Search results for: noise speech

Authors: Tadele Tesfaw, Ajit Pal Singh, Abebaw Mekonnen Gezahegn

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Welding is a basic manufacturing process for making components or assemblies. Recent welding economics research has focused on developing the reliable machinery database to ensure optimum production. Research on welding of materials like steel is still critical and ongoing. Welding input parameters play a very significant role in determining the quality of a weld joint. The metal active gas (MAG) welding parameters are the most important factors affecting the quality, productivity and cost of welding in many industrial operations. The aim of this study is to investigate the optimization process parameters for metal active gas welding for 60x60x5mm dead mild steel plate work-piece using Taguchi method to formulate the statistical experimental design using semi-automatic welding machine. An experimental study was conducted at Bishoftu Automotive Industry, Bishoftu, Ethiopia. This study presents the influence of four welding parameters (control factors) like welding voltage (volt), welding current (ampere), wire speed (m/min.), and gas (CO2) flow rate (lit./min.) with three different levels for variability in the welding hardness. The objective functions have been chosen in relation to parameters of MAG welding i.e., welding hardness in final products. Nine experimental runs based on an L9 orthogonal array Taguchi method were performed. An orthogonal array, signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and analysis of variance (ANOVA) are employed to investigate the welding characteristics of dead mild steel plate and used in order to obtain optimum levels for every input parameter at 95% confidence level. The optimal parameters setting was found is welding voltage at 22 volts, welding current at 125 ampere, wire speed at 2.15 m/min and gas flow rate at 19 l/min by using the Taguchi experimental design method within the constraints of the production process. Finally, six conformations welding have been carried out to compare the existing values; the predicated values with the experimental values confirm its effectiveness in the analysis of welding hardness (quality) in final products. It is found that welding current has a major influence on the quality of welded joints. Experimental result for optimum setting gave a better hardness of welding condition than initial setting. This study is valuable for different material and thickness variation of welding plate for Ethiopian industries.

Keywords: Weld quality, metal active gas welding, dead mild steel plate, orthogonal array, analysis of variance, Taguchi method

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Authors: Asma Omri, Noureddine Benothman, Sofiane Sayahi, Fethi Tlili, Hichem Besbes

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Cycling, a popular mode of transportation, can also be perilous due to cyclists' vulnerability to collisions with vehicles and obstacles. This paper presents an innovative cyclist safety system based on radar technology designed to offer real-time collision risk warnings to cyclists. The system incorporates a low-power radar sensor affixed to the bicycle and connected to a microcontroller. It leverages radar point cloud detections, a clustering algorithm, and a supervised classifier. These algorithms are optimized for efficiency to run on the TI’s AWR 1843 BOOST radar, utilizing a coarse classification approach distinguishing between cars, trucks, two-wheeled vehicles, and other objects. To enhance the performance of clustering techniques, we propose a 2-Level clustering approach. This approach builds on the state-of-the-art Density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN). The objective is to first cluster objects based on their velocity, then refine the analysis by clustering based on position. The initial level identifies groups of objects with similar velocities and movement patterns. The subsequent level refines the analysis by considering the spatial distribution of these objects. The clusters obtained from the first level serve as input for the second level of clustering. Our proposed technique surpasses the classical DBSCAN algorithm in terms of geometrical metrics, including homogeneity, completeness, and V-score. Relevant cluster features are extracted and utilized to classify objects using an SVM classifier. Potential obstacles are identified based on their velocity and proximity to the cyclist. To optimize the system, we used the View of Delft dataset for hyperparameter selection and SVM classifier training. The system's performance was assessed using our collected dataset of radar point clouds synchronized with a camera on an Nvidia Jetson Nano board. The radar-based cyclist safety system is a practical solution that can be easily installed on any bicycle and connected to smartphones or other devices, offering real-time feedback and navigation assistance to cyclists. We conducted experiments to validate the system's feasibility, achieving an impressive 85% accuracy in the classification task. This system has the potential to significantly reduce the number of accidents involving cyclists and enhance their safety on the road.

Keywords: 2-level clustering, coarse classification, cyclist safety, warning system based on radar technology

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Authors: Mishadi Herath, Amin Talei, Andreas Hermawan, Clarina Chua

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Green walls are vegetated structures on building’s wall that are considered as part of sustainable urban design. They are proved to have many micro-climate benefits such as reduction in indoor temperature, noise attenuation, and improvement in air quality. On the other hand, several studies have also been conducted on potential reuse of greywater in urban water management. Greywater is relatively clean when compared to blackwater; therefore, this study was aimed to assess the potential reuse of it for irrigating a green wall system. In this study, the campus of Monash University Malaysia located in Selangor state was considered as the study site where total 48 samples of greywater were collected from 7 toilets hand-wash and 5 pantries during 3 months period. The samples were tested to characterize the quality of greywater in the study site and compare it with local standard for irrigation water. PH and concentration of heavy metals, nutrients, Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), total Coliform and E.coli were measured. Results showed that greywater could be directly used for irrigation with minimal treatment. Since the effluent of the system was supposed to be drained to stormwater drainage system, the effluent needed to meet certain quality requirement. Therefore, a biofiltration system was proposed to host the green wall plants and also treat the greywater (which is used as irrigation water) to the required level. To assess the performance of the proposed system, an experimental setup consisting of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) soil columns with sand-based filter media were prepared. Two different local creeper plants were chosen considering several factors including fast growth, low maintenance requirement, and aesthetic aspects. Three replicates of each plants were used to ensure the validity of the findings. The growth of creeping plants and their survivability was monitored for 6 months while monthly sampling and testing of effluent was conducted to evaluate effluent quality. An analysis was also conducted to estimate the potential cost and benefit of such system considering water and energy saving in the system. Results showed that the proposed system can work efficiently throughout a long period of time with minimal maintenance requirement. Moreover, the biofiltration-green wall system was found to be successful in reusing greywater as irrigating water while the effluent was meeting all the requirements for being drained to stormwater drainage system.

Keywords: biofiltration, green wall, greywater, sustainability

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Authors: Yasser R. Tawfic, Mohamed A. Eid

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Foundation differential settlement and supported structure tilting is an occasionally occurred engineering problem. This may be caused by overloading, changes in ground soil properties or unsupported nearby excavations. Engineering thinking points directly toward the logic solution for such problem by uplifting the settled side. This can be achieved with deep foundation elements such as micro-piles and macro-piles™, jacked piers and helical piers, jet grouted soil-crete columns, compaction grout columns, cement grouting or with chemical grouting, or traditional pit underpinning with concrete and mortar. Although, some of these techniques offer economic, fast and low noise solutions, many of them are quite the contrary. For tilted structures, with limited inclination, it may be much easier to cause a balancing settlement on the less-settlement side which shall be done carefully in a proper rate. This principal has been applied in Leaning Tower of Pisa stabilization with soil extraction from the ground surface. In this research, the authors attempt to introduce a new solution with a different point of view. So, micro-tunneling technique is presented in here as an intended ground deformation cause. In general, micro-tunneling is expected to induce limited ground deformations. Thus, the researchers propose to apply the technique to form small size ground unsupported holes to produce the target deformations. This shall be done in four phases: •Application of one or more micro-tunnels, regarding the existing differential settlement value, under the raised side of the tilted structure. •For each individual tunnel, the lining shall be pulled out from both sides (from jacking and receiving shafts) in slow rate. •If required, according to calculations and site records, an additional surface load can be applied on the raised foundation side. •Finally, a strengthening soil grouting shall be applied for stabilization after adjustment. A finite element based numerical model is presented to simulate the proposed construction phases for different tunneling positions and tunnels group. For each case, the surface settlements are calculated and induced plasticity points are checked. These results show the impact of the suggested procedure on the tilted structure and its feasibility. Comparing results also show the importance of the position selection and tunnels group gradual effect. Thus, a new engineering solution is presented to one of the structural and geotechnical engineering challenges.

Keywords: differential settlement, micro-tunneling, soil-structure interaction, tilted structures

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Authors: Tiera Tanksley, Amanda M. McLeroy

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The advent of technology and social media has ushered in a new era of communication, providing platforms for news dissemination and cause advocacy. However, this digital landscape has also exposed a distressing phenomenon termed "Black death," or trauma porn. This paper delves into the profound effects of repeated exposure to traumatic content on Black youth via social media, exploring the psychological impacts and potential reinforcing of stereotypes. Employing Critical Race Technology Theory (CRTT), the study sheds light on algorithmic anti-blackness and its influence on Black youth's lives and educational experiences. Through ethnographic content analysis, the research investigates common manifestations of Black death encountered online by Black adolescents. Findings unveil distressing viral videos, traumatic images, racial slurs, and hate speech, perpetuating stereotypes. However, amidst the distress, the study identifies narratives of activism and social justice on social media platforms, empowering Black youth to engage in positive change. Coping mechanisms and community support emerge as significant factors in navigating the digital landscape. The study underscores the need for comprehensive interventions and policies informed by evidence-based research. By addressing algorithmic anti-blackness and promoting digital resilience, the paper advocates for a more empathetic and inclusive online environment. Understanding coping mechanisms and community support becomes imperative for fostering mental well-being among Black adolescents navigating social media. In education, the implications are substantial. Acknowledging the impact of Black death content, educators play a pivotal role in promoting media literacy and digital resilience. Creating inclusive and safe online spaces, educators can mitigate negative effects and encourage open discussions about traumatic content. The application of CRTT in educational technology emphasizes dismantling systemic biases and promoting equity. In conclusion, this study calls for educators to be cognizant of the impact of Black death content on social media. By prioritizing media literacy, fostering digital resilience, and advocating for unbiased technologies, educators contribute to an inclusive and just educational environment for all students, irrespective of their race or background. Addressing challenges related to Black death content proactively ensures the well-being and mental health of Black adolescents, fostering an empathetic and inclusive digital space.

Keywords: algorithmic anti-Blackness, digital resilience, media literacy, traumatic content

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Authors: Nirmal Sugathan, Santosh Maruthy

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Background: A considerable number of studies have evidenced that phonological encoding (PE) and working memory (WM) skills operate differently in adults who stutter (AWS). In order to tap these skills, several paradigms have been employed such as phonological priming, phoneme monitoring, and nonword repetition tasks. This study, however, utilizes a word jumble paradigm to assess both PE and WM using different modalities and this may give a better understanding of phonological processing deficits in AWS. Aim: The present study investigated PE and WM abilities in conjunction with lexical access in AWS using jumbled words. The study also aimed at investigating the effect of increase in cognitive load on phonological processing in AWS by comparing the speech reaction time (SRT) and accuracy scores across various syllable lengths. Method: Participants were 11 AWS (Age range=19-26) and 11 adults who do not stutter (AWNS) (Age range=19-26) matched for age, gender and handedness. Stimuli: Ninety 3-, 4-, and 5-syllable jumbled words (JWs) (n=30 per syllable length category) constructed from Kannada words served as stimuli for jumbled word paradigm. In order to generate jumbled words (JWs), the syllables in the real words were randomly transpositioned. Procedures: To assess PE, the JWs were presently visually using DMDX software and for WM task, JWs were presented through auditory mode through headphones. The participants were asked to silently manipulate the jumbled words to form a Kannada real word and verbally respond once. The responses for both tasks were audio recorded using record function in DMDX software and the recorded responses were analyzed using PRAAT software to calculate the SRT. Results: SRT: Mann-Whitney test results demonstrated that AWS performed significantly slower on both tasks (p < 0.001) as indicated by increased SRT. Also, AWS presented with increased SRT on both the tasks in all syllable length conditions (p < 0.001). Effect of syllable length: Wilcoxon signed rank test was carried out revealed that, on task assessing PE, the SRT of 4syllable JWs were significantly higher in both AWS (Z= -2.93, p=.003) and AWNS (Z= -2.41, p=.003) when compared to 3-syllable words. However, the findings for 4- and 5-syllable words were not significant. Task Accuracy: The accuracy scores were calculated for three syllable length conditions for both PE and PM tasks and were compared across the groups using Mann-Whitney test. The results indicated that the accuracy scores of AWS were significantly below that of AWNS in all the three syllable conditions for both the tasks (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The above findings suggest that PE and WM skills are compromised in AWS as indicated by increased SRT. Also, AWS were progressively less accurate in descrambling JWs of increasing syllable length and this may be interpreted as, rather than existing as a uniform deficiency, PE and WM deficits emerge when the cognitive load is increased. AWNS exhibited increased SRT and increased accuracy for JWs of longer syllable length whereas AWS was not benefited from increasing the reaction time, thus AWS had to compromise for both SRT and accuracy while solving JWs of longer syllable length.

Keywords: adults who stutter, phonological ability, working memory, encoding, jumbled words

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Authors: Mary Farrell, Maria Soubra, Sandra Vega, Dorothy Kakraba, Joanne Fontanilla, Moira Kendra, Danielle Tonzola, Stephanie Chiu

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Pneumonia is the most common infectious cause of hospitalizations in the United States, with more than one million admissions annually and costs of $10 billion every year, making it the 8th leading cause of death. Aspiration pneumonia is an aggressive type of pneumonia that results from inhalation of oropharyngeal secretions and/or gastric contents and is preventable. The authors hypothesized that an evidence-based aspiration pneumonia clinical care pathway could reduce 30-day hospital readmissions and mortality rates, while improving the overall care of patients. We conducted a retrospective chart review on 979 patients discharged with aspiration pneumonia from January 2021 to December 2022 at Overlook Medical Center. The authors identified patients who were coded with aspiration pneumonia and/or stable sepsis. Secondarily, we identified 30-day readmission rates for aspiration pneumonia from a SNF. The Aspiration Pneumonia Clinical Care Pathway starts in the emergency department (ED) with the initiation of antimicrobials within 4 hours of admission and early recognition of aspiration. Once this is identified, a swallow test is initiated by the bedside nurse, and if the patient demonstrates dysphagia, they are maintained on strict nothing by mouth (NPO) followed by a speech and language pathologist (SLP) referral for an appropriate modified diet recommendation. Aspiration prevention techniques included the avoidance of straws, 45-degree positioning, no talking during meals, taking small bites, placement of the aspiration wrist band, and consuming meals out of the bed in a chair. Nursing education was conducted with a newly created online learning module about aspiration pneumonia. The authors identified 979 patients, with an average age of 73.5 years old, who were diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia on the index hospitalization. These patients were reviewed for a 30-day readmission for aspiration pneumonia or stable sepsis, and mortality rates from January 2021 to December 2022 at Overlook Medical Center (OMC). The 30-day readmission rates were significantly lower in the cohort that received the clinical care pathway (35.0% vs. 27.5%, p = 0.011). When evaluating the mortality rates in the pre and post intervention cohort the authors discovered the mortality rates were lower in the post intervention cohort (23.7% vs 22.4%, p = 0.61) Mortality among non-white (self-reported as non-white) patients were lower in the post intervention cohort (34.4% vs. 21.0% , p = 0.05). Patients who reported as a current smoker/vaper in the pre and post cohorts had increased mortality rates (5.9% vs 22%). There was a decrease in mortality for the male population but an increase in mortality for women in the pre and post cohorts (19% vs. 25%). The authors attributed this increase in mortality in the post intervention cohort to more active smokers, more former smokers, and more being admitted from a SNF. This research identified that implementation of an Aspiration Pneumonia Clinical Care Pathway showed a statistically significant decrease in readmission rates and mortality rates in non-whites. The 30-day readmission rates were lower in the cohort that received the clinical care pathway (35.0% vs. 27.5%, p = 0.011).

Keywords: aspiration pneumonia, mortality, quality improvement, 30-day pneumonia readmissions

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Authors: Einat Waizbard, Emilio Ferrer, Meghan Miller, Brianna Heath, Derek S. Andrews, Sally J. Rogers, Christine Wu Nordahl, Marjorie Solomon, David G. Amaral

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Background: Autism symptoms are comprised of social-communication deficits and restricted/repetitive behaviors (RRB). The severity of these symptoms can change during childhood, with differences between boys and girls. From the literature, it was found that young autistic girls show a stronger tendency to decrease and a weaker tendency to increase their overall autism symptom severity levels compared to young autistic boys. It is not clear, however, which symptoms are driving these sex differences across childhood. In the current study, we evaluated the trajectories of independent autism symptoms across childhood and compared the patterns of change in such symptoms between boys and girls. Method: The study included 183 children diagnosed with autism (55 girls) evaluated three times across childhood, at ages 3, 6 and 11. We analyzed 22 independent items from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scheudule-2 (ADOS-2), the gold-standard assessment tool for autism symptoms, each item representing a specific autism symptom. First, we used latent growth curve models to estimate the trajectories for the 22 ADOS-2 items for each child in the study. Second, we extracted the factor scores representing the individual slopes for each ADOS-2 item (i.e., slope representing that child’s change in that specific item). Third, we used factor analysis to identify common patterns of change among the ADOS-2 items, separately for boys and girls, i.e., which autism symptoms tend to change together and which change independently across childhood. Results: The best-emerging patterns for both boys and girls identified four common factors: three factors representative of changes in social-communication symptoms and one factor describing changes in RRB. Boys and girls showed the same pattern of change in RRB, with four items (e.g., speech abnormalities) changing together across childhood and three items (e.g., mannerisms) changing independently of other items. For social-communication deficits in boys, three factors were identified: the first factor included six items representing initiating and engaging in social-communication (e.g., quality of social overtures, conversation), the second factor included five items describing responsive social-communication (e.g., response to name) and the third factor included three items related to different aspects of social-communication (e.g., level of language). Girls’ social-communications deficits also loaded onto three factors: the first factor included five items (e.g., unusual eye contact), the second factor included six items (e.g., quality of social response), and the third factor included four items (e.g., showing). Some items showed similar patterns of change for both sexes (e.g., responsive joint attention), while other items showed differences (e.g., shared enjoyment). Conclusions: Girls and boys had different patterns of change in autism symptom severity across childhood. For RRB, both sexes showed similar patterns. For social-communication symptoms, however, there were both similarities and differences between boys and girls in the way symptoms changed over time. The strongest patterns of change were identified for initiating and engaging in social communication for boys and responsive social communication for girls.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, autism symptom severity, symptom trajectories, sex differences

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Authors: Soumi Banerjee

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In this research paper we will go deep into understanding Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an imagined community and we will analyze why and how national identities were created through long and complex processes, and how there can exist strong emotional bonds between people within an imagined community, given the fact that these people have never known each other personally, but will still feel some form of imagined unity. Such identity construction on the part of an individual or within societies are always in some sense in a state of flux as imagined communities are ever changing, which provides us with the ontological foundation for reaching on this paper. This sort of identity crisis among individuals living in the Western world, who are in search for psychological comfort and security, illustrates a possible need for spatially dislocated, ontologically insecure and vulnerable individuals to have a secure identity. To create such an identity there has to be something to build upon, which could be achieved through what may be termed as ‘homesteading’. This could in short, and in my interpretation of Kinnvall and Nesbitt’s concept, be described as a search for security that involves a search for ‘home’, where home acts as a secure place, which one can build an identity around. The next half of the paper will then look into how populism and identity have played an increasingly important role in the political elections in the so-called western democracies of the world, using the U.S. as an example. Notions of ‘us and them’, the people and the elites will be looked into and analyzed through a social constructivist theoretical lens. Here we will analyze how such narratives about identity and the nation state affects people, their personality development and identity in different ways by studying the U.S. President Donald Trump’s speeches and analyze if and how he used different identity creating narratives for gaining political and popular support. The reason to choose narrative analysis as a method in this research paper is to use the narratives as a device to understand how the perceived notions of 'us and them' can initiate huge identity crisis with a community or a nation-state. This is a relevant subject as results and developments such as rising populist rightwing movements are being felt in a number of European states, with the so-called Brexit vote in the U.K. and the election of Donald Trump as president are two of the prime examples. This paper will then attempt to argue that these mechanisms are strengthened and gaining significance in situations when humans in an economic, social or ontologically vulnerable position, imagined or otherwise, in a general and broad meaning perceive themselves to be under pressure, and a sense of insecurity is rising. These insecurities and sense of being under threat have been on the rise in many of the Western states that are otherwise usually perceived to be some of the safest, democratically stable and prosperous states in the world, which makes it of interest to study what has changed, and help provide some part of the explanation as to how creating a ‘them’ in the discourse of national identity can cause massive security crisis.

Keywords: identity crisis, migration, ontological security(in), nation-states

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Authors: Ahmad Haidar

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The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology holds unforeseen risks like privacy violation, unemployment, and algorithmic bias, triggering research institutions, governments, and companies to develop principles of AI ethics. The extensive and diverse literature on AI lacks an analysis of the evolution of principles developed in recent years. There are two fundamental purposes of this paper. The first is to provide insights into how the principles of AI ethics have been changed recently, including concepts like risk management and public participation. In doing so, a NOISE (Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths, & Exceptions) analysis will be presented. Second, offering a framework for building Ethical AI linked to sustainability. This research adopts an explorative approach, more specifically, an inductive approach to address the theoretical gap. Consequently, this paper tracks the different efforts to have “trustworthy AI” and “ethical AI,” concluding a list of 12 documents released from 2017 to 2022. The analysis of this list unifies the different approaches toward trustworthy AI in two steps. First, splitting the principles into two categories, technical and net benefit, and second, testing the frequency of each principle, providing the different technical principles that may be useful for stakeholders considering the lifecycle of AI, or what is known as sustainable AI. Sustainable AI is the third wave of AI ethics and a movement to drive change throughout the entire lifecycle of AI products (i.e., idea generation, training, re-tuning, implementation, and governance) in the direction of greater ecological integrity and social fairness. In this vein, results suggest transparency, privacy, fairness, safety, autonomy, and accountability as recommended technical principles to include in the lifecycle of AI. Another contribution is to capture the different basis that aid the process of AI for sustainability (e.g., towards sustainable development goals). The results indicate data governance, do no harm, human well-being, and risk management as crucial AI for sustainability principles. This study’s last contribution clarifies how the principles evolved. To illustrate, in 2018, the Montreal declaration mentioned eight principles well-being, autonomy, privacy, solidarity, democratic participation, equity, and diversity. In 2021, notions emerged from the European Commission proposal, including public trust, public participation, scientific integrity, risk assessment, flexibility, benefit and cost, and interagency coordination. The study design will strengthen the validity of previous studies. Yet, we advance knowledge in trustworthy AI by considering recent documents, linking principles with sustainable AI and AI for sustainability, and shedding light on the evolution of guidelines over time.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, AI for sustainability, declarations, framework, regulations, risks, sustainable AI

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Authors: Mahul Bhattacharyya, Niladri Sekhar Dash

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The present research paper is an experimental attempt to investigate the nature of variation in the register in three major text domains, namely, social, cultural, and political texts collected from the corpus of Bangla printed mass media texts. This present study uses a corpus of a moderate amount of Bangla mass media text that contains nearly one million words collected from different media sources like newspapers, magazines, advertisements, periodicals, etc. The analysis of corpus data reveals that each text has certain lexical properties that not only control their identity but also mark their uniqueness across the domains. At first, the subject domains of the texts are classified into two parameters namely, ‘Genre' and 'Text Type'. Next, some empirical investigations are made to understand how the domains vary from each other in terms of lexical properties like both function and content words. Here the method of comparative-cum-contrastive matching of lexical load across domains is invoked through word frequency count to track how domain-specific words and terms may be marked as decisive indicators in the act of specifying the textual contexts and subject domains. The study shows that the common lexical stock that percolates across all text domains are quite dicey in nature as their lexicological identity does not have any bearing in the act of specifying subject domains. Therefore, it becomes necessary for language users to anchor upon certain domain-specific lexical items to recognize a text that belongs to a specific text domain. The eventual findings of this study confirm that texts belonging to different subject domains in Bangla news text corpus clearly differ on the parameters of lexical load, lexical choice, lexical clustering, lexical collocation. In fact, based on these parameters, along with some statistical calculations, it is possible to classify mass media texts into different types to mark their relation with regard to the domains they should actually belong. The advantage of this analysis lies in the proper identification of the linguistic factors which will give language users a better insight into the method they employ in text comprehension, as well as construct a systemic frame for designing text identification strategy for language learners. The availability of huge amount of Bangla media text data is useful for achieving accurate conclusions with a certain amount of reliability and authenticity. This kind of corpus-based analysis is quite relevant for a resource-poor language like Bangla, as no attempt has ever been made to understand how the structure and texture of Bangla mass media texts vary due to certain linguistic and extra-linguistic constraints that are actively operational to specific text domains. Since mass media language is assumed to be the most 'recent representation' of the actual use of the language, this study is expected to show how the Bangla news texts reflect the thoughts of the society and how they leave a strong impact on the thought process of the speech community.

Keywords: Bangla, corpus, discourse, domains, lexical choice, mass media, register, variation

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Authors: Mballa Abanda Serge, Henda Gnakate Biba, Romaric Guemno Kuate, Akono Rufine Nicole, Petfiang Sidonie, Bella Sidonie

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The main hypotheses proposed around the definition of the syllable and of music, of the common origin of music and language, should lead the reader to reflect on the cross-cutting questions raised by the debate on the notion of universals in linguistics and musicology. These are objects of controversy, and there lies its interest: the debate raises questions that are at the heart of theories on language. It is an inventive, original and innovative research thesis. The main hypotheses proposed around the definition of the syllable and of music, of the common origin of music and language, should lead the reader to reflect on the cross-cutting questions raised by the debate on the notion of universals in linguistics and musicology. These are objects of controversy, and there lies its interest: the debate raises questions that are at the heart of theories on language. It is an inventive, original and innovative research thesis. A contribution to the theoretical, musicological, ethno musicological and linguistic conceptualization of languages, giving rise to the practice of interlocution between the social and cognitive sciences, the activities of artistic creation and the question of modeling in the human sciences: mathematics, computer science, translation automation and artificial intelligence. When you apply this theory to any text of a folksong of a world-tone language, you do not only piece together the exact melody, rhythm, and harmonies of that song as if you knew it in advance but also the exact speaking of this language. The author believes that the issue of the disappearance of tonal languages and their preservation has been structurally resolved, as well as one of the greatest cultural equations related to the composition and creation of tonal, polytonal and random music. The experimentation confirming the theorization, It designed a semi-digital, semi-analog application which translates the tonal languages of Africa (about 2,100 languages) into blues, jazz, world music, polyphonic music, tonal and anatonal music and deterministic and random music). To test this application, I use a music reading and writing software that allows me to collect the data extracted from my mother tongue, which is already modeled in the musical staves saved in the ethnographic (semiotic) dictionary for automatic translation ( volume 2 of the book). Translation is done (from writing to writing, from writing to speech and from writing to music). Mode of operation: you type a text on your computer, a structured song (chorus-verse), and you command the machine a melody of blues, jazz and world music or variety etc. The software runs, giving you the option to choose harmonies, and then you select your melody.

Keywords: music, entanglement, langauge, science

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Authors: Mirjana Dokmanovic

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The main topic of this paper is the analysis of the presence of gender stereotypes in the media content in the Republic of Serbia with respect to the state commitments to eliminate discrimination against women. The research methodology included the analysis of the media content of six daily newspapers and two magazines on the date of 28 December 2015 and the analysis of the reality TV show programs in 2015 from gender perspective. The methods of the research has also included a desk research and a qualitative analysis of the available data, statistics, policy papers, studies, and reports produced by the government, the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, the Press Council, the associations of media professionals, the independent human rights bodies, and civil society organizations (CSOs). As a State Signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Republic of Serbia has adopted numerous measures in this field, including the Law on Equality between Sexes and the national gender equality strategies. Special attention has been paid to eliminating gender stereotypes and prejudices in the media content and portraying of women. This practice has been forbidden by the Law on Electronic Media, the Law on Public Information and Media, the Law on Public Service Broadcasting and the Bylaw on the Protection of Human Rights in the Provision of Media Services. Despite these commitments, there has not been achieved progress regarding eliminating gender stereotypes in the media content. The research indicates that the media perpetuate traditional gender roles and patriarchal patterns. Female politicians, entrepreneurs, academics, scientists, and engineers have been very rarely portrayed in the media. On the other side, women are in their focus as celebrities, singers, and actresses. Women are underrepresented in the pages related to politics and economy, while they are mostly present in the cover stories related to show-business, health care, family and household matters. Women are three times more than men identified on the basis of their family status, as mothers, wives, daughters, etc. Hate speech, misogyny, and violence against women are often present in the reality TV shows. The abuse of women and their bodies in advertising is still widely present. The cases of domestic violence are still presented with sensationalism, although there has been achieved progress in portraying victims of domestic violence with respect and dignity. The issues related to gender equality and the position of the vulnerable groups of women, such as Roma women or rural women, are not visible in the media. This research, as well as warnings of women’s CSOs and independent human rights bodies, indicates the necessity to implement legal and policy measures in this field consistently and with due diligence. The aim of the paper is to contribute eliminating gender stereotypes in the media content and advancing gender equality.

Keywords: discrimination against women, gender roles, gender stereotypes, media, misogyny, portraying women in the media, prejudices against women, Republic of Serbia

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Authors: Julia A. Ermakova

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In today's multicultural societies, dialogue, self-respect, and cultural etiquette play a vital role in fostering mutual respect and understanding. Whether viewed from an Islamic or secular perspective, the importance of these values cannot be overstated. Firstly, dialogue is essential in multicultural societies as it allows individuals from different cultural backgrounds to exchange ideas, opinions, and experiences. To engage in dialogue, one must be open and willing to listen, understand, and respect the views of others. This requires a level of self-awareness, where individuals must know themselves and their interlocutors to create a productive and respectful conversation. Secondly, self-respect is crucial for individuals living in multicultural societies (McLarney). One must have adequately high self-esteem and self-confidence to interact with others positively. By valuing oneself, individuals can create healthy relationships and foster mutual respect, which is essential in diverse communities. Thirdly, cultural etiquette is a way of demonstrating the beauty of one's culture by exhibiting good temperament (Al-Ghazali). Adab, a concept that encompasses good manners, praiseworthy words and deeds, and the pursuit of what is considered good, is highly valued in Islamic teachings. By adhering to Adab, individuals can guard against making mistakes and demonstrate respect for others. Islamic teachings provide etiquette for every situation in life, making up the way of life for Muslims. In the Islamic view, an elegant Muslim woman has several essential qualities, including cultural speech and erudition, speaking style, awareness of how to greet, the ability to receive compliments, lack of desire to argue, polite behavior, avoiding personal insults, and having good intentions (Al-Ghazali). The Quran highlights the inclination of people towards arguing, bickering, and disputes (Qur'an, 4:114). Therefore, it is imperative to avoid useless arguments and disputes, for they are poison that poisons our lives. The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, warned that the most hateful person to Allah is an irreconcilable disputant (Al-Ghazali). By refraining from such behavior, individuals can foster respect and understanding in multicultural societies. From a secular perspective, respecting the views of others is crucial to engage in productive dialogue. The rule of argument emphasizes the importance of showing respect for the other person's views, allowing for the possibility of error on one's part, and avoiding telling someone they are wrong (Atamali). By exhibiting polite behavior and having respect for everyone, individuals can create a welcoming environment and avoid conflict. In conclusion, the importance of dialogue, self-respect, and cultural etiquette in multicultural societies cannot be overstated. By engaging in dialogue, respecting oneself and others, and adhering to cultural etiquette, individuals can foster mutual respect and understanding in diverse communities. Whether viewed from an Islamic or secular perspective, these values are essential for creating harmonious societies.

Keywords: multiculturalism, self-respect, cultural etiquette, adab, ethics, secular perspective

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Authors: Robert Birkholc

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One of the basic issues related to the creation of characters in media, such as literature and film, is the representation of the characters' thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. This paper is devoted to the social perspective (or the focalization) expressed in film narration. The aim of the paper is to show how social point of view of the hero –conditioned by his origin and the environment from which he comes– can be created by using non-verbal, purely audiovisual means of expression. The issue will be considered on the example of the little-known polish movie The Dancing Hawk (1977) by Grzegorz Królikiewicz, based on the novel by Julian Kawalec. The thesis of the paper is that the polish director uses a narrative figure, which is somewhat analogous to literary form of free indirect discourse. In literature, free indirect discourse is formally ‘spoken’ by the external narrator, but the narration is clearly filtered through the language and thoughts of the character. According to some scholars (such as Roy Pascal), the narrator in this form of speech does not cite the character's words, but uses his way of thinking and imitates his perspective – sometimes with a deep irony. Free indirect discourse is frequently used in Julian Kawalec’s novel. Through the linguistic stylization, the author tries to convey the socially determined perspective of a peasant who migrates to the big city after the Second World War. Grzegorz Królikiewicz expresses the same social experience by pure cinematic form in the adaptation of the book. Both Kawalec and Królikiewicz show the consequences of so-called ‘social advancement’ in Poland after 1945, when the communist party took over political power. On the example of the fate of the main character, Michał Toporny, the director presents the experience of peasants who left their villages and had to adapt to new, urban space. However, the paper is not focused on the historical topic itself, but on the audiovisual form of the movie. Although Królikiewicz doesn’t use frequently POV shots, the narration of The Dancing Hawk is filtered through the sensations of the main character, who feels uprooted and alienated in the new social space. The director captures the hero's feelings through very complex audiovisual procedures – high or low points of view (representing the ‘social position’), grotesque soundtrack, expressionist scenery, and associative editing. In this way, he manages to create the world from the perspective of a socially maladjusted and internally split subject. The Dancing Hawk is a successful attempt to adapt the subjective narration of the book to the ‘language’ of the cinema. Mieke Bal’s notion of focalization helps to describe ‘free indirect discourse’ as a transmedial figure of representing of the characters’ perceptions. However, the polysemiotic medium of the film also significantly transforms this figure of representation. The paper shows both the similarities and differences between literary and cinematic ‘free indirect discourse.’

Keywords: film and literature, free indirect discourse, social experience, subjective narration

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Authors: T. N. Goh, M. Hashmi, O. Hussain

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Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction (TMD) is a condition that may affect patients via restricted mouth opening, significant pain during normal functioning, and/or reproducible joint noise. TMD includes myofascial pain, TMJ functional derangements (internal derangement, dislocation), and TMJ degenerative/inflammatory joint disease. Internal derangement (ID) is the most common cause of TMD-related clicking and locking. These patients are managed in a stepwise approach, from patient education (homecare advice and analgesia), splint therapy, physiotherapy, botulinum toxin treatment, to arthrocentesis. Arthrotomy is offered when the aforementioned treatment options fail to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. The aim of this prospective study was to review the outcomes of jaw joint open surgery in TMD patients. Patients who presented from 2015-2022 at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department in the Doncaster NHS Foundation Trust, UK, with a Wilkes classification of III -V were included. These patients underwent either i) discopexy with bone-anchoring suture (9); ii) intrapositional temporalis flap (ITF) with bone-anchoring suture (3); iii) eminoplasty and discopexy with suturing to the capsule (3); iii) discectomy + ITF with bone-anchoring suture (1); iv) discoplasty + bone-anchoring suture (1); v) ITF (1). Maximum incisal opening (MIO) was assessed pre-operatively and at each follow-up. Pain score, determined via the visual analogue scale (VAS, with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst pain), was also recorded. A total of 18 eligible patients were identified with a mean age of 45 (range 22 - 79), of which 16 were female. The patients were scored by Wilkes Classification as III (14), IV (1), or V (4). Twelve patients had anterior disc displacement without reduction (66%) and six had degenerative/arthritic changes (33%) to the TMJ. The open joint procedure resulted in an increase in MIO and reduction in pain VAS and for the majority of patients, across all Wilkes Classifications. Pre-procedural MIO was 22.9 ± 7.4 mm and VAS was 7.8 ± 1.5. At three months post-procedure there was an increase in MIO to 34.4 ± 10.4 mm (p < 0.01) and a decrease in the VAS to 1.5 ± 2.9 (p < 0.01). Three patients were lost to follow-up prior to six months. Six were discharged at six month review and five patients were discharged at 12 months review as they were asymptomatic with good mouth opening. Four patients are still attending for annual botulinum toxin treatment. Two patients (Wilkes III and V) subsequently underwent TMJ replacement (11%). One of these patients (Wilkes III) had improvement initially to MIO of 40 mm, but subsequently relapsed to less than 20 mm due to lack of compliance with jaw rehabilitation device post-operatively. Clinical improvements in 89% of patients within the study group were found, with a return to near normal MIO range and reduced pain score. Intraoperatively, the operator found bone-anchoring suture used for discopexy/discoplasty more secure than the soft tissue anchoring suturing technique.

Keywords: bone anchoring suture, open temporomandibular joint surgery, temporomandibular joint, temporomandibular joint dysfunction

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Authors: Dino Carpentras, Paul J. Maher, Caoimhe O'Reilly, Michael Quayle

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Opinion dynamics is a sub-field of agent-based modeling that focuses on people’s opinions and their evolutions over time. Despite the rapid increase in the number of publications in this field, it is still not clear how to apply these models to real-world scenarios. Indeed, there is no agreement on how people update their opinion while interacting. Furthermore, it is not clear if different topics will show the same dynamics (e.g., more polarized topics may behave differently). These problems are mostly due to the lack of experimental validation of the models. Some previous studies started bridging this gap in the literature by directly measuring people’s opinions before and after the interaction. However, these experiments force people to express their opinion as a number instead of using natural language (and then, eventually, encoding it as numbers). This is not the way people normally interact, and it may strongly alter the measured dynamics. Another limitation of these studies is that they usually average all the topics together, without checking if different topics may show different dynamics. In our work, we collected data from 200 participants on 5 unpolarized topics. Participants expressed their opinions in natural language (“agree” or “disagree”). We also measured the certainty of their answer, expressed as a number between 1 and 10. However, this value was not shown to other participants to keep the interaction based on natural language. We then showed the opinion (and not the certainty) of another participant and, after a distraction task, we repeated the measurement. To make the data compatible with opinion dynamics models, we multiplied opinion and certainty to obtain a new parameter (here called “continuous opinion”) ranging from -10 to +10 (using agree=1 and disagree=-1). We firstly checked the 5 topics individually, finding that all of them behaved in a similar way despite having different initial opinions distributions. This suggested that the same model could be applied for different unpolarized topics. We also observed that people tend to maintain similar levels of certainty, even when they changed their opinion. This is a strong violation of what is suggested from common models, where people starting at, for example, +8, will first move towards 0 instead of directly jumping to -8. We also observed social influence, meaning that people exposed with “agree” were more likely to move to higher levels of continuous opinion, while people exposed with “disagree” were more likely to move to lower levels. However, we also observed that the effect of influence was smaller than the effect of random fluctuations. Also, this configuration is different from standard models, where noise, when present, is usually much smaller than the effect of social influence. Starting from this, we built an opinion dynamics model that explains more than 80% of data variance. This model was also able to show the natural conversion of polarization from unpolarized states. This experimental approach offers a new way to build models grounded on experimental data. Furthermore, the model offers new insight into the fundamental terms of opinion dynamics models.

Keywords: experimental validation, micro-dynamics rule, opinion dynamics, update rule

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Authors: Kaushiki Sanyal, Rajesh Chakrabarti

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In India, on average, about 60 Bills are passed every year in both Houses of Parliament – Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (calculated from information on websites of both Houses). These are debated in both Lok Sabha (House of Commons) and Rajya Sabha (Council of States) before they are passed. However, lawmakers rarely use empirical evidence to make a case for a law. Most of the time, they support a law on the basis of anecdote, intuition, and common sense. While these do play a role in law-making, without the necessary empirical evidence, laws often fail to achieve their desired results. The quality of legislative debates is an indicator of the efficacy of the legislative process through which a Bill is enacted. However, the study of legislative debates has not received much attention either in India or worldwide due to the difficulty of objectively measuring the quality of a debate. Broadly, three approaches have emerged in the study of legislative debates. The rational-choice or formal approach shows that speeches vary based on different institutional arrangements, intra-party politics, and the political culture of a country. The discourse approach focuses on the underlying rules and conventions and how they impact the content of the debates. The deliberative approach posits that legislative speech can be reasoned, respectful, and informed. This paper aims to (a) develop a framework to judge the quality of debates by using the deliberative approach; (b) examine the legislative debates of three Bills passed in different periods as a demonstration of the framework, and (c) examine the broader structural issues that disincentive MPs from scrutinizing Bills. The framework would include qualitative and quantitative indicators to judge a debate. The idea is that the framework would provide useful insights into the legislators’ knowledge of the subject, the depth of their scrutiny of Bills, and their inclination toward evidence-based research. The three Bills that the paper plans to examine are as follows: 1. The Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985: This act was passed to curb drug trafficking and abuse. However, it mostly failed to fulfill its purpose. Consequently, it was amended thrice but without much impact on the ground. 2. The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013: This act amended the Indian Penal Code to add a section on human trafficking. The purpose was to curb trafficking and penalise traffickers, pimps, and middlemen. However, the crime rate remains high while the conviction rate is low. 3. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021: This act bans commercial surrogacy allowing only relatives to act as surrogates as long as there is no monetary payment. Experts fear that instead of preventing commercial surrogacy, it would drive the activity underground. The consequences would be borne by the surrogate, who would not be protected by law. The purpose of the paper is to objectively analyse the quality of parliamentary debates, get insights into how MPs understand the evidence and deliberate on steps to incentivise them to use empirical evidence.

Keywords: legislature, debates, empirical, India

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Authors: Rosemary Saunders, Courtney Glass, Karla Seaman, Karen Gullick, Julie Andrew, Anne Wilkinson, Ashwini Davray

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Current literature demonstrates that most Australians receive end-of-life care in a hospital setting, despite most hoping to die within their own home. The necessity for high quality end-of-life care has been emphasised by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and the National Safety and Quality in Health Services Standards depict the requirement for comprehensive care at the end of life (Action 5.20), reinforcing the obligation for continual organisational assessment to determine if these standards are suitably achieved. Limited research exploring clinical staff perspectives of end-of-life care delivery has been conducted within an Australian private health context. This study aimed to investigate clinical staff member perceptions of end-of-life care delivery at a private hospital in Western Australia. The study comprised of a multi-faceted mixed-methods methodology, part of a larger study. Data was obtained from clinical staff utilising surveys and focus groups. A total of 133 questionnaires were completed by clinical staff, including registered nurses (61.4%), enrolled nurses (22.7%), allied health professionals (9.9%), non-palliative care consultants (3.8%) and junior doctors (2.2%). A total of 14.7% of respondents were palliative care ward staff members. Additionally, seven staff focus groups were conducted with physicians (n=3), nurses (n=26) and allied health professionals including social workers (n=1), dietitians (n=2), physiotherapists (n=5) and speech pathologists (n=3). Key findings from the surveys highlighted that the majority of staff agreed it was part of their role to talk to doctors about the care of patients who they thought may be dying, and recognised the importance of communication, appropriate training and support for clinical staff to provide quality end-of-life care. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data generated three key themes: creating the setting which highlighted the importance of adequate resourcing and conducive physical environments for end-of-life care and to support staff and families; planning and care delivery which emphasised the necessity for collaboration between staff, families and patients to develop care plans and treatment directives; and collaborating in end-of-life care, with effective communication and teamwork leading to achievable care delivery expectations. These findings contribute to health professionals better understanding of end-of-life care provision and the importance of collaborating with patients and families in care delivery. It is crucial that health care providers implement strategies to overcome gaps in care, so quality end-of-life care is provided. Findings from this study have been translated into practice, with the development and implementation of resources, training opportunities, support networks and guidelines for the delivery of quality end-of-life care.

Keywords: clinical staff, end-of-life care, mixed-methods, private hospital.

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Authors: Richard Sogah

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The significance of transport infrastructure investments for economic growth and development has been central to the World Bank’s strategy for poverty reduction. Among the conventional surface transport infrastructures, road infrastructure is significant in facilitating the movement of human capital goods and services. When transport projects (i.e., roads, super-highways) are implemented, they come along with some negative social values (costs), such as increased noise and air pollution for local residents living near these facilities, displaced individuals, etc. However, these projects also facilitate better utilization of existing capital stock and generate other observable benefits that can be easily quantified. For example, the improvement or construction of roads creates employment, stimulates revenue generation (toll), reduces vehicle operating costs and accidents, increases accessibility, trade expansion, safety improvement, etc. Aside from these benefits, travel time savings (TTSs) which are the major economic benefits of urban and inter-urban transport projects and therefore integral in the economic assessment of transport projects, are often overlooked and omitted when estimating the benefits of transport projects, especially in developing countries. The absence of current and reliable domestic travel data and the inability of replicated models from the developed world to capture the actual value of travel time savings due to the large unemployment, underemployment, and other labor-induced distortions has contributed to the failure to assign value to travel time savings when estimating the benefits of transport schemes in developing countries. This omission of the value of travel time savings from the benefits of transport projects in developing countries poses problems for investors and stakeholders to either accept or dismiss projects based on schemes that favor reduced vehicular operating costs and other parameters rather than those that ease congestion, increase average speed, facilitate walking and handloading, and thus save travel time. Given the complex reality in the estimation of the value of travel time savings and the presence of widespread informal labour activities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we construct a “nationally ranked distribution of time values” and estimate the value of travel time savings based on the area beneath the distribution. Compared with other approaches, our method captures both formal sector workers and individuals/people who work outside the formal sector and hence changes in their time allocation occur in the informal economy and household production activities. The dataset for the estimations is sourced from the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, etc.

Keywords: road infrastructure, transport projects, travel time savings, congestion, Sub-Sahara Africa

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Authors: Edna Negron-Martinez

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Our time's global challenges and trends —like those associated with climate change, demographics displacements, growing health inequalities, and increasing burden of diseases— have complex connections to the determinants of health. Information on the burden of disease causes and prevention is fundamental for public health actions, like preparedness and responses for disasters, and recovery resources after the event. For instance, there is an increasing consensus about key findings of the effects and connections of the global burden of disease, as it generates substantial healthcare costs, consumes essential resources and prevents the attainment of optimal health and well-being. The goal of this research endeavor is to promote a comprehensive understanding of the connections between social, environmental, and economic influences on health. These connections are illustrated by pulling from clearly the core curriculum of multidisciplinary areas —as urban design, energy, housing, and economy— as well as in the health system itself. A systematic review of primary and secondary data included a variety of issues as global health, natural disasters, and critical pollution impacts on people's health and the ecosystems. Environmental health is challenged by the unsustainable consumption patterns and the resulting contaminants that abound in many cities and urban settings around the world. Poverty, inadequate housing, and poor health are usually linked. The house is a primary environmental health context for any individual and especially for more vulnerable groups; such as children, older adults and those who are sick. Nevertheless, very few countries show strong decoupling of environmental degradation from economic growth, as indicated by a recent 2017 Report of the World Bank. Worth noting, the environmental fraction of the global burden of disease in a 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report estimated that 12.6 million global deaths, accounting for 23% (95% CI: 13-34%) of all deaths were attributable to the environment. Among the environmental contaminants include heavy metals, noise pollution, light pollution, and urban sprawl. Those key findings make a call to the significance to urgently adopt in a global scale the United Nations post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs address the social, environmental, and economic factors that influence health and health inequalities, advising how these sectors, in turn, benefit from a healthy population. Consequently, more actions are necessary from an inter-sectoral and systemic paradigm to enforce an integrated sustainability policy implementation aimed at the environmental, social, and economic determinants of health.

Keywords: building capacity for workforce development, ecological and environmental health effects of pollution, public health education, sustainability

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Authors: Carolina Schencke, Cristian Sandoval, Belgica Vasquez, Mariano Del Sol

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Introduction: In a burn injury, the successful repair requires not only the participation of various cells, such as granulocytes and fibroblasts, but also of collagen, which plays a crucial role as a structural and regulatory molecule of scar tissue. Since honey and ascorbic acid have presented a great therapeutic potential to cellular and structural level, experimental studies have proposed its combination in the treatment of wounds. Aim: To evaluate stereological and morphometric parameters of healing wounds, caused by burns, treated with honey Ulmo (Eucryphia cordifolia) unsupplemented, comparing its effect with Ulmo honey supplemented with ascorbic acid. Materials and Methods: Fifteen healthy adult guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) were used, of both sexes, average weight 450 g from the Centro de Excelencia en Estudios Morfológicos y Quirúrgicos (CEMyQ) at the Universidad de La Frontera, Chile. The animals were divided at random into three groups: positive control (C+), honey only (H) and supplemented honey (SH) and were fed on pellets supplemented with ascorbic acid and water ad libitum, under ambient conditions controlled for temperature, ambient noise and a cycle of 12h light–darkness. The protocol for the experiment was approved by the Scientific Ethics Committee of the Universidad de La Frontera, Chile. The parameters measured were number density per area (NA), volume density (VV), and surface density (SV) of fibroblast; NA and VV of polymorphonuclear cells (PMN) and, evaluation of the content of collagen fibers in the scar dermis. One-way ANOVA was used for statistics analysis and its respective Post hoc tests. Results: The ANOVA analysis for NA, VV and SV of fibroblasts, NA and VV of PMN, and evaluation of collagen content, type I and III, showed that at least one group differs from other (P≤ 0.001). There were differences (P= 0.000) in NA of fibroblast between the groups [C+= 3599.560 mm-2 (SD= 764.461), H= 3355.336 mm-2 (SD= 699.443) and SH= 4253.025 mm-2 (SD= 1041.751)]. The VV and SV of fibroblast increased (P= 0.000) in the SH group [20.400% (SD= 5.897) and 100.876 mm2/mm3 (SD= 29.431), respectively], compared to the C+ [16.324% (SD= 7.719) and 81.676 mm2/mm3 (SD= 28.884), respectively). The mean values of NA and VV of PMN were higher (P= 0.000) in the H [756.875 mm-2 (SD= 516.489) and 2.686% (SD= 2.380), respectively) group. Regarding to the evaluation of the content of collagen fibers, type I and III, the one-way analysis of ANOVA showed a statistically significant difference (P< 0.05). The content of collagen fibers type I was higher in C+ (1988.292 μm2; SD= 1312.379), while the content of collagen fibers type III was higher in SH (1967.163 μm2; SD= 1047.944 μm2) group. Conclusions: The stereological results were correlated with the stage of healing observed for each group. These results suggest that the combination of honey with ascorbic acid potentiate the healing effect, where both participated synergistically.

Keywords: ascorbic acid, morphometry, stereology, Ulmo honey

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Authors: Ana Paula Soares, Alexandrina Lages, Helena Oliveira, Francisco-Javier Gutiérrez-Domínguez, Marisa Lousada

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From an early age, exposure to a spoken language allows us to implicitly capture the structure underlying the succession of the speech sounds in that language and to segment it into meaningful units (words). Statistical learning (SL), i.e., the ability to pick up patterns in the sensory environment even without intention or consciousness of doing it, is thus assumed to play a central role in the acquisition of the rule-governed aspects of language and possibly to lie behind the language difficulties exhibited by children with development language disorder (DLD). The research conducted so far has, however, led to inconsistent results, which might stem from the behavioral tasks used to test SL. In a classic SL experiment, participants are first exposed to a continuous stream (e.g., syllables) in which, unbeknownst to the participants, stimuli are grouped into triplets that always appear together in the stream (e.g., ‘tokibu’, ‘tipolu’), with no pauses between each other (e.g., ‘tokibutipolugopilatokibu’) and without any information regarding the task or the stimuli. Following exposure, SL is assessed by asking participants to discriminate between triplets previously presented (‘tokibu’) from new sequences never presented together during exposure (‘kipopi’), i.e., to perform a two-alternative-forced-choice (2-AFC) task. Despite the widespread use of the 2-AFC to test SL, it has come under increasing criticism as it is an offline post-learning task that only assesses the result of the learning that had occurred during the previous exposure phase and that might be affected by other factors beyond the computation of regularities embedded in the input, typically the likelihood two syllables occurring together, a statistic known as transitional probability (TP). One solution to overcome these limitations is to assess SL as exposure to the stream unfolds using online techniques such as event-related potentials (ERP) that is highly sensitive to the time-course of the learning in the brain. Here we collected ERPs to examine the neurofunctional correlates of SL in preschool children with DLD, and chronological-age typical language development (TLD) controls who were exposed to an auditory stream in which eight three-syllable nonsense words, four of which presenting high-TPs and the other four low-TPs, to further analyze whether the ability of DLD and TLD children to extract-word-like units from the steam was modulated by words’ predictability. Moreover, to ascertain if the previous knowledge of the to-be-learned-regularities affected the neural responses to high- and low-TP words, children performed the auditory SL task, firstly, under implicit, and, subsequently, under explicit conditions. Although behavioral evidence of SL was not obtained in either group, the neural responses elicited during the exposure phases of the SL tasks differentiated children with DLD from children with TLD. Specifically, the results indicated that only children from the TDL group showed neural evidence of SL, particularly in the SL task performed under explicit conditions, firstly, for the low-TP, and, subsequently, for the high-TP ‘words’. Taken together, these findings support the view that children with DLD showed deficits in the extraction of the regularities embedded in the auditory input which might underlie the language difficulties.

Keywords: development language disorder, statistical learning, transitional probabilities, word segmentation

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Authors: Alexander Huang

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Online learning sessions have become an indispensable complement to in-classroom-learning sessions in the past two years due to the emergence of Covid-19. Due to social distance requirements, many courses and interaction-intensive sessions, ranging from music classes to debate camps, are online. However, online learning imposes a significant challenge for engaging students effectively during the learning sessions. To resolve this problem, Project PWR, a non-profit organization formed by high school students, developed an online kid-teach-kid learning environment to boost students' learning interests and further improve students’ engagement during online learning. Fundamentally, the kid-teach-kid learning model creates an affinity space to form learning groups, where like-minded peers can learn and teach their interests. The role of the teacher can also help a kid identify the instructional task and set the rules and procedures for the activities. The approach also structures initial discussions to reveal a range of ideas, similar experiences, thinking processes, language use, and lower student-to-teacher ratio, which become enriched online learning experiences for upcoming lessons. In such a manner, a kid can practice both the teacher role and the student role to accumulate experiences on how to convey ideas and questions over the online session more efficiently and effectively. In this research work, we conducted two case studies involving a 3D-Design course and a Speech and Debate course taught by high-school kids. Through Project PWR, a kid first needs to design the course syllabus based on a provided template to become a student-teacher. Then, the Project PWR academic committee evaluates the syllabus and offers comments and suggestions for changes. Upon the approval of a syllabus, an experienced and voluntarily adult mentor is assigned to interview the student-teacher and monitor the lectures' progress. Student-teachers construct a comprehensive final evaluation for their students, which they grade at the end of the course. Moreover, each course requires conducting midterm and final evaluations through a set of surveyed replies provided by students to assess the student-teacher’s performance. The uniqueness of Project PWR lies in its established kid-teach-kids affinity space. Our research results showed that Project PWR could create a closed-loop system where a student can help a teacher improve and vice versa, thus improving the overall students’ engagement. As a result, Project PWR’s approach can train teachers and students to become better online learners and give them a solid understanding of what to prepare for and what to expect from future online classes. The kid-teach-kid learning model can significantly improve students' engagement in the online courses through the Project PWR to effectively supplement the traditional teacher-centric model that the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted substantially. Project PWR enables kids to share their interests and bond with one another, making the online learning environment effective and promoting positive and effective personal online one-on-one interactions.

Keywords: kid-teach-kid, affinity space, online learning, engagement, student-teacher

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Authors: Varun Agarwal

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Introduction: With the advent of personalized medicine, histopathological review of whole slide images (WSIs) for cancer diagnosis presents an exceedingly time-consuming, complex task. Specifically, detecting metastatic regions in WSIs of sentinel lymph node biopsies necessitates a full-scanned, holistic evaluation of the image. Thus, digital pathology, low-level image manipulation algorithms, and machine learning provide significant advancements in improving the efficiency and accuracy of WSI analysis. Using Camelyon16 data, this paper proposes a deep learning pipeline to automate and ameliorate breast cancer metastasis localization and WSI classification. Methodology: The model broadly follows five stages -region of interest detection, WSI partitioning into image tiles, convolutional neural network (CNN) image-segment classifications, probabilistic mapping of tumor localizations, and further processing for whole WSI classification. Transfer learning is applied to the task, with the implementation of Inception-ResNetV2 - an effective CNN classifier that uses residual connections to enhance feature representation, adding convolved outputs in the inception unit to the proceeding input data. Moreover, in order to augment the performance of the transfer learning CNN, a stack of convolutional denoising autoencoders (CDAE) is applied to produce embeddings that enrich image representation. Through a saliency-detection algorithm, visual training segments are generated, which are then processed through a denoising autoencoder -primarily consisting of convolutional, leaky rectified linear unit, and batch normalization layers- and subsequently a contrast-normalization function. A spatial pyramid pooling algorithm extracts the key features from the processed image, creating a viable feature map for the CNN that minimizes spatial resolution and noise. Results and Conclusion: The simplified and effective architecture of the fine-tuned transfer learning Inception-ResNetV2 network enhanced with the CDAE stack yields state of the art performance in WSI classification and tumor localization, achieving AUC scores of 0.947 and 0.753, respectively. The convolutional feature retention and compilation with the residual connections to inception units synergized with the input denoising algorithm enable the pipeline to serve as an effective, efficient tool in the histopathological review of WSIs.

Keywords: breast cancer, convolutional neural networks, metastasis mapping, whole slide images

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Authors: Norazlan Mohmad Misnan, Maizatul Hasyima Omar, Mohd Isa Wasiman

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Papaya (Carica papaya L., Caricaceae) is a tree which mainly cultivated for its fruits in many tropical regions including Australia, Brazil, China, Hawaii, and Malaysia. Beside of fruits, its leaves, seeds, and latex have also been traditionally used for treating diseases, which also reported to possess anti-cancer and anti- malaria properties. Its leaves have been reported to consist of various chemical compounds such as alkaloids, flavonoids and phenolics. Clitorin and manghaslin are among major flavonoids presence. Thus, the aim of this study is to quantify the purity of these isolated compounds (clitorin and manghsalin) by using quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (qNMR) analysis. Only fresh C. papaya leaves were used for juice extraction procedure and subsequently was freeze-dried to obtain a dark green powdered form of the extract prior to Centrifugal Partition Chromatography (CPC) separation. The CPC experiments were performed using a two-phase solvent system comprising ethyl acetate/butanol/water (1:4:5, v/v/v/v) solvent. The upper organic phase was used as the stationary phase, and the lower aqueous phase was employed as the mobile phase. Ten fractions were obtained after an hour runtime analysis. Fraction 6 and fraction 8 has been identified as clitorin (m/z 739.21 [M-H]-) and manghaslin (m/z 755.21 [M-H]-), respectively, based on LCMS data and full analysis of NMR (1H NMR, 13C NMR, HMBC, and HSQC). The 1H-qNMR measurements were carried out using a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer (JEOL ECS 400MHz, Japan) and deuterated methanol was used as a solvent. Quantification was performed using the AQARI method (Accurate Quantitative NMR) with deuterated 1,4-Bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene (BTMSB) as an internal reference substances. This AQARI protocol includes not only NMR measurement but also sample preparation that provide highest precision and accuracy than other qNMR methods. The 90° pulse length and the T1 relaxation times for compounds and BTMSB were determined prior to the quantification to give the best signal-to-noise ratio. Regions containing the two downfield signals from aromatic part (6.00–6.89 ppm), and the singlet signal, (18H) arising from BTMSB (0.63-1.05ppm) were selected for integration. The purity of clitorin and manghaslin were calculated to be 52.22% and 43.36%, respectively. Further purification is needed in order to increase its purity. This finding has demonstrated the use of qNMR for quality control and standardization of various plant extracts and which can be applied for NMR fingerprinting of other plant-based products with good reproducibility and in the case where commercial standards is not readily available.

Keywords: Carica papaya, clitorin, manghaslin, quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Centrifugal Partition Chromatography

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Authors: Saurabh Sharma, Yong Sun, Bruce Vernham

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Accurate prediction of NOx emission is a continuous challenge in the field of diesel engine-out emission modeling. Performing experiments for each conditions and scenario cost significant amount of money and man hours, therefore model-based development strategy has been implemented in order to solve that issue. NOx formation is highly dependent on the burn gas temperature and the O₂ concentration inside the cylinder. The current empirical models are developed by calibrating the parameters representing the engine operating conditions with respect to the measured NOx. This makes the prediction of purely empirical models limited to the region where it has been calibrated. An alternative solution to that is presented in this paper, which focus on the utilization of in-cylinder combustion parameters to form a predictive semi-empirical NOx model. The result of this work is shown by developing a fast and predictive NOx model by using the physical parameters and empirical correlation. The model is developed based on the steady state data collected at entire operating region of the engine and the predictive combustion model, which is developed in Gamma Technology (GT)-Power by using Direct Injected (DI)-Pulse combustion object. In this approach, temperature in both burned and unburnt zone is considered during the combustion period i.e. from Intake Valve Closing (IVC) to Exhaust Valve Opening (EVO). Also, the oxygen concentration consumed in burnt zone and trapped fuel mass is also considered while developing the reported model.  Several statistical methods are used to construct the model, including individual machine learning methods and ensemble machine learning methods. A detailed validation of the model on multiple diesel engines is reported in this work. Substantial numbers of cases are tested for different engine configurations over a large span of speed and load points. Different sweeps of operating conditions such as Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR), injection timing and Variable Valve Timing (VVT) are also considered for the validation. Model shows a very good predictability and robustness at both sea level and altitude condition with different ambient conditions. The various advantages such as high accuracy and robustness at different operating conditions, low computational time and lower number of data points requires for the calibration establishes the platform where the model-based approach can be used for the engine calibration and development process. Moreover, the focus of this work is towards establishing a framework for the future model development for other various targets such as soot, Combustion Noise Level (CNL), NO₂/NOx ratio etc.

Keywords: diesel engine, machine learning, NOₓ emission, semi-empirical

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Authors: Dino Carpentras, Paul Maher, Caoimhe O'Reilly, Michael Quayle

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Opinion dynamics is dedicated to modeling the dynamic evolution of people's opinions. Models in this field are based on a micro-dynamic rule, which determines how people update their opinion when interacting. Despite the high number of new models (many of them based on new rules), little research has been dedicated to experimentally validate the rule. A few studies started bridging this literature gap by experimentally testing the rule. However, in these studies, participants are forced to express their opinion as a number instead of using natural language. Furthermore, some of these studies average data from experimental questions, without testing if differences existed between them. Indeed, it is possible that different topics could show different dynamics. For example, people may be more prone to accepting someone's else opinion regarding less polarized topics. In this work, we collected data from 200 participants on 5 unpolarized topics. Participants expressed their opinions using natural language ('agree' or 'disagree') and the certainty of their answer, expressed as a number between 1 and 10. To keep the interaction based on natural language, certainty was not shown to other participants. We then showed to the participant someone else's opinion on the same topic and, after a distraction task, we repeated the measurement. To produce data compatible with standard opinion dynamics models, we multiplied the opinion (encoded as agree=1 and disagree=-1) with the certainty to obtain a single 'continuous opinion' ranging from -10 to 10. By analyzing the topics independently, we observed that each one shows a different initial distribution. However, the dynamics (i.e., the properties of the opinion change) appear to be similar between all topics. This suggested that the same micro-dynamic rule could be applied to unpolarized topics. Another important result is that participants that change opinion tend to maintain similar levels of certainty. This is in contrast with typical micro-dynamics rules, where agents move to an average point instead of directly jumping to the opposite continuous opinion. As expected, in the data, we also observed the effect of social influence. This means that exposing someone with 'agree' or 'disagree' influenced participants to respectively higher or lower values of the continuous opinion. However, we also observed random variations whose effect was stronger than the social influence’s one. We even observed cases of people that changed from 'agree' to 'disagree,' even if they were exposed to 'agree.' This phenomenon is surprising, as, in the standard literature, the strength of the noise is usually smaller than the strength of social influence. Finally, we also built an opinion dynamics model from the data. The model was able to explain more than 80% of the data variance. Furthermore, by iterating the model, we were able to produce polarized states even starting from an unpolarized population. This experimental approach offers a way to test the micro-dynamic rule. This also allows us to build models which are directly grounded on experimental results.

Keywords: experimental validation, micro-dynamic rule, opinion dynamics, update rule

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Authors: Soo-Yong Cho, Chong-Hyun Cho, Chae-Whan Rim, Sang-Kyu Choi, Jin-Gyun Kim, Ju-Seok Nam

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Recently, vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) have been widely used to produce electricity even in urban. They have several merits such as low sound noise, easy installation of the generator and simple structure without yaw-control mechanism and so on. However, their blades are operated under the influence of the trailing vortices generated by the preceding blades. This phenomenon deteriorates its output power and makes difficulty predicting correctly its performance. In order to improve the performance of VAWT, wind power towers can be applied. Usually, the wind power tower can be constructed as a multi-story building to increase the frontal area of the wind stream. Hence, multiple sets of the VAWT can be installed within the wind power tower, and they can be operated at high elevation. Many different types of wind power tower can be used in the field. In this study, a wind power tower with circular column shape was applied, and the VAWT was installed at the center of the wind power tower. Seven guide walls were used as a strut between the floors of the wind power tower. These guide walls were utilized not only to increase the wind velocity within the wind power tower but also to adjust the wind direction for making a better working condition on the VAWT. Hence, some important design variables, such as the distance between the wind turbine and the guide wall, the outer diameter of the wind power tower, the direction of the guide wall against the wind direction, should be considered to enhance the output power on the VAWT. A numerical analysis was conducted to find the optimum dimension on design variables by using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) among many prediction methods. The CFD could be an accurate prediction method compared with the stream-tube methods. In order to obtain the accurate results in the CFD, it needs the transient analysis and the full three-dimensional (3-D) computation. However, this full 3-D CFD could be hard to be a practical tool because it requires huge computation time. Therefore, the reduced computational domain is applied as a practical method. In this study, the computations were conducted in the reduced computational domain and they were compared with the experimental results in the literature. It was examined the mechanism of the difference between the experimental results and the computational results. The computed results showed this computational method could be an effective method in the design methodology using the optimization algorithm. After validation of the numerical method, the CFD on the wind power tower was conducted with the important design variables affecting the performance of VAWT. The results showed that the output power of the VAWT obtained using the wind power tower was increased compared to them obtained without the wind power tower. In addition, they showed that the increased output power on the wind turbine depended greatly on the dimension of the guide wall.

Keywords: CFD, performance, VAWT, wind power tower

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Authors: Alejandra Torres-Landa López

Abstract:

Introduction: Can architecture students be creative in spaces conformed by an educational infrastructure build with paradigms of the past?, this question and others related are answered in this paper as it presents the PhD research: An anthropic conflict in Mexican Higher Education Institutes, problems and challenges of the educational infrastructure in teaching and learning History of Architecture. This research was finished in 2013 and is one of the first studies conducted nationwide in Mexico that analysis the educational infrastructure impact in learning architecture; its objective was to identify which elements of the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes where architects are formed, hinder or contribute to the teaching and learning of History of Architecture; how and why it happens. The methodology: A mixed methodology was used combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Different resources and strategies for data collection were used, such as questionnaires for students and teachers, interviews to architecture research experts, direct observations in Architecture classes, among others; the data collected was analyses using SPSS and MAXQDA. The veracity of the quantitative data was supported by the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient, obtaining a 0.86, figure that gives the data enough support. All the above enabled to certify the anthropic conflict in which Mexican Universities are. Major findings of the study: Although some of findings were probably not unknown, they haven’t been systematized and analyzed with the depth to which it’s done in this research. So, it can be said, that the educational infrastructure of most of the Higher Education Institutes studied, is a barrier to the educational process, some of the reasons are: the little morphological variation of space, the inadequate control of lighting, noise, temperature, equipment and furniture, the poor or none accessibility for disable people; as well as the absence, obsolescence and / or insufficiency of information technologies are some of the issues that generate an anthropic conflict understanding it as the trouble that teachers and students have to relate between them, in order to achieve significant learning). It is clear that most of the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes is anchored to paradigms of the past; it seems that they respond to the previous era of industrialization. The results confirm that the educational infrastructure of Mexican Higher Education Institutes where architects are formed, is perceived as a "closed container" of people and data; infrastructure that becomes a barrier to teaching and learning process. Conclusion: The research results show it's time to change the paradigm in which we conceive the educational infrastructure, it’s time to stop seen it just only as classrooms, workshops, laboratories and libraries, as it must be seen from a constructive, urban, architectural and human point of view, taking into account their different dimensions: physical, technological, documental, social, among others; so the educational infrastructure can become a set of elements that organize and create spaces where ideas and thoughts can be shared; to be a social catalyst where people can interact between each other and with the space itself.

Keywords: educational infrastructure, impact of space in learning architecture outcomes, learning environments, teaching architecture, learning architecture

Procedia PDF Downloads 390