keywords: representation of business women in the media, business women in Nigeria, framing in the media, patriarchy, women's subordination

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Authors: Tzu-Hao Li, Yen-Ying Kung, Chang-Youh Tsai

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Oral dryness is a common chief complaint among patients with Sjőgren syndrome (SS), which is a disorder currently known as autoantibodies production; however, to author’s best knowledge, there has been no satisfying pharmacy to relieve the associated symptoms. Hence the effectiveness of other non-pharmacological interventions such as acupuncture should be accessed. We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) which evaluated the effectiveness of xerostomia in SS. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Chongqing Weipu Database (CQVIP), China Academic Journals Full-text Database, AiritiLibrary, Chinese Electronic Periodicals Service (CEPS), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) Database were searches through May 12, 2018 to select studies. Data for evaluation of subjective and objective xerostomia was extracted and was assessed with random-effects meta-analysis. After searching, a total of 541 references were yielded and five RCTs were included, covering 340 patients dry mouth resulted from SS, among whom 169 patients received acupuncture and 171 patients were control group. Acupuncture group was associated with higher subjective response rate (odds ratio 3.036, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.828 – 5.042, P < 0.001) and increased salivary flow rate (weighted mean difference [WMD] 3.066, 95% CI 2.969 – 3.164, P < 0.001), as an objective marker. In addition, two studies examined IgG levels, which were lower in the acupuncture group (WMD -166.857, 95% CI -233.138 - -100.576, P < 0.001). Therefore, in the present meta-analysis, acupuncture improves both subjective and objective markers of dry mouth with autoantibodies reduction in patients with SS and is considered as an option of non-pharmacological treatment for SS.

Keywords: acupuncture, meta-analysis, Sjogren syndrome, xerostomia

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Authors: Judith Enriquez-Gibson

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This paper meddles with the notion of phatic communion introduced 90 years ago by Malinowski, who was a Polish-born British anthropologist. It explores the phatic in Twitter within the contents of tweets related to moocs (massive online open courses) as a topic or trend. It is not about moocs though. It is about practices that could easily be hidden or neglected if we let big or massive topics take the lead or if we simply follow the computational or secret codes behind Twitter itself and third party software analytics. It draws from media and cultural studies. Though at first it appears data-driven as I submitted data collection and analytics into the hands of a third party software, Twitonomy, the aim is to follow how phatic communion might be practised in a social media site, such as Twitter. Lurking becomes its research method to analyse mooc-related tweets. A total of 3,000 tweets were collected on 11 October 2013 (UK timezone). The emphasis of lurking is to engage with Twitter as a system of connectivity. One interesting finding is that a click is in fact a phatic practice. A click breaks the silence. A click in one of the mooc website is actually a tweet. A tweet was posted on behalf of a user who simply chose to click without formulating the text and perhaps without knowing that it contains #mooc. Surely, this mechanism is not about reciprocity. To break the silence, users did not use words. They just clicked the ‘tweet button’ on a mooc website. A click performs and maintains connectivity – and Twitter as the medium in attendance in our everyday, available when needed to be of service. In conclusion, the phatic culture of breaking silence in Twitter does not have to submit to the power of code and analytics. It is a matter of human code.

Keywords: click, Twitter, phatic communion, social media data, mooc

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Authors: Nuraisyah H. Zulkifley, Suriani Ismail, Rosliza Abdul Manaf, Poh Y. Lim

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Taking care of a person with dementia (PWD) is one of the most problematic and challenging caregiving situations. Without proper support, caregiver would need to deal with the impact of caregiving that would lead to caregiver burden. One of the most common tools used to measure caregiver burden among caregivers of PWD is Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI). A systematic review has been conducted through searching Medline, Science Direct, Cochrane Library, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest, and Scopus databases to identify relevant articles that elaborate on intervention and outcomes on ZBI among informal caregiver of PWD. The articles were searched in October 2019 with no restriction on language or publication status. Inclusion criteria are randomized control trial (RCT) studies, participants were informal caregivers of PWD, ZBI measured as outcomes, and intervention group was compared with no intervention control or usual care control. Two authors reviewed and extracted the data from the full-text articles. From a total of 344 records, nine studies were selected and included in this narrative review, and eight studies were included in the meta-analysis. The types of interventions that were implemented to ease caregiver burden are psychoeducation, physical activity, psychosocial, and computer-based intervention. The meta-analysis showed that there is a significant difference in the mean score of ZBI (p = 0.006) in the intervention group compared to the control group after implementation of intervention. In conclusion, interventions such as psychoeducation, psychosocial, and physical activity can help to reduce the burden experiencing by the caregivers of PWD.

Keywords: dementia, informal caregiver, randomized control trial, Zarit burden interview

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Authors: Mohammed Sghir Taleb

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Introduction The date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) represents an essential element of the oasis ecosystem for Saharan and pre-Saharan regions of Morocco. It plays an important role, not only due to its economic importance, but also its ecological adaptation to, firstly, to ensure necessary protection for crops against underlying warm and dry sales, and secondly to contribute to the fight against desertification. This is one of the oldest cultivated plant species best adapted to difficult climatic conditions of the Saharan and pre-Saharan regions, because of its ecological requirements and economically most suitable for investing in oasis agriculture. Methodology The methodology is mainly based on a literature review of principal theses and projects for the conservation of flora and vegetation. Results The date palm has multiple uses. Indeed, it produces fruits rich in nutrients, provides a multitude of secondary products and generates needed revenue for the survival of oasis populations. In Morocco, the development and modernization of the date palm sector face, both upstream and downstream of the industry, several major constraints. In addition to climate constraints (prolonged drought), in its environment (lack of water resources), to the incessant invasion of disease Bayoud, Moroccan palm ecosystem suffers from a low level of technical and traditional practices prevail and traditional, from the choice of variety and site preparation up to harvesting and recycling of products. Conclusion The date palm plays an important role in the socioeconomic development of local and national level. However, this ecosystem however, is subject to numerous degradation factors caused by anthropogenic action and climate change. to reverse the trends, several programs have been developed by Morocco for the restoration of degraded areas and the development of the Phoenix dactylifera ecosystem to meet the needs of local populations and the development of the national economy.

Keywords: efforts, flora, ecosystem, forest, conservation, Morocco

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Authors: Saikiran Subbagari, Avinash Malladhi

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Anti Money Laundering (AML) regulations are designed to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing activities worldwide. Financial institutions around the world are legally obligated to identify, assess and mitigate the risks associated with money laundering and report any suspicious transactions to governing authorities. With increasing volumes of data to analyze, financial institutions seek to automate their AML processes. In the rise of financial crimes, optical character recognition (OCR), in combination with machine learning (ML) algorithms, serves as a crucial tool for automating AML processes by extracting the data from documents and identifying suspicious transactions. In this paper, we examine the utilization of OCR for AML and delve into various OCR techniques employed in AML processes. These techniques encompass template-based, feature-based, neural network-based, natural language processing (NLP), hidden markov models (HMMs), conditional random fields (CRFs), binarizations, pattern matching and stroke width transform (SWT). We evaluate each technique, discussing their strengths and constraints. Also, we emphasize on how OCR can improve the accuracy of customer identity verification by comparing the extracted text with the office of foreign assets control (OFAC) watchlist. We will also discuss how OCR helps to overcome language barriers in AML compliance. We also address the implementation challenges that OCR-based AML systems may face and offer recommendations for financial institutions based on the data from previous research studies, which illustrate the effectiveness of OCR-based AML.

Keywords: anti-money laundering, compliance, financial crimes, fraud detection, machine learning, optical character recognition

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Authors: Medagedara Kaushalya Sewwandi Supun Gunarathne

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This research explores the underlying motivations and consequences of individuals changing their sexual orientation as a response to sexual violence. The primary objective of the study is to unravel the psychological, emotional, and social factors that drive individuals, akin to Celie in Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple’, to contemplate and undergo changes in their sexual orientation following the trauma of sexual violence. Through an analytical and qualitative approach, the study employs in-depth textual and thematic analyses to scrutinize the complex interplay between sexual orientation and violence within the selected text. Through a close examination of Celie’s journey and experiences, the study reveals that her decision to switch sexual orientation arises from a desire for a more favorable and benevolent relationship driven by the absence of safety and refuge in her previous relationships. By establishing this bond between sexual orientation and violence, the research underscores how sexual violence can lead individuals to opt for a change in their sexual orientation. The findings highlight Celie’s transformation as a means to seek solace and security, thus concluding that sexual violence can prompt individuals to alter their sexual orientation. The ensuing discussion explores the implications of these findings, encompassing psychological, emotional, and social consequences, as well as the societal and cultural factors influencing the perception of sexual orientation. Additionally, it sheds light on the challenges and stigma faced by those who undergo such transformations. By comprehending the complex relationship between sexual violence and the decision to change sexual orientation, as exemplified by Celie in ‘The Color Purple’, a deeper understanding of the experiences of survivors who seek a safe haven through altering their sexual orientation can be attained.

Keywords: sexual violence, sexual orientation, refuge, transition

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Authors: Saulutė Juzelėnienė, Skirmantė Šarkauskienė

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In this paper, it is aimed to analyse the multimodal representations of the concepts of LOVE and PASSION in Lithuanian graphic novel “Gertrūda”, by Gerda Jord. The research is based on the earlier findings by Forceville (2005), Eerden (2009) as well as insights made by Shihara and Matsunaka (2009) and Kövecses (2000). The domains of target and source of LOVE and PASSION metaphors in comics are expressed by verbal and non-verbal cues. The analysis of non-verbal cues adopts the concepts of rune and indexes. A pictorial rune is a graphic representation of an object that does not exist in reality in comics, such as lines, dashes, text "balloons", and pictorial index – a graphically represented object of reality, a real symptom expressing a certain emotion, such as a wide smile, furrowed eyebrows, etc. Indexes are often hyperbolized in comics. The research revealed that most frequent source domains are CLOSINESS/UNITY, NATURAL/ PHYSICAL FORCE, VALUABLE OBJECT, PRESSURE. The target is the emotion of LOVE/PASSION which belongs to a more abstract domain of psychological experience. In this kind of metaphor, the picture can be interpreted as representing the emotion of happiness. Data are taken from Lithuanian comic books and Internet sites, where comics have been presented. The data and the analysis we are providing in this article aims to reveal that there are pictorial metaphors that manifest conceptual metaphors that are also expressed verbally and that methodological framework constructed for the analysis in the papers by Forceville at all is applicable to other emotions and culture specific pictorial manifestations.

Keywords: multimodal metaphor, conceptual metaphor, comics, graphic novel, concept of love/passion

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Authors: Tamas Garamhegyi, Jozsef Kovacs, Rita Pongracz, Peter Tanos, Balazs Trasy, Norbert Magyar, Istvan G. Hatvani

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Like most environmental processes, shallow groundwater fluctuation under natural circumstances also behaves periodically. With the statistical tools at hand, it can easily be determined if a period exists in the data or not. Thus, the question may be raised: Does the estimated average period time characterize the whole time period, or not? This is especially important in the case of such complex phenomena as shallow groundwater fluctuation, driven by numerous factors. Because of the continuous changes in the oscillating components of shallow groundwater time series, the most appropriate method should be used to investigate its periodicity, this is wavelet spectrum analysis. The aims of the research were to investigate the periodic behavior of the shallow groundwater time series of an agriculturally important and drought sensitive region in Central-Eastern Europe and its relationship to the European pressure action centers. During the research ~216 shallow groundwater observation wells located in the eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain with a temporal coverage of 50 years were scanned for periodicity. By taking the full-time interval as 100%, the presence of any period could be determined in percentages. With the complex hydrogeological/meteorological model developed in this study, non-periodic time intervals were found in the shallow groundwater levels. On the local scale, this phenomenon linked to drought conditions, and on a regional scale linked to the maxima of the regional air pressures in the Gulf of Genoa. The study documented an important link between shallow groundwater levels and climate variables/indices facilitating the necessary adaptation strategies on national and/or regional scales, which have to take into account the predictions of drought-related climatic conditions.

Keywords: climate change, drought, groundwater periodicity, wavelet spectrum and coherence analyses

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Authors: Somyoung Shin, Donghun Jeong, Yeoil Yun

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South Korea continuously installed tunnels in consideration of the safety and operation efficiency, and the number of installed tunnels has doubled over the past ten years. The tunnel section is designed based on the guidelines, but the tunnel entrance becomes narrow due to dark adaptation and pressure. In fact, around 13% of traffic in expressways of Japan happens at the entrance, leading to congestion and rear-ends collision accidents. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the stability from the expansion of the shoulder width in the tunnel entrance by applying a virtual reality driving simulator in order to reduce the accidents that happen in the tunnel entrance. To compare the driving stability based on the changes in the width of the right shoulder under the same condition, a virtual reality driving simulator is used to conduct an experiment on 30 subjects in their 20s to 60s and to provide a more practical virtual reality driving environment, and an experiment map is designed based on actual roads as the background to conduct the experiment. The right shoulder is classified into 2.5m and 3.0m based on the design guidelines of the expressways and the road structure installation regulations. The experimenters' experiment order is decided randomly. As a result of analyzing the average speed, it was displayed as 100.73km/h when the shoulder width was 2.5m and 101.69km/h when the shoulder width was 3.0m and as a result of conducting t-test analysis, the p-value appeared as more than 0.05 in the significance level of 95%, so it was statistically insignificant. Also, as a result of analyzing the speed deviation between the average driving speed of the analyzed interval and the average driving speed upon entering the tunnel, it was displayed as 3.06km/h when the shoulder width was 2.5m and 1.87km/h when the shoulder width was 3.0m and as a result of conducting t-test analysis, the p-value appeared as less than 0.05 in the significance level of 95%, so it was statistically significant. This means that when the shoulder width is 3.0m, there is stability in terms of the driving stability compared to when it is 2.5m. Therefore, it is considered that when new roads are constructed in Korea, the right shoulder width should be installed as 3.0m to enhance the driving stability.

Keywords: driving stability, shoulder width, tunnel, virtual reality driving simulator

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Authors: Shahad Nagoor, Lucy Hederman, Kevin Koidl, Annalina Caputo

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Doctors’ notes reflect their impressions, attitudes, clinical sense, and opinions about patients’ conditions and progress, and other information that is essential for doctors’ daily clinical decisions. Despite their value, clinical notes are insufficiently researched within the language processing community. Automatically extracting information from unstructured text data is known to be a difficult task as opposed to dealing with structured information such as vital physiological signs, images, and laboratory results. The aim of this research is to investigate how Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and machine learning techniques applied to clinician notes can assist in doctors’ decision-making in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. The hypothesis is that clinical outcomes like survival or mortality can be useful in influencing the judgement of clinical sentiment in ICU clinical notes. This paper introduces two contributions: first, we introduce COVID_ICU_BERT, a fine-tuned version of clinical transformer models that can reliably predict clinical sentiment for notes of COVID patients in the ICU. We train the model on clinical notes for COVID-19 patients, a type of notes that were not previously seen by clinicalBERT, and Bio_Discharge_Summary_BERT. The model, which was based on clinicalBERT achieves higher predictive accuracy (Acc 93.33%, AUC 0.98, and precision 0.96 ). Second, we perform data augmentation using clinical contextual word embedding that is based on a pre-trained clinical model to balance the samples in each class in the data (survived vs. deceased patients). Data augmentation improves the accuracy of prediction slightly (Acc 96.67%, AUC 0.98, and precision 0.92 ).

Keywords: BERT fine-tuning, clinical sentiment, COVID-19, data augmentation

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Authors: Bikram Jung Kunwar

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Forests have central roles in climate change. The conservation of forests sequestrates the carbon from the atmosphere and also regulates the carbon cycle. However, knowingly and unknowingly the world’s forests were deforested and degraded annually at the rate of 0.18% and emitted the carbon to the atmosphere. The IPCC reports claimed that the deforestation and forest degradation accounts 1/5th of total carbon emission, which is second position after fossil fuels. Since 1.6 billion people depend on varying degree on forests for their daily livelihood, not all deforestation are undesirable. Therefore, to conserve the forests and find the livelihood opportunities for forest surrounding people is prerequisites to address the climate change problems especially in developing countries, and also a growing concern to the forestry sector researchers, planners and policy makers. The study examines the role of community based forest management in carbon mitigation and adaptation taking the examples of Nepal’s community forestry program. In the program, the government hands over a part of national forests to the local communities with sole forest management authorities. However, the government itself retained the ownership rights of forestland. Local communities organized through a local institution called Community Forest User Group (CFUG) managed the forests. They also formed an operational plan with technical prescriptions and a constitution with forest management rules and regulations. The implementation results showed that the CFUGs are not only found effective to organize the local people and construct a local institution to forest conservation and management activities, but also they are able to collect a community fund from the sale of forest products and carried out various community development activities. These development activities have decisive roles to improve the livelihood of forest surrounding people and eventually to address the climate change problems.

Keywords: climate change, community forestry, local institution, Nepal

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Authors: Kevin T. Inks

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India’s Brahmaputra River Valley has, since independence, experienced consistent low-intensity guerrilla warfare between ethnic and religious groups. These groups are often organized around perceived ethnic territoriality, and target civilians, communities, and especially migrants belonging to other ethnic and religious groups. Intense flooding and erosion have led to widespread displacement, and disaster relief funds are largely tied to legal land tenure. Displaced residents of informal settlements receive little or no resettlement aid, and their subsequent migration strategies and risk from guerrilla violence are poorly understood. Semi-structured interviews and comprehensive surveys focused on perceptions of risk, efficacy of disaster relief, and migration and adaptation strategies were conducted with households identified as being ‘at-risk’ of catastrophic flooding and erosion in Majuli District, Assam. Interviews with policymakers and government workers were conducted to assess disaster relief efforts in informal settlements, and remote sensing methods were used to identify informal settlement and hydrogeomorphic change. The results show that various ethnic and religious groups have differential strategies and preferences for resettlement. However, these varying strategies are likely to lead to differential levels of risk from guerrilla violence. Members of certain ethnic groups residing in informal settlements, in the absence of resettlement assistance, are more likely to seek out unofficial settlement on land far from the protection of the state and experience greater risk of becoming victims of political violence. As climate change and deforestation are likely to increase the severity of the displacement crisis in the Brahmaputra River Valley, more comprehensive disaster relief and surveying efforts are vital for limiting migration and informal settlement in potential sites of guerrilla warfare.

Keywords: climate, displacement, flooding, India, violence

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Authors: M. Macchiaroli, L. Dolores, V. Pellecchia

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With the recent Resolution n. 580/2019/R/idr, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks, and Environment (ARERA) for the Urban Water Management has introduced, for water managements characterized by persistent critical issues regarding the planning and organization of the service and the implementation of the necessary interventions for the improvement of infrastructures and management quality, a new mechanism for determining tariffs: the regulatory scheme of Convergence. The aim of this regulatory scheme is the overcoming of the Water Service Divided in order to improve the stability of the local institutional structures, technical quality, contractual quality, as well as in order to guarantee transparency elements for Users of the Service. Convergence scheme presupposes the identification of the cost items to be considered in the tariff in parametric terms, distinguishing three possible cases according to the type of historical data available to the Manager. The study, in particular, focuses on operations that have neither data on tariff revenues nor data on operating costs. In this case, the Manager's Constraint on Revenues (VRG) is estimated on the basis of a reference benchmark and becomes the starting point for defining the structure of the tariff classes, in compliance with the TICSI provisions (Integrated Text for tariff classes, ARERA's Resolution n. 665/2017/R/idr). The proposed model implements the recent studies on optimization models for the definition of tariff classes in compliance with the constraints dictated by TICSI in the application of the Convergence mechanism, proposing itself as a support tool for the Managers and the local water regulatory Authority in the decision-making process.

Keywords: decision-making process, economic evaluation of projects, optimizing tools, urban water management, water tariff

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Authors: Mohammad J. Rezai, Fereshteh Davarpanah

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Producing a text in a language which is not one’s mother tongue can be a demanding task for language learners. Examining lexical errors committed by EFL learners is a challenging area of investigation which can shed light on the process of second language acquisition. Despite the considerable number of investigations into grammatical errors, few studies have tackled formal and semantic errors of lexis committed by EFL learners. The current study aimed at examining Persian learners’ formal and semantic errors of lexis in English. To this end, 60 students at three different proficiency levels were asked to write on 10 different topics in 10 separate sessions. Finally, 600 essays written by Persian EFL learners were collected, acting as the corpus of the study. An error taxonomy comprising formal and semantic errors was selected to analyze the corpus. The formal category covered misselection and misformation errors, while the semantic errors were classified into lexical, collocational and lexicogrammatical categories. Each category was further classified into subcategories depending on the identified errors. The results showed that there were 2583 errors in the corpus of 9600 words, among which, 2030 formal errors and 553 semantic errors were identified. The most frequent errors in the corpus included formal error commitment (78.6%), which were more prevalent at the advanced level (42.4%). The semantic errors (21.4%) were more frequent at the low intermediate level (40.5%). Among formal errors of lexis, the highest number of errors was devoted to misformation errors (98%), while misselection errors constituted 2% of the errors. Additionally, no significant differences were observed among the three semantic error subcategories, namely collocational, lexical choice and lexicogrammatical. The results of the study can shed light on the challenges faced by EFL learners in the second language acquisition process.

Keywords: collocational errors, lexical errors, Persian EFL learners, semantic errors

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Authors: Raheleh Farzanmanesh, Christopher J. Weston

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Mangroves are forest ecosystems located in the inter-tidal regions of tropical and subtropical coastlines that provide many valuable economic and ecological benefits for millions of people, such as preventing coastal erosion, providing breeding, and feeding grounds, improving water quality, and supporting the well-being of local communities. In addition, mangroves capture and store high amounts of carbon in biomass and soils that play an important role in combating climate change. The decline in mangrove area has prompted government and private sector interest in mangrove conservation and restoration projects to achieve multiple Sustainable Development Goals, from reducing poverty to improving life on land. Mangrove aboveground biomass plays an essential role in the global carbon cycle, climate change mitigation and adaptation by reducing CO2 emissions. However, little information is available about the effectiveness of mangrove sustainable management on mangrove change area and aboveground biomass (AGB). Here, we proposed a method for mapping, modeling, and assessing mangrove area and AGB in two Global Environment Facility (GEF) blue forests projects based on Sentinel-2 Level 1C imagery during their conservation lifetime. The SVR regression model was used to estimate AGB in Tahiry Honko project in Madagascar and the Abu Dhabi Blue Carbon Demonstration Project (Abu Dhabi Emirates. The results showed that mangrove forests and AGB declined in the Tahiry Honko project, while in the Abu Dhabi project increased after the conservation initiative was established. The results provide important information on the impact of mangrove conservation activities and contribute to the development of remote sensing applications for mapping and assessing mangrove forests in blue carbon initiatives.

Keywords: blue carbon, mangrove forest, REDD+, aboveground biomass, Sentinel-2

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Authors: Ebraheem Al-Jouri, Youssef Abu-Ahmad, Ramasamy Srinivasan

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The parasitoid, Diadegma semiclausum (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) is one of the most effective exotic parasitoids of diamondback moth (DBM), Plutella xylostella in the lowland areas of Homs, Syria. Molecular evolution studies are useful tools to shed light on the molecular bases of insect geographical spread and adaptation to new hosts and environment and for designing better control strategies. In this study, molecular evolution analysis was performed based on the 42 nuclear internal transcribed spacer-2 (ITS2) sequences representing the D. semiclausum and eight other Diadegma spp. from Syria and worldwide. Possible recombination events were identified by RDP4 program. Four potential recombinants of the American D. insulare and D. fenestrale (Jeju) were detected. After detecting and removing recombinant sequences, the ratio of non-synonymous (dN) to synonymous (dS) substitutions per site (dN/dS=ɷ) has been used to identify codon positions involved in adaptive processes. Bayesian techniques were applied to detect selective pressures at a codon level by using five different approaches including: fixed effects likelihood (FEL), internal fixed effects likelihood (IFEL), random effects method (REL), mixed effects model of evolution (MEME) and Program analysis of maximum liklehood (PAML). Among the 40 positively selected amino acids (aa) that differed significantly between clades of Diadegma species, three aa under positive selection were only identified in D. semiclausum. Additionally, all D. semiclausum branches tree were highly found under episodic diversifying selection (EDS) at p≤0.05. Our study provide evidence that both recombination and positive selection have contributed to the molecular diversity of Diadegma spp. and highlights the significant contribution of D. semiclausum in adaptive evolution and influence the fitness in the DBM parasitoid.

Keywords: diadegma sp, DBM, ITS2, phylogeny, recombination, dN/dS, evolution, positive selection

Procedia PDF Downloads 401