Search results for: system design.

Authors: Nitin Dwivedi, Jigna Shah

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Brain tumor is metastatic neoplasm of central nervous system, in most of cases it is life threatening disease with low survival rate. Despite of enormous efforts in the development of therapeutics and diagnostic tools, the treatment of brain tumors and gliomas remain a considerable challenge in the area of neuro-oncology. The most reason behind of this the presence of physiological barriers including blood brain barrier and blood brain tumor barrier, lead to insufficient reach ability of therapeutic agents at the site of tumor, result of inadequate destruction of gliomas. So there is an indeed need empowerment of brain tumor imaging for better characterization and delineation of tumors, visualization of malignant tissue during surgery, and tracking of response to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Multifunctional different generations of dendrimer offer an improved effort for potentiate drug delivery at the site of brain tumor and gliomas. So this article emphasizes the innovative dendrimer approaches in tumor targeting, tumor imaging and delivery of therapeutic agent.

Keywords: blood brain barrier, dendrimer, gliomas, nanotechnology

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Authors: Kyu Rae Lee

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The aim of the study is to investigate the clinical efficacy of combination therapeutic modalities using liraglutide (1.2mg/d) add on low-dose phentermine (7.5 mg/d)/topiramate (50mg/d) medication on the obese patient in the bariatric clinic. We assessed the retrospective cohort clinical analyses to the clinical efficacy of medication and combination in the patients who visited the bariatric clinic. We measured all participants’ body fat (bioelectric impedance analysis), weight, height, and the cross-sectional areas of adipose tissues (umbilicus level) after keep fasting for 8 hours at 0, 4, 12 weeks. The design of the study was opened, paired t-test and Wilcoxon test were performed using SPSS for windows (ver.18, IL, USA) for comparison of weight, body fat, and adipose tissues. The participants were one hundred twenty-eight subjects aged 44.67 (1.18) years, 28.95 (0.39) kg/m², and female (82.7%). Their body fat was 40.57 (2.23%), and waist to hip ratio was 0.96 (0.01). The mean cross-sectional area of visceral adipose tissue was 142.59 (7.06) mm², and that of subcutaneous adipose was 274.37 (9.18) mm². 73 of them (57.5%) took medication only, 54 of them took medication with liraglutide for 12 weeks. The subjects in the medication group lost 5.4165 kg, 6.8069%, and those of the combination group did 6.2481 kg, 3.564%. The mean cross-sectional areas of visceral, subcutaneous adipose tissue in the medication group significantly decreased (p=.043), even more in the combination group. (p=.028). Further controlled clinical trials should be considered in the future. We conclude that the low dose of phentermine/topiramate with liraglutide therapeutic modalities would be more effective than phentermine/topiramate medication only in obesity treatment for 12 weeks.

Keywords: low dose phentermine, topiramate, liraglutide, obesity, efficacy

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Authors: Esra Öztürk, Erkul Karacaoglu

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Pyrochlores, having compounds of the general formula, A2B2O7 (A and B are metals/rare earths) are important class of materials thanks to having technological applications like in luminescence, ionic conductivity, nuclear waste immobilization etc. The rare earths included pyrochlore compounds have also potential photoluminescence characteristics. In this context, Er3+-activated Lu2Ti2O7 pyrochlore was chosen and synthesized through a high-temperature solid-state reaction route that was sintered under the open atmosphere in this study. The optimal reaction conditions to obtain expected single phase system, the thermal analysis (DTA/TG) were carried out. The X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) was used to determine phase properties of the sample. The photoluminescence (PL) results were done to obtain excitation, emission and decay time properties by a PL spectrometer under room temperature. According to the PL, there are excitation bands at 352 nm, 388 nm, 423 nm and 453 nm that are due to 4I15/2 → 2G7/2, 4I15/2 → 4G11/2 and 4I15/2 → 4F5/2 transitions of Er3+ ions, respectively. The emission bands are placed at 582 nm, 677 nm and 762 nm that are associated with 2H11/2, 4S3/2 → 4I15/2, 4F9/2 → 4I15/2, 4I9/2 → 4I15/2 transitions of Er3+ ions, respectively.

Keywords: Er3+, Lu2Ti2O7, photoluminescence, pyrochlore, rare-earths

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Authors: Yijie Wang, Tianyue Wang

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In the past two decades, there has been a great ‘piano lesson frenzy’ among Chinese middle-class families, with a large number of parents adding piano training to children’s extra-curriculum lists. Superficially, the frenzy reflects a rather ‘leisurely’ attitude: parents typically claim that pianos lessons are ‘just for fun’ and will hopefully render children’s life more exciting. However, a closer scrutiny reveals that there is great social-status anxiety hidden beneath this ‘leisurely’ surface. Based on pre-interviews of six Chinese middle-class parents who have enthusiastically signed their children up for piano lessons, several tentative analysis are made: 1. Owing to a series of historical and social factors, the Chinese middle-class have yet to establish their cultural norms in the past few decades, resulting in great confusion concerning how to cultivate cultural tastes in their offspring. And partly due to the fact that the middle-class status of the past Chinese generation is mostly self-acquired rather than inherited, parents are much less confident about their cultural resources—which require long-time accumulation—than material ones. Both factors combine to lead to a sort of blind, overcompensating enthusiasm in culture-related education, and the piano frenzy is but a demonstration. 2. The piano has been chosen to be the object of the frenzy partly because of its inherent characteristics as well as socially-constructed ones. Costly, large in size, imported from another culture and so forth, the piano has acquired the meaning of being exclusive, high-end and exotic, which renders it a token of top-tier status among Chinese people, and piano lessons for offspring have therefore become parents’ paths towards a kind of ‘symbolic elevation’. A child playing piano is an exhibition as well as psychological assurance of the families’ middle-class status. 3. A closer look at children’s piano training process reveals that there is much more anxiety than leisurely elements involved. Despite parents’ claim that ‘piano is mainly for kids to have fun,’ the whole process is evidently of a rather ‘ascetic’ nature, with the demands of diligence and senses of time urgency throughout, and techniques rather than flair or styles are emphasized. This either means that the apparent ‘piano-for-fun’ stance is unauthentic and is only other motives in disguise, or that the Chinese middle-class parents are not yet capable of shaking off the sense of anxiety even if they sincerely intend to. 4. When viewed in relation to Chinese formal school system as well as the job market at large, it can be said that by signing children up for piano lessons, parents are consciously or unconsciously seeking to prepare for, or reduce the risks of, their children’s future social mobility. In face of possible failures in the highly-crucial, highly-competitive formal school system, piano-playing as an extra-curriculum activity may be conveniently transferred into an alternative career path. Besides, in contemporary China, as the occupational structure goes through change, and the school-related certificates decline in value, aspects such as a person’s overall deportment, which can be gained or proved by piano-learning, have been gaining in significance.

Keywords: extra-curriculum activities, middle class, piano lesson frenzy, status anxiety

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Authors: Kitty Kioskli, Nineta Polemi

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Evaluating the levels of cyber-security risks within an enterprise is most important in protecting its information system, services and all its digital assets against security incidents (e.g. accidents, malicious acts, massive cyber-attacks). The existing risk assessment methodologies (e.g. eBIOS, OCTAVE, CRAMM, NIST-800) adopt a technical approach considering as attack factors only the capability, intention and target of the attacker, and not paying attention to the attacker’s psychological profile and personality traits. In this paper, a socio-technical approach is proposed in cyber risk assessment, in order to achieve more realistic risk estimates by considering the personality traits of the attackers. In particular, based upon principles from investigative psychology and behavioural science, a multi-dimensional, extended, quantifiable model for an attacker’s profile is developed, which becomes an additional factor in the cyber risk level calculation.

Keywords: attacker, behavioural models, cyber risk assessment, cybersecurity, human factors, investigative psychology, ISO27001, ISO27005

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Authors: Tsediso Makoelle

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South Africa like in other parts of the world has acknowledged the prevalence of the phenomenon of homosexuality in the society. Due to the number of homosexuality cases in the South African society, questions have been asked about the impact of homosexuality in schools and how teachers and learners deal with homosexuality within the context of an emerging inclusive education system. This qualitative study analysis the experiences of teachers and learners in selected secondary schools in relation to prevalence of transgender in schools. Interviews were conducted with principals, teachers and focus group of learners in schools were cases homosexuality have been reported. Data was analysed using an inductive analysis framework. Among the findings was that homosexuality is still viewed as a taboo in Black-African dominated school communities and that the need to create all-embracing and inclusive environment was evident. The study suggests a needs to open communications in communities about homosexuality in order to develop an all-inclusive environment for all learners regardless of their sexual orientation.

Keywords: homosexuality, inclusive education, sexual orientation, transgender

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Authors: Ali Kiani, Seyed Davod. Sharifi, Shokoufeh Ghazanfari

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A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of diets containing different levels of lysine and canola oil on growth performance and fatty acid composition of meat of broilers chicks. 240-day old Ross broiler chicks were used in a 3×2 factorial arrangement with canola oil (1, 3, and 5%) and lysine (recommended, and 25% more than recommended by Ross broiler manual) in completely randomized design with four replicates and 10 birds per each. The experimental diets were iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous. Feed intake and body weight gain were recorded at the end of starter (10 d), grower (24 d) and finisher (42 d) periods, and feed conversion ratio was calculated. The results showed that the weight gain of chickens fed diets containing 5% canola oil were greater than those of birds fed on other diets (P<0.05). The dietary lysine had significant effect on feed intake and diets with 25% more than recommended, increased feed intake significantly (P<0.05). The canola oil×lysine interaction effects on performance were not significant. Among all treatment birds, those fed diets containing 5% canola oil had the highest meristic acid and oleic acid content in their meat. Broilers fed diets containing 3 or 5% canola oil possessed the higher content of linolenic acid and lower content of arachidonic acid in their meat (P<0.05). The results of the present experiment indicated that the diets containing canola oil (5%) and lysine at 25% higher than requirement, improve the growth performance, carcass and breast yield of broiler, and increase the accumulation of Omega-3 fatty acids in breast meat.

Keywords: broiler, canola oil. lysine, fatty acid

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Authors: Bahia Braktia, Ahlem Ghamri

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Years ago, faculties and administrators realized that students entering college were not prepared for the academic sphere; however, as a type of collaborative learning, peer-review gave students a social context in which they could learn more efficiently. Peer-review has proven its effectiveness in higher education. Numerous studies have been conducted on peer review and its effects on the quality of students’ writing, and several publications recommended peer-review as part of the feedback process. Student writers showed a tendency towards making significant meaning-level revisions and surface-level revisions. Last but not least, studies reported that peer-review helps students develop their self-assessment skills as well as critical thinking. The use of peer-review has become well known and widely adopted to the L2 classroom environment. However, little is known about peer review on translation students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the students' perspective on peer-review, and whether this method affected the quality of their translation. A mixed method design was adopted. Students were requested to translate two texts from Arabic into English, and they gave and received structured feedback to their classmates' translations. A survey was administered, followed by semi-structured interviews, to examine the students' attitudes toward peer-review. The results of the study showed that peer-review was considered a good proofreading method for most students. The students also showed a positive attitude toward it, and they reported that they benefited from the interaction with their peers. The findings implied that the inclusion of peer-review can be an effective pedagogical practice for teaching translation and writing to foreign language learners.

Keywords: language teaching, feedback, peer-review, translation

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Authors: Shweta Shriwas, Sumeet Dwivedi

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Knowledge of use of traditional medicine is as old as human civilization in almost every system of medicine. Traditional practitioner viz., vaidhayas, ojha, hakim have their own herbal therapy in the treatment of infertility among women’s. Infertility is very common in developed and developing countries due to busy life style of women’s. The present study was initiated with an aim to identify medicinal plants resources from traditional practitioners of Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh to treat infertility. An ethnomedicinal study of Malwa region viz., Indore, Dewas, Ratlam, Ujjain, Dhar, Mandsour and Neemuch of Madhya Pradesh, India comprising fifty-seven study site was conducted during Jan-217 to June-2017. During the course of present investigation, the traditional use of medicinal plants for infertility in women was revealed by traditional practitioner. The botanical name, family, local name, part used, habit along with mode of their administration and dose duration were enumerated.

Keywords: herbal medicine, infertility, traditional, Malwa, Madhya Pradesh

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Authors: Ngozi Claribelle Nwogu, Mohammed Nasir Kajama, Oyoh Kechinyere, Edward Gobina

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Atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions are considered as the greatest environmental challenge the world is facing today. The challenges to control the emissions include the recovery of CO2 from flue gas. This concern has been improved due to recent advances in materials process engineering resulting in the development of inorganic gas separation membranes with excellent thermal and mechanical stability required for most gas separations. This paper therefore evaluates the performance of a highly selective inorganic membrane for CO2 recovery applications. Analysis of results obtained is in agreement with experimental literature data. Further results show the prediction performance of the membranes for gas separation and the future direction of research. The materials selection and the membrane preparation techniques are discussed. Method of improving the interface defects in the membrane and its effect on the separation performance has also been reviewed and in addition advances to totally exploit the potential usage of this innovative membrane.

Keywords: carbon dioxide, gas separation, inorganic ceramic membrane, permselectivity

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Authors: Benjamin Osae Agyei, Hypolite Bayor

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This present experiment was carried out during the 2012 cropping season, at the Farming for the Future Experimental Field of the University for Development Studies, Nyankpala Campus in the Northern Region of Ghana. The objective of the experiment was to determine the carrot growth and yield responses to poultry manure and N.P.K (15:15:15). Six treatments (Control (no amendment), 20 t/ha poultry manure (PM), 40 t/ha PM, 70 t/ha PM, 35 t/ha PM + 0.11t/ha N.P.K and 0.23 t/ha N.P.K) with three replications for each were laid in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Data were collected on plant height, number of leaves per plant, canopy spread, root diameter, root weight, and root length. Microsoft Excel and Genstat Statistical Package (9^th edition) were used for the data analysis. The treatment means were compared by using Least Significant Difference at 10%. Generally, the results showed that there were no significant differences (P>0.1) among the treatments with respect to number of leaves per plant, root diameter, root weight, and root length. However, significant differences occurred among plant heights and canopy spreads. Plant height treated with 40 t/ha PM at the fourth week after planting and canopy spread at eight weeks after planting and ten weeks after planting by 70 t/ha PM and 20 t/ha PM respectively showed significant difference (P<0.1). The study recommended that any of the amended treatments can be applied at their recommended rates to plots for carrot production, since there were no significant differences among the treatments.

Keywords: poultry manure, N.P.K., soil amendment, growth, yield, carrot

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Authors: Dwi Retno Sri Ambarwati

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Recently, the traditional architecture were getting lost, replaced by modern architecture. The existence of many traditional houses often changing the function and change the values in an effort to adjust to the modern lifestyle, whereas the spiritual background of traditional architectural design is very specific and be the basis for consideration in the construction of the building, both in terms of determining the location of the building, the direction toward building, the spatial pattern and organization of space, zoning, hierarchical space, building form, ornamentation, the selection of building materials, and so on. The changes in function and form will transformed the spiritual values contained in it, because the architecture affects human behavior and reflects the culture. The traditional architecture views the architecture as a concept that has different tendencies in terms of orientation, shape, and attitude toward nature that tends to harmony with the social environment and local culture. The concept of the spirit of place made the architecture looks familiar, not arrogant and give a positive value to the surrounding environment. Every culture has a traditional architecture that full of spiritual values, although in the simplest form. Humans can learn about human values and local wisdom through the positive values that contained in traditional architecture, the desire to balance themselves with nature and the environment, not overbearing, strict adherence to the prevailing norms, openness in public life and intimacy family life that form a harmonious in life. The great and the wise value of traditional architecture should be revived in modern architecture that tends to ignore the spiritual values and more concerned with the functional and aesthetic pleasure, by combining the noble values of traditional architecture into modern architecture.

Keywords: architecture, combining noble values, local wisdom, traditional architecture

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Authors: N. W. U. D. Chathurani, Shlomo Geva, Vinod Chandran, Proboda Rajapaksha

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Selecting an appropriate image representation is the most important factor in implementing an effective Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system. This paper presents a multi-feature fusion approach for efficient CBIR, based on the distance distribution of features and relative feature weights at the time of query processing. It is a simple yet effective approach, which is free from the effect of features' dimensions, ranges, internal feature normalization and the distance measure. This approach can easily be adopted in any feature combination to improve retrieval quality. The proposed approach is empirically evaluated using two benchmark datasets for image classification (a subset of the Corel dataset and Oliva and Torralba) and compared with existing approaches. The performance of the proposed approach is confirmed with the significantly improved performance in comparison with the independently evaluated baseline of the previously proposed feature fusion approaches.

Keywords: feature fusion, image retrieval, membership function, normalization

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Authors: Marina Karaseva

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The beginning of our century became a new digital epoch in the educational situation. Last decade the newest stage of this process had been initialized by the touch-screen mobile devices with program applications for them. The touch possibilities for learning fundamentals of music are of especially importance for music majors. The phenomenon of touching, firstly, makes it realistic to play on the screen as on music instrument, secondly, helps students to learn music theory while listening in its sound elements by music ear. Nowadays we can detect several levels of such mobile applications: from the basic ones devoting to the elementary music training such as intervals and chords recognition, to the more advanced applications which deal with music perception of non-major and minor modes, ethnic timbres, and complicated rhythms. The main purpose of the proposed paper is to disclose the main tendencies in this process and to demonstrate the most innovative features of music theory applications on the base of iOS and Android systems as the most common used. Methodological recommendations how to use these digital material musicologically will be done for the professional music education of different levels. These recommendations are based on more than ten year ‘iTheory’ teaching experience of the author. In this paper, we try to logically classify all types of ‘iTheory’mobile applications into several groups, according to their methodological goals. General concepts given below will be demonstrated in concrete examples. The most numerous group of programs is formed with simulators for studying notes with audio-visual links. There are link-pair types as follows: sound — musical notation which may be used as flashcards for studying words and letters, sound — key, sound — string (basically, guitar’s). The second large group of programs is programs-tests containing a game component. As a rule, their basis is made with exercises on ear identification and reconstruction by voice: sounds and intervals on their sounding — harmonical and melodical, music modes, rhythmic patterns, chords, selected instrumental timbres. Some programs are aimed at an establishment of acoustical communications between concepts of the musical theory and their musical embodiments. There are also programs focused on progress of operative musical memory (with repeating of sounding phrases and their transposing in a new pitch), as well as on perfect pitch training In addition a number of programs improvisation skills have been developed. An absolute pitch-system of solmisation is a common base for mobile programs. However, it is possible to find also the programs focused on the relative pitch system of solfegе. In App Store and Google Play Market online store there are also many free programs-simulators of musical instruments — piano, guitars, celesta, violin, organ. These programs may be effective for individual and group exercises in ear training or composition classes. Great variety and good sound quality of these programs give now a unique opportunity to musicians to master their music abilities in a shorter time. That is why such teaching material may be a way to effective study of music theory.

Keywords: ear training, innovation in music education, music theory, mobile devices

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Authors: Kathleen Joy Hingan, Jessiraye Luienne Catubigan, Carlo Mercado, Janisse RañEses

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In this research, the researchers wanted to explore how specialists and resident doctors in the fields of surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology handle their medical errors. They are interested in understanding the factors that contributed to the disclosure of medical error, the feelings after the occurrence of an error, and the way they coped with it given the power relations in place. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews, transcribed the recordings, and analyzed the transcripts using thematic analysis. They found that doctors disclosed to their superiors and co-residents to cope with and to learn from the errors. In terms of disclosure to patients, the participants told them about the adverse event, but not about the error because of fear for themselves, their colleagues, their institution, and their patient. Doctors also performed compensatory actions to make up for the error and the nondisclosure of its occurrence. These actions functioned as a form of damage control too. Resident doctors and specialists receive different sanctions because of the power structures in the system.

Keywords: coping, disclosure, doctors, interviews, medical errors, thematic analysis

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Authors: Fatmanur Avar, Kubra G. Kostepen, Seda Lafci

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In today’s world, technological innovations have brought out entirely new business understanding. Companies operating in logistics have become more flexible to business trends such as digitalization, innovation, sustainability, flexibility, and productivity. Through the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution called as industry 4.0 approach, the logistics concepts have been redefined. By adopting automated planning and scheduling, organizing and controlling systems such as Transportation Management System (TMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), warehouse control systems, it will be possible for businesses to be ahead of logistics process. In this research, the aim is to reveal the effects of logistics 4.0 applications for a third party logistics service provider (3PL) located in Turkey. Also, the impacts of logistics 4.0 on key performance indicators (KPI) are examined under the scope of the study. As a methodology, a semi-structured interview is conducted with a global 3PL company and data collected from interviews is analyzed with content analysis. At the end of the analysis, it is presented the effects of logistics 4.0 applications on logistics activities of the company. Limitations and suggestions are also offered.

Keywords: key performance indicators, KPI, logistics activities, logistics 4.0, 3PL

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Authors: Chris Suma, Yingcai Xiao

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This paper presents Parallel Coordinates on a Spiral Surface (PCoSS), a parallel coordinate based interactive visualization method for high-dimensional data, and a test implementation of the method. Plots generated by the test system are compared with those generated by XDAT, a software implementing traditional parallel coordinates. Traditional parallel coordinate plots can be cluttered when the number of data points is large or when the dimensionality of the data is high. PCoSS plots display multivariate data on a 3D spiral surface and allow users to see the whole picture of high-dimensional data with less cluttering. Taking advantage of the 3D display environment in PCoSS, users can further reduce cluttering by zooming into an axis of interest for a closer view or by moving vantage points and by reorienting the viewing angle to obtain a desired view of the plots.

Keywords: human computer interaction, parallel coordinates, spiral surface, visualization

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Authors: Asma Bettahar, Imed Eldine Nezli, Sameh Habes

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Groundwater resources in the Oued Righ valley are represented like the parts of the eastern basin of the Algerian Sahara, superposed by two major aquifers: the Intercalary Continental (IC) and the Terminal Complex (TC). From a qualitative point of view, various studies have highlighted that the waters of this region showed excessive mineralization, including the waters of the terminal complex (EC Avg equal 5854.61 S/cm). The present article is a statistical approach by two multi methods various complementary (ACP CAH), applied to the analytical data of multilayered aquifer waters Terminal Complex of the Oued Righ valley. The approach is to establish a correlation between the chemical composition of water and the lithological nature of different aquifer levels formations, and predict possible connection between groundwater’s layers. The results show that the mineralization of water is from geological origin. They concern the composition of the layers that make up the complex terminal.

Keywords: oued righ, complex terminal, infill continental, mineralization

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Authors: Yu-Kai Ting, Jia-Ying Tu, Chung-Chun Hsiao

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New physical insights into the nonlinear Lorenz equations related to flow resistance is discussed in this work. The chaotic dynamics related to Lorenz equations has been studied in many papers, which is due to the sensitivity of Lorenz equations to initial conditions and parameter uncertainties. However, the physical implication arising from Lorenz equations about convectional motion attracts little attention in the relevant literature. Therefore, as a first step to understand the related fluid mechanics of convectional motion, this paper derives the Lorenz equations again with different forced conditions in the model. Simulation work of the modified Lorenz equations without the viscosity or buoyancy force is discussed. The time-domain simulation results may imply that the states of the Lorenz equations are related to certain flow speed and flow resistance. The flow speed of the underlying fluid system increases as the flow resistance reduces. This observation would be helpful to analyze the coupling effects of different fluid parameters in a convectional model in future work.

Keywords: Galerkin method, Lorenz equations, Navier-Stokes equations, convectional motion

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Authors: Larry V. Aceres, Jesryl B. Paulite, Emelie M. Pelicano, J. A. Esteban, Mamangun

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Citrus rind borer still the most important pest infesting pummelo in the Philippines particularly in the Davao region. Hence, management of the pest is very important for successful pummelo production. This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the different control strategies against citrus rind borer; to determine the best treatment in controlling citrus rind borer; and to calculate the profitability of the various treatments in pummelo production. The experiment was laid-out in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with five treatments replicated three times. The treatments were: T1- curry tree leaf leachate, T2- neem tree leaf leachate, T3- bagging with an ordinary net, T4- treated check (chlorpyrifos & betacyflutrin) and T5- untreated check. Data were analyzed using the Analysis of Variance and the differences among treatment means were computed using the Tukey’s Honest Significant Difference. The results of the study revealed that the curry tree leaf leachate and bagging treatments provide significant protection to the pummelo fruits which is comparable with the treated check (chlorpyrifos & betacyflutrin). Neem tree leaf leachate is not effective in controlling citrus rind borer which is comparable with the untreated check. In cost and return analysis, the most economical and effective is the bagging treatment using ordinary net.

Keywords: curry tree, neem tree, bagging, citrus rind borer

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Authors: B. E. Tarazona-Romero, J. G. Ascanio-Villabona, O. Lengerke-Perez, A. D. Rincon-Quintero, C. L. Sandoval-Rodriguez

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Desalination offers solutions for the shortage of water in the world, however, the process of eliminating salts generates a by-product known as brine, generally eliminated in the environment through techniques that mitigate its impact. Brine treatment techniques are vital to developing an environmentally sustainable desalination process. Consequently, this document evaluates three different geometric configurations of solar stills as an alternative for brine treatment to be integrated into a low-scale desalination process. The geometric scenarios to be studied were selected because they have characteristics that adapt to the concept of appropriate technology; low cost, intensive labor and material resources for local manufacturing, modularity, and simplicity in construction. Additionally, the conceptual design of the collectors was carried out, and the ray tracing methodology was applied through the open access software SolTrace and Tonatiuh. The simulation process used 600.00 rays and modified two input parameters; direct normal radiation (DNI) and reflectance. In summary, for the scenarios evaluated, the ladder-type distiller presented higher efficiency values compared to the pyramid-type and single-slope collectors. Finally, the efficiency of the collectors studied was directly related to their geometry, that is, large geometries allow them to receive a greater number of solar rays in various paths, affecting the efficiency of the device.

Keywords: appropriate technology, brine treatment techniques, desalination, monte carlo ray tracing

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Authors: E. Kempen, M. J. Labuschagne, M. P. Jama

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There is evidence that experiential learning is truly influential and favored by the millennial generation. However, little is known about the role and attributes an educator has to adopt during the experiential learning cycle, especially when applied in optometry education. This study aimed to identify the roles and attributes of an optometry educator during the different modes of the experiential learning cycle. Methods: A qualitative case study design was used. Data was collected using an open-ended questionnaire survey, following the application of nine different teaching-learning methods based on the experimental learning cycle. The total sample population of 68 undergraduate students from the Department of Optometry at the University of the Free State, South Africa were invited to participate. Focus group interviews (n=15) added additional data that contributed to the interpretation and confirmation of the data obtained from the questionnaire surveys. Results: The perceptions and experiences of the students identified a variety of roles and attributes as well as recommendations on the effective adoption of these roles and attributes. These roles and attributes included being knowledgeable, creating an interest, providing guidance, being approachable, building confidence, implementing ground rules, leading by example, and acting as a mediator. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the actions of an educator have the most substantial impact on students’ perception of a learning experience. Not only are the recommendations based on the views of a millennial generation, but the implementation of the personalized recommendations may also transform a learning environment. This may lead an optometry student to a deeper understanding of knowledge.

Keywords: experiences and perceptions, experiential learning, millennial generation, recommendation for optometry education

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Authors: Mulubrhan Berihu

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Due to the design versatility, availability, and cost efficiency, concrete continues to be the most used construction material on earth. However, the production of Portland cement, the primary component of concrete mix is causing to have a serious effect on environmental and economic impacts. This shows there is a need to study using of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). The most commonly used supplementary cementitious materials are wastes, and the use of these industrial waste products has technical, economic, and environmental benefits besides the reduction of CO2 emission from cement production. This paper aims to document the effect on the strength property of concrete due to the use of low cement by maximizing supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash. The amount of cement content was below 250 kg/m3, and in all the mixes, the quantity of powder (cement + fly ash) is almost kept at about 500 kg. According to this, seven different cement content (250 kg/m3, 195 kg/m3, 150 kg/m3, 125 kg/m3, 100 kg/m3, 85 kg/m3, 70 kg/m3) with different amount of replacement of SCMs was conducted. The mix proportion was prepared by keeping the water content constant and varying the cement content, SCMs, and water-to-binder ratio. Based on the different mix proportions of fly ash, a range of mix designs was formulated. The test results showed that using up to 85 kg/m3 of cement is possible for plain concrete works like hollow block concrete to achieve 9.8 Mpa, and the experimental results indicate that strength is a function of w/b. The experiment result shows a big difference in gaining of compressive strength from 7 days to 28 days and this obviously shows the slow rate of hydration of fly ash concrete. As the w/b ratio increases, the strength decreases significantly. At the same time, higher permeability was seen in the specimens which were tested for three hours than one hour.

Keywords: efficiency factor, cement content, compressive strength, mix proportion, w/c ratio, water permeability, SCMs

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Authors: Subir Gupta, Subhas Ganguly

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In this paper, we demonstrate the new area of application of image processing in metallurgical images to develop the more opportunity for structure-property correlation based approaches of alloy design. The present exercise focuses on the development of image processing tools suitable for phrase segmentation, grain boundary detection and recognition of micro-constituents in SEM micrographs of ferrite and pearlite steels. A comprehensive data of micrographs have been experimentally developed encompassing the variation of ferrite and pearlite volume fractions and taking images at different magnification (500X, 1000X, 15000X, 2000X, 3000X and 5000X) under scanning electron microscope. The variation in the volume fraction has been achieved using four different plain carbon steel containing 0.1, 0.22, 0.35 and 0.48 wt% C heat treated under annealing and normalizing treatments. The obtained data pool of micrographs arbitrarily divided into two parts to developing training and testing sets of micrographs. The statistical recognition features for ferrite and pearlite constituents have been developed by learning from training set of micrographs. The obtained features for microstructure pattern recognition are applied to test set of micrographs. The analysis of the result shows that the developed strategy can successfully detect the micro constitutes across the wide range of magnification and variation of volume fractions of the constituents in the structure with an accuracy of about +/- 5%.

Keywords: SEM micrograph, metallurgical image processing, ferrite pearlite steel, microstructure

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Authors: Merav Ben Natan, Heba Igbarin, Arwa Watted

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Introduction: The rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has heightened the need to understand the challenges faced by children with ASD and their families in emergency departments (EDs). Children with ASD often experience additional health issues and heightened anxiety in the chaotic ED environment, which can impact their care and parental satisfaction. Purpose: This study aimed to examine factors identified by mothers as affecting their satisfaction with the care provided to their children in the ED, among mothers of children with ASD in comparison to mothers of children without ASD. Design and methods: In this correlational quantitative study, 128 Israeli mothers – 59 (46%) mothers of children with ASD and 69 (54%) of children without ASD - completed an online survey based on a Ministry of Health national survey of patient experience. Results: Mothers of children with ASD expressed lower satisfaction with the care provided. The difference was particularly evident concerning waiting times for examination of the child by nurses and physicians in the ED, whether the nurses were attentive and responsive to the mother's questions and concerns, whether the ED staff demonstrated coordination and cooperation with regard to medical care of the child, and whether work in the ED was conducted in an orderly and organized manner. The presence of communication difficulties in children predicted mothers' satisfaction with care. Conclusions: These findings suggest that certain needs of mothers and/or their children with ASD do not receive an appropriate response in the ED. Practice implications: It is important to raise the awareness of healthcare providers in EDs regarding the needs of children with ASD and their parents, especially children with communication difficulties. Strategies should be implemented to improve the experience of children with ASD and their parents in the ED.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, emergency department, parental satisfaction, healthcare challenges

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Authors: S. Behnam Asl, H. Sadeghi Naeini, L. Sadat Ensaniat, R. Khorshidian, S. Alipour, S. Behnam Asl

Abstract:

Nowadays, the construction industry is growing, especially among developing countries. Iran also has a critical role in these industries in terms of workers disorders. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) account for 7% of the whole diseases in the society, which makes some limitations. One of the main factors which causes WMSDs is awkward posture. Steel bar bending is considered as one of the prominent performance among construction workers. In this case study, we aimed to find the major tasks of bar benders and the most important risk factors related to it. This study was carried out among twenty workers (18-45 years) as our volunteer samples in some construction sites with less than 6 floors in two regions of Tehran municipality. The data was gathered through in depth observation, interview and questionnaire. Also postural analysis was done by OWAS method. In another part of study we used NMQ for gathering some data about psychosocial effects of work related disorders. Our findings show that 64% of workers were not aware of work risks, about 59% of workers had troubles in their wrists, hands, especially workers who worked in steel bar bending. In 46% cases lower back pain was in prevalence. Considering gathered data and results, awkward postures and long term tasks and their duration are known as the main risk factors of WMSDs among construction workers, meaning that work-rest schedule and tools design should be reconsidered to make an ergonomic condition for the mentioned workers.

Keywords: bar benders, construction workers, musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), OWAS method

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Authors: Aura Maria Lopera Echavarria, Angela Maria Lema Perez, Daniela Medrano David, Pedronel Araque Marin, Marta Elena Londoño Lopez

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Bone regeneration is the process by which the formation of new bone is stimulated. Bone fractures can originate at any time due to trauma, infections, tumors, congenital malformations or skeletal diseases. Currently there are different strategies to treat bone defects that in some cases, regeneration does not occur on its own. That is why they are treated with bone substitutes, which provide a necessary environment for the cells to synthesize new bone. The Demineralized Bone Matrix (DBM) is widely used as a bone implant due to its good properties, such as osteoinduction and bioactivity. However, the use of DBM is limited, because its presentation is powder, which is difficult to implant with precision and is susceptible to migrating to other sites through blood flow. That is why the DBM is commonly incorporated into a variety of vehicles or carriers. The objective of this project is to evaluate the bioactive and confinement properties of a bone substitute based on demineralized bone matrix (DBM). Also, structural and morphological properties were evaluated. Bone substitute was obtained from EIA Biomaterials Laboratory of EIA University and the DBM was facilitated by Tissue Bank Foundation. Morphological and structural properties were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (DRX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with total attenuated reflection (FTIR-ATR). Water absorption capacity and degradation were also evaluated during three months. The cytotoxicity was evaluated by the MTT test. The bioactivity of the bone substitute was evaluated through immersion of the samples in simulated body fluid during four weeks. Confinement tests were performed on tibial fragments of a human donor with bone defects of determined size, to ensure that the substitute remains in the defect despite the continuous flow of fluid. According of the knowledge of the authors, the methodology for evaluating samples in a confined environment has not been evaluated before in real human bones. The morphology of the samples showed irregular surface and presented some porosity. DRX confirmed a semi-crystalline structure. The FTIR-ATR determined the organic and inorganic phase of the sample. The degradation and absorption measurements stablished a loss of 3% and 150% in one month respectively. The MTT showed that the system is not cytotoxic. Apatite clusters formed from the first week were visualized by SEM and confirmed by EDS. These calcium phosphates are necessary to stimulate bone regeneration and thanks to the porosity of the developed material, osteinduction and osteoconduction are possible. The results of the in vitro evaluation of the confinement of the material showed that the migration of the bone filling to other sites is negligible, although the samples were subjected to the passage of simulated body fluid. The bone substitute, putty type, showed stability, is bioactive, non-cytotoxic and has handling properties for specialists at the time of implantation. The obtained system allows to maintain the osteoinductive properties of DBM and it can fill completely fractures in any way; however, it does not provide a structural support, that is, it should only be used to treat fractures without requiring a mechanical load.

Keywords: bone regeneration, cytotoxicity, demineralized bone matrix, hydrogel

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Authors: Kalpana Jamdhade, Anita Chorey, Bharti Tijare, V. M. Bhale

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A field experiment was conducted during summer season of 2011 at Agronomy research farm, Dr. PDKV, Akola, to study the effect of irrigation regime and nitrogen levels on growth and productivity of summer sesame. The experiment was laid out in split plot Design in which three irrigation scheduling on the basis of IW/CPE ratio viz., irrigation at 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 IW/CPE ratios (I1, I2 and I3, respectively) and one irrigation scheduling based on critical growth stages of sesame (I4), in main plot and three nitrogen levels 0, 30 and 60 kg N ha-1 (N0, N1 and N2, respectively) in subplot. The result showed that plant height, number of leaves plant-1, leaf area and dry matter accumulation were maximum in irrigation scheduling at 1.0 IW/CPE ratio, which significantly superior over 0.6 IW/CPE ratio and irrigation at critical growth stages but were statistically at par with irrigation at 0.8 IW/CPE ratio. Nitrogen levels, application of 60 kg N ha-1 was recorded significantly superior all growth parameters over treatment 30 kg N ha-1 and 0 kg N ha-1. In case of yield attributes viz., No. of capsules plant-1, Test wt., grain yield and Stalk yield (qha-1) were maximum in irrigation scheduling at 1.0 IW/CPE ratio and were significantly superior over 0.8 IW/CPE ratio, 0.6 IW/CPE ratio and irrigation at critical growth stages. Application of 60 kg N ha-1 increased all yield attributing characters over application of 30 and 0 kg N ha-1. In case of economics of crop same trend was found and the highest B:C ration was obtained in irrigation scheduling at 1.0 IW/CPE ratio. Whereas, application of 30 kg N ha-1 was recorded highest B:C ration over application of 60 and 0 kg N ha-1. Interaction effect of irrigation and nitrogen levels were found to be non significant in summer season.

Keywords: irrigation regimes, nitrogen levels, summer sesame, agricultural technology

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Authors: Gerard Lawrence

Abstract:

This paper gives an in-depth discussion on Motivation in the Malaysian Armed Forces; highlighting it as a powerful and important tool upon which the well-being of an entire (or any) organization rests. It starts with the literal definition of the word and then the psychological aspects of it detailing the intricate mechanics and fundamentals in order to accurately and systematically harness it to create a motivated workforce. It then describes the types of motivation; positive and negative, its many facets and manifestation, clearly identifying each one point by point as well as drawing examples. The paper also deals with certain controversial practices like favoritism; nepotism and provides examples of military motivation both in historic and contemporary context. It strips the current system (and its flaws) to build, nurture and maintain motivation in the future. It shows how “past practice” may not necessarily be “best practice”, by providing the building blocks necessary to move forward and cautions on the inter-relation and differences between morale and motivation. As a conclusion the paper coins a theory of working in shifts for the military and urges careful research and planning as to IF this can raise if not maintain motivation in the new era.

Keywords: armed forces, Malaysia, motivation, military psychology

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Authors: Ebru Aktepe Erkoç, Atilla Uluğ

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In this research which has been prepared to show the relationship between Gökova Bay’s morphotectonic structure and seismicity, it is clear that there are many active faults in the region. The existence of a thick sedimentary accumulation since Late Quaternary times is obvious as a result of the geophysical workings in the region and the interpretation of seismic data which has been planning to be taken from the Bay. In the regions which have been tectonically active according to the interpretation of the taken data, the existence of the successive earthquakes in the last few years is remarkable. By analyzing large earthquakes affecting the areas remaining inside the sediments in West Anatolian Collapse System, this paper aims to reveal the fault systems constituting earthquakes with the information obtained from this study and to determine seismicity of the present residential areas right next to them. It is also aimed to anticipate the measures to be taken against possible earthquake hazards, to identify these areas posing a risk in terms of residential and urban planning and to determine at least partly the characteristics of the basin.

Keywords: Gökova Bay, sedimentation, seismic, West Anatolian

Procedia PDF Downloads 262