Search results for: time dependent

Authors: Djehich Mohamed Yousri

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The field of political science is one of the sciences in which there is much controversy, in terms of the multiplicity of schools, trends, and goals. This overlap and complexity in the interpretation of the political phenomenon in political science has been linked to other disciplines associated with it, and the science of international relations and the huge amount of theories that have found a wide range and a decisive position after the national tide in the history of Western political thought, especially after the Westphalia Conference 1648, and as a result was approved The new foundations of international politics, the most important of which is respect for state sovereignty. Historical events continued and coincided with scientific, intellectual, and economic developments following the emergence of the industrial revolution, followed by the technological revolutions in all their contents, which led to the rooting and establishment of a comprehensive political system that is more complex and overlapping than it was in the past during the First and Second World Wars. The international situation has become dependent on the digital revolution and its aspirations in The comprehensive transformation witnessed by international political relations after the Cold War.

Keywords: theorizing, international relations, approaches to international relations, political science, the political system

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Authors: R. Tlili Yaakoubi, H.Nakouri, O. Blanpain, S. Lallahem

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The current tools for real time management of sewer systems are based on two software tools: the software of weather forecast and the software of hydraulic simulation. The use of the first ones is an important cause of imprecision and uncertainty, the use of the second requires temporal important steps of decision because of their need in times of calculation. This way of proceeding fact that the obtained results are generally different from those waited. The major idea of this project is to change the basic paradigm by approaching the problem by the "automatic" face rather than by that "hydrology". The objective is to make possible the realization of a large number of simulations at very short times (a few seconds) allowing to take place weather forecasts by using directly the real time meditative pluviometric data. The aim is to reach a system where the decision-making is realized from reliable data and where the correction of the error is permanent. A first model of control laws was realized and tested with different return-period rainfalls. The gains obtained in rejecting volume vary from 19 to 100 %. The development of a new algorithm was then used to optimize calculation time and thus to overcome the subsequent combinatorial problem in our first approach. Finally, this new algorithm was tested with 16- year-rainfall series. The obtained gains are 40 % of total volume rejected to the natural environment and of 65 % in the number of discharges.

Keywords: automation, optimization, paradigm, RTC

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Authors: Karima Kharroub, Mohamed Amine Gomri, Mercedes Monteoliva-Sanchez

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Sabkhas and chotts are examples of hypersaline environments inhabited by halophilic microorganisms. In the present study, a culture-dependent methodology was used to determine the archaeal diversity present within Ezzemoul sabkha located in the north-eastern of Algeria. It was assessed using different media with different substrates in attempt to initiate the growth of wide spectrum of halophiles. Several strains were isolated and subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic characterization. The isolates tested placed within the family Halobacteriaceae, a group of extremely halophilic, aerobic archaea that have a salinity tolerance of 3 to 4M and associated with six genera Halorubrum, Halobacterium, Haloterrigena, Haloferax, Halomicrobium and Haloarcula. Halorubrum species were found to be the dominant archaea community as indicated by the presence of different strains recovered from this sabkha. In the other hand, two new species within Halobacteriaceae family; Halorubrum ezzemolulense sp. nov. and Halomicrobium katesii sp. nov. were described.

Keywords: sabkha, archaea, halophilic, hypersaline environments

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Authors: Sara Kakuk

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Pedagogy has always been open to other disciplines that reflect about the educational process (philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology, technology, etc.). Its interdisciplinary openness puts education, as the subject of pedagogy within a broader context of the community, enabling the knowledge of other disciplines to contribute to a better understanding of the fundamental pedagogical notion of education. The purpose of pedagogy as a science serves humans, strives towards humans, must be for humans, and this is its ultimate goal. Humans are essentially dependent on education, which is also considered as a category of humans’ being, because through education an entire world develops in humans. Anthropological assumptions of humans as "deficient beings" see the solution in education, but they also indicate a wealth of shortcomings, because they provide an opportunity for enrichment and formation of culture, living and the self. In that context, this paper illustrates the determination of pedagogy through an anthropological conception of humans and the phenomenon of education. It presents a review of anthropological ideas about education, by providing an analysis of relevant literature dealing with the anthropological notion of humans, which provides fruitful conditions for a pedagogical reconsideration of education.

Keywords: pedagogy, education, humans, anthropology, culture

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Authors: Saikat Majumdar, D. C. Kalita

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The Agriculture sector plays an important role in the rural economy of India. It is the backbone of our Indian economy and is the dominant sector in terms of employment and livelihood. Agriculture still contributes significantly to export earnings and is an important source of raw materials as well as of demand for many industrial products particularly fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural implements and a variety of consumer goods, etc. The performance of the agricultural sector influences the growth of Indian economy. According to the 2011 Agricultural Census of India, an estimated 61.5 percentage of rural populations are dependent on agriculture. Proper Agricultural infrastructure has the potential to transform the existing traditional agriculture into a most modern, commercial and dynamic farming system in India through its diffusion of technology. The rate of adoption of modern technology reflects the progress of development in agricultural sector. The adoption of any improved agricultural technology is also dependent on the development of road infrastructure or road network. The present study was consisting of 300 sample farmers out which 150 samples was taken from the developed area and rest 150 samples was taken from underdeveloped area. The samples farmers under develop and underdeveloped areas were collected by using Multistage Random Sampling procedure. In the first stage, North 24 Parganas District have been selected purposively. Then from the district, one developed and one underdeveloped block was selected randomly. In the third phase, 10 villages have been selected randomly from each block. Finally, from each village 15 sample farmers was selected randomly. The extents of adoption of technology in different areas were calculated through various parameters. These are percentage area under High Yielding Variety Cereals, percentage area under High Yielding Variety pulses, area under hybrids vegetables, irrigated area, mechanically operated area, amount spent on fertilizer and pesticides, etc. in both developed and underdeveloped areas of North 24 Parganas District, West Bengal. The percentage area under High Yielding Variety Cereals in the developed and underdeveloped areas was 34.86 and 22.59. 42.07 percentages and 31.46 percentages for High Yielding Variety pulses respectively. In the case the area under irrigation it was 57.66 and 35.71 percent while for the mechanically operated area it was 10.60 and 3.13 percent respectively in developed and underdeveloped areas of North 24 Parganas district, West Bengal. It clearly showed that the extent of adoption of technology was significantly higher in the developed area over underdeveloped area. Better road network system helps the farmers in increasing his farm income, farm assets, cropping intensity, marketed surplus and the rate of adoption of new technology. With this background, an attempt is made in this paper to study the impact of Agricultural Infrastructure on the adoption of modern technology in agriculture in North 24 Parganas District, West Bengal.

Keywords: agricultural infrastructure, adoption of technology, farm income, road network

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Authors: Ahmed Osama, Hassan A. Mahdy, Khalid A. Kandil, Mohamed Elhabiby

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Automatic Vehicle Location systems (AVL) have been used worldwide for more than twenty years and have showed great success in public transportation management and monitoring. Cairo public bus service suffers from several problems such as unscheduled stops, unscheduled route deviations, and inaccurate schedules, which have negative impacts on service reliability. This research aims to study those problems for a selected bus route in Cairo using a prototype AVL system. Experimental trips were run on the selected route; and the locations of unscheduled stops, regions of unscheduled deviations, along with other trip time and speed data were collected. Data was analyzed to demonstrate the reliability of passengers on the unscheduled stops compared to the scheduled ones. Trip time was also modeled to assess the unscheduled stops’ impact on trip time, and to check the accuracy of the applied scheduled trip time. Moreover, frequency and length of the unscheduled route deviations, as well as their impact on the bus stops, were illustrated. Solutions were proposed for the bus service deficiencies using the AVL system. Finally, recommendations were proposed for further research.

Keywords: automatic vehicle location, public transportation, unscheduled stops, unscheduled route deviations, inaccurate schedule

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Authors: Ghorbanali Mohammadi

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New approaches to sequencing mixed-model manufacturing systems are present. These approaches have attracted considerable attention due to their potential to deal with difficult optimization problems. This paper presents Multi-Objective Simulated Annealing Algorithms (MOSAA) approaches to the Just-In-Time (JIT) sequencing problem where workload-smoothing (WL) and the number of set-ups (St) are to be optimized simultaneously. Mixed-model assembly lines are types of production lines where varieties of product models similar in product characteristics are assembled. Moreover, this type of problem is NP-hard. Two annealing methods are proposed to solve the multi-objective problem and find an efficient frontier of all design configurations. The performances of the two methods are tested on several problems from the literature. Experimentation demonstrates the relative desirable performance of the presented methodology.

Keywords: scheduling, just-in-time, mixed-model assembly line, sequencing, simulated annealing

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Authors: Somayyeh Karimiyan

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To evaluate the seismic vulnerability of vital offshore structures with the highest possible precision, Nonlinear Time History Analyses (NLTHA), is the most reliable method. However, since it is very time-consuming, a quick procedure is greatly desired. This paper presents a quick method by combining the Push Over Analysis (POA) and the NLTHA. The POA is preformed first to recognize the more critical members, and then the NLTHA is performed to evaluate more precisely the critical members’ vulnerability. The proposed method has been applied to jacket type structure. Results show that combining POA and NLTHA is a reliable seismic evaluation method, and also that none of the earthquake characteristics alone, can be a dominant factor in vulnerability evaluation.

Keywords: jacket structure, seismic evaluation, push-over and nonlinear time history analyses, critical members

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Authors: Itiola Kehinde Adeniran

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The study examined the effect of employees’ training on the performance of small scale enterprises in Oyo State. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 150 respondents through purposive sampling method. Linear regression was used with the aid of statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20 to analyze the data collected in order to examine the effect of independent variable, employees’ training on dependent variable, performance (profit) of small scale enterprises. The result revealed that employees’ training has a significant effect on the performance of small scale enterprises. It was concluded that predictor variable namely (training) is 55.5% variance of enterprises performance (profitability). Therefore, the paper recommended that all small scale enterprises in Nigeria should embrace manpower training and development in order to improve employees’ performance leading to organizational profitability.

Keywords: training, employee performance, small scale enterprise, organizational profitability

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Authors: Rashid Mahmood, Muhammad Sufyan, Nasir Ahmed

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The MANETs have lessened transportation and decentralized network. There are numerous basis of routing protocols. We derived the MANETs protocol into three major categories like Reactive, Proactive and hybrid. In these protocols, we discussed only some protocols like Distance Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Ad hoc on Demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR). The AODV and DSR are both reactive type of protocols. On the other hand, DSDV is proactive type protocol here. We compare these routing protocols for network security estimated by network simulator (NS-2). In this dissertation some parameters discussed such as simulation time, packet size, number of node, packet delivery fraction, push time and speed etc. We will construct all these parameters on routing protocols under suitable conditions for network security measures.

Keywords: DSDV, AODV, DSR NS-2, PDF, push time

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Authors: Julia Córdoba

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People are not completely autonomous, as we live in society; therefore, people could be defined as relationally dependent. The lack, decrease or loss of physical, psychological and/or social interdependence due to a disability situation is known as dependence. This is related to the need for help from another person in order to carry out activities of daily living. This population group lives with major social limitations that significantly reduce their participation and autonomy. They have high levels of stigma and invisibility from private environments (family and close networks), as well as from the public order (environment, community). The importance of this study lies in the fact that the lack of support and adjustments leads to what authors call the circle of exclusion. This circle describes how not accessing services - due to the difficulties caused by the disability situation impacts biological, social and psychological levels. This situation produces higher levels of exclusion and vulnerability. This study will focus on the process of autonomy and dependence of adults with disability from the model of disability proposed by the International Classification of Functioning, Health and Disability (ICF). The objectives are: i) to write down the relationship between autonomy and dependence based on socio-health variables and ii) to determine the relationship between the situation of autonomy and dependence and the expectations and interests of the participants. We propose a study that will use a survey technique through a previously validated virtual questionnaire. The data obtained will be analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods for the details of the profiles obtained. No less than 200 questionnaires will be administered to people between 18 and 64 years of age who self-identify as having some degree of dependency due to disability. For the analysis of the results, the two main variables of autonomy and dependence will be considered. Socio-demographic variables such as age, gender identity, area of residence and family composition will be used. In relation to the biological dimension of the situation, the diagnosis, if any, and the type of disability will be asked. For the description of these profiles of autonomy and dependence, the following variables will be used: self-perception, decision-making, interests, expectations and life project, care of their health condition, support and social network, and labor and educational inclusion. The relationship between the target population and the variables collected provides several guidelines that could form the basis for the analysis of other research of interest in terms of self-perception, autonomy and dependence. The areas and situations where people state that they have greater possibilities to decide and have a say will be obtained. It will identify social (networks and support, educational background), demographic (age, gender identity and residence) and health-related variables (diagnosis and type of disability, quality of care) that may have a greater relationship with situations of dependency or autonomy. It will be studied whether the level of autonomy and/or dependence has an impact on the type of expectations and interests of the people surveyed.

Keywords: life project, disability, inclusion, autonomy

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Authors: Lindsey Giunta

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This review examines the current literature regarding the impact of COVID-19 on academic functioning and anxiety in children and adolescents. The objective was to determine the ways in which the pandemic affected youth mental health and academics, in addition to the extent that these factors were transformed as a result of the worldwide state of affairs. Twenty papers were selected and reviewed, and data showed long term consequences in youth mental health resulting from the current pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns led to disrupted childhood education, and data showed that the growth of cognitive executive functions was impacted to varying degrees dependent upon geographic location. The literature recommends supplemental education on the national level, as well as mental health promotion within communities and schools.

Keywords: pandemic, children, adolescents, anxiety, academic functioning

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Authors: Manit Pollar

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Identifying the dengue epidemic periods early would be helpful to take necessary actions to prevent the dengue outbreaks. Providing an accurate prediction on dengue epidemic seasons will allow sufficient time to take the necessary decisions and actions to safeguard the situation for local authorities. This study aimed to develop a forecasting model on number of dengue incidences in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, Southern Thailand using time series analysis. We develop Seasonal Autoregressive Moving Average (SARIMA) models on the monthly data collected between 2003-2011 and validated the models using data collected between January-September 2012. The result of this study revealed that the SARIMA(1,1,0)(1,2,1)12 model closely described the trends and seasons of dengue incidence and confirmed the existence of dengue fever cases in Nakhon Si Thammarat for the years between 2003-2011. The study showed that the one-step approach for predicting dengue incidences provided significantly more accurate predictions than the twelve-step approach. The model, even if based purely on statistical data analysis, can provide a useful basis for allocation of resources for disease prevention.

Keywords: SARIMA, time series model, dengue cases, Thailand

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Authors: Meryem Imane Babaghayou, Asma Abdelhafidi, Salem Fouad Chabira, Mohammed Sebaa

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A challenge of plastics industries is the realization of materials that resist the degradation in its application environment, and that to guarantee a longer life time therefore an optimal time of use. Blown extruded films of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) supplied by SABIC SAUDI ARABIA blown and extruded in SOFIPLAST company in Setif ALGERIA , have been subjected to climatic ageing in a sub-Saharan facility at Laghouat (Algeria) with direct exposure to sun. Samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques after prescribed amounts of time up to 8 months. It has been shown via these two techniques the impact of UV irradiation on the morphological development of a plastic material, especially the crystallinity degree which increases with exposure time. The reason of these morphological changes is related to photooxidative reactions leading to cross linking in the beginning and to chain scissions for an advanced stage of ageing this last ones are the first responsible. The crystallinity degree change is essentially controlled by the secondary crystallization of the amorphous chains whose mobility is enhanced by the chain scission processes. The diffusion of these short segments integrates the surface of the lamellae increasing in this way their thicknesses. The results presented highlight the complexity of the involved phenomena.

Keywords: Low Density poly (Ethylene), crystallinity, ageing, XRD, DSC

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Authors: Viriyavudh Sim, Woo Young Jung

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Performance of Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP) sandwich infill panel system under diagonal compression was studied by means of numerical analysis. Furthermore, the variation of temperature was considered to affect the mechanical properties of BFRP, since their composition was based on polymeric material. Moreover, commercial finite element analysis platform ABAQUS was used to model and analyze this infill panel system. Consequently, results of the analyses show that the overall performance of BFRP panel had a 15% increase compared to that of GFRP infill panel system. However, the variation of buckling load in terms of temperature for the BFRP system showed a more sensitive nature compared to those of GFRP system.

Keywords: basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP), buckling performance, numerical simulation, temperature dependent materials

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Authors: Chantarat Manvichien, Kevin Wongleedee

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The purpose of this research was to study Thai passengers’ level of understanding and awareness of the cabin crew safety briefing in the airplane during the preparation to take off and landing. It is important to know if Thai passengers pay attention to cabin crew safety briefing and to suggest a better way to draw their attention. The independent variables included gender, age, income, levels of education, travelling purpose, and travelling frequency while the dependent variables was level of awareness. A simple random sampling method was utilized to get 400 respondents. The findings revealed the ranking the first three levels of importance by highest mean to lowest mean as follows: (1) It is important to listen to cabin crew safety briefing; (2) Cabin crew briefing is interesting; (3) Information from cabin crew safety briefing is easy to understand. In addition, the overall means was 3.27 with 0.800 SD.

Keywords: cabin crew, safety briefing, Thai passengers, awareness

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Authors: David Ompong, Jai Singh

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A better understanding of the open-circuit voltage (Voc) related losses in organic solar cells (OSCs) is desirable in order to assess the photovoltaic performance of these devices. We have derived Voc as a function of charge carrier mobilities (μe and μh) for organic and hybrid solar cells by optimizing the drift-diffusion current density. The optimum Voc thus obtained depends on the energy difference between the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level and the quasi-Fermi level of holes of the donor material. We have found that the Voc depends on the ratio of the electron (μe) and hole (μh) mobilities and when μh > μe the Voc increases. The most important loss term in the Voc arises from the energetics of the donor and acceptor materials, which will be discussed in detail in this paper.

Keywords: charge carrier mobility, open-circuit voltage, organic solar cells, quasi-fermi levels

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Authors: N. P. Tien, S. Songsermpong, T. H. Quan

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Mung bean vermicelli is a popular food in Asian countries and is made from mung bean starch. The preparation process involves several steps, including drying, which affects the structure and quality of the vermicelli. This study aims to examine the effects of different drying technologies on the rehydration time and quality of mung bean vermicelli. Three drying technologies, namely hot air drying, microwave continuous drying, and microwave vacuum drying, were used for the drying process. The vermicelli strands were dried at 45°C for 12h in a hot air dryer, at 70 Hz of conveyor belt speed inverter in a microwave continuous dryer, and at 30 W.g⁻¹ of microwave power density in a microwave vacuum dryer. The results showed that mung bean vermicelli dried using hot air drying had the longest rehydration time of 12.69 minutes. On the other hand, vermicelli dried through microwave continuous drying and microwave vacuum drying had shorter rehydration times of 2.79 minutes and 2.14 minutes, respectively. Microwave vacuum drying also resulted in larger porosity, higher water absorption, and cooking loss. The tensile strength and elasticity of vermicelli dried using hot air drying were higher compared to microwave drying technologies. The sensory evaluation did not reveal significant differences in most attributes among the vermicelli treatments. Overall, microwave drying technology proved to be effective in reducing rehydration time and producing good-quality mung bean vermicelli.

Keywords: mung bean vermicelli, drying, hot air, microwave continuous, microwave vacuum

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Authors: Luke Onyekakeyah, Cynthia Onyekakeyah

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The conflict in Northeastern Nigeria could mar local and international efforts to salvage the drying Lake Chad, which at present is merely 20 per cent of its original size. The conflict which began in 2009, assumed a monstrous dimension to the extent that any prospects of a redeeming action on the Lake is bleak. The concern of the authorities in the basin countries is how to bring the conflict to an end in the interest of the ecologically-dependent riparian population. Lake Chad is Africa’s fourth largest lake. From a previous 388,500 km2 some 600, 000 years ago, the Lake has shrunk to a maximum length of 25,000 km2. During the last four decades, the Lake has been susceptible to increasing variability and irregular rainfall. Dry spell, excessive evaporation and sandstorm have adversely affected the Lake, such that a 2001 estimate put the Lake to a meager 19,000 km2. Given the critical importance of the Lake as a source of livelihood for over 20 million people, there is mounting concern that an unprecedented human and ecological catastrophe is unfolding, should the Lake eventually dries up. The study evaluates the Lake Chad and how the conflict has adversely impacted it.

Keywords: lake chad, conflict, salvage, Nigeria

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Authors: Muhamad Azani Yahya, Vikneswaran Munikanan, Mohammed Alias Yusof

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There is the need to take the holistic approach in achieving sustainable construction for a contemporary practice. Sustainable construction is the practice that involved method of human preservation of the environment, whether economically or socially through responsibility, management of resources and maintenance utilizing support. This paper shows the correlation of achieving rapid construction with sustainable concepts using lean principles. Lean principles being used widely in the manufacturing industry, but this research will demonstrate the principles into building construction. Lean principle offers the benefits of stabilizing work flow and elimination of unnecessary work. Therefore, this principle contributes to time and waste reduction. The correlation shows that pulling factor provides the improvement of progress curve and stabilizing the time-quality relation. The finding shows the lean principles offer the elements of rapid construction synchronized with the elements of sustainability.

Keywords: sustainable construction, rapid construction, time reduction, lean construction

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Authors: Bello Gonzalez, Setten Van M., Brouwer M.

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The chicken small intestine represents a dynamic and complex organ in which the enzymatic digestion and absorption of nutrients take place. The development of an in vitro fermentation chicken small intestinal model could be used as an alternative to explore the interaction between the microbiota and nutrient metabolism and to enhance the efficacy of targeting interventions to improve animal health. In the present study we have developed an in vitro fermentation chicken ileum microbiota model for unrevealing the complex interaction of ileum microbial community under physiological conditions. A two-vessel continuous fermentation process simulating in real-time the physiological conditions of the ileum content (pH, temperature, microaerophilic/anoxic conditions, and peristaltic movements) has been standardized as a proof of concept. As inoculum, we use a pool of ileum microbial community obtained from chicken broilers at the age of day 14. The development and validation of the model provide insight into the initial characterization of the ileum microbial community and its dynamics over time-related to nutrient assimilation and fermentation. Samples can be collected at different time points and can be used to determine the microbial compositional structure, dynamics, and diversity over time. The results of studies using this in vitro model will serve as the foundation for the development of a whole small intestine in vitro fermentation chicken gastrointestinal model to complement our already established in vitro fermentation chicken caeca model. The insight gained from this model could provide us with some information about the nutritional strategies to restore and maintain chicken gut homeostasis. Moreover, the in vitro fermentation model will also allow us to study relationships between gut microbiota composition and its dynamics over time associated with nutrients, antimicrobial compounds, and disease modelling.

Keywords: broilers, in vitro model, ileum microbiota, fermentation

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Authors: Farid M. Abdel-Rahim

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In this study, Se90Te7Cu3 chalcogenide glass was prepared using the melt quenching technique. The amorphous nature of the as prepared samples was confirmed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). Result of differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) under nonisothermal condition on composition bulk materials are reported and discussed. It shows that these glasses exhibit a single-stage glass transition and a single-stage crystallization on heating rates. The glass transition temperature (Tg), the onset crystallization (Tc), the crystallization temperature (Tp), were found by dependent on the composition and heating rates. Activation energy for glass transition (Et), activation energy of the amorphous –crystalline transformation (Ec), crystallization reaction rate constant (Kp), (n) and (m) are constants related to crystallization mechanism of the bulk samples have been determined by different formulations.

Keywords: chalcogenides, heat treatment, DSC, SEM, glass transition, thermal analysis

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Authors: Mohamed Elbehery

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Historical textiles in the burial environment or in museums are exposed to many types of stains and dirt that are associated with historical textiles by multiple chemical bonds that cause damage to historical textiles. The cleaning process must be carried out with great care, with no irreversible damage, and sediments removed without affecting the original material of the surface being cleaned. Science and technology continue to provide innovative systems in the bio-cleaning process (using pure enzymes) of historical textiles and artistic surfaces. Lipase and α-amylase were immobilized on nanoparticles of alginate/κ-carrageenan nanoparticle complex and used in historical textiles cleaning. Preparation of nanoparticles, activation, and enzymes immobilization were characterized. Optimization of loading time and units of the two enzymes were done. It was found that, the optimum time and units of amylase were 4 hrs and 25U, respectively. While, the optimum time and units of lipase were 3 hrs and 15U, respectively. The methods used to examine the fibers using a scanning electron microscope equipped with an X-ray energy dispersal unit: SEM with EDX unit.

Keywords: nanoparticles, enzymes, immobilization, textiles

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Authors: Karim Hamidi Machekposhti, Hossein Sedghi, Abdolrasoul Telvari, Hossein Babazadeh

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Rainfall and runoff phenomenon is a chaotic and complex outcome of nature which requires sophisticated modelling and simulation methods for explanation and use. Time Series modelling allows runoff data analysis and can be used as forecasting tool. In the paper attempt is made to model river runoff data and predict the future behavioural pattern of river based on annual past observations of annual river runoff. The river runoff analysis and predict are done using ARIMA model. For evaluating the efficiency of prediction to hydrological events such as rainfall, runoff and etc., we use the statistical formulae applicable. The good agreement between predicted and observation river runoff coefficient of determination (R²) display that the ARIMA (4,1,1) is the suitable model for predicting Karkheh River runoff at Iran.

Keywords: time series modelling, ARIMA model, river runoff, Karkheh River, CLS method

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Authors: Praveen Chandramenon, Andrew Gascoyne, Fideline Tchuenbou-Magaia

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Aquaponics offers a simple conclusive solution to the food and environmental crisis of the world. This approach combines the idea of Aquaculture (growing fish) to Hydroponics (growing vegetables and plants in a soilless method). Smart Aquaponics explores the use of smart technology including artificial intelligence and IoT, to assist farmers with better decision making and online monitoring and control of the system. Identification of different growth stages of Swiss Chard plants and predicting its harvest time is found to be important in Aquaponic yield management. This paper brings out the comparative analysis of a standard Aquaponics with a Vermiponics (Aquaponics with worms), which was grown in the controlled environment, by implementing IoT and deep learning-based growth stage segregation and harvest time prediction of Swiss Chards before and after applying an optimal freshwater replenishment. Data collection, Growth stage classification and Harvest Time prediction has been performed with and without water replenishment. The paper discusses the experimental design, IoT and sensor communication with architecture, data collection process, image segmentation, various regression and classification models and error estimation used in the project. The paper concludes with the results comparison, including best models that performs growth stage segregation and harvest time prediction of the Aquaponic and Vermiponic testbed with and without freshwater replenishment.

Keywords: aquaponics, deep learning, internet of things, vermiponics

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Authors: They Shao Peng

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Machine vision system for inspection is an automated technology that is normally utilized to analyze items on the production line for quality control purposes, it also can be known as an automated visual inspection (AVI) system. By applying automated visual inspection, the existence of items, defects, contaminants, flaws, and other irregularities in manufactured products can be easily detected in a short time and accurately. However, AVI systems are still inflexible and expensive due to their uniqueness for a specific task and consuming a lot of set-up time and space. With the rapid development of mobile devices, smartphones can be an alternative device for the visual system to solve the existing problems of AVI. Since the smartphone-based AVI system is still at a nascent stage, this led to the motivation to investigate the smartphone-based AVI system. This study is aimed to provide a low-cost AVI system with high efficiency and flexibility. In this project, the object detection models, which are You Only Look Once (YOLO) model and Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD) model, are trained, evaluated, and integrated with the smartphone and webcam devices. The performance of the smartphone-based AVI is compared with the webcam-based AVI according to the precision and inference time in this study. Additionally, a mobile application is developed which allows users to implement real-time object detection and object detection from image storage.

Keywords: automated visual inspection, deep learning, machine vision, mobile application

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Authors: Randa Alharbi, Vladislav Vyshemirsky

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Systems biology is an important field in science which focuses on studying behaviour of biological systems. Modelling is required to produce detailed description of the elements of a biological system, their function, and their interactions. A well-designed model requires selecting a suitable mechanism which can capture the main features of the system, define the essential components of the system and represent an appropriate law that can define the interactions between its components. Complex biological systems exhibit stochastic behaviour. Thus, using probabilistic models are suitable to describe and analyse biological systems. Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) is one of the probabilistic models that describe the system as a set of discrete states with continuous time transitions between them. The system is then characterised by a set of probability distributions that describe the transition from one state to another at a given time. The evolution of these probabilities through time can be obtained by chemical master equation which is analytically intractable but it can be simulated. Uncertain parameters of such a model can be inferred using methods of Bayesian inference. Yet, inference in such a complex system is challenging as it requires the evaluation of the likelihood which is intractable in most cases. There are different statistical methods that allow simulating from the model despite intractability of the likelihood. Approximate Bayesian computation is a common approach for tackling inference which relies on simulation of the model to approximate the intractable likelihood. Particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (PMCMC) is another approach which is based on using sequential Monte Carlo to estimate intractable likelihood. However, both methods are computationally expensive. In this paper we discuss the efficiency and possible practical issues for each method, taking into account the computational time for these methods. We demonstrate likelihood-free inference by performing analysing a model of the Repressilator using both methods. Detailed investigation is performed to quantify the difference between these methods in terms of efficiency and computational cost.

Keywords: Approximate Bayesian computation(ABC), Continuous-Time Markov Chains, Sequential Monte Carlo, Particle Markov chain Monte Carlo (PMCMC)

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Authors: Shao-Ju Chien, Yi-Chien Wu, Ting-Ying Huang, Li-Tsen Li, You-Jin Chen, Cheng-Nan Chen

Abstract:

Homocysteine and pro-inflammatory mediators such as cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) have been linked to vascular dysfunction and risks of cardiovascular diseases. Fulvic acid (FA) is class of compounds of humic substances and possesses various pharmacological properties. However, the effect of FA on inflammatory responses of the monocytes remains unclear. We investigated the regulatory effect of FA on homocysteine-induced COX-2 expression in human monocytes. Peripheral blood monocytes and U937 cells were kept as controls or pre-treated with FA, and then stimulated with homocysteine. The results show that pretreating monocytes with FA inhibited the homocysteine-induced COX-2 expression in a dose-dependent manner. The inhibitor for nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB) attenuated homocysteine-induced COX-2 expression. Our findings provide a molecular mechanism by which FA inhibit homocysteine-induced COX-2 expression in monocytes, and a basis for using FA in pharmaceutical therapy against inflammation.

Keywords: homocysteine, monocytes, cyclooxygenase-2, fulvic acid, anti-inflammation

Procedia PDF Downloads 597

Authors: M. Munirul Islam, Makhduma Khatun M., Janet M. Peerson, Tahmeed Ahmed, M. Abid Hossain Mollah, Kathryn G. Dewey, Kenneth H. Brown

Abstract:

Information is required on the effects of dietary energy density (ED) and feeding frequency (FF) of complementary foods (CF) on food consumption during individual meals and time expended in child feeding. We evaluated the effects of varied ED and FF of CFs on food intake and time required for child feeding during individual meals. During 9 separate, randomly ordered dietary periods lasting 3-6 days each, we measured self-determined intakes of porridges by 18 healthy, breastfed children 8-11 mo old who were fed coded porridges with energy densities of 0.5, 1.0 or 1.5 kcal/g, during 3, 4, or 5 meals/d. CF intake was measured by weighing the feeding bowl before and after every meal. Children consumed greater amounts of CFs per meal when they received diets with lower ED (p = 0.044) and fewer meals per day (p < 0.001). Food intake was less during the first meal of the day than the other meals. Greater time was expended per meal when fewer meals were offered. Time expended per meal did not vary by ED, but the children ate the lower ED diets faster (p = 0.019). Food intake velocity was also greater when more meals were offered per day (p = 0.005). These results provide further evidence of young children’s ability to regulate their energy intakes, even during infancy; and they convey information on factors that affect the amount of time that caregivers must devote to child feeding.

Keywords: complementary foods, energy density, feeding frequency, young children

Procedia PDF Downloads 466

Authors: Ali Yasin, Ali Kamran, Muhammad Safdar

Abstract:

In order to reduce the hefty cost involved in terms of time and project cost, the development and application of advanced numerical tools to address the burn-back analysis problem in solid rocket motor design and development is the need of time. Several advanced numerical schemes have been developed in recent times, but their usage in the design of propellant grain of solid rocket motors is very rare. In this paper, an advanced numerical technique named the Level-Set method has been utilized for the burn-back analysis of star grain to study the effect of geometrical parameters on ballistic performance indicators such as solid loading, neutrality, and sliver percentage. In the level set technique, simple finite difference methods may fail quickly and require more sophisticated non-oscillatory schemes for feasible long-time simulation. For internal ballistic calculations, a simplified equilibrium pressure method is utilized. Preliminary results of the operative conditions, for all the combustion time, of star grain burn-back using level set techniques are compared with published results using CAD technique to test the developed numerical model.

Keywords: solid rocket motor, internal ballistic, level-set technique, star grain

Procedia PDF Downloads 123