Search results for: sensory eating quality test

Authors: Vinay Kumar Vanjakula, Frank Adam, Nils Goseberg, Christian Windt

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When a structure is installed on a seabed, the presence of the structure will influence the flow field around it. The changes in the flow field include, formation of vortices, turbulence generation, waves or currents flow breaking and pressure differentials around the seabed sediment. These changes allow the local seabed sediment to be carried off and results in Scour (erosion). These are a threat to the structure's stability. In recent decades, rapid developments of research work and the knowledge of scour On fixed structures (bridges and Monopiles) in rivers and oceans has been carried out, and very limited research work on scour and liquefaction for gravity anchors, particularly for floating Tension Leg Platform (TLP) substructures. Due to its importance and need for enhancement of knowledge in scour and liquefaction around marine structures, the MarTERA funded a three-year (2020-2023) research program called NuLIMAS (Numerical Modeling of Liquefaction Around Marine Structures). It’s a group consists of European institutions (Universities, laboratories, and consulting companies). The objective of this study is to build a numerical model that replicates the reality, which indeed helps to simulate (predict) underwater flow conditions and to study different marine scour and Liquefication situations. It helps to design a heavyweight anchor for the TLP substructure and to minimize the time and expenditure on experiments. And also, the achieved results and the numerical model will be a basis for the development of other design and concepts For marine structures. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) numerical model will build in OpenFOAM. A conceptual design of heavyweight anchor for TLP substructure is designed through taking considerations of available state-of-the-art knowledge on scour and Liquefication concepts and references to Previous existing designs. These conceptual designs are validated with the available similar experimental benchmark data and also with the CFD numerical benchmark standards (CFD quality assurance study). CFD optimization model/tool is designed as to minimize the effect of fluid flow, scour, and Liquefication. A parameterized model is also developed to automate the calculation process to reduce user interactions. The parameters such as anchor Lowering Process, flow optimized outer contours, seabed interaction study, and FSSI (Fluid-Structure-Seabed Interactions) are investigated and used to carve the model as to build an optimized anchor.

Keywords: gravity anchor, liquefaction, scour, computational fluid dynamics

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Authors: S. K. Sharma, P. Kumar, Pratibha Singh

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Consumption of SNACK is growing its popularity every day in India and a broad range of these items are available in the market. The end user interest in ready-to-eat snack foods is constantly growing mainly due to their ease, ample accessibility, appearance, taste and texture. Food extrusion has been practiced for over fifty years. Its role was initially limited to mixing and forming cereal products. Although thermoplastic extrusion has been successful for starch products, extrusion of proteins has achieved only limited success. In this study, value-added extruded prawn product was prepared with prawn flavor powder and corn flour using a twin-screw extruder. Prawn flavor concentrates prepared from fresh prawn head (Solenocera indica). To prepare flavor concentrate prawn head washed with potable water and blended with 200ml 3% salt solution per 250gm head weight to make the slurry, which was further put in muslin cloth and boiled with salt and starch solution for 10 minutes, cooled to room temperature and filtered, starch added to the filtrate and made into powder in an electrically drier at 43-450c. The mixture was passed through the twin-screw extruder (co-rotating twin screw extruder - basic technology Pvt. Ltd., Kolkata) which was operated at a particular speed of rotation, die diameter, temperature, moisture, and fish powder concentration. Many trial runs were conducted to set up the process variables. The different extrudes produced after each trail were examined for the quality and characteristics. The effect of temperature, moisture, screw speed, protein, fat, ash and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) number and expansion ratio were studied. In all the four trials, moisture, temperature, speed and die diameter used was 20%, 100°C, 350 rpm and 4 mm, respectively. The ratio of prawn powder and cornstarch used in different trials ranged between 2:98 and 10:90. The storage characteristics of the final product were studied using three different types of packaging under nitrogen flushing, i.e. a- 12-pm polyester, 12-pm metalized polyester, 60-11m polyethylene (metalized polyester a), b- 12-11m metalized polyester, 37.5-11m polyethylene (metalized polyester b), c- 12-11m polyethylene, 9-11m aluminium foil, 37.5-11m polyethylene (aluminium foil). The organoleptic analysis was carried out on a 9-point hedonic scale. The study revealed that the fried product packed in aluminum foil under nitrogen flushing would remain acceptable for more than three months.

Keywords: extruded product, prawn flavor, twin-screw extruder, storage characteristics

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Authors: Emine Aydin, Duygu Gocmen

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Pumpkin flour (PF) has a long shelf life and can be used as a nutritive, functional (antioxidant properties, phenolic contents, etc.) and coloring agent in many food items, especially in bakery products, sausages, instant noodles, pasta and flour mixes. Pre-treatment before drying is one of the most important factors affecting the quality of a final powdered product. Pretreatment, such as soaking in a bisulfite solution, provides that total carotenoids in raw materials rich in carotenoids, especially pumpkins, are retained in the dried product. This is due to the beneficial effect of antioxidant additives in the protection of carotenoids in the dehydrated plant foods. The oxygen present in the medium is removed by the radical SO₂, and thus the carotene degradation caused by the molecular oxygen is inhibited by the presence of SO₂. In this study, pumpkin flours (PFs) produced by two different applications (with or without metabisulfite pre-treatment) and then dried in a freeze dryer. The phenolic contents and antioxidant activities of pumpkin flour were determined. In addition to this, the compound of bioavailable phenolic substances which is obtained by PF has also been investigated using in vitro methods. As a result of researches made in recent years, it has been determined that all nutrients taken with foodstuffs are not bioavailable. Bioavailability changes depending on physical properties, chemical compounds, and capacities of individual digestion of foods. Therefore in this study; bioaccessible phenolics and phenolic bioaccessibility were also determined. The phenolics of the samples with metabisulfite application were higher than those of the samples without metabisulfite pre-treatment. Soaking in metabisulfite solution might have a protective effect for phenolic compounds. Phenolics bioaccessibility of pumpkin flours was investigated in order to assess pumpkin flour as sources of accessible phenolics. The higher bioaccessible phenolics (384.19 mg of GAE 100g⁻¹ DW) and phenolic bioaccessibility values (33.65 mL 100 mL⁻¹) were observed in the pumpkin flour with metabisulfite pre-treatment. Metabisulfite application caused an increase in bioaccessible phenolics of pumpkin flour. According to all assay (ABTS, CUPRAC, DPPH, and FRAP) results, both free and bound phenolics of pumpkin flour with metabisulfite pre-treatment had higher antioxidant activity than those of the sample without metabisulfite pre-treatment. The samples subjected to MS pre-treatment exhibited higher antioxidant activities than those of the samples without MS pre-treatment, this possibly due to higher phenolic contents of the samples with metabisulfite applications. As a result, metabisulfite application caused an increase in phenolic contents, bioaccessible phenolics, phenolic bioaccessibility and antioxidant activities of pumpkin flour. It can be said that pumpkin flour can be used as an alternative functional and nutritional ingredient in bakery products, dairy products (yoghurt, ice-cream), soups, sauces, infant formulae, confectionery, etc.

Keywords: pumpkin flour, bioaccessible phenolics, phenolic bioaccessibility, antioxidant activity

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Authors: Emmanuel Ogala

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Cloud computing has been envisioned as the next-generation architecture of Information Technology (IT) enterprise. In contrast to traditional solutions where IT services are under physical, logical and personnel controls, cloud computing moves the application software and databases to the large data centres, where the management of the data and services may not be fully trustworthy. This is due to the fact that the systems are opened to the whole world and as people tries to have access into the system, many people also are there trying day-in day-out on having unauthorized access into the system. This research contributes to the improvement of cloud computing security for better operation. The work is motivated by two problems: first, the observed easy access to cloud computing resources and complexity of attacks to vital cloud computing data system NIC requires that dynamic security mechanism evolves to stay capable of preventing illegitimate access. Second; lack of good methodology for performance test and evaluation of biometric security algorithms for securing records in cloud computing environment. The aim of this research was to evaluate the performance of an integrated security system (ISS) for securing exams records in cloud computing environment. In this research, we designed and implemented an ISS consisting of three security mechanisms of biometric (fingerprint), auto-PIN and password into one stream of access control and used for securing examination records in Kogi State University, Anyigba. Conclusively, the system we built has been able to overcome guessing abilities of hackers who guesses people password or pin. We are certain about this because the added security system (fingerprint) needs the presence of the user of the software before a login access can be granted. This is based on the placement of his finger on the fingerprint biometrics scanner for capturing and verification purpose for user’s authenticity confirmation. The study adopted the conceptual of quantitative design. Object oriented and design methodology was adopted. In the analysis and design, PHP, HTML5, CSS, Visual Studio Java Script, and web 2.0 technologies were used to implement the model of ISS for cloud computing environment. Note; PHP, HTML5, CSS were used in conjunction with visual Studio front end engine design tools and MySQL + Access 7.0 were used for the backend engine and Java Script was used for object arrangement and also validation of user input for security check. Finally, the performance of the developed framework was evaluated by comparing with two other existing security systems (Auto-PIN and password) within the school and the results showed that the developed approach (fingerprint) allows overcoming the two main weaknesses of the existing systems and will work perfectly well if fully implemented.

Keywords: performance evaluation, fingerprint, auto-pin, password-based, security systems, cloud computing environment

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Authors: Dimitrios Kafetzopoulos

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Nowadays, companies are more concerned with adopting their own strategies for increased efficiency and sustainability. Dynamic environments are fertile fields for developing operational changes. For this purpose, organizations need to implement an advanced management philosophy that boosts changes to companies’ operation. Changes refer to new applications of knowledge, ideas, methods, and skills that can generate unique capabilities and leverage an organization’s competitiveness. So, in order to survive and compete in the global and niche markets, companies should incorporate the adoption of operational changes into their strategy with regard to their products and their processes. Creating the appropriate culture for changes in terms of products and processes helps companies to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of both incremental and radical changes into operations of a company, taking into consideration not only product changes but also process changes, and continues by measuring the impact of these two types of changes on business efficiency and sustainability of Greek manufacturing companies. The above discussion leads to the following hypotheses: H1: Radical operational changes have a positive impact on firm efficiency. H2: Incremental operational changes have a positive impact on firm efficiency. H3: Radical operational changes have a positive impact on firm sustainability. H4: Incremental operational changes have a positive impact on firm sustainability. In order to achieve the objectives of the present study, a research study was carried out in Greek manufacturing firms. A total of 380 valid questionnaires were received while a seven-point Likert scale was used to measure all the questionnaire items of the constructs (radical changes, incremental changes, efficiency and sustainability). The constructs of radical and incremental operational changes, each one as one variable, has been subdivided into product and process changes. Non-response bias, common method variance, multicollinearity, multivariate normal distribution and outliers have been checked. Moreover, the unidimensionality, reliability and validity of the latent factors were assessed. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were applied to check the factorial structure of the constructs and the factor loadings of the items. In order to test the research hypotheses, the SEM technique was applied (maximum likelihood method). The goodness of fit of the basic structural model indicates an acceptable fit of the proposed model. According to the present study findings, radical operational changes and incremental operational changes significantly influence both efficiency and sustainability of Greek manufacturing firms. However, it is in the dimension of radical operational changes, meaning those in process and product, that the most significant contributors to firm efficiency are to be found, while its influence on sustainability is low albeit statistically significant. On the contrary, incremental operational changes influence sustainability more than firms’ efficiency. From the above, it is apparent that the embodiment of the concept of the changes into the products and processes operational practices of a firm has direct and positive consequences for what it achieves from efficiency and sustainability perspective.

Keywords: incremental operational changes, radical operational changes, efficiency, sustainability

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Authors: Chinyama Lukama, Million Phiri, Namuunda Mutombo

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Background: Improving access and utilization to high-quality sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services, including family planning (FP) commodities, is central to the global developmental agenda of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite the importance of family planning use in enhancing maternal health outcomes and fertility reduction, the prevalence of adolescents and young women using modern contraception is generally low in SSA. Zambia is one of the countries in Southern Africa with a high prevalence of teenage pregnancies and fertility rates. Despite many initiatives that have been implemented to improve access and demand for family planning commodities, utilization of FP, especially among adolescents and young women, has generally been low. The objective of this research agenda was to better understand the determinants of modern contraceptive use in adolescents and young women in Zambia. This analysis produced findings that will be critical for informing the strengthening of sexual and reproductive health policy strategies aimed at bolstering the provision and use of maternal health services in order to further improve maternal health outcomes in the country. Method: The study used the recent data from the Demographic and Health Survey of 2018. A sample of 3,513 adolescents and young women (ADYW) were included in the analysis. Multilevel logistic regression models were employed to examine the association of individual and contextual factors with modern contraceptive use among adolescents and young women. Results: The prevalence of modern contraception among sexually active ADYW in Zambia was 38.1% [95% CI, 35.9, 40.4]. ADYW who had secondary or higher level education [aOR = 2.16, 95% CI=1.35–3.47], those with exposure to listening to the radio or watching television [aOR = 1.26, 95% CI=1.01–1.57], and those who had decision-making power at household level [aOR = 2.18, 95% CI=1.71–2.77] were more likely to use modern contraceptives. Conversely, strong neighborhood desire for large family size among ADYW [aOR = 0.65 95% CI = 0.47–0.88] was associated with less likelihood to use modern contraceptives. Community access to family planning information through community health worker visits increased the likelihood [aOR = 1.48, 95% CI=1.16–1.91] of using modern contraception among ADYW. Conclusion: The study found that both individual and community factors were key in influencing modern contraceptive use among adolescents and young women in Zambia. Therefore, when designing family planning interventions, the Government of Zambia, through its policymakers and sexual reproductive health program implementers at the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with stakeholders, should consider the community context. There should also be deliberate actions to encourage family planning education through the media.

Keywords: adolescents, young women, modern contraception use, fertility, family planning

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Authors: Jelena Vucicevic

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Reliability analysis represents a very important task in different areas of work. In any industry, this is crucial for maintenance, efficiency, safety and monetary costs. There are ways to calculate reliability, unreliability, failure density and failure rate. This paper will try to introduce another way of calculating reliability by using R statistical software. R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS. The R programming environment is a widely used open source system for statistical analysis and statistical programming. It includes thousands of functions for the implementation of both standard and new statistical methods. R does not limit user only to operation related only to these functions. This program has many benefits over other similar programs: it is free and, as an open source, constantly updated; it has built-in help system; the R language is easy to extend with user-written functions. The significance of the work is calculation of time to failure or reliability in a new way, using statistic. Another advantage of this calculation is that there is no need for technical details and it can be implemented in any part for which we need to know time to fail in order to have appropriate maintenance, but also to maximize usage and minimize costs. In this case, calculations have been made on diesel generator fans but the same principle can be applied to any other part. The data for this paper came from a field engineering study of the time to failure of diesel generator fans. The ultimate goal was to decide whether or not to replace the working fans with a higher quality fan to prevent future failures. Seventy generators were studied. For each one, the number of hours of running time from its first being put into service until fan failure or until the end of the study (whichever came first) was recorded. Dataset consists of two variables: hours and status. Hours show the time of each fan working and status shows the event: 1- failed, 0- censored data. Censored data represent cases when we cannot track the specific case, so it could fail or success. Gaining the result by using R was easy and quick. The program will take into consideration censored data and include this into the results. This is not so easy in hand calculation. For the purpose of the paper results from R program have been compared to hand calculations in two different cases: censored data taken as a failure and censored data taken as a success. In all three cases, results are significantly different. If user decides to use the R for further calculations, it will give more precise results with work on censored data than the hand calculation.

Keywords: censored data, R statistical software, reliability analysis, time to failure

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Authors: Ilona Pavlovska, Aneka Klavina, Agris Auce, Ivars Vanadzins, Alise Silova, Laura Komarovska, Linda Paegle, Baiba Silamikele, Linda Dobkevica

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Freshwater sapropel is a common material formed by complex biological transformations of Holocene sediments in the water basement of the lakes in Latvia that has the potential to be used as medical mud. Sapropel forms over a long period in shallow waters by slowly decomposing organic sediment and has different compositions depending on the location of the source, surroundings, the water regime, etc. Official geological survey of Latvia lakes, from Latvian lake database (ezeri.lv), used in the selection of the area of the exploration. The multifunctional effect of sapropel on the whole organism explained by its complex chemical and biological structure. This unique, organic substance and its ability to maintain heat for a long time ensures deep tissue warming and has a positive effect on the treatment of various joint and skin diseases. Sapropel is a valuable resource with multiple areas of application. Investigation of sapropel sediments and survey of the five sites selected according to the criteria performed in the current study. Also, our study includes sampling at different depths and their initial treatment, evaluation of external signs, and study of physical-chemical parameters, as well as analysis of biochemical parameters and evaluation of microbiological indicators. The main selection criteria were sapropel deposits depth, hydrological regime, the history of agriculture next to the lake, and the potential exposure to industrial waste. One hundred and five sapropel samples obtained from five lakes (Audzelu, Dunakla, Ivusku, Zielu, and Mazars Kivdalova) during the wintertime. The main goal of the study is to carry out detailed and systematic research on the medical properties of sapropel to be obtained in Latvia, to promote its scientifically based use in balneology, to develop new medical procedures and services, and to promote the development of new exportable products. Latvian freshwater sapropel could be used as raw material for getting sapropel extract and use it as a remedy. All mentioned above brings us to the main question for sapropel usage in medicine, balneology, and pharmacy “how to develop quality criteria for raw sapropel and its extracts. The research was co-financed by the project "Analysis of characteristics of medical sapropel and its usage for medical purposes and elaboration of industrial extraction methods" No.1.1.1.1/16/A/165.

Keywords: balneology, extracts, freshwater sapropel, Latvian lakes, medical mud, sapropel

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Authors: Shaukat Ali Shahee, Usha Ananthakumar

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A data set exhibits class imbalance problem when one class has very few examples compared to the other class, and this is also referred to as between class imbalance. The traditional classifiers fail to classify the minority class examples correctly due to its bias towards the majority class. Apart from between-class imbalance, imbalance within classes where classes are composed of a different number of sub-clusters with these sub-clusters containing different number of examples also deteriorates the performance of the classifier. Previously, many methods have been proposed for handling imbalanced dataset problem. These methods can be classified into four categories: data preprocessing, algorithmic based, cost-based methods and ensemble of classifier. Data preprocessing techniques have shown great potential as they attempt to improve data distribution rather than the classifier. Data preprocessing technique handles class imbalance either by increasing the minority class examples or by decreasing the majority class examples. Decreasing the majority class examples lead to loss of information and also when minority class has an absolute rarity, removing the majority class examples is generally not recommended. Existing methods available for handling class imbalance do not address both between-class imbalance and within-class imbalance simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a method that handles between class imbalance and within class imbalance simultaneously for binary classification problem. Removing between class imbalance and within class imbalance simultaneously eliminates the biases of the classifier towards bigger sub-clusters by minimizing the error domination of bigger sub-clusters in total error. The proposed method uses model-based clustering to find the presence of sub-clusters or sub-concepts in the dataset. The number of examples oversampled among the sub-clusters is determined based on the complexity of sub-clusters. The method also takes into consideration the scatter of the data in the feature space and also adaptively copes up with unseen test data using Lowner-John ellipsoid for increasing the accuracy of the classifier. In this study, neural network is being used as this is one such classifier where the total error is minimized and removing the between-class imbalance and within class imbalance simultaneously help the classifier in giving equal weight to all the sub-clusters irrespective of the classes. The proposed method is validated on 9 publicly available data sets and compared with three existing oversampling techniques that rely on the spatial location of minority class examples in the euclidean feature space. The experimental results show the proposed method to be statistically significantly superior to other methods in terms of various accuracy measures. Thus the proposed method can serve as a good alternative to handle various problem domains like credit scoring, customer churn prediction, financial distress, etc., that typically involve imbalanced data sets.

Keywords: classification, imbalanced dataset, Lowner-John ellipsoid, model based clustering, oversampling

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Authors: Pinkey Yaqub

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The aim of this study was to investigate secondary (grades IX and X) students’ attitudes towards learning the English language based on the medium of instruction of the school, the gender of the students and the grade level in which they studied. A further aim was to determine students’ proficiency in the English language according to their gender, the grade level and the medium of instruction of the school. A survey was used to investigate the attitudes of secondary students towards English language learning. Simple random sampling was employed to obtain a representative sample of the target population for the research study as a comprehensive list of established English medium schools, and newly established English medium schools were available. A questionnaire ‘Attitude towards English Language Learning’ (AtELL) was adapted from a research study on Libyan secondary school students’ attitudes towards learning English language. AtELL was reviewed by experts (n=6) and later piloted on a representative sample of secondary students (n= 160). Subsequently, the questionnaire was modified - based on the reviewers’ feedback and lessons learnt during the piloting phase - and directly administered to students of grades 9 and 10 to gather information regarding their attitudes towards learning the English language. Data collection spanned a month and a half. As the data were not normally distributed, the researcher used Mann-Whitney tests to test the hypotheses formulated to investigate students’ attitudes towards learning English as well as proficiency in the language across the medium of instruction of the school, the gender of the students and the grade level of the respondents. Statistical analyses of the data showed that the students of established English medium schools exhibited a positive outlook towards English language learning in terms of the behavioural, cognitive and emotional aspects of attitude. A significant difference was observed in the attitudes of male and female students towards learning English where females showed a more positive attitude in terms of behavioural, cognitive and emotional aspects as compared to their male counterparts. Moreover, grade 10 students had a more positive attitude towards learning English language in terms of behavioural, cognitive and emotional aspects as compared to grade 9 students. Nonetheless, students of newly established English medium schools were more proficient in English as gauged by their examination scores in this subject as compared to their counterparts studying in established English medium schools. Moreover, female students were more proficient in English while students studying in grade 9 were less proficient in English than their seniors studying in grade 10. The findings of this research provide empirical evidence to future researchers wishing to explore the relationship between attitudes towards learning language and variables such as the medium of instruction of the school, gender and the grade level of the students. Furthermore, policymakers might revisit the English curriculum to formulate specific guidelines that promote a positive and gender-balanced outlook towards learning English for male and female students.

Keywords: attitude, behavioral aspect of attitude, cognitive aspect of attitude, emotional aspect of attitude

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Authors: Anamika Paul, Sudipto Sarkar

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The flow behaviour of non-Newtonian fluid is quite complicated, although both the pseudoplastic (n < 1, n being the power index) and dilatant (n > 1) fluids under this category are used immensely in chemical and process industries. A limited research work is carried out for flow over a bluff body in non-Newtonian flow environment. In the present numerical simulation we control the vortices of a square cylinder by placing an upstream vertical splitter plate for pseudoplastic (n=0.8), Newtonian (n=1) and dilatant (n=1.2) fluids. The position of the upstream plate is also varied to calculate the critical distance between the plate and cylinder, below which the cylinder vortex shedding suppresses. Here the Reynolds number is considered as Re = 150 (Re = U∞a/ν, where U∞ is the free-stream velocity of the flow, a is the side of the cylinder and ν is the maximum value of kinematic viscosity of the fluid), which comes under laminar periodic vortex shedding regime. The vertical plate is having a dimension of 0.5a × 0.05a and it is placed at the cylinder centre-line. Gambit 2.2.30 is used to construct the flow domain and to impose the boundary conditions. In detail, we imposed velocity inlet (u = U∞), pressure outlet (Neumann condition), symmetry (free-slip boundary condition) at upper and lower domain. Wall boundary condition (u = v = 0) is considered both on the cylinder and the splitter plate surfaces. The unsteady 2-D Navier Stokes equations in fully conservative form are then discretized in second-order spatial and first-order temporal form. These discretized equations are then solved by Ansys Fluent 14.5 implementing SIMPLE algorithm written in finite volume method. Here, fine meshing is used surrounding the plate and cylinder. Away from the cylinder, the grids are slowly stretched out in all directions. To get an account of mesh quality, a total of 297 × 208 grid points are used for G/a = 3 (G being the gap between the plate and cylinder) in the streamwise and flow-normal directions respectively after a grid independent study. The computed mean flow quantities obtained from Newtonian flow are agreed well with the available literatures. The results are depicted with the help of instantaneous and time-averaged flow fields. Qualitative and quantitative noteworthy differences are obtained in the flow field with the changes in rheology of fluid. Also, aerodynamic forces and vortex shedding frequencies differ with the gap-ratio and power index of the fluid. We can conclude from the present simulation that fluent is capable to capture the vortex dynamics of unsteady laminar flow regime even in the non-Newtonian flow environment.

Keywords: CFD, critical gap-ratio, splitter plate, wake-wake interactions, dilatant, pseudoplastic

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Authors: M. Maleczek, Leszek Bogdan, Kazimierz Drabczyk, Agnieszka Iwan

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Crystalline silicon (Si) solar cells are the main product in the market among the various photovoltaic technologies concerning such advantages as: material richness, high carrier mobilities, broad spectral absorption range and established technology. However, photovoltaic technology on the stiff substrates are heavier, more fragile and less cost-effective than devices on the flexible substrates to be applied in special applications. The main goal of our work was to incorporate silicon solar cells into various fabric, without any change of the electrical and mechanical parameters of devices. This work is realized for the GEKON project (No. GEKON2/O4/268473/23/2016) sponsored by The National Centre for Research and Development and The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. In our work, the polyamide or polyester fabrics were used as a flexible substrate in the created devices. Applied fabrics differ in tensile and tear strength. All investigated polyamide fabrics are resistant to weathering and UV, while polyester ones is resistant to ozone, water and ageing. The examined fabrics are tight at 100 cm water per 2 hours. In our work, commercial silicon solar cells with the size 156 × 156 mm were cut into nine parts (called single solar cells) by diamond saw and laser. Gap and edge after cutting of solar cells were checked by transmission electron microscope (TEM) to study morphology and quality of the prepared single solar cells. Modules with the size of 160 × 70 cm (containing about 80 single solar cells) were created and investigated by electrical and mechanical methods. Weight of constructed module is about 1.9 kg. Three types of solar cell architectures such as: -fabric/EVA/Si solar cell/EVA/film for lamination, -backsheet PET/EVA/Si solar cell/EVA/film for lamination, -fabric/EVA/Si solar cell/EVA/tempered glass, were investigated taking into consideration type of fabric and lamination process together with the size of solar cells. In investigated devices EVA, it is ethylene-vinyl acetate, while PET - polyethylene terephthalate. Depend on the lamination process and compatibility of textile with solar cell an efficiency of investigated flexible silicon solar cells was in the range of 9.44-16.64 %. Multi folding and unfolding of flexible module has no impact on its efficiency as was detected by Instron equipment. Power (P) of constructed solar module is 30 W, while voltage about 36 V. Finally, solar panel contains five modules with the polyamide fabric and tempered glass will be produced commercially for different applications (dual use).

Keywords: flexible devices, mechanical properties, silicon solar cells, textiles

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Authors: Talal Alharigi, Kawther Alshlash, Mariska Weijerman

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The government of Saudi Arabia has developed an ambitious “Vision 2030”, which includes a Green Initiative (i.e., the planting of 10 billion trees) and the establishment of seven Royal Reserves as protected areas that comprise 13% of the total land area. The main objective of the reserves is to restore ecosystem balance and reconnect people with nature. Two royal reserves are managed by The Imam Abdulaziz bin Mohammed Royal Reserve Development Authority, including Imam Abdulaziz bin Mohammed Royal Reserve and King Khalid Royal Reserve. The authority has developed a management plan to enhance the habitat through seed dispersal and the planting of 10 million trees, and to restock wildlife that was once abundant in these arid ecosystems (e.g., oryx, Nubian ibex, gazelles, red-necked ostrich). Expectations are that with the restoration of the native vegetation, soil condition and natural hydrologic processes will improve and lead to further enhancement of vegetation and, over time, an increase in biodiversity of flora and fauna. To evaluate the management strategies in reaching these expectations, a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation program was developed. The main objectives of this program are to (1) monitor the status and trends of indicator species, (2) improve desert ecosystem understanding, (3) assess the effects of human activities, and (4) provide science-based management recommendations. Using a random stratified survey design, a diverse suite of survey methods will be implemented, including belt and quadrant transects, camera traps, GPS tracking devices, and drones. Data will be gathered on biotic parameters (plant and animal diversity, density, and distribution) and abiotic parameters (humidity, temperature, precipitation, wind, air, soil quality, vibrations, and noise levels) to meet the goals of the monitoring program. This case study intends to provide a detailed overview of the management plan and monitoring program of two royal reserves and outlines the types of data gathered which can be made available for future research projects.

Keywords: camera traps, desert ecosystem, enhancement, GPS tracking, management evaluation, monitoring, planting, restocking, restoration

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Authors: Said S. Almaiuof

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Integration Program Through Physical Education Lessons for The Influence of Some Physical Fitness Health-Related Components in Visual Handicapped Children. Propose of the study: The aim of this study is to design and evaluate a program for the physical education lesson to improve the cardio-respiratory endurance, considering the lesson of physical education as one of the educational means to achieve the society aims toward health and fitness, concerning the importance of the cardio-respiratory endurance as an essential one of the physical fitness health-related components. And this program tried to give them hand of help as a part of the society having the same rights as the rest of the society. Methodology: The researcher used the experimental method as a suitable method for this study and tested its hypothesis. The subject of the research selected randomly of the two classes from primary education in TRIPOLI-LIBYA, it was 28 boys (14-15) years old, then divided into groups, experimental group, n=13, which practiced the special exercises program and control group, n=15, which only practiced the normal school program. The selected child subjected to a medical examination in order to make sure that they are healthy, and the Vo2max measured by cycle ergometry and test some physical fitness makers before and after the program. Results: The study cleared that the experimental group developed in all physical variation in comparison with the control group which has a little development in a general balance only. Results are following: 1. The experimental group was successful more than the control group in all the research variation. 2. There were some improvements in time of keeping Balance in control group only. Discussion /conclusion: According to statistical analysis of data related to the values of the variables in this study; the suggested exercise program according to development the cardio respiratory endurance (CRE), and some physical fitness more than the program which already implemented in the school was less effective, just there is developing on keep balancing. It’s statistically significant (p<0.05) after applying this program. Improving the experimental group on (CRE), balance, running, sit and reach, from the suggested exercise program of what indicate the partaking program positive in improve those physical variables, and the selected exercises may contributed in improving the (CRE) for visual impairment and its pivotal in visual impairment children’s life. A health-related physical education curriculum can provide students with substantially more physical activity during physical education classes. The results show that the physical rehabilitation program for visual impairment children helped them in developing their defects due to the injury which means that this program should be in every organization having this part of people to increase their production and give them hand of help as a part of the society having the same rights as the rest of the society and to establish the idea of sport for all.

Keywords: visual handicapped, cardio-respiratory endurance, health, ergometry, education

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Authors: Heribert R. Kaijage, Samuel N. A. Codjoe, Simon H. D. Mamuya, Mangi J. Ezekiel

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There is strong evidence that climate has changed significantly affecting various sectors including public health. The recommended feasible solution is adopting development trajectories which combine both mitigation and adaptation measures for improving resilience pathways. This approach demands a consideration for complex interactions between climate and social-ecological systems. While other sectors such as agriculture and water have developed climate resilience indices, the public health sector in Tanzania is still lagging behind. The aim of this study was to find out how can we use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) linked with Remote Sensing (RS) technology and metrological information as tools to inform climate change resilient development and evaluation for the health sector. Methodological review was conducted whereby a number of studies were content analyzed to find appropriate indicators and indices for climate resilience household and their integration approach. These indicators were critically reviewed, listed, filtered and their sources determined. Preliminary identification and ranking of indicators were conducted using participatory approach of pairwise weighting by selected national stakeholders from meeting/conferences on human health and climate change sciences in Tanzania. DHS datasets were retrieved from Measure Evaluation project, processed and critically analyzed for possible climate change indicators. Other sources for indicators of climate change exposure were also identified. For the purpose of preliminary reporting, operationalization of selected indicators was discussed to produce methodological approach to be used in resilience comparative analysis study. It was found that household climate resilient index depends on the combination of three indices namely Household Adaptive and Mitigation Capacity (HC), Household Health Sensitivity (HHS) and Household Exposure Status (HES). It was also found that, DHS alone cannot complement resilient evaluation unless integrated with other data sources notably flooding data as a measure of vulnerability, remote sensing image of Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Metrological data (deviation from rainfall pattern). It can be concluded that if these indices retrieved from DHS data sets are computed and scientifically integrated can produce single climate resilience index and resilience maps could be generated at different spatial and time scales to enhance targeted interventions for climate resilient development and evaluations. However, further studies are need to test for the sensitivity of index in resilience comparative analysis among selected regions.

Keywords: climate change, resilience, remote sensing, demographic and health surveys

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Authors: Gilda Santos, Rita Marques, Francisca Marques, João Ribeiro, André Fonseca, João M. Miranda, João B. L. M. Campos, Soraia F. Neves

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Every year, an unacceptable number of firefighters are seriously burned during firefighting operations, with some of them eventually losing their life. Although thermal protective clothing research and development has been searching solutions to minimize firefighters heat load and skin burns, currently commercially available solutions focus in solving isolated problems, for example, radiant heat or water-vapor resistance. Therefore, episodes of severe burns and heat strokes are still frequent. Taking this into account, a consortium composed by Portuguese entities has joined synergies to develop an innovative protective clothing system by following a procedure based on the application of numerical models to optimize the design and using a combinationof protective clothing components disposed in different layers. Recently, it has been shown that Phase Change Materials (PCMs) can contribute to the reduction of potential heat hazards in fire extinguish operations, and consequently, their incorporation into firefighting protective clothing has advantages. The greatest challenge is to integrate these materials without compromising garments ergonomics and, at the same time, accomplishing the International Standard of protective clothing for firefighters – laboratory test methods and performance requirements for wildland firefighting clothing. The incorporation of PCMs into the firefighter's protective jacket will result in the absorption of heat from the fire and consequently increase the time that the firefighter can be exposed to it. According to the project studies and developments, to favor a higher use of the PCM storage capacityand to take advantage of its high thermal inertia more efficiently, the PCM layer should be closer to the external heat source. Therefore, in this stage, to integrate PCMs in firefighting clothing, a mock-up of a vest specially designed to protect the torso (back, chest and abdomen) and to be worn over a fire-resistant jacketwas envisaged. Different configurations of PCMs, as well as multilayer approaches, were studied using suitable joining technologies such as bonding, ultrasound, and radiofrequency. Concerning firefighter’s protective clothing, it is important to balance heat protection and flame resistance with comfort parameters, namely, thermaland water-vapor resistances. The impact of the most promising solutions regarding thermal comfort was evaluated to refine the performance of the global solutions. Results obtained with experimental bench scale model and numerical simulation regarding the integration of PCMs in a vest designed as protective clothing for firefighters will be presented.

Keywords: firefighters, multilayer system, phase change material, thermal protective clothing

Procedia PDF Downloads 155

Authors: Teresa Sarmento de Beires, Sofia Padilha, Pedro Arantes, Joana Ribeiro, Andreia Eiras

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Background: Trichotillomania is a psychiatric condition that is very challenging to treat, with no first-line medications approved by any medical agency. It is defined as a recurrent compulsive habit of pulling out one's own hair, usually from the scalp and eyebrows area, but it can also affect eyelashes or any other hair-bearing area. N-acetylcysteine, a glutamate modulator, has been studied as a possible treatment for several psychiatric and neurological disorders, considering its role in attenuating pathophysiological processes responsible for compulsive behaviors and, therefore, trichotillomania. Objective: This study aims to determine the efficacy of N-acetylcysteine in the treatment of adults with trichotillomania. Methodology: The authors researched guidelines, standards of clinical guidance, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized clinical trials, published in the last 20 years using the MeSH terms: "Trichotillomania” and “N-acetylcysteine” in the following databases: PubMed, Cochrane library, National Guideline Clearing House, National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Canadian Medical Association Practice Guidelines and Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE). The Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy (SORT) Scale, from the American Family Physician, was used to evaluate the level of evidence and assign the strength of recommendation. Results: The research found fifteen articles, among which only three were eligible according to the inclusion criteria: 1. systematic review and 2. meta-analyses. There was evidence of a probable beneficial effect of N-acetylcysteine on treatment response and reduction of trichotillomania symptom severity in adults, with moderate certainty in the effect estimate. There was no evidence of effectiveness with the use of inositol, antioxidants, naltrexone, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of adults with trichotillomania. Clomipramine and Olanzapine showed potential treatment benefits, with low certainty. N-acetylcysteine had the least severe side effect profile in adults compared with the other potentially beneficial pharmacological treatments. Conclusion: Evidence points towards the effectiveness of N-acetylcysteine in the treatment of adults with trichotillomania, which exhibits a good tolerability profile with minimal adverse effects. Therefore, the authors attribute a level of evidence 2, the strength of recommendation B, to the prescription of N-acetylcysteine in the treatment of adults suffering from trichotillomania (SORT analysis). Further investigation is needed in order to extract high-quality conclusions from the meta-analysis.

Keywords: trichotillomania, hair pulling, treatment, n-acetylcysteine

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Authors: John Christian Lequiron, Gerry Bagtasa, Olivia Cabrera, Leoncio Amadore, Tolentino Moya

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Changes in air surface temperature play an important role in the Philippine’s economy, industry, health, and food production. While increasing global mean temperature in the recent several decades has prompted a number of climate change and variability studies in the Philippines, most studies still focus on rainfall and tropical cyclones. This study aims to investigate the trend and variability of observed air surface temperature and determine its major influencing factor/s in the Philippines. A non-parametric Mann-Kendall trend test was applied to monthly mean temperature of 17 synoptic stations covering 56 years from 1960 to 2015 and a mean change of 0.58 °C or a positive trend of 0.0105 °C/year (p < 0.05) was found. In addition, wavelet decomposition was used to determine the frequency of temperature variability show a 12-month, 30-80-month and more than 120-month cycles. This indicates strong annual variations, interannual variations that coincide with ENSO events, and interdecadal variations that are attributed to PDO and CO2 concentrations. Air surface temperature was also correlated with smoothed sunspot number and galactic cosmic rays, the results show a low to no effect. The influence of ENSO teleconnection on temperature, wind pattern, cloud cover, and outgoing longwave radiation on different ENSO phases had significant effects on regional temperature variability. Particularly, an anomalous anticyclonic (cyclonic) flow east of the Philippines during the peak and decay phase of El Niño (La Niña) events leads to the advection of warm southeasterly (cold northeasterly) air mass over the country. Furthermore, an apparent increasing cloud cover trend is observed over the West Philippine Sea including portions of the Philippines, and this is believed to lessen the effect of the increasing air surface temperature. However, relative humidity was also found to be increasing especially on the central part of the country, which results in a high positive trend of heat index, exacerbating the effects on human discomfort. Finally, an assessment of gridded temperature datasets was done to look at the viability of using three high-resolution datasets in future climate analysis and model calibration and verification. Several error statistics (i.e. Pearson correlation, Bias, MAE, and RMSE) were used for this validation. Results show that gridded temperature datasets generally follows the observed surface temperature change and anomalies. In addition, it is more representative of regional temperature rather than a substitute to station-observed air temperature.

Keywords: air surface temperature, carbon dioxide, ENSO, galactic cosmic rays, smoothed sunspot number

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Authors: Acacia A. Salomão, Willian L. Gomes da Silva, Gustavo G. Shimamoto, Matthieu Tubino

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Biodiesel physical and chemical properties depend on the raw material composition used in its synthesis. Saturated fatty acid esters confer high oxidative stability, while unsaturated fatty acid esters improve the cold flow properties. In this study, an alternative vegetal source - the macauba kernel oil - was used in the biodiesel synthesis instead of conventional sources. Macauba can be collected from native palm trees and is found in several regions in Brazil. Its oil is a promising source when compared to several other oils commonly obtained from food products, such as soybean, corn or canola oil, due to its specific characteristics. However, the usage of biodiesel made from macauba oil alone is not recommended due to the difficulty of producing macauba in large quantities. For this reason, this project proposes the usage of blends of the macauba oil with conventional oils. These blends were prepared by mixing the macauba biodiesel with biodiesels obtained from soybean, corn, and from residual frying oil, in the following proportions: 20:80, 50:50 e 80:20 (w/w). Three parameters were evaluated, using the standard methods, in order to check the quality of the produced biofuel and its blends: oxidative stability, cold filter plugging point (CFPP), and iodine value. The induction period (IP) expresses the oxidative stability of the biodiesel, the CFPP expresses the lowest temperature in which the biodiesel flows through a filter without plugging the system and the iodine value is a measure of the number of double bonds in a sample. The biodiesels obtained from soybean, residual frying oil and corn presented iodine values higher than 110 g/100 g, low oxidative stability and low CFPP. The IP values obtained from these biodiesels were lower than 8 h, which is below the recommended standard value. On the other hand, the CFPP value was found within the allowed limit (5 ºC is the maximum). Regarding the macauba biodiesel, a low iodine value was observed (31.6 g/100 g), which indicates the presence of high content of saturated fatty acid esters. The presence of saturated fatty acid esters should imply in a high oxidative stability (which was found accordingly, with IP = 64 h), and high CFPP, but curiously the latter was not observed (-3 ºC). This behavior can be explained by looking at the size of the carbon chains, as 65% of this biodiesel is composed by short chain saturated fatty acid esters (less than 14 carbons). The high oxidative stability and the low CFPP of macauba biodiesel are what make this biofuel a promising source. The soybean, corn and residual frying oil biodiesels also have low CFPP, but low oxidative stability. Therefore the blends proposed in this work, if compared to the common biodiesels, maintain the flow properties but present enhanced oxidative stability.

Keywords: biodiesel, blends, macauba kernel oil, stability oxidative

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Authors: Madelyn N. Moawad, Hermine R. Z. Tadros, Mary G. Ghobrial, Ahmad R. Bassiouny, Kamal M. Kandeel, Athar Ata

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Seaweeds are potential renewable resources in marine environment. They provide an excellent source of bioactive substances such as dietary fibers and various functional polysaccharides that could potentially be used as ingredients for both human and animal health applications. The observations suggested that these bioactive compounds have strong antioxidant properties, which have beneficial effects on human health. The present research aimed at finding new chemical products from local marine macroalgae for natural medicinal uses and consumption for their nutritional values. Macroalgae samples were collected manually mainly from the Mediterranean Sea at shallow subtidal zone of Abu Qir Bay, Alexandria, Egypt. The chemical compositions of lyophilized materials of six selected macroalgal species; Colpomenia sinuosa, Sargassum linifolium, Padina pavonia, Pterocladiella capillacea, Laurencia pinnatifidia, and Caulerpa racemosa, were investigated for proteins using bovine serum albumin, and carbohydrates were assayed by phenol-sulfuric acid reaction. The macroalgae lipid was extracted with chloroform, methanol and phosphate buffer. Vitamins were extracted using trichloroacetic acid. Chlorophylls and total carotenoids were determined spectrophotometrically and total phenols were extracted with methanol. In addition, lipid-soluble, and water-soluble antioxidant, and anti α-glucosidase activities were measured spectrophotometrically. The antioxidant activity of hexane extracts was investigated using phosphomolybdenum reagent. The anti-α-glucosidase effect measurement was initiated by mixing α-glucosidase solution with p-nitrophenyl α-D-glucopyranoside. The results showed that the ash contents varied from 11.2 to 35.4 % on dry weight basis for P. capillacea and Laurencia pinnatifidia, respectively. The protein contents ranged from 5.63 % in brown macroalgae C. sinuosa to 8.73 % in P. pavonia. A relative wide range in carbohydrate contents was observed (20.06–46.75 %) for the test algal species. The highest lipid percentage was found in green alga C. racemosa (5.91%) followed by brown algae P. pavonia (3.57%) and C. sinuosa (2.64%). The phenolic contents varied from 1.32 mg GAE/g for C. sinuosa to 4.00 mg GAE/g in P. pavonia. The lipid-soluble compounds exhibited higher antioxidant capacity (73.18-145.95 µM/g) than that of the water-soluble ones ranging from 24.83 µM/g in C. racemosa to 74.07 µM/g in S. linifolium. The most potent anti-α-glucosidase activity was observed for P. pavonia with IC50 of 17.12 μg/ml followed by S. linifolium (IC50 = 71.75 μg/ml), C. racemosa (IC50 = 84.73 μg/ml), P. capillacea (IC50 = 92.16 μg/ml), C. sinuosa (IC50 = 112.44 μg/ml), and L. pinnatifida (IC50 = 115.11 μg/ml).

Keywords: α-glucosidase, lyophilized, macroalgae, spectrophotometrically

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Gunnar Oskarsson, Irena Georgsdottir

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Tourism has been growing incredibly fast during the past years, including the cruise industry, which is gaining increasing popularity among various groups of travelers. It is a challenging task for companies serving cruise ship passengers with local products and services at the point of destination to reach them in due time with information about their offerings, as well learning how to adapt their offerings and messages to the type of customers arriving on each particular occasion. Although some research has been conducted in this sphere, there is still limited knowledge about many specifics within this sector of the tourist industry. The objective of this research is to examine one of these, with the main goal of studying the segmentation of cruise passengers and to learn about marketing practices directed towards them. A qualitative research method, based on in-depth interviews, was used, as this provides an opportunity to gain insight into the participants’ perspectives. Interviews were conducted with 10 respondents from different companies in the tourist industry in Iceland, who interact with cruise passengers on a regular basis in their work environment. The main objective was to gain an understanding of what distinguishes different customer groups, or segments, in this industry, and of the marketing approaches directed towards them. The main findings reveal that participants note the strongest difference between cruise passengers of different nationalities, passengers coming on different ships (size and type), and passengers arriving at different times of the year. A drastic difference was noticed between nationalities in four main segments, American, British, Other European, and Asian customers, although some of these segments could be divided into even further sub-segments. Other important differencing factors were size and type of ships, quality or number of stars on the ship, and travelling time of the year. Companies serving cruise ship passengers, as well as the customers themselves, could benefit if the offerings of services were designed specifically for particular segments within the industry. Concerning marketing towards cruise passengers, the results indicate that it is carried out almost exclusively through the Internet using; a reliable website and, search engine optimization. Marketing is also by word-of-mouth. This research can assist practitioners by offering a deeper understanding of the approaches that may be effective in marketing local products and services to cruise ship passengers, based on their segmentation and by identifying effective ways to reach them. The research, furthermore, provides a valuable contribution to marketing knowledge for the benefit of an increasingly important market segment in a fast growing tourist industry.

Keywords: capabilities, global integration, internationalisation, SMEs

Procedia PDF Downloads 399

Authors: Emily A. Gilbert, Jephte Sompud, Andy R. Mojiol, Cynthia B. Sompud, Alim Biun

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Gaya Island of Sabah is known for its wildlife and marine biodiversity. It has marks itself as one of the hot destinations of tourists from all around the world. Gaya Island tourism activities have contributed to Sabah’s economy revenue with the high number of tourists visiting the island. However, it has led to the increased anthropogenic noise derived from tourism activities. This may greatly interfere with the animals such as understory birds that rely on acoustic signals as a tool for communication. Many studies in other parts of the regions reveal that anthropogenic noise does decrease species richness of avian community. However, in Malaysia, published research regarding the impact of anthropogenic noise on the understory birds is still very lacking. This study was conducted in order to fill up this gap. This study aims to investigate the anthropogenic noise’s impact towards understory bird population. There were three sites within the Primary forest of Gaya Island that were chosen to sample the level of anthropogenic noise in relation to the understory bird population. Noise mapping method was used to measure the anthropogenic noise level and identify the zone with high anthropogenic noise level (> 60dB) and zone with low anthropogenic noise level (< 60dB) based on the standard threshold of noise level. The methods that were used for this study was solely mist netting and ring banding. This method was chosen as it can determine the diversity of the understory bird population in Gaya Island. The preliminary study was conducted from 15th to 26th April and 5th to 10th May 2015 whereby there were 2 mist nets that were set up at each of the zones within the selected site. The data was analyzed by using the descriptive analysis, presence and absence analysis, diversity indices and diversity t-test. Meanwhile, PAST software was used to analyze the obtain data. The results from this study present a total of 60 individuals that consisted of 12 species from 7 families of understory birds were recorded in three of the sites in Gaya Island. The Shannon-Wiener index shows that diversity of species in high anthropogenic noise zone and low anthropogenic noise zone were 1.573 and 2.009, respectively. However, the statistical analysis shows that there was no significant difference between these zones. Nevertheless, based on the presence and absence analysis, it shows that the species at the low anthropogenic noise zone was higher as compared to the high anthropogenic noise zone. Thus, this result indicates that there is an impact of anthropogenic noise on the population diversity of understory birds. There is still an urgent need to conduct an in-depth study by increasing the sample size in the selected sites in order to fully understand the impact of anthropogenic noise towards the understory birds population so that it can then be in cooperated into the wildlife management for a sustainable environment in Gaya Island.

Keywords: anthropogenic noise, biodiversity, Gaya Island, understory bird

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Authors: Ahmed Mohamed Elnady Mohamed Elsafty

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This paper explains a developed applied objective model to measure the culture qualitatively and quantitatively, whether in individuals or in teams, in order to be able to use culture correctly or modify it efficiently. This model provides precise measurements and consistent interpretations by being comprehensive, updateable, and protected from being misled by imitations. Methodically, the provided model divides the culture into seven dimensions (total 43 cultural factors): First dimension is outcome-orientation which consists of five factors and should be highest in leaders. Second dimension is details-orientation which consists of eight factors and should be in highest intelligence members. Third dimension is team-orientation which consists of five factors and should be highest in instructors or coaches. Fourth dimension is change-orientation which consists of five factors and should be highest in soldiers. Fifth dimension is people-orientation which consists of eight factors and should be highest in media members. Sixth dimension is masculinity which consists of seven factors and should be highest in hard workers. Last dimension is stability which consists of seven factors and should be highest in soft workers. In this paper, the details of all cultural factors are explained. Practically, information collection about each cultural factor in the targeted person or team is essential in order to calculate the degrees of all cultural factors using the suggested equation of multiplying 'the score of factor presence' by 'the score of factor strength'. In this paper, the details of how to build each score are explained. Based on the highest degrees - to identify which cultural dimension is the prominent - choosing the tested individual or team in the supposedly right position at the right time will provide a chance to use minimal efforts to make everyone aligned to the organization’s objectives. In other words, making everyone self-motivated by setting him/her at the right source of motivation is the most effective and efficient method to achieve high levels of competency, commitment, and sustainability. Modifying a team culture can be achieved by excluding or including new members with relatively high or low degrees in specific cultural factors. For conclusion, culture is considered as the software of the human beings and it is one of the major compression factors on the managerial discretion. It represents the behaviors, attitudes, and motivations of the human resources which are vital to enhance quality and safety, expanding the market share, and defending against attacks from external environments. Thus, it is tremendously essential and useful to use such a comprehensive model to measure, use, and modify culture.

Keywords: culture dimensions, culture factors, culture measurement, cultural analysis, cultural modification, self-motivation, alignment to objectives, competency, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 162

Authors: Mohd Khairul Bazli Mohd Aziz, Fadhilah Yusof, Zulkifli Yusop, Zalina Mohd Daud, Mohammad Afif Kasno

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Recent developed rainfall network design techniques have been discussed and compared by many researchers worldwide due to the demand of acquiring higher levels of accuracy from collected data. In many studies, rain-gauge networks are designed to provide good estimation for areal rainfall and for flood modelling and prediction. In a certain study, even using lumped models for flood forecasting, a proper gauge network can significantly improve the results. Therefore existing rainfall network in Johor must be optimized and redesigned in order to meet the required level of accuracy preset by rainfall data users. The well-known geostatistics method (variance-reduction method) that is combined with simulated annealing was used as an algorithm of optimization in this study to obtain the optimal number and locations of the rain gauges. Rain gauge network structure is not only dependent on the station density; station location also plays an important role in determining whether information is acquired accurately. The existing network of 84 rain gauges in Johor is optimized and redesigned by using rainfall, humidity, solar radiation, temperature and wind speed data during monsoon season (November – February) for the period of 1975 – 2008. Three different semivariogram models which are Spherical, Gaussian and Exponential were used and their performances were also compared in this study. Cross validation technique was applied to compute the errors and the result showed that exponential model is the best semivariogram. It was found that the proposed method was satisfied by a network of 64 rain gauges with the minimum estimated variance and 20 of the existing ones were removed and relocated. An existing network may consist of redundant stations that may make little or no contribution to the network performance for providing quality data. Therefore, two different cases were considered in this study. The first case considered the removed stations that were optimally relocated into new locations to investigate their influence in the calculated estimated variance and the second case explored the possibility to relocate all 84 existing stations into new locations to determine the optimal position. The relocations of the stations in both cases have shown that the new optimal locations have managed to reduce the estimated variance and it has proven that locations played an important role in determining the optimal network.

Keywords: geostatistics, simulated annealing, semivariogram, optimization

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Authors: Markus Bredel, Sindhu Nair, Hoa Q. Trummell, Rajani Rajbhandari, Christopher D. Willey, Lewis Z. Shi, Zhuo Zhang, William J. Placzek, James A. Bonner

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Purpose: EGFR-targeted monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) provide clinical benefit in some patients with H&N squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), but others progress with minimal response. Missense mutations in the EGFR ectodomain (ECD) can be acquired under mAb therapy by mimicking the effect of large deletions on receptor untethering and activation. Little is known about the contribution of EGFR ECD mutations to EGFR activation and anti-EGFR response in HNSCC. Methods: We selected patient-derived HNSCC cells (UM-SCC-1) for resistance to mAb Cetuximab (CTX) by repeated, stepwise exposure to mimic what may occur clinically and identified two concurrent EGFR ECD mutations (UM-SCC-1R). We examined the competence of the mutants to bind EGF ligand or CTX. We assessed the potential impact of the mutations through visual analysis of space-filling models of the native sidechains in the original structures vs. their respective side-chain mutations. We performed CRISPR in combination with site-directed mutagenesis to test for the effect of the mutants on ligand-independent EGFR activation and sorting. We determined the effects on receptor internalization, endocytosis, downstream signaling, and radiation sensitivity. Results: UM-SCC-1R cells carried two non-synonymous missense mutations (G33S and N56K) mapping to domain I in or near the EGF binding pocket of the EGFR ECD. Structural modeling predicted that these mutants restrict the adoption of a tethered, inactive EGFR conformation while not permitting association of EGFR with the EGF ligand or CTX. Binding studies confirmed that the mutant, untethered receptor displayed a reduced affinity for both EGF and CTX but demonstrated sustained activation and presence at the cell surface with diminished internalization and sorting for endosomal degradation. Single and double-mutant models demonstrated that the G33S mutant is dominant over the N56K mutant in its effect on EGFR activation and EGF binding. CTX-resistant UM-SCC-1R cells demonstrated cross-resistance to mAb Panitumuab but, paradoxically, remained sensitive to the reversible receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Erlotinib. Conclusions: HNSCC cells can select for EGFR ECD mutations under EGFR mAb exposure that converge to trap the receptor in an open, constitutively activated state. These mutants impede the receptor’s competence to bind mAbs and EGF ligand and alter its endosomal trafficking, possibly explaining certain cases of clinical mAb and radiation resistance.

Keywords: head and neck cancer, EGFR mutation, resistance, cetuximab

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Authors: R. Tariq, R. Lee

Abstract:

Background: Additional demands placed on senior clinical teams with ongoing COVID-19 management has accelerated the need to harness the wider healthcare professional resources and upskill them to take on greater clinical responsibility safely. The UK NHS Long Term Plan (2019)¹ emphasises the importance of expanding Advanced Practitioners’ (APs) roles to take on more clinical diagnostic responsibilities to cope with increased demand. In acute settings, APs are often the first point of care for patients and require training to take on initial triage responsibilities efficiently and safely. Critically, their roles include determining which onward services the patients may require, and assessing whether they can be treated at home, avoiding unnecessary admissions to the hospital. Dem Dx is a Clinical Reasoning Platform (CRP) that claims to help frontline healthcare professionals independently assess and triage patients. It guides the clinician from presenting complaints through associated symptoms to a running list of differential diagnoses, media, national and institutional guidelines. The objective of this study was to compare the clinical referral rates and guidelines adherence registered by the HMR Urgent Community Care Team (UCCT)² and Dem Dx recommendations using retrospective cases. Methodology: 192 cases seen by the UCCT were anonymised and reassessed using Dem Dx clinical pathways. We compared the UCCT’s performance with Dem Dx regarding the appropriateness of onward referrals. We also compared the clinical assessment regarding adherence to NICE guidelines recorded on the clinical notes and the presence of suitable guidance in each case. The cases were audited by two medical doctors. Results: Dem Dx demonstrated appropriate referrals in 85% of cases, compared to 47% in the UCCT team (p<0.001). Of particular note, Dem Dx demonstrated an almost 65% (p<0.001) improvement in the efficacy and appropriateness of referrals in a highly experienced clinical team. The effectiveness of Dem Dx is in part attributable to the relevant NICE and local guidelines found within the platform's pathways and was found to be suitable in 86% of cases. Conclusion: This study highlights the potential of clinical decision support, as Dem Dx, to improve the quality of onward clinical referrals delivered by a multidisciplinary team in primary care. It demonstrated that it could support healthcare professionals in making appropriate referrals, especially those that may be overlooked by providing suitable clinical guidelines directly embedded into cases and clear referral pathways. Further evaluation in the clinical setting has been planned to confirm those assumptions in a prospective study.

Keywords: advanced practitioner, clinical reasoning, clinical decision-making, management, multidisciplinary team, referrals, triage

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Authors: Vivek Bhat, Rohini Kelkar, Sanjay Biswas

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Introduction: Cancer patients are at increased risk of bacterial infections. This may due to the disease process itself, the effect of chemotherapeutic drugs or invasive procedures such as catheterization. A wide variety of bacteria including some emerging pathogens are increasingly being reported from these patients. The incidence of multidrug-resistant organisms particularly in the Gram negative group is also increasing, with higher resistance rates seen to cephalosporins, β-lactam/β-lactam inhibitor combinations, and the carbapenems. This study documents the bacteriological spectrum of infections and their resistance patterns in cancer patients. Methods: This study includes all bacterial isolates recovered from infections cancer patients over a period of 18 months. Samples included Blood cultures, Pus/wound swabs, urine, tissue biopsies, body fluids, catheter tips and respiratory specimens such as sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). All samples were processed in the microbiology laboratory as per standard laboratory protocols. Organisms were identified to species level and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed manually by the disc diffusion technique or in the Vitek-2 (Biomereux, France) instrument. Interpretations were as per Clinical laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Results: A total of 1150 bacterial isolates were cultured from 884 test samples during the study period. Of these 227 were Gram-positive and 923 were Gram-negative organisms. Staphylococcus aureus (99 isolates) was the commonest Gram-positive isolate followed by Enterococcus (79) and Gr A Streptococcus (30). Among the Gram negatives, E. coli (304), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (201) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (190) were the most common. Of the Staphylococcus aureus isolates 27.2% were methicillin resistant. Only 5.06% enterococci were vancomycin resistant. High rates of resistance to cefotaxime and ciprofloxacin were seen amongst E. coli (84.8% & 83.55%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (71 & 62.1%) respectively. Resistance to carbapenems (meropenem) was high at 70% in Acinetobacter spp.; however all isolates were sensitive to colistin. Among the aminoglycosides, amikacin retained good efficacy against Escherichia coli (82.9%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (78.1%). Occasional isolates of emerging pathogens such as Chryseobacterium indologens, Roseomonas, and Achromobacter xyloxidans were also recovered. Conclusion: The common infections in cancer patients include respiratory, wound, tract infections and sepsis. The commonest isolates include Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococci, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. There is a high level of resistance to the commonly used antibiotics among Gram-negative organisms.

Keywords: bacteria, resistance, infection, cancer

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Authors: Ibrahim Musa, Mohammed Abdul-Aziz Mabrouk, Yusuf Tanko

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Introduction: Long term physical training affect the performance of athletes especially the females. Soccer which is a team sport, played in an outdoor field, require adequate oxygen transport system for the maximal aerobic power during exercise in order to complete 90 minutes of competitive play. Suboptimal haematological status has often been recorded in athletes with intensive physical activity. It may be due to the iron depletion caused by hemolysis or haemodilution results from plasma volume expansion. There is lack of data regarding the dynamics of red blood cell variables, in male football players. We hypothesized that, a long competitive season involving frequent matches and intense training could influence red blood cell variables, as a consequence of applying repeated physical loads when compared with sedentary. Methods: This cross sectional study was carried on 40 adult males (20 athletes and 20 non athletes) between 18-25 years of age. The 20 apparently healthy male non athletes were taken as sedentary and 20 male footballers comprise the study group. The university institutional review board (ABUTH/HREC/TRG/36) gave approval for all procedures in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Red blood cell (RBC) concentration, packed cell volume (PCV), and plasma volume were measured in fasting state and immediately after exercise. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS/ win.20.0 for comparison within and between the groups, using student’s paired and unpaired “t” test respectively. Results: The finding from our study shows that, immediately after termination of exercise, the mean RBC counts and PCV significantly (p<0.005) decreased with significant increased (p<0.005) in plasma volume when compared with pre-exercised values in both group. In addition the post exercise RBC was significantly higher in untrained (261.10±8.5) when compared with trained (255.20±4.5). However, there was no significant differences in the post exercise hematocrit and plasma volume parameters between the sedentary and the footballers. Moreover, beside changes in pre-exercise values among the sedentary and the football players, the resting red blood cell counts and Plasma volume (PV %) was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in the sedentary group (306.30±10.05 x 104 /mm3; 58.40±0.54%) when compared with football players (293.70±4.65 x 104 /mm3; 55.60±1.18%). On the other hand, the sedentary group exhibited significant (p < 0.05) decrease in PCV (41.60±0.54%) when compared with the football players (44.40±1.18%). Conclusions: It is therefore proposed that the acute football exercise induced reduction in RBC and PCV is entirely due to plasma volume expansion, and not of red blood cell hemolysis. In addition, the training status also influenced haematological indices of male football players differently from the sedentary at rest due to adaptive response. This is novel.

Keywords: Haematological Indices, Performance Status, Sedentary, Male Football Players

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Authors: Stefan Peters, Phillip Roetman

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The global loss of biodiversity is threatening the benefits nature provides to human populations and has become a more pressing issue than climate change and requires immediate attention. While there have been successful global agreements for environmental protection, such as the Montreal Protocol, these are rare, and we cannot rely on them solely. Thus, it is crucial to take national and local actions to support biodiversity. Australia is one of the 17 countries in the world with a high level of biodiversity, and its cities are vital habitats for endangered species, with more of them found in urban areas than in non-urban ones. However, the protection of biodiversity in metropolitan Adelaide has been inadequate, with over 130 species disappearing since European colonization in 1836. In this research project we conceptualized, developed and implemented a framework for wildlife Habitat Hotspots and Habitat Corridor modelling in an urban context using geographic data and GIS modelling and analysis. We used detailed topographic and other geographic data provided by a local council, including spatial and attributive properties of trees, parcels, water features, vegetated areas, roads, verges, traffic, and census data. Weighted factors considered in our raster-based Habitat Hotspot model include parcel size, parcel shape, population density, canopy cover, habitat quality and proximity to habitats and water features. Weighted factors considered in our raster-based Habitat Corridor model include habitat potential (resulting from the Habitat Hotspot model), verge size, road hierarchy, road widths, human density, and presence of remnant indigenous vegetation species. We developed a GIS model, using Python scripting and ArcGIS-Pro Model-Builder, to establish an automated reproducible and adjustable geoprocessing workflow, adaptable to any study area of interest. Our habitat hotspot and corridor modelling framework allow to determine and map existing habitat hotspots and wildlife habitat corridors. Our research had been applied to the study case of Burnside, a local council in Adelaide, Australia, which encompass an area of 30 km2. We applied end-user expertise-based category weightings to refine our models and optimize the use of our habitat map outputs towards informing local strategic decision-making.

Keywords: biodiversity, GIS modeling, habitat hotspot, wildlife corridor

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Authors: Jonathan Turner, Julie Doyle, Laura O’Philbin, Dympna O’Sullivan

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People living with dementia should be at the centre of decision-making regarding goals for daily living. These goals include basic activities (dressing, hygiene, and mobility), advanced activities (finances, transportation, and shopping), and meaningful activities that promote well-being (pastimes and intellectual pursuits). However, there is limited involvement of people living with dementia in the design of technology to support their goals. A project is described that is co-designing intelligent computer-based support for, and with, people affected by dementia and their carers. The technology will support self-management, empower participation in shared decision-making with carers and help people living with dementia remain healthy and independent in their homes for longer. It includes information from the patient’s care plan, which documents medications, contacts, and the patient's wishes on end-of-life care. Importantly for this work, the plan can outline activities that should be maintained or worked towards, such as exercise or social contact. The authors discuss how to integrate care goal information from such a care plan with data collected from passive sensors in the patient’s home in order to deliver individualized planning and interventions for persons with dementia. A number of scientific challenges are addressed: First, to co-design with dementia patients and their carers computerized support for shared decision-making about their care while allowing the patient to share the care plan. Second, to develop a new and open monitoring framework with which to configure sensor technologies to collect data about whether goals and actions specified for a person in their care plan are being achieved. This is developed top-down by associating care quality types and metrics elicited from the co-design activities with types of data that can be collected within the home, from passive and active sensors, and from the patient’s feedback collected through a simple co-designed interface. These activities and data will be mapped to appropriate sensors and technological infrastructure with which to collect the data. Third, the application of machine learning models to analyze data collected via the sensing devices in order to investigate whether and to what extent activities outlined via the care plan are being achieved. The models will capture longitudinal data to track disease progression over time; as the disease progresses and captured data show that activities outlined in the care plan are not being achieved, the care plan may recommend alternative activities. Disease progression may also require care changes, and a data-driven approach can capture changes in a condition more quickly and allow care plans to evolve and be updated.

Keywords: care goals, decision-making, dementia, self-care, sensors

Procedia PDF Downloads 162