Search results for: religion architecture

Authors: Belay Mulat Fentie

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In today’s high decrement figure of the global economy, nations are facing many economic, social, and political challenges; universally, there is high distress of food and other survival insecurity. Further, as a result of conflict, natural disaster, and leadership influences, youths are existentially less empowered and unemployed, especially in developing countries. With this situation to handle well challenges, it’s important to search, investigate and deliberate about youth, unemployment, empowerment, and possible management fashions, as youths has a potential to carry and fight such battles. The method adopted is qualitative analysis of secondary data sources in youth empowerment, unemployment, and development as inclusive framework. Youth unemployment is a major development headache for most African countries. In Ethiopia, following weak youth empowerment, youth unemployment has been increased time to time; and quality education and organizations linkage matters as an important constraint. As a management challenge, although accessibility of quality education for Ethiopian youths is an important constraint; the country youths fortified deceptively and harassed in a vicious political challenge in their struggle to fetch social and economic changes in the country. Further, thousands of youths inactivated, criminalized, and lost their lives, and this makes youths to be hopeless, anger in their lives and pushes further to expose for addictions, prostitution, violence, and illegitimate migrations. This youth challenge didn’t only destinate in African countries, rather, indeed, the global burden and headed as a global agenda. As a resolution, the construction of a healthy education system can create independent youths that acquire success and accelerate development. Developing countries should ensue development in cultivation of empowerment tool through long and short-term education, implementing policy in action, diminishing wide ranged gaps of (religion, ethnicity & region), and take the high youth population as an opportunity and empower them. And further manage and empower youths to involve in decision making, in giving political weight and build a network on organizations to easily access jobs opportunities are important suggestion to alive youths in work, for both increasing their income and country food security balance.

Keywords: development, Ethiopia, management, unemployment, youth empowerment

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Authors: Nikita Katyal, Shaurya Uppal

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This paper tackles the significant challenge of accurately classifying customers within a retailer’s customer base. Accurate classification is essential for developing targeted marketing strategies that effectively engage this important demographic. To address this issue, we propose a method that utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs). By employing LLMs, we analyze the metadata associated with product purchases derived from historical data to identify key product categories that act as distinguishing factors. These categories, such as baby food, eldercare products, or family-sized packages, offer valuable insights into the likely household composition of customers, including families with babies, families with kids/teenagers, families with pets, households caring for elders, or mixed households. We segment high-confidence customers into distinct categories by integrating historical purchase behavior with LLM-powered product classification. This paper asserts that life stage segmentation can significantly enhance e-commerce businesses’ ability to target the appropriate customers with tailored products and campaigns, thereby augmenting sales and improving customer retention. Additionally, the paper details the data sources, model architecture, and evaluation metrics employed for the segmentation task.

Keywords: LLMs, segmentation, product tags, fine-tuning, target segments, marketing communication

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Authors: Piyush Hajela

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Public spaces in Indian market places are vibrant, colorful and carry latent dimensions that make them attractive and popular gathering spaces. These markets satisfy the household needs of the people and also their social, cultural and traditional aspirations. Going to a market place for shopping in India is a great source of entertainment for the people. They would love to spend as much time as possible and stay for longer durations than otherwise required. It is this desire of the people that generates public spaces. Much of these public spaces emerge as squares, plazas, corners of varied shapes and sizes at different locations, and yet provide a conducive environment. Such public spaces grow organically and are discovered by the people themselves. Indian markets serve people of different culture, religion, caste, age, gender which keeps them alive all the year round. Indian is a diverse country and this diversity is reflected clearly in the market places. They hold the people together and promote harmony across cultures. Free access to these market places makes them magnets for social interaction. Public spaces are spread across a city and more or less have established their existence and prominence in a social set up. While few of them are created, others are discovered by the people themselves in their constant search for desirable interactive public spaces. These are the most sought after gathering spaces that have the quality of promoting social interaction, providing free accessibility, provide desirable scale etc. The paper aims at identifying these freely accessible public spaces and the dimensions within it that make these public spaces hold the people for significant duration of time. The dimensions present shall be judged through collective response of human senses in form of safety, comfort and so on through the expressions of the participants. The aim therefore would be to trace the freely accessible public spaces emerged in Indian markets and evaluate them for human response and behavior. The hierarchy of market places in the city of Bhopal is well established as, city center level, sub city-center level, community level, local and convenient level market places. While many city-centers are still referred to as the old or traditional or the core area of the city, the others are part of the planned city. These different levels of market places are studied for emerged public spaces. These emerged public spaces are then documented in detail for unveiling the dimensions they offer through, photographs, visual observations, questionnaires and response of the participants of these public spaces.

Keywords: human comfort, enclosure, safety, social interaction

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Authors: Yasaman Sanayei, Alireza Bahiraie

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This paper presents a systematic methodology based on the application of artificial neural networks for sequencing batch reactor (SBR). The SBR is a fill-and-draw biological wastewater technology, which is specially suited for nutrient removal. Employing reactive dye by Sphingomonas paucimobilis bacteria at sequence batch reactor is a novel approach of dye removal. The influent COD, MLVSS, and reaction time were selected as the process inputs and the effluent COD and BOD as the process outputs. The best possible result for the discrete pole parameter was a= 0.44. In orderto adjust the parameters of ANN, the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm was employed. The results predicted by the model were compared to the experimental data and showed a high correlation with R2> 0.99 and a low mean absolute error (MAE). The results from this study reveal that the developed model is accurate and efficacious in predicting COD and BOD parameters of the dye-containing wastewater treated by SBR. The proposed modeling approach can be applied to other industrial wastewater treatment systems to predict effluent characteristics. Note that SBR are normally operated with constant predefined duration of the stages, thus, resulting in low efficient operation. Data obtained from the on-line electronic sensors installed in the SBR and from the control quality laboratory analysis have been used to develop the optimal architecture of two different ANN. The results have shown that the developed models can be used as efficient and cost-effective predictive tools for the system analysed.

Keywords: artificial neural network, COD removal, SBR, Sphingomonas paucimobilis

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Authors: Feran Asur

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In cities, plants; with its visual and functional effects, it helps to provide balance between human and environmental system. It is possible to develop alternative solutions to eliminate visual pollution by evaluating the potential properties of plant materials with other inanimate materials such as color, texture, form, size, etc. characteristics and other inanimate materials such as highlighter, background forming, harmonizing and concealer. In cold climates, the number of ornamental plant species that grow in warmer climates is less. For this reason, especially in the landscaping works of urban spaces, it is difficult to create the desired visuality with aesthetically qualified plants that are suitable for the ecology of the area, without creating monotony, with color variety. In this study, the importance of plant and plant compositions in the solution of visual problems in urban environments in cold climatic conditions is emphasized. The potential of ornamental plants that can be used for this purpose in preventing visual pollution is given. It has been shown how to use prominent features of these ornamental plants such as size, form, texture, vegetation periods to improve visual landscape in urban spaces in a long time. In addition to the design group disciplines that have activity on planning or application basis in the city and its surroundings, landscape architecture discipline can provide visual improvement of the studies to be carried out in detail in terms of planting design.

Keywords: residential landscape, planting, urban space, visual improvement

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Authors: Li Guo, Jianhong Wang, Dian Huang, Shengzhong Feng

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Computing networks as a new network architecture has shown great promise in boosting the utilization of different resources, such as computing, caching, and communications. To maximise the efficiency of resource orchestration in computing network control systems (CNCSs), this work proposes a dynamic orchestration strategy of a different resource based on task requirements from computing power requestors (CPRs). Specifically, computing power providers (CPPs) in CNCSs could share information with each other through communication channels on the basis of blockchain technology, especially their current idle resources. This dynamic process is modeled as a cooperative game in which CPPs have the same target of maximising long-term rewards by improving the resource utilization ratio. Meanwhile, the task requirements from CPRs, including size, deadline, and calculation, are simultaneously considered in this paper. According to task requirements, the proposed orchestration strategy could schedule the best-fitting resource in CNCSs, achieving the maximum long-term rewards of CPPs and the best quality of experience (QoE) of CRRs at the same time. Based on the EdgeCloudSim simulation platform, the efficiency of the proposed strategy is achieved from both sides of CPRs and CPPs. Besides, experimental results show that the proposed strategy outperforms the other comparisons in all cases.

Keywords: computing network control systems, resource orchestration, dynamic scheduling, blockchain, cooperative game

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Authors: Hannah Evangeline Sangeetha

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Ageing is an inevitable change in the life span of an individual. India’s old age population has increased from 19 million in 1947 to 100 million in the 21st century. The United Nations World Population ageing reports that the grey population has immensely increased from 9.2% in 1990 to 11.7 % in 2013, and it’s expected to triple by the year 2050 growing from 737 million to over 2 billion persons 60 years of age and older. Ageing is a period of physical, mental and social decline which brings a host of challenges to the individual and the family. Hence it requires attention at the micro, mezzo and the macro levels of the society. The concepts of healthy and successful aging are being used to help people to change their negative attitude towards aging. This perspective is important to make people realize their potentialities to bring about a change in the minds of senior citizens as well as the society. The objective of this study was to understand the level of active ageing among the rural elderly women and its impact on the quality of life. 330 elderly women from 12 villages of Sriperumbudur associated with the Mobile medical care of Help age India were interviewed using census method. The study revealed the following findings; most respondents in this study were young old between the age group of 60 to 75 years. All the three major religious groups were represented, 85.5percent were Hindus. Majority of the respondents 73.3percent had no education. It was interesting to know that majority of the respondents were self reliant (83.94 percent) and 82.73 percent of them very independent and took care of them by themselves (activities of daily living) without any support from their families. 76.9 percent of the senior women worked based on their competencies, 75.5 percent of them were involved in plenty of activities everyday including their occupation and household chores, which enabled them to be physically active. The chi square values that there is a significant association between the overall active ageing score, religion &number of members in the family. The other demographic variables like age, occupation, income marital status, age at marriage, number of children in the family and Socio –Economic Status were not significantly associated with the overall active aging score. The p-value 0.032 showed Social network and being self-reliant are significantly associated. The study surprisingly shows that most women enjoyed freedom and Independence in their family which is a positive indicator of active ageing.

Keywords: active ageing, quality of life, independence, self reliance

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Authors: Excellent Hansda

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Over the past years, a lot of research has been on the ethnic enclaves from historical, sociological and economic point of view. However there exist a research gap in the built environment and spatial layout of these areas. When immigrants (People) assimilate in a different place, they struggle to preserve their original identity to maintain their heritage. Then there is the Place, which is the physical manifestation of the heritage, shown through streetscape and architecture. Together 'People and Place' form a relationship with the authenticity of the enclave. As immigrants come in the host country, they try to bring their culture into the place, but at the same time, the culture of the host country also affects the immigrants. This creates conflicts not only in the lifestyle and culture of the immigrants, but also the built characteristics of the place. In the midst of such conflicts, one may easily question the authenticity of an ethnic enclave. In Malaysia, a number of ethnic enclaves emerged due to trade during the medieval times. Little India is one among the other ethnic enclaves present in Chulia Street in Malaysia. The study investigates the factors of 'Place and People', affecting the authenticity of a little India, in the context of an evolving state of Penang in Malaysia. The study is carried through extensive literature review of existing data, followed by observations drawn by visual analysis, discussions and interviews with the stakeholders of the study area. The findings of this research suggest the contribution of 'people and places' in the process of place making in an ethnic enclave. The findings are essential for conservation and further development of ethnic enclaves.

Keywords: conservation, ethnic enclaves, heritage, identity

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Authors: Seyed Esmail Seyedi Bariran, Khairul Salleh Mohamed Sahari

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In multi-echelon supply chain networks, optimal supplier selection significantly depends on the accuracy of suppliers’ performance prediction. Different methods of multi criteria decision making such as ANN, GA, Fuzzy, AHP, etc have been previously used to predict the supplier performance but the “black-box” characteristic of these methods is yet a major concern to be resolved. Therefore, the primary objective in this paper is to implement an artificial intelligence-based gene expression programming (GEP) model to compare the prediction accuracy with that of ANN. A full factorial design with %95 confidence interval is initially applied to determine the appropriate set of criteria for supplier performance evaluation. A test-train approach is then utilized for the ANN and GEP exclusively. The training results are used to find the optimal network architecture and the testing data will determine the prediction accuracy of each method based on measures of root mean square error (RMSE) and correlation coefficient (R2). The results of a case study conducted in Supplying Automotive Parts Co. (SAPCO) with more than 100 local and foreign supply chain members revealed that, in comparison with ANN, gene expression programming has a significant preference in predicting supplier performance by referring to the respective RMSE and R-squared values. Moreover, using GEP, a mathematical function was also derived to solve the issue of ANN black-box structure in modeling the performance prediction.

Keywords: Supplier Performance Prediction, ANN, GEP, Automotive, SAPCO

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Authors: H. Solomon, A. Abdul-Latif, R. Baleh, I. Deiab, K. Khanafer

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Aluminum foams were developed and tested due to their high energy absorption abilities for multifunctional applications. The aim of this research work was to investigate experimentally the effect of quasi-static biaxial loading complexity (combined compression-torsion) on the energy absorption capacity of highly uniform architecture open-cell aluminum foam manufactured by kelvin cell model. The two generated aluminum foams have 80% and 85% porosities, spherical-shaped pores having 11mm in diameter. These foams were tested by means of several square-section specimens. A patented rig called ACTP (Absorption par Compression-Torsion Plastique), was used to investigate the foam response under quasi-static complex loading paths having different torsional components (i.e., 0°, 37° and 53°). The main mechanical responses of the aluminum foams were studied under simple, intermediate and severe loading conditions. In fact, the key responses to be examined were stress plateau and energy absorption capacity of the two foams with respect to loading complexity. It was concluded that the higher the loading complexity and the higher the relative density, the greater the energy absorption capacity of the foam. The highest energy absorption was thus recorded under the most complicated loading path (i.e., biaxial-53°) for the denser foam (i.e., 80% porosity).

Keywords: open-cell aluminum foams, biaxial loading complexity, foams porosity, energy absorption capacity, characterization

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Authors: Syed Ahsan, Saleh Alshomrani, Ishtiaq Rasool, Ali Hassan

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In this oral presentation, we will provide an overview of the technical and semantic architecture of a desert border security and critical infrastructure protection security system. Modern border security systems are designed to reduce the dependability and intrusion of human operators. To achieve this, different types of sensors are use along with video surveillance technologies. Application of these technologies in a harsh desert environment of Saudi Arabia poses unique challenges. Environmental and geographical factors including high temperatures, desert storms, temperature variations and remoteness adversely affect the reliability of surveillance systems. To successfully implement a reliable, effective system in a harsh desert environment, the following must be achieved: i) Selection of technology including sensors, video cameras, and communication infrastructure that suit desert environments. ii) Reduced power consumption and efficient usage of equipment to increase the battery life of the equipment. iii) A reliable and robust communication network with efficient usage of bandwidth. Also, to reduce the expert bottleneck, an ontology-based intelligent information systems needs to be developed. Domain knowledge unique and peculiar to Saudi Arabia needs to be formalized to develop an expert system that can detect abnormal activities and any intrusion.

Keywords: border security, sensors, abnormal activity detection, ontologies

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Authors: Alessandra Marino

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This paper thoroughly investigates the design characteristics necessary for intergenerational living and evaluates their applicability within the Italian social panorama in order to identify a model that can serve as a reference for subsequent regulatory adjustments of a new building typology. The applied methodology involves the collaboration of people with various background and architects, all representing the three main ages of life - childhood or youth, adulthood, seniority - through questionnaires aimed at researching the peculiar characteristics that contemporary intergenerational housing should include; the questionnaires are then compared with each other in order to identify any recurring patterns by age group and/or influenced by the specialist knowledge on the subject of the architects compared to the rest of the user sample. The results indicate that among specialist users in the field of architecture, young students identify home automation as the key to the inclusion of the weakest groups within the building, adult architects believe that the identification of intergenerational/community services within the building is the cornerstone, and senior architects focus on widespread spatial accessibility. At the same time, the results among non-specialist users do not identify a significantly diversified model by age group but are generally in agreement in the importance of separation between private environments and collective spaces. The interpretation of the results obtained leads to a compositional study of a new building typology with the future objective of channeling the subsequent outcomes within the regulatory adjustments of the sector.

Keywords: intergenerational living, social sustainability, health, lifestyle, well-being

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Authors: M. Devaki, K. B. Jayanthi

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The identification of water bodies from satellite images has recently received a great deal of attention. Different methods have been developed to distinguish water bodies from various satellite images that vary in terms of time and space. Urban water identification issues body manifests in numerous applications with a great deal of certainty. There has been a sharp rise in the usage of satellite images to map natural resources, including urban water bodies and forests, during the past several years. This is because water and forest resources depend on each other so heavily that ongoing monitoring of both is essential to their sustainable management. The relevant elements from satellite pictures have been chosen using a variety of techniques, including machine learning. Then, a convolution neural network (CNN) architecture is created that can identify a superpixel as either one of two classes, one that includes water or doesn't from input data in a complex metropolitan scene. The deep learning technique, CNN, has advanced tremendously in a variety of visual-related tasks. CNN can improve classification performance by reducing the spectral-spatial regularities of the input data and extracting deep features hierarchically from raw pictures. Calculate the water body using the satellite image's resolution. Experimental results demonstrate that the suggested method outperformed conventional approaches in terms of water extraction accuracy from remote-sensing images, with an average overall accuracy of 97%.

Keywords: water body, Deep learning, satellite images, convolution neural network

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Authors: N. Türkmenoğlu Bayraktar, E. Kishalı

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Campus buildings are educational facilities where various amount of energy consumption for lighting, heating, cooling and ventilation occurs. Some of the new universities in Turkey, where this investigation takes place, still continue their educational activities in existing buildings primarily designed for different architectural programs and converted to campus buildings via changes of function, space organizations and structural interventions but most of the time without consideration of appropriate micro climatic conditions. Reducing energy consumption in these structures not only contributes to the national economy but also mitigates the negative effects on environment. Furthermore, optimum thermal comfort conditions should be provided during the refurbishment of existing campus structures and their building envelope. Considering this issue, the first step is to investigate the climatic performance of building elements regarding refurbishment process. In the context of the study Kocaeli University, Faculty of Design and Architecture building constructed in 1980s in Anıtpark campus located in the central part of Kocaeli, Turkey was investigated. Climatic factors influencing thermal conditions; the deteriorations on building envelope; temperature distribution; heat losses from façade elements observed by thermography were presented in order to improve strategies for retrofit process for the building envelope. Within the scope of the survey, refurbishment strategies towards providing optimum climatic comfort conditions, increasing energy efficiency of building envelope were proposed.

Keywords: building envelope, IRT, refurbishment, non-destructive test

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Authors: Rene Davids

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Urban undergrounds spaces such as parking garages or metro stations are perceived as interludes before reaching desired destinations, as commodities devoid of aesthetic value. Within the encoded space of the city, commercial underground spaces are the closest expression to pure to structures of consumption and commodity. Even in the house, the cellar is associated with castoffs and waste or, as scholar Mircea Eliade has pointed out at best, with a place to store abandoned household and childhood objects, which lie forgotten and on rediscovery evoke a nostalgic and uncanny sense of the past. Despite a growing body of evidence presented by an increasing number of buildings situated entirely below or semi underground that feature exemplary spatial and sensuous qualities, critics and scholars see them largely as efforts to produce efforts in producing low consumption non-renewable energy. Buildings that also free space above ground. This critical approach neglects to mention and highlight other project drivers such as the notion that the ground and sky can be considered a building’s fundamental context, that underground spaces are conducive to the exploration of pure space, namely an architecture that doesn’t have to deal with facades and or external volumes and that digging into geology can inspire the textural and spatial richness. This paper will argue that while the assessment about the reduced energy consumption of underground construction is important, it does not do justice to the qualities underground buildings can contribute to a city’s expanded urban and or landscape experiences.

Keywords: low non-renewable energy consumption, pure space, underground buildings, urban and landscape experience

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Authors: Elvis Enowbeyang Tarkang

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Background: Since students in high schools in Cameroon fall within the age group hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, it is assumed that these students might be exposed to sexual risk behaviours. Sexual risk behaviours include engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse, early sexual debut, multiple sexual partners and coerced or forced sex, and these behaviours might predispose youth to HIV transmission. However, little has been explored on the sexual risk behaviours of high school learners in Cameroon. This study aimed at examining the sexual risk behaviours of high school students in an urban town of Cameroon. Method: A quantitative cross sectional design was adopted, using a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from a disproportional stratified simple random sample of 480 (240 male and 240 female) grade 10 to grade 12 students from two participating secondary school in Limbe in the Southwest region of Cameroon August 2014. Descriptive and Chi square statistics were calculated using statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software program at the level 0.05. Results: Majority of the respondents, 63.4% reported being sexually active, of whom only 33.2% used condoms consistently. Up to 37% of the sexually active respondents had multiple sexual partners in the past one year before the study, while 23% had multiple sexual partners during the study period. The mean age of first sex was 15.4 years. Among Christians, Pentecostals, 17 (58.6%) were more likely to have experienced sexual coercion than non-Pentecostals, 111 (42.2%) (p= 0.000). Christians, 41 (10.3%) were more likely to have been forced into first sex than Muslims, 0 (0.0%); while among the Christians, Pentecostals, 6 (15.0%) were more likely to have been forced into first sex than non-Pentecostals, 35 (10.9%) (p=0.004). Among the Christians, Pentecostals, 16 (66.7%) were more likely to have experienced sex by age 16 years than non-Pentecostals, 125 (64.1%) (p= 0.000). Students who lived in rented places, 32 (22.7%) were more likely to have had multiple sexual partners than those who lived in their parents’ houses, 35 (18.1%) (p= 0.000). Males, 36 (16.0%) were likely to have had multiple concurrent sexual partners than females, 14 (6.0%) (p=0.002). Students who used condoms consistently, 25 (33.3%) were more likely to have a higher perception of risk of contracting HIV than those who did not use condoms consistently, 38 (29.9%) (p=0.002). Students who lived in their parents’ houses, 35 (35.4%) were more likely to use condoms consistently during sex, than those who lived in rented places, 31 (29.8%) (p=0.021). Students who passed their examinations, 57 (30.9%) were more likely to have used condoms consistently than those with low academic profiles, 24 (27.9%) (p= 0.034). Conclusions and Recommendations: Gender, lack of parental control, religion, academic profile, poverty, place of residence and perception of risk of HIV infection were the main factors associated with sexual risk behaviours among students in urban Cameroon. The findings indicate that sexual risk behaviours exist among high school students in Limbe urban town of Cameroon. There is need for campaigns and interventions to bring about sexual behaviour change.

Keywords: Cameroon, high school students, HIV/AIDS, Limbe urban town, sexual risk behaviours

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Authors: Mina Sarabi, Dariush Sattarzadeh, Mitra Asadollahi Oula

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In the old days, gardens reflect the identity and culture of each country. Persian garden in urban planning and architecture has a high position and it is a kind of paradise in Iranian opinion. But nowadays, the gardens were replaced with parks and urban open spaces. On the other hand, due to the industrial development of cities and increasing air pollution in urban environments, living in this spaces make problem for people. And improving ecological conditions will be felt more than ever. The purposes of this study are identification and reproduction of Persian garden pattern and adaptation of it with sustainability features in green spaces in contemporary cities and developing meaningful green spaces instead of designing aimless spaces in urban environment. The research method in this article is analytical and descriptive. Studying and collecting information about Iranian garden pattern is referring to library documents, articles and analysis case studies. The result reveals that Persian garden was the main factor the bond between man and nature. But in the last century, this relationship is in trouble. It has a significant impact in reducing the adverse effects of urban air pollution, noise and etc as well. Nowadays, recreated pattern of Iranian gardens in urban green spaces not only keep Iranian identity for future generations but also, using the principles of sustainability can play an important role in sustainable development and quality space of a city.

Keywords: green open spaces, nature, Persian garden, urban sustainability

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Authors: Moyahabo Molefe

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The persistence of HIV/AIDS infection rates in SA has not only been a subject of academic debate but a mediated narrative that has dominated SA’s post-apartheid film space over the last two decades. SA’s colonial geo-spatial architecture still influences migrant labour patterns, which the Oscar-nominated (2003) SA film ‘Yesterday’ has erstwhile reflected upon, yet continues to account for the spread of HIV/AIDS in SA society. Accordingly, men who had left their homes in the rural areas to work in the mines in the cities become infected with HIV/AIDS, only to return home to infect their wives or partners in the rural areas. This paper analyses, through Social Semiotic theory, how SA geo-spatial arrangement had raptured family structures with both men and women taking new residences in the urban areas where they work away from their homes. By using Social semiotic theory, this paper seeks to understand how images and discourses have been deployed in the film ‘Yesterday’ to demonstrate how HIV/AIDS is embedded in the socio-cultural, economic and political architect of SA society. The study uses qualitative approach and content/text/visual semiotic analysis to decipher meanings from array of imagery and discourses/dialogues that are used to mythologise the relationship between the spread of HIV/AIDS and SA migrant labour patterns. The findings of the study are significant to propose a conceptual framework that can be used to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS among SA populace, against the backdrop of changing migrant labour patterns and other related factors

Keywords: colonialism, decoloniality, HIV/AIDS, labour migration patterns, social semiotics

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Authors: Davood Mousanezhad, Ashkan Vaziri

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As a traditional cellular structure, hexagonal honeycombs are known for their high strength-to-weight ratio. Here, we introduce a class of fractal-appearing hierarchical metamaterials by replacing the vertices of the original non-hierarchical hexagonal grid with smaller hexagons and iterating this process to achieve higher levels of hierarchy. It has been recently shown that the isotropic in-plane Young's modulus of this hierarchical structure at small deformations becomes 25 times greater than its regular counterpart with the same mass. At large deformations, we find that hierarchy-dependent elastic buckling introduced at relatively early stages of deformation decreases the value of Poisson's ratio as the structure is compressed uniaxially leading to auxeticity (i.e., negative Poisson's ratio) in subsequent stages of deformation. We also show that the topological hierarchical architecture and instability-induced pattern transformations of the structure under compression can be effectively used to tune the propagation of elastic waves within the structure. We find that the hierarchy tends to shift the existing phononic bandgaps (defined as frequency ranges of strong wave attenuation) to lower frequencies while opening up new bandgaps. Deformation is also demonstrated as another mechanism for opening more bandgaps in hierarchical structures. The results provide new insights into the role of structural organization and hierarchy in regulating mechanical properties of materials at both the static and dynamic regimes.

Keywords: cellular structures, honeycombs, hierarchical structures, metamaterials, multifunctional structures, phononic crystals, auxetic structures

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Authors: Kai Zhang

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Transformation under the reconfiguration of urban-rural relation in Liuzhou city has never been as radical and visible as it has been since the tremendous turn of the last century in China. Huanjiang village is located in Linhuashan Scenic Area in the middle east of Liuzhou city, with spectacular landscape and traditional features. Nowadays Huanjiang village has become a so-called "village in city", which is considered full of great potential for development because of the economic value of regional advantages during the urban sprawl. Communities of village found it difficult to acclimatize with the dramatic changes, which later led to numerous problems including ecological damage, unemployment of landless farmers and loss of traditional culture. Government has started up a series of renewal planings to resolve the problems, which are based on advanced technology and conform to sustainable and integrated strategies of city planning considering the original context and historical culture, superseding the traditional arrangements based on the guide of extensive economic growth. This paper aims to elaborate the context of Liuzhou city and Huanjiang village offered to both the traditional and sustainable planning approaches, in order to understand challenges and solutions of the rebuilding process. Through the analysis of the place relevant to architecture, society and culture, it will establish the corresponding systematic strategies. Considering the local features, it concludes with a comprehensive perspective on organic renewal in the case of Huanjiang village.

Keywords: China, Liuzhou, sustainable strategy, urban renewal, village in city

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Authors: Luz-Marina Roberts, Ancil Kirk, Aisha Donaldson, Anya Seepaul, Jade Lakhan, Shianna Tikasingh

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Climate change has produced a crisis that particularly threatens small island states in the Caribbean. Developers and climate enthusiasts alike are now forced to find new and sustainable ways of building. Focus on existing buildings is particularly needed in Trinidad and Tobago, like other islands, especially as these countries are vulnerable to climate threats and geographic locations with close proximity to a hurricane. Additionally, since many colonial-era style buildings still exist, the idea that they are energy inefficient is at the forefront of the work of policy-makers. The question that remains is can these buildings be retrofitted to reflect the modern era while considering climate resilience. This paper aims to investigate the energy efficiency of colonial-era buildings in Port of Spain and whether these buildings in Trinidad and Tobago, if found to be energy inefficient, can be more energy efficient and sustainable. This involves collecting surveys from building management in colonial-era buildings and researching literature on colonial architecture in the Caribbean and modern innovations in green building designs. Additionally, the data and experiences from the Town and Country Planning Division in the Ministry of Planning and Development of Trinidad and Tobago will inform the paper. This research will aid in re-envisioning how green infrastructure can be applied to urban environments with older buildings and help inform planning policy as it relates to sustainability and energy efficiency.

Keywords: spatial planning, climate resilience, energy efficiency, sustainable development

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Authors: Ali Almadan, Anoop Krishnan, Ajita Rattani

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Facial recognition is a widely adopted technology in surveillance, border control, healthcare, banking services, and lately, in mobile user authentication with Apple introducing “Face ID” moniker with iPhone X. A lot of research has been conducted in the area of face recognition on datasets captured by surveillance cameras, DSLR, and mobile devices. Recently, face recognition technology has also been deployed on body-worn cameras to keep officers safe, enabling situational awareness and providing evidence for trial. However, limited academic research has been conducted on this topic so far, without the availability of any publicly available datasets with a sufficient sample size. This paper aims to advance research in the area of face recognition using body-worn cameras. To this aim, the contribution of this work is two-fold: (1) collection of a dataset consisting of a total of 136,939 facial images of 102 subjects captured using body-worn cameras in in-door and daylight conditions and (2) evaluation of various deep-learning architectures for face identification on the collected dataset. Experimental results suggest a maximum True Positive Rate(TPR) of 99.86% at False Positive Rate(FPR) of 0.000 obtained by SphereFace based deep learning architecture in daylight condition. The collected dataset and the baseline algorithms will promote further research and development. A downloadable link of the dataset and the algorithms is available by contacting the authors.

Keywords: face recognition, body-worn cameras, deep learning, person identification

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Authors: Mary Anthony Oguike, Ilouno, Amaduruonye

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A completely randomized design experiment with 3 treatments was conducted to study the effects of garlic on intestine characteristics, haematology and serum biochemistry of Marshal broilers. Thirty three (33) broiler chicks were randomly allotted to each treatment designated T1, T2 and T3. The birds in each treatment were replicated 3 times with 11 broilers per replicate. They were fed diets supplemented with garlic at 0, 1.5 and 2.5 % /kg feed for t1, T2 and T3, respectively with T1 as control. Data were collected on intestine parameters, serum biochemical parameters and haematological indices. The results showed significant (P>0.05) dose-dependent decrease in intestine weight and caeca microbial load of the broilers. The intestine of broilers in the treatments showed normal histological architecture in all the treatments. The red blood cell (RBC), white blood cell (WBC), haemoglobin (Hb) and other haematological indices showed no significant differences (P<0.05) among the treatments. Cholesterol, globulin, glucose and alanin aminotransferase (ALT) were significantly different (P<0.05) among the treatment groups. Serum biochemical parameters such as, total protein albumin, bilirubin and others were not significant among the treatments. All the blood parameters studied fall within the normal range for broilers. Garlic supplementation in the diets of broilers did not have any detrimental effects on the treated birds since their serum biochemistry and haematology fall within the normal range for broilers birds. The microbial examination of intestine and caeca, as well as the histopathological studies of the intestine confirmed antimicrobial properties of garlic.

Keywords: broiler, biochemistry and haematology, garlic, intestine

Procedia PDF Downloads 96

Authors: Ruben L. Tagare, Jr

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This study was conducted to determine the parents’ motivating factors for their deaf and mute children to participate in physical and recreational activities. Data were collected from the 17 parents of the deaf and mute children using a specifically designed survey questionnaire as the primary instrument used in the study. Data analysis and interpretation were done with the aid of descriptive statistics, such as frequency, percentage, weighted mean and multiple responses. Most of the respondents were female with a mean average age of 38 years old. The average age of their children was 10 years old. In terms of monthly income, the respondents had an average monthly income of PhP 13,945. Furthermore, most of the respondents lived in the urban area and were all Catholic by faith or religion. As to the factors that parents used to motivate their deaf and mute children to engage in physical and recreational activities, these included the followings: First; to make my child experience and explore more meaningful things through physical and recreational activities; second; to gain other’s respect; third; to build friendship and interact with his peers; fourth; to experience the feeling of belongingness; and fifth: to learn and discover new things. On the other hand, the least chosen factors were: first; to help achieve and maintain a healthy weight; second; to reduce fats and lowering blood pressure; third; to improve balance, coordination and strength; fourth; to improve posture; and fifth; to assist the child in the development of gross motor and fine motor skills. Based on the findings of the study, it is hereby recommended that since the first factor is 'to make my child experience and explore more meaningful things through physical and recreational activities' and the other top factors are more on social aspect, the school should design extra-curricular activities such as theatrical play and other similar activities that the students will find interesting while the parents will be more motivated to engage their children into physical and recreational activities. Also, since the least chosen factors are more on physical aspect, the school should organize or conduct a seminar for the parents to be aware of the benefits of participating in physical and recreational activities for their deaf and mute children. They can also conduct an information campaign to encourage the other parents of deaf and mute children, whom they keep only inside their home to enroll in the school and let their children be exposed to the natural world. Considering that parents are the primary motivators that can best help their children become more interested in physical and recreational activities for their own development, the school should always remain motivated by creating activities for the deaf and mute children with their parents. The study also recommends conducting further study on the level of knowledge/understanding of the parents on the benefits that can be derived from participating in physical and recreational activities.

Keywords: deaf and mute, participation, physical and recreational activities, adaptive PE

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Authors: Kristen Erekson, Sarah Spendlove Caswell

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Nurse educators have the challenge of training future nurses that will provide compassionate care to an increasingly diverse population of patients in a culturally sensitive way. One approach to this challenge is an immersive public and global health experience as part of the nursing program curriculum. Undergraduate nursing students at our institution are required to participate in a Public and Global Health course. They participate in a didactic preparatory course followed by a 3-to-4-week program in one of the following locations: The Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland/Poland, Ghana, India, Spain, Taiwan, Tonga, an Honor Flight to Washington D.C. with Veterans, or in local (Utah) communities working with marginalized populations (including incarcerated individuals, refugees, etc.). The students are required to complete 84 clinical hours and 84 culture hours (which involve exposure to local history, art, architecture, customs, etc.). As Faculty, we feel strongly that these public and global health experiences help cultivate cultural awareness in our students and prepare nurses who are better prepared to serve a diverse population of patients throughout their careers. This presentation will highlight our experiences and provide ideas for other nurse educators who have an interest in developing similar programs in their schools but do not know where to start. Suggestions about how to start building relationships that can lead to these opportunities, along with logistics for continuing the programs, will be highlighted.

Keywords: global health nursing, nursing education, clinical education, public health nursing

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Authors: Noor Ismael, Somaya Malkawi, Sherin Al Awady, Taleb Ismael

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Background/Significance: Cancer is a serious health condition that affects individuals’ quality of life during and after the course of this condition. Children who have survived cancer and their caregivers may deal with residual physical, cognitive or social disabilities. There is little research on caregivers’ health and wellbeing after cancer. To the authors’ best knowledge; there is no specific research about how caregivers cope with everyday stressors after cancer. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the coping strategies that caregivers of children who have survived cancer utilize to overcome everyday stressors. Methods: This study utilized a descriptive survey design. The sample consisted of 103 caregivers, who visited the health and wellness clinic at a national cancer center (additional demographics are presented in the results). The sample included caregivers of children who were off cancer treatments for at least two years from the beginning of data collection. The institution’s internal review board approved this study. Caregivers who agreed to participate completed the survey. The survey collected caregiver reported demographic information and the Brief COPE which measures caregivers' frequency of engaging in certain coping strategies. The Brief COPE consisted of 14 coping sub-scales, which are self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance use, use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, behavioral disengagement, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame. Data analyses included calculating sub-scales’ scores for the fourteen coping strategies and analysis of frequencies of demographics and coping strategies. Results: The 103 caregivers who participated in this study were 62% mothers, 80% married, 45% finished high school, 50% do not work outside the house, and 60% have low family income. Result showed that religious coping (66%) and acceptance (60%) were the most utilized coping strategies, followed by positive reframing (45%), active coping (44%) and planning (43%). The least utilized coping strategies in our sample were humor (5%), behavioral disengagement (8%), and substance-use (10%). Conclusions: Caregivers of children who have survived cancer mostly utilize religious coping and acceptance in dealing with everyday stressors. Because these coping strategies do not directly solve stressors like active coping and planning coping strategies, it is important to support caregivers in choosing and implementing effective coping strategies. Knowing from our results that some caregivers may utilize substance use as a coping strategy, which has negative health effects on caregivers and their children, there must be direct interventions that target these caregivers and their families.

Keywords: caregivers, cancer, stress, coping

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Authors: O. Adjroud

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The present study was conducted to investigate the interaction between selenium (Se) and chloride nickel (NiCl2) on energy profiles in Wistar albino preimplanted rats. NiCl2 was given on day 3 of pregnancy either in distilled drinking water at a dose of 20 mg/L/day for 16 consecutive days or as a single subcutaneous (s.c.) dose of 25, 50, or 100 mg/kg. Se was given as a s.c. injection (0.3 mg/kg) together with the higher dose (100 mg/kg) of NiCl2. Changes in energy profiles were evaluated in treated and control groups on days 5 and 20 of gestation. NiCl2 s.c. induced a significant increase in plasma glucose on day 20 of pregnancy. NiCl2 s.c. induced on day 5 and 20 of gestation a significant decrease in plasma triglycerides, with the higher dose. This decrease was maintained at day 20 of gestation with doses of 50 mg /kg. In addition, NiCl2 s.c. caused on day 5 of gestation a significant decrease in plasma total cholesterol with the low and medium doses. The pretreatment with Se reversed the effects of NiCl2 on plasma glucose, total cholesterol and triglycerides levels. NiCl2 administered in the drinking water augmented significantly the plasma triglycerides and total cholesterol levels and slighty the plasma glucose on day 20 of gestation, while on day 5 of gestation NiCl2 s.c. Induced a significant decrease in cholesterol. Three doses of NiCl2 (sc) induced severe alterations in liver and architecture which are markedly improved by Selenium. These results suggested that selenium has protective effects on energy profiles against the toxicity induced by NiCl2 administered subcutaneously in preimplanted rats.

Keywords: hepatotoxicity, nickel chloride, preimplanted rat, biochemical parameters

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Authors: Malik Imtiaz Ahmad

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Human beings are the super organism granted the gift of consciousness of life by the Almighty God and endowed with an intrinsic legal value to their humanity that shall be guarded and protected respecting dignity regardless of your cultural, religious, race, or physical background; you want to be treated equally for a reason for being human. Islam graces the essential integrity of humanity and confirms the freedom and accountability impact on individuality and the open societal sphere, including the moral, economic, and political aspects. Human Rights allow people to live with dignity, equality, justice, freedom, and peace. The Kantian approach to morality expresses that ethical actions follow universal moral laws. Hence, human rights are based upon the normative approaches setting the international standards to promote, guard, and protect the fundamental rights of the people. Islam is a divine religion commanding human rights based upon the principles of social justice and regulates all facets of the moral and spiritual ethics of Muslims besides bringing balance abreast in the non-Muslims to respect their lives with safety and security and property. The Canon law manifests the faith and equality amongst Christianity, regulating the communal dignity to build and promote the sanctity of Holy life (can. 208 to 223). This concept of the community is developed after the insight of the Islamic 'canon law', which is the code of revelation itself and inseparable from the natural part of the salvation of mankind. The etymology and history of human rights is a polemical debate in a preview of Islamic and Western culture. On the other hand, international law is meticulous about the fundamental part of Conon law that focuses on the communal political, social and economic relationship. The evolving process of human rights is considered to be an exclusive universal thought regarding an open society that forms a legal base for the constituent of international instruments of the protection of Human Rights, viz. UDHR. On the other side, Muslim scholars emphasize that human rights are devolving around Islamic law. Both traditions need a dire explanation of contemporary openness for bringing the harmonious universal law acceptable and applicable to the international communities concerning the anthropology of political, economic, and social aspects of a human being.

Keywords: human rights-based approach (HRBA), human rights in Islam, evolution of universal human rights, conflict in western, Islamic human rights

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Authors: Matthew Kostawich, Mohammed Elmorsy, Mohamed Sayed Sifat, Shoukry Shams, Mahmoud Elsaadany

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6G communication systems represent the nominal future extension of current wireless technology, where its impact is extended to touch upon all human activities, including medical, security, and entertainment applications. As a result, human needs are allocated among the highest priority aspects of the system design and requirements. 6G communications is expected to replace all the current video conferencing with interactive virtual reality meetings involving high data-rate transmission merged with massive distributed computing resources. In addition, the current expansion of IoT applications must be mitigated with significant network changes to provide a reasonable Quality of Service (QoS). This directly implies a high demand for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through mobile computing modules in future wireless communication systems. This article proposes the utilization of a Printed Ridge Gap Waveguide (PRGW) to host the wearable nodes. To the best of our knowledge, we propose for the first time a physical layer analysis within the context of a complete architecture. A thorough study is provided on the impact of the distortion of the guiding structure on the overall system performance. The proposed structure shows small latency and small losses, highlighting its compatibility with future applications.

Keywords: ridge gap waveguide, edge computing module, 6G, multimedia IoT applications

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Authors: Timo Avikainen, Tuukka Verho

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The use of natural fibers as reinforcements is growing increasingly in polymers which are involved in e.g. structural, vibration, and acoustic applications. The use of bio composites is being investigated as lightweight materials with specific properties like the ability to dissipate vibration energy and positive environmental profile and are thus considered as potential replacements for synthetic composites. The macro-level mechanical properties of the biocomposite material depend on several parameters in the detailed architecture and morphology of the reinforcing fiber structure. The polymer matrix phase is often applied to remain the fiber structure in touch. A big role in the packaging details of the fibers is related to the used manufacturing processes like extrusion, injection molding and treatments. There are typically big variances in the detailed parameters of the microstructure fibers. The study addressed the question of how the multiscale simulation methodology works in bio composites with short pulp fibers. The target is to see how the vibro – acoustic performance of thin–walled panels can be controlled by the detailed characteristics of the fiber material. Panels can be used in sound-producing speakers or sound insulation applications. The multiscale analysis chain is tested starting from the microstructural level and continuing via macrostructural material parameters to the product component part/assembly levels. Another application is the dynamic impact type of loading, exposing the material to the crack type damages that is in this study modeled as the Charpy impact tests.

Keywords: bio composite, pulp fiber, vibration, acoustics, impact, FEM

Procedia PDF Downloads 82