Search results for: ordered statistical

Authors: Tulio Sulbaran, Sandeep Langar

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Architects are an integral part of the construction industry and are continuously incorporating decisions that influence projects during their life cycle. These decisions aim at selecting best alternative from the ones available. Unfortunately, this decision making process is mainly unexplored in the construction industry. No instrument to measure construction decision, based on knowledgebase of decision-makers, has existed. Additionally, limited literature is available on the topic. Recently, an instrument to gain an understanding of the construction decision-making process was developed by Dr. Tulio Sulbaran from the University of Texas, San Antonio. The instrument’s name is 'Construction Decision Making Inventory (CDMI)'. The CDMI is an innovative idea to measure the 'What? When? How? Moreover, Who?' of the construction decision-making process. As an innovative idea, its statistical validity (accuracy of the assessment) is yet to be assessed. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a case study with architects in the south-east of the United States aimed to determine the CDMI validity. The results of the case study are important because they assess the validity of the tool. Furthermore, as the architects evaluated each question within the measurements, this study is also guiding the enhancement of the CDMI.

Keywords: decision, support, inventory, architect

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Authors: Yeliz Mert Kantar, İsmail Yeni̇lmez, Ibrahim Arik

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In this study, the efficiency measurement of the top fifty Turkish Universities has been conducted. The top fifty Turkish Universities are listed by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) according to the Entrepreneur and Innovative University Index every year. The index is calculated based on four components since 2018. Four components are scientific and technological research competency, intellectual property pool, cooperation and interaction, and economic and social contribution. The four components consist of twenty-three sub-components. The 2021 list announced in January 2022 is discussed in this study. Efficiency analysis have been carried out using the Stochastic Frontier Model. Statistical significance of the sub-components that make up the index with certain weights has been examined in terms of the efficiency measurement calculated through the Stochastic Frontier Model. The relationship between the efficiency ranking estimated based on the Stochastic Frontier Model and the Entrepreneur and Innovative University Index ranking is discussed in detail.

Keywords: efficiency, entrepreneur and innovative universities, turkish universities, stochastic frontier model, tübi̇tak

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Authors: Oluwasgun Moses Jolayemi

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Violence has become a fairly often occurrence in sports (within our tertiary institutions), a development that is giving every society in the world sleepless night. School violence is part of youth violence, a broader salient public health problem. This study employing a questionnaire-based survey strategy aimed at investigates psychological factors as predictors of sports violence among Oyo state tertiary institution. A sample of Two hundred athletes and three tertiary institutions were selected through purposive sampling from the Oyo State tertiary institution. The estimated reliability co-efficient of the instrument was found to be 0.89 using cronbach Alpha technique. Data were analyzed at 0.05 level of significance using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 20.0. Five hypotheses were tested using Pearson Correlation. Result revealed that personality, anxiety, mental health has no significant influence on sports violence; mental stress has a significant influence on sports violence. Based on the findings, it was recommended that sport management should reduce work overload and that they should organized seminars and social activities to help athletes lose up.

Keywords: Ibadan, mental health, personality, psychology, violence

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Authors: Olawale-Olakunle Olajumoke Elizabeth

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There are many challenges which are been encountered in the area of tourism in Nigeria. This research work on Tourism Challenges and Prospects: The Nigerian Experience with a case study of Benin City, was carried out so as to identify the various challenges. Questionnaires were designed and administered in the various locations of Benin City, using the designed objectives and hypothesis. Use is made of both primary and secondary data collections, to gather information. The obtained data were subjected to statistical analysis where results were obtained for discussion. The results obtained showed that Tourism in the area is grossly affected by factors such as lack of preferred destination, lack of consistency in policy, erratic power-supply, bad road networks, insecurity in the city and perennial conflicts, no enabling environment for investors or tourists among others. It was revealed that touristic activities in the area are at low level due to economic hardship and this is rubbing the city of its contribution to the national economy. It is however recommended that the government should create an enabling environment for both investors and tourists, as this will fasten the development of tourism in the city.

Keywords: destination, network, tourists and investors, Nigeria, industry

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Authors: Shuo Li, Yannick Coffinier, Chann Lagadec, Fabrizio Cleri, Katsuhiko Nishiguchi, Akira Fujiwara, Soo Hyeon Kim, Nicolas Clément

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The need for single cell detection and analysis techniques has increased in the past decades because of the heterogeneity of individual living cells, which increases the complexity of the pathogenesis of malignant tumors. In the search for early cancer detection, high-precision medicine and therapy, the technologies most used today for sensitive detection of target analytes and monitoring the variation of these species are mainly including two types. One is based on the identification of molecular differences at the single-cell level, such as flow cytometry, fluorescence-activated cell sorting, next generation proteomics, lipidomic studies, another is based on capturing or detecting single tumor cells from fresh or fixed primary tumors and metastatic tissues, and rare circulating tumors cells (CTCs) from blood or bone marrow, for example, dielectrophoresis technique, microfluidic based microposts chip, electrochemical (EC) approach. Compared to other methods, EC sensors have the merits of easy operation, high sensitivity, and portability. However, despite various demonstrations of low limits of detection (LOD), including aptamer sensors, arrayed EC sensors for detecting single-cell have not been demonstrated. In this work, a new technique based on 20-nm-thick nanopillars array to support cells and keep them at ideal recognition distance for redox-labeled aptamers grafted on the surface. The key advantages of this technology are not only to suppress the false positive signal arising from the pressure exerted by all (including non-target) cells pushing on the aptamers by downward force but also to stabilize the aptamer at the ideal hairpin configuration thanks to a confinement effect. With the first implementation of this technique, a LOD of 13 cells (with5.4 μL of cell suspension) was estimated. In further, the nanosupported cell technology using redox-labeled aptasensors has been pushed forward and fully integrated into a single-cell electrochemical aptasensor array. To reach this goal, the LOD has been reduced by more than one order of magnitude by suppressing parasitic capacitive electrochemical signals by minimizing the sensor area and localizing the cells. Statistical analysis at the single-cell level is demonstrated for the recognition of cancer cells. The future of this technology is discussed, and the potential for scaling over millions of electrodes, thus pushing further integration at sub-cellular level, is highlighted. Despite several demonstrations of electrochemical devices with LOD of 1 cell/mL, the implementation of single-cell bioelectrochemical sensor arrays has remained elusive due to their challenging implementation at a large scale. Here, the introduced nanopillar array technology combined with redox-labeled aptamers targeting epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is perfectly suited for such implementation. Combining nanopillar arrays with microwells determined for single cell trapping directly on the sensor surface, single target cells are successfully detected and analyzed. This first implementation of a single-cell electrochemical aptasensor array based on Brownian-fluctuating redox species opens new opportunities for large-scale implementation and statistical analysis of early cancer diagnosis and cancer therapy in clinical settings.

Keywords: bioelectrochemistry, aptasensors, single-cell, nanopillars

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Authors: Gabriel Wosiak, Jeyse da Silva, Sthefany S. Sena, Renato N. de Andrade, Ernesto Pereira

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The bubble formation during hydrogen production by electrolysis and several electrochemical processes is an inherent phenomenon and can impact the energy consumption of the processes. In this work, it was reported both experimental and computational results describe the effect of bubble displacement, which, under the cases investigated, leads to the formation of a convective flow in the solution. The process is self-sustained, and a solution vortex is formed, which modifies the bubble growth and covering at the electrode surface. Using the experimental data, we have built a model to simulate it, which, with high accuracy, describes the phenomena. Then, it simulated many different experimental conditions and evaluated the effects of the boundary conditions on the bubble surface covering the surface. We have observed a position-dependent bubble covering the surface, which has an effect on the water-splitting efficiency. It was shown that the bubble covering is not uniform at the electrode surface, and using statistical analysis; it was possible to evaluate the influence of the gas type (H2 and O2), current density, and the bubble size (and cross-effects) on the covering fraction and the asymmetric behavior over the electrode surface.

Keywords: water splitting, bubble, electrolysis, hydrogen production

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Authors: Rihab Hentati, Younes Boujelbene

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Nowadays we realize more and more than the value of a company is not only a function of its means of production but depends essentially on the managerial aptitude and orientation to implement the material and human means for generating profitability. Indeed, a productive R&D activity, a good strategy, and innovation are originally supplementary benefits that increase the value of the business. Is this ‘value-added’ closely linked to innovation? The purpose of our research is to Meta-analyze the results of 56 empirical studies in order to explain the overall effect of innovation on performance of small and medium-sized enterprises. In order to justify the differences in the results, we look for the moderating factors that may affect the innovation-performance relationship. We find a positive and significant relationship between innovation and performance in small and medium-sized enterprises. The results also note a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, research and development (R&D), and performance in SMEs. In addition, innovation has a strong impact on performance measured both with accounting and market index. The originality of the article is based on a rigorous synthesis, based on several statistical tools, of an important subject of research in finance.

Keywords: innovation, performance, entrepreneurial orientation, meta-analysis, moderator variables

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Authors: Ala Rakhshandeh, Zahra Ashkar, Solmaz Dehghani Dolatabadi, Hossein Bayat

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The present study has been conducted to investigate the role of family emotional climate and emotional expression style in the academic well-being of students with military parents. Children, including 280 female students of Shahriar police officers, were selected by random sampling method, and they have been investigated through Alfred B. Hillburn's family emotional climate questionnaire (1964), King and Ammon's emotional expression questionnaire (1990), and Pitrinen, Sweeney, and Falto's academic well-being questionnaire (2014). The data were analyzed using statistical methods of correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression under the SPSS23 program. The results reveal that the variables of family emotional climate and emotional expression can explain 36.4% of the variance in academic well-being. This finding reveals that with an increase of standard deviation on the scores of family emotional climate and emotional expression, 0.513 and 0.155 standard deviations are added to the scores of academic well-being, respectively. The emotional climate of the family has a superior distinctive role in predicting the educational well-being of female students. Thus, the emotional climate of the family and the style of emotional expression play a meaningful role in the academic well-being of students with the military parent.

Keywords: emotional climate, family, emotional expression style, academic well-being

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Authors: Mohd Aderi Che Noh, Tuan Rahayu Tuan Lasan

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Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) is an important skill in the Malaysian education system to produce a knowledgeable generation, able to think critically and creatively in order to face the challenges in the future. Educational challenges of the 21st century require that all students to have the HOTS. Therefore, this study aims to identify the level of knowledge, attitude and readiness of students towards HOTS. The respondents were 127 form four students from schools in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya. This study is quantitative survey using a questionnaire to collect data. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 23.0. The results showed that knowledge, attitudes and readiness of students towards HOTS lam were at a high level. Inferential analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between knowledge with attitude and readiness towards HOTS. This study provides information to the schools and teachers to improve the teaching and learning to increase students HOTS and fulfilling the hope of Ministry of Education to produce human capital who can be globally competitive.

Keywords: high order thinking skills, teaching, education, Malaysia

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Authors: S. Rezaei, Z. Mirzaei, M. Khalighi, J. Bahrami

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Bridges, as an essential part of road infrastructures, are affected by various deterioration mechanisms over time due to the changes in their performance. As changes in performance can have many negative impacts on society, it is essential to be able to evaluate and measure the performance of bridges throughout their life. This evaluation includes the development or the choice of the appropriate performance indicators, which, in turn, are measured based on the selection of appropriate models for the existing deterioration mechanism. The purpose of this article is a statistical study of indicators and deterioration mechanisms of bridges in order to discover further research capacities in bridges performance assessment. For this purpose, some of the most common indicators of bridge performance, including reliability, risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience, were selected. The researches performed on each index based on the desired deterioration mechanisms and hazards were comprehensively reviewed. In addition, the formulation of the indicators and their relationship with each other were studied. The research conducted on the mentioned indicators were classified from the point of view of deterministic or probabilistic method, the level of study (element level, object level, etc.), and the type of hazard and the deterioration mechanism of interest. For each of the indicators, a number of challenges and recommendations were presented according to the review of previous studies.

Keywords: bridge, deterioration mechanism, lifecycle, performance indicator

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Authors: Mitra JahangirRad, Sheida Sodagar, Maryam Bahrami Hidaji

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This study was conducted with the aim of comparing anxiety, stress, depression and attitude towards death among patients with breast cancer who have undergone mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery. The study method is causal-comparative. Statistical population was all patients with breast cancer referring to Medical Center of Panjom Azar Hospital in Gorgan or oncologists' offices in this city within eight months. They were selected using purposive sampling. Sample size of this study was 45 patients with breast cancer undergoing mastectomy and 70 patients under breast-conserving surgery. Measurement tools in this study were depression, anxiety, and stress scale (Dass-21) as well as Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAPR). Results of this study in hypotheses investigation showed that anxiety, stress and depression among patients with breast cancer, undergoing mastectomy or breast-conserving surgery is significantly different. However, their attitudes towards death do not differ. From these findings, it can be concluded that although most patients with breast cancer encounter many psychological problems, patients undergoing mastectomy experience more anxiety, stress and depression relative to patients with breast-conserving surgery and it seems that they need more supportive therapy.

Keywords: anxiety, breast cancer, depression, death, mastectomy

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Authors: Suzanne L. Stewart, Mikaela D. Gabriel

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Background: Indigenous People face multiple barriers to successful life transitions, including housing, employment, education, and health. Current statistical trends paint devastating life transitions for Indigenous Peoples, but colonization and its intergenerational impacts are typically lacking as the crucial context in which these trends occur. This presentation will illustrate the massive impact of colonization on Indigenous Peoples; its intergenerational transmission, and how it impacts Indigenous clients seeking mental health treatment today. Methods: A qualitative, narrative inquiry methodology was used to honour Indigenous storytelling and knowledge transmission. Indigenous Elders, outreach workers, and homeless clients were interviewed and narratively analyzed for in-depth trends and themes. Impact: This research provides a wealth of in-depth information as to the life transition needs of Indigenous clients, identify the systemic impacts of colonization to the health and wellbeing of Indigenous People, and strategies for mental health treatment.

Keywords: indigenous trauma, indigenous peoples of canada, intergenerational trauma, colonial trauma and treatment

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Authors: E. Abdi

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The purpose of this theoretical literature review is to study the relevant academic literature on lack of cardiorespiratory fitness and its effects on children. The total of thirty eight relevant documents were identified and considered for this review which nineteen of those were original research articles published in peer reviewed journals. The other nineteen articles were statistical documents. This document is structured to examine 4 effects in deficiency of cardiorespiratory fitness in school aged children: (a) obesity, (b) inadequate fitness level, (c) unhealthy life style, and (d) academics. The categories provide a theoretical framework for future studies. The results are broken down into 6 sections: (a) academics,( b) healthy life style, (c) low cost, (d) obesity, (e) Relative Age Effect (RAE), and (f) race/poverty. The study discusses that regular physical fitness assists children and adolescents to develop healthy physical activity behaviors which can be sustained throughout adult life. Conclusion suggests that advocacy for increasing physical activity and decreasing sedentary behaviors at school and home are necessary.

Keywords: cardiorespiratory, endurance, physical activity, physical fitness

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Authors: Nikolaos Konstantopoulos, Aristeidis Samitas, Vasileiou Evangelos

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The purpose of this study is to examine if the financial trends influence not only the stock markets’ returns, but also their anomalies. We choose to study the day of the week effect (DOW) for the Greek stock market during the Euro period (2002-12), because during the specific period there are not significant structural changes and there are long term financial trends. Moreover, in order to avoid possible methodological counterarguments that usually arise in the literature, we apply several linear (OLS) and nonlinear (GARCH family) models to our sample until we reach to the conclusion that the TGARCH model fits better to our sample than any other. Our results suggest that in the Greek stock market there is a long term predisposition for positive/negative returns depending on the weekday. However, the statistical significance is influenced from the financial trend. This influence may be the reason why there are conflict findings in the literature through the time. Finally, we combine the DOW’s empirical findings from 1985-2012 and we may assume that in the Greek case there is a tendency for long lived turn of the week effect.

Keywords: day of the week effect, GARCH family models, Athens stock exchange, economic growth, crisis

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Authors: Claudio Clemente, Valentina Gargiulo, Alessio Occhicone, Giovanni Piero Pepe, Giovanni Ausanio, Michela Alfè

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Volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions represent a serious risk to human health and the integrity of the ecosystems, especially at high concentrations. For this reason, it is very important to continuously monitor environmental quality and develop fast and reliable portable sensors to allow analysis on site. Chemiresistors have become promising candidates for VOC sensing as their ease of fabrication, variety of suitable sensitive materials, and simple sensing data. A chemoresistive gas sensor is a transducer that allows to measure the concentration of an analyte in the gas phase because the changes in resistance are proportional to the amount of the analyte present. The selection of the sensitive material, which interacts with the target analyte, is very important for the sensor performance. The most used VOC detection materials are metal oxides (MOx) for their rapid recovery, high sensitivity to various gas molecules, easy fabrication. Their sensing performance can be improved in terms of operating temperature, selectivity, and detection limit. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted a lot of attention also in the field of gas sensing due to their high porosity, high surface area, tunable morphologies, structural variety. MOFs are generated by the self-assembly of multidentate organic ligands connecting with adjacent multivalent metal nodes via strong coordination interactions, producing stable and highly ordered crystalline porous materials with well-designed structures. However, most MOFs intrinsically exhibit low electrical conductivity. To improve this property, MOFs can be combined with organic and inorganic materials in a hybrid fashion to produce composite materials or can be transformed into more stable structures. MOFs, indeed, can be employed as the precursors of metal oxides with well-designed architectures via the calcination method. The MOF-derived MOx partially preserved the original structure with high surface area and intrinsic open pores, which act as trapping centers for gas molecules, and showed a higher electrical conductivity. Core-shell heterostructures, in which the surface of a metal oxide core is completely coated by a MOF shell, forming a junction at the core-shell heterointerface, can also be synthesized. Also, nanocomposite in which MOF structures are intercalated with graphene related materials can also be produced, and the conductivity increases thanks to the high mobility of electrons of carbon materials. As MOF structures, zinc-based MOFs belonging to the ZIF family were selected in this work. Several Zn-based materials based and/or derived from MOFs were produced, structurally characterized, and arranged in a chemo resistive architecture, also exploring the potentiality of different approaches of sensing layer deposition based on PLD (pulsed laser deposition) and, in case of thermally labile materials, MAPLE (Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation) to enhance the adhesion to the support. The sensors were tested in a controlled humidity chamber, allowing for the possibility of varying the concentration of ethanol, a typical analyte chosen among the VOCs for a first survey. The effect of heating the chemiresistor to improve sensing performances was also explored. Future research will focus on exploring new manufacturing processes for MOF-based gas sensors with the aim to improve sensitivity, selectivity and reduce operating temperatures.

Keywords: chemiresistors, gas sensors, graphene related materials, laser deposition, MAPLE, metal-organic frameworks, metal oxides, nanocomposites, sensing performance, transduction mechanism, volatile organic compounds

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Authors: Aravind Bagade Shankaranarayana, Parampalli Geetha, Pallavi Gupta

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Objective: This study intends to evaluate sexual dysfunction qualitatively and quantitatively in males suffering from primary obesity through a single centered, observational study. Design and Methods: Sexual function of 33 obese males from the outpatient department of the hospital was assessed using IIEF questionnaire and semen analysis and the results were assessed for statistical significance. Results: A varying degree of sexual dysfunction was observed in four out of five areas of sexual functioning viz. erectile function (p<0.02), orgasmic function (p<0.02), sexual desire (p<0.08) and overall satisfaction (p<0.000) in obese individuals. Statistically significant dysfunction was not observed in intercourse satisfaction. Semen analysis was normal in 19 individuals (63.3%) and abnormal in 11 individuals (36.7%), with statistically insignificant p value 0.144, suggesting mild to moderate variation in semen parameters. Conclusions: Varying degree of sexual dysfunction is present in obese males, suggesting that obesity has a possible role in reducing the quality of sexual functioning in males as indicated in the classical Ayurvedic literature.

Keywords: erectile dysfunction, krucchra vyavaya, obesity, sthoulya

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Authors: Noha E. Hassan

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Little is known regarding the influence of lymphatic microvessel density (LMVD) on prognosis in endometrial cancer. Prospective study was done in tertiary education and research hospital (Shatby Alexandria university hospital) on sixty patients presented with endometrial carcinoma underwent complete surgical staging. Our aim was to assess the intratumoral and peritumoral Lymphatic microvessel density (LMVD) of endometrial carcinomas identified by immunohistochemical staining using an antibody against podoplanin and to investigate their association with classical clinicopathological factors and prognosis. The result shows that high LMVD was associated with endometroid type of tumors, lesser myometrial, adnexal, cervical and peritoneal infiltration, lower tumor grade and stage and lesser recurrent cases. There is lower lymph node involvement among cases with high intratumoral LMVD and cases of high peritumoral LMVD; that reach statistical significance only among cases of high intratumoral LMVD. No association was seen between LMVD and lymphovascular space invasion. On the other hand, low LMVD was associated with poor outcome. Finally, we can conclude that increased LMVD is associated with favorable prognosis in endometrial cancer patients.

Keywords: endometrial carcinoma, lymphatic microvessel, microvessel density, prognosis

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Authors: Itiola Kehinde Adeniran

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This paper investigated the influence of harnessing entrepreneurial opportunities on the national security in Nigeria with a specific focus on the security situation of the post-amnesty programmes of the Federal Government in Ondo State. The self-administered structured questionnaire was employed to collect data from one hundred and twenty participants through purposive sampling method. Inferential statistics was used to analyze the data, specifically; ordinary least squares linear regression method was employed with the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20 in order to determine the influence of independent variable (entrepreneurial opportunities) on dependent variable (national security). The result showed that business opportunities have a significant influence on the rate of criminal activities. The study also revealed that entrepreneurial opportunity creation and discovery as well as providing a model on how these entrepreneurial opportunities could be effectively and efficiently utilized jointly predict better national security, which counted for 69% variance of crime rate reduction. The paper, therefore, recommended that citizens should be encouraged to develop an interest in the skill-based activities in order to change their mindset towards self-employment which can motivate them in identify entrepreneurial opportunities.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial opportunities, national security, unemployment

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Authors: Mehaiguene Madjid, Touhari Fadhila, Meddi Mohamed

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The Cheliff basin offers a good hydrological example for the possibility of studying the problem which elucidated in the future, because of the unclearity in several aspects and hydraulic installation. Thus, our study of the Cheliff basin is divided into two principal parts: The spatial evaluation of the precipitation: also, the understanding of the modes of the reconstitution of the resource in water supposes a good knowledge of the structuring of the precipitation fields in the studied space. In the goal of a good knowledge of revitalizes them in water and their management integrated one judged necessary to establish a precipitation card of the Cheliff basin for a good understanding of the evolution of the resource in water in the basin and that goes will serve as basis for all study of hydraulic planning in the Cheliff basin. Then, the establishment of the precipitation card of the Cheliff basin answered a direct need of setting to the disposition of the researchers for the region and a document of reference that will be completed therefore and actualized. The hydrological study, based on the statistical hydrometric data processing will lead us to specify the hydrological terms of the assessment hydrological and to clarify the fundamental aspects of the annual flow, seasonal, extreme and thus of their variability and resources surface water.

Keywords: hydrological assessment, surface water resources, Cheliff, Algeria

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Authors: Mustapha Abdulkadir Gana, Jibrin Attahiru Alhassan, Adamu Musa Baba

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The exponential growth of information sources, resources and the continued Communication Technology (ICT) sophistication of libraries all over the world call for capable and ICT compliant librarians in Nigeria, this article assesses the digital literacy skills of librarians in tertiary institutions in Niger state. The survey research method was applied in the study using a random sampling technique to draw the sample. Fifty-eight copies of the questionnaire were administered while forty-nine copies were completed, returned, and used in the study, which represents 84% of the response rate. Two research questions were answered, and data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The finding uncovered that the librarians lack the requisite digital literacy skills to access the wealth of digital information resources available. The study recommends some steps to turn around the situations amongst; librarians must be empowered with all necessary digital literacy skills, embark on rigorous training and retraining programs, workshops, conferences, and seminars, there should also be a coherent training policy for the librarians on a sustainable basis to increase their requisite digital literacy skills.

Keywords: digital, information, literacy, skills

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Authors: Alexander Hempfing

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The desire to understand business cycle fluctuations, trade interdependencies and co-movement has a long tradition in economic thinking. From input-output economics to business cycle theory, researchers aimed to find appropriate answers from an empirical as well as a theoretical perspective. This paper empirically analyses how the production structure of the global economy and several states developed over time, what their distributional properties are and if there are network specific metrics that allow identifying structurally important nodes, on a global, national and sectoral scale. For this, the World Input-Output Database was used, and different statistical methods were applied. Empirical evidence is provided that the importance of the Eastern hemisphere in the global production network has increased significantly between 2000 and 2014. Moreover, it was possible to show that the sectoral eigenvector centrality indices on a global level are power-law distributed, providing evidence that specific national sectors exist which are more critical to the world economy than others while serving as a hub within the global production network. However, further findings suggest, that global production cannot be characterized as a scale-free network.

Keywords: economic integration, industrial organization, input-output economics, network economics, production networks

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Authors: Hasmik V. Zanginyan, Gayane S. Ghazaryan, Laura M. Hovsepyan

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Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that is induced in laboratory animals by developing an immune response against myelin epitopes. The typical clinical course is ascending palsy, which correlates with inflammation and tissue damage in the thoracolumbar spinal cord, although the optic nerves and brain (especially the subpial white matter and brainstem) are also often affected. With multiple sclerosis, there is a violation of lipid metabolism in myelin. When membrane lipids (glycosphingolipids, phospholipids) are disturbed, metabolites not only play a structural role in membranes but are also sources of secondary mediators that transmit multiple cellular signals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of ganglioside as a therapeutic agent in experimental multiple sclerosis. The biological activity of a ganglioside-containing medicinal preparation (Cronassial) was evaluated in an experimental model of multiple sclerosis in laboratory animals. An experimental model of multiple sclerosis in rats was obtained by immunization with myelin basic protein (MBP), as well as homogenization of the spinal cord or brain. EAE was induced by administering a mixture of an encephalitogenic mixture (EGM) with Complete Freund’s Adjuvant. Mitochondrial fraction was isolated in a medium containing 0,25 M saccharose and 0, 01 M tris buffer, pH - 7,4, by a method of differential centrifugation on a K-24 centrifuge. Glutathione peroxidase activity was assessed by reduction reactions of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and lipid hydroperoxides (ROOH) in the presence of GSH. LPO activity was assessed by the amount of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the total homogenate and mitochondrial fraction of the spinal cord and brain of control and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis rats. MDA was assessed by a reaction with Thiobarbituric acid. For statistical data analysis on PNP, SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) package was used. The nature of the distribution of the obtained data was determined by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov criterion. The comparative analysis was performed using a nonparametric Mann-Whitney test. The differences were statistically significant when р ≤ 0,05 or р ≤ 0,01. Correlational analysis was conducted using a nonparametric Spearman test. In the work, refrigeratory centrifuge, spectrophotometer LKB Biochrom ULTROSPECII (Sweden), pH-meter PL-600 mrc (Israel), guanosine, and ATP (Sigma). The study of the process of lipid peroxidation in the total homogenate of the brain and spinal cord in experimental animals revealed an increase in the content of malonic dialdehyde. When applied, Cronassial observed normalization of lipid peroxidation processes. Reactive oxygen species, causing lipid peroxidation processes, can be toxic both for neurons and for oligodendrocytes that form myelin, causing a violation of their lipid composition. The high content of lipids in the brain and the uniqueness of their structure determines the nature of the development of LPO processes. The lipid layer of cellular and intracellular membranes performs two main functions -barrier and matrix (structural). Damage to the barrier leads to dysregulation of intracellular processes and severe disorders of cellular functions.

Keywords: experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, multiple sclerosis, neuroinflammation, therapy

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Authors: James M. Geidner

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Objective: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the evidence for the effectiveness of exercise interventions on reducing metabolic components in children and/or adolescents diagnosed with Paediatric Metabolic Syndrome. Methods: A computerized search was made from four databases: PubMed, PsycInfo, SPORTDiscus, Cochrane Central Register. The analysis was restricted to children and adolescents with metabolic syndrome examining the effect of exercise interventions on metabolic components. Effect size and 95% confidence interval were calculated and the heterogeneity of the studies was estimated using Cochran’s Q-statistic and I2. Bias was assessed using multiple tools and statistical analyses. Results: Thirteen studies, consisting of 19 separate trials, were selected for the meta-analysis as they fulfilled the inclusion criteria (n=908). Exercise interventions resulted in decreased waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting glucose, insulin resistance, triglycerides, and High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-C). Conclusions: This meta-analysis provides insights into the effectiveness of exercise interventions on markers of Paediatric Metabolic Syndrome in children and adolescents.

Keywords: metabolic syndrome, syndrome x, pediatric, meta-analysis

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Authors: Phanida Phukoetphim, Asaad Y. Shamseldin

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In this study, the novel Stochastic Gradient Boosting (SGB) combination method is addressed for producing daily river flows from four different rain-runoff models of Ohinemuri catchment, New Zealand. The selected rainfall-runoff models are two empirical black-box models: linear perturbation model and linear varying gain factor model, two conceptual models: soil moisture accounting and routing model and Nedbør-Afrstrømnings model. In this study, the simple average combination method and the weighted average combination method were used as a benchmark for comparing the results of the novel SGB combination method. The models and combination results are evaluated using statistical and graphical criteria. Overall results of this study show that the use of combination technique can certainly improve the simulated river flows of four selected models for Ohinemuri catchment, New Zealand. The results also indicate that the novel SGB combination method is capable of accurate prediction when used in a combination method of the simulated river flows in New Zealand.

Keywords: multi-model combination, rainfall-runoff modeling, stochastic gradient boosting, bioinformatics

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Authors: V. Saccà, A. Sarica, F. Novellino, S. Barone, T. Tallarico, E. Filippelli, A. Granata, P. Valentino, A. Quattrone

Abstract:

The work aim was to evaluate how well Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms could support the early diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) from resting-state functional connectivity data. In particular, we wanted to explore the ability in distinguishing between controls and patients of mean signals extracted from ICA components corresponding to 15 well-known networks. Eighteen patients with early-MS (mean-age 37.42±8.11, 9 females) were recruited according to McDonald and Polman, and matched for demographic variables with 19 healthy controls (mean-age 37.55±14.76, 10 females). MRI was acquired by a 3T scanner with 8-channel head coil: (a)whole-brain T1-weighted; (b)conventional T2-weighted; (c)resting-state functional MRI (rsFMRI), 200 volumes. Estimated total lesion load (ml) and number of lesions were calculated using LST-toolbox from the corrected T1 and FLAIR. All rsFMRIs were pre-processed using tools from the FMRIB's Software Library as follows: (1) discarding of the first 5 volumes to remove T1 equilibrium effects, (2) skull-stripping of images, (3) motion and slice-time correction, (4) denoising with high-pass temporal filter (128s), (5) spatial smoothing with a Gaussian kernel of FWHM 8mm. No statistical significant differences (t-test, p < 0.05) were found between the two groups in the mean Euclidian distance and the mean Euler angle. WM and CSF signal together with 6 motion parameters were regressed out from the time series. We applied an independent component analysis (ICA) with the GIFT-toolbox using the Infomax approach with number of components=21. Fifteen mean components were visually identified by two experts. The resulting z-score maps were thresholded and binarized to extract the mean signal of the 15 networks for each subject. Statistical and machine learning analysis were then conducted on this dataset composed of 37 rows (subjects) and 15 features (mean signal in the network) with R language. The dataset was randomly splitted into training (75%) and test sets and two different classifiers were trained: RF and RBF-SVM. We used the intrinsic feature selection of RF, based on the Gini index, and recursive feature elimination (rfe) for the SVM, to obtain a rank of the most predictive variables. Thus, we built two new classifiers only on the most important features and we evaluated the accuracies (with and without feature selection) on test-set. The classifiers, trained on all the features, showed very poor accuracies on training (RF:58.62%, SVM:65.52%) and test sets (RF:62.5%, SVM:50%). Interestingly, when feature selection by RF and rfe-SVM were performed, the most important variable was the sensori-motor network I in both cases. Indeed, with only this network, RF and SVM classifiers reached an accuracy of 87.5% on test-set. More interestingly, the only misclassified patient resulted to have the lowest value of lesion volume. We showed that, with two different classification algorithms and feature selection approaches, the best discriminant network between controls and early MS, was the sensori-motor I. Similar importance values were obtained for the sensori-motor II, cerebellum and working memory networks. These findings, in according to the early manifestation of motor/sensorial deficits in MS, could represent an encouraging step toward the translation to the clinical diagnosis and prognosis.

Keywords: feature selection, machine learning, multiple sclerosis, random forest, support vector machine

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Authors: Hamed Afrasiab, Saeed Khodaygan

Abstract:

Prediction of machining process capability in the design stage plays a key role to reach the precision design and manufacturing of mechanical products. Inaccuracies in machining process lead to errors in position and orientation of machined features on the part, and strongly affect the process capability in the final quality of the product. In this paper, an efficient systematic approach is given to investigate the machining errors to predict the manufacturing errors of the parts and capability prediction of corresponding machining processes. A mathematical formulation of fixture locators modeling is presented to establish the relationship between the part errors and the related sources. Based on this method, the final machining errors of the part can be accurately estimated by relating them to the combined dimensional and geometric tolerances of the workpiece – fixture system. This method is developed for uncertainty analysis based on the Worst Case and statistical approaches. The application of the presented method is illustrated through presenting an example and the computational results are compared with the Monte Carlo simulation results.

Keywords: process capability, machining error, dimensional and geometrical tolerances, uncertainty analysis

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Authors: Sepehr Moradi, Mehdi Asadi Rad

Abstract:

This study is to evaluate the live weight of adult pigeons to investigate about their sex, race, their mutual effects and some auxiliary variables in 4 races of Kabood, Tizpar, Parvazy, and Namebar. In this paper, 152 pieces of pigeons as 76 male and female pairs with equal age are studied randomly. Then the birds were weighted by a scale with one gram precision. Software was used for statistical analysis. Mean live weight of adult male and female pigeons in 4 races (Kabood, Tizpar, Parvazy and Namebar with (15, 20, 20, 21) and (20, 21, 18, 17) records were, (530±56, 388.75±32, 392±34, 552±48) and (446±34, 342±32, 341±46, 457±57) gr, respectively. Difference weight of adult live of male with female was significant in 1% level (P < 0.01). Difference live weight of male adult pigeon was significant in 5% level (P < 0.05). Different live weight of female adult pigeon between Kabood, Parvazy and Tizpar races were significant in 5% level (P < 0.05) but mean live weight Kabood race with Namebar race and Parvazy with Tizpar were not significant. The results showed that most and least mean live weights belonged to Namebar of the male pigeon race and Parvazy of the female pigeon race.

Keywords: Iranian Native Pigeons, adult weight, live weight, adult pigeons

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Authors: Farhad Asadi, Mohammad Javad Mollakazemi, Aref Ghafouri

Abstract:

Recent research in neural networks science and neuroscience for modeling complex time series data and statistical learning has focused mostly on learning from high input space and signals. Local linear models are a strong choice for modeling local nonlinearity in data series. Locally weighted projection regression is a flexible and powerful algorithm for nonlinear approximation in high dimensional signal spaces. In this paper, different learning scenario of one and two dimensional data series with different distributions are investigated for simulation and further noise is inputted to data distribution for making different disordered distribution in time series data and for evaluation of algorithm in locality prediction of nonlinearity. Then, the performance of this algorithm is simulated and also when the distribution of data is high or when the number of data is less the sensitivity of this approach to data distribution and influence of important parameter of local validity in this algorithm with different data distribution is explained.

Keywords: local nonlinear estimation, LWPR algorithm, online training method, locally weighted projection regression method

Procedia PDF Downloads 502

Authors: Pornpimol Chaiwuttisak

Abstract:

The study aims to compare the performance of the logistics for Thailand’s wholesale and retail trade industries (except motor vehicles, motorcycle, and stalls) by using data (data envelopment analysis). Thailand Standard Industrial Classification in 2009 (TSIC - 2009) categories that industries into sub-group no. 45: wholesale and retail trade (except for the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles), sub-group no. 46: wholesale trade (except motor vehicles and motorcycles), and sub-group no. 47: retail trade (except motor vehicles and motorcycles. Data used in the study is collected by the National Statistical Office, Thailand. The study consisted of four input factors include the number of companies, the number of personnel in logistics, the training cost in logistics, and outsourcing logistics management. Output factor includes the percentage of enterprises having inventory management. The results showed that the average relative efficiency of small-sized enterprises equals to 27.87 percent and 49.68 percent for the medium-sized enterprises.

Keywords: DEA, wholesales and retails, logistics, Thailand

Procedia PDF Downloads 416

Authors: Liqun Zou, Ling Wang, Xiaoli Chen

Abstract:

Objective: Through the questionnaire about emergency nurses’ knowledge and attitudes regarding pain management to understand whether they are well mastered and practiced the related knowledge about pain management, providing a reference for continuous improvement of the quality of nursing care in acute pain and for improving the effect of management on emergency pain patients. Method: The Chinese version questionnaire about KASRP (knowledge and attitudes survey regarding pain) was handed out to 132 emergency nurses to do a study about the knowledge and attitude of pain management. Meanwhile, SPSS17.0 was used to do a descriptive analysis and variance analysis on collected data. Results: The emergency nurses’ correct answer rate about KASRP questionnaire is from 25% to 65% and the average correct rate is (44.65 + 7.85)%. In addition, there are 10 to 26 items being given the right answer. Therefore, the average correct items are (17.86 ± 3.14). Moreover, there is no statistical significant on the differences about the correct rate for different age, gender and work experience to answer; however, the difference of the correct rate in different education background and the professional title is significant. Conclusion: There is a remarkable lack of knowledge and attitude towards pain management in emergency nurses, whose basic knowledge of pain is sufficient. Besides, there is a deviation between the knowledge of pain management and clinical practice, which needs to be improved.

Keywords: emergency nurse, pain, KASRP questionnaire, pain management

Procedia PDF Downloads 251