Search results for: cluster integration
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 3415

Search results for: cluster integration

1585 Interaction between River and City Morphology

Authors: Ehsan Abshirini

Abstract:

Rivers as one of the most important topographic factors have played a strategic role not only on the appearance of cities but they also affect the structure and morphology of cities. In this paper author intends to find out how a city in its physical network interacts with a river flowing inside. The pilot study is Angers, a city in western France, in which it is influenced by the Maine River. To this purpose space syntax method integrating with GIS is used to extract the properties of physical form of cities in terms of global and local integration value, accessibility and choice value. Simulating the state of absence of river in this city and comparing the result to the current state of city according to the effect of river on the morphology of areas located in different banks of river is also part of interest in this paper. The results show that although a river is not comparable to the city based on size and the area occupied by, it has a significant effect on the form of the city in both global and local properties. In addition, this study endorses that tracking the effect of river-cities and their interaction to rivers in a hybrid of space syntax and GIS may lead researchers to improve their interpretation of physical form of these types of cities.

Keywords: river-cities, Physical form, space syntax properties, GIS, topographic factor

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1584 Modification of the Athena Vortex Lattice Code for the Multivariate Design Synthesis Optimisation of the Blended Wing Body Aircraft

Authors: Paul Okonkwo, Howard Smith

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This paper describes a methodology to integrate the Athena Vortex Lattice Aerodynamic Software for automated operation in a multivariate optimisation of the Blended Wing Body Aircraft. The Athena Vortex Lattice code developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Mark Drela allows for the aerodynamic analysis of aircraft using the vortex lattice method. Ordinarily, the Athena Vortex Lattice operation requires a text file containing the aircraft geometry to be loaded into the AVL solver in order to determine the aerodynamic forces and moments. However, automated operation will be required to enable integration into a multidisciplinary optimisation framework. Automated AVL operation within the JAVA design environment will nonetheless require a modification and recompilation of AVL source code into an executable file capable of running on windows and other platforms without the –X11 libraries. This paper describes the procedure for the integrating the FORTRAN written AVL software for automated operation within the multivariate design synthesis optimisation framework for the conceptual design of the BWB aircraft.

Keywords: aerodynamics, automation, optimisation, AVL

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1583 A Strategy to Oil Production Placement Zones Based on Maximum Closeness

Authors: Waldir Roque, Gustavo Oliveira, Moises Santos, Tatiana Simoes

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Increasing the oil recovery factor of an oil reservoir has been a concern of the oil industry. Usually, the production placement zones are defined after some analysis of geological and petrophysical parameters, being the rock porosity, permeability and oil saturation of fundamental importance. In this context, the determination of hydraulic flow units (HFUs) renders an important step in the process of reservoir characterization since it may provide specific regions in the reservoir with similar petrophysical and fluid flow properties and, in particular, techniques supporting the placement of production zones that favour the tracing of directional wells. A HFU is defined as a representative volume of a total reservoir rock in which petrophysical and fluid flow properties are internally consistent and predictably distinct of other reservoir rocks. Technically, a HFU is characterized as a rock region that exhibit flow zone indicator (FZI) points lying on a straight line of the unit slope. The goal of this paper is to provide a trustful indication for oil production placement zones for the best-fit HFUs. The FZI cloud of points can be obtained from the reservoir quality index (RQI), a function of effective porosity and permeability. Considering log and core data the HFUs are identified and using the discrete rock type (DRT) classification, a set of connected cell clusters can be found and by means a graph centrality metric, the maximum closeness (MaxC) cell is obtained for each cluster. Considering the MaxC cells as production zones, an extensive analysis, based on several oil recovery factor and oil cumulative production simulations were done for the SPE Model 2 and the UNISIM-I-D synthetic fields, where the later was build up from public data available from the actual Namorado Field, Campos Basin, in Brazil. The results have shown that the MaxC is actually technically feasible and very reliable as high performance production placement zones.

Keywords: hydraulic flow unit, maximum closeness centrality, oil production simulation, production placement zone

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1582 Revealing the Genome Based Biosynthetic Potential of a Streptomyces sp. Isolate BR123 Presenting Broad Spectrum Antimicrobial Activities

Authors: Neelma Ashraf

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Actinomycetes, particularly genus Streptomyces is of great importance due to their role in the discovery of new natural products, particularly antimicrobial secondary metabolites in the medicinal science and biotechnology industry. Different Streptomyces strains were isolated from Helianthus annuus plants and tested for antibacterial and antifungal activities. The most promising five strains were chosen for further investigation, and growth conditions for antibiotic synthesis were optimised. The supernatants were extracted in different solvents, and the extracted products were analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and biological testing. From one of the potent strains Streptomyces globusus sp. BR123, a compound lavendamycin was identified using these analytical techniques. In addition, this potent strain also produces a strong antifungal polyene compound with a quasimolecular ion of 2072. Streptomyces sp. BR123 was genome sequenced because of its promising antimicrobial potential in order to identify the gene cluster responsible for analyzed compound “lavendamycin”. The genome analysis yielded candidate genes responsible for the production of this potent compound. The genome sequence of 8.15 Mb of Streptomyces sp. isolate BR123 with a GC content of 72.63% and 8103 protein coding genes was attained. Many antimicrobial, antiparasitic, and anticancerous compounds were detected through multiple biosynthetic gene clusters predicted by in-Silico analysis. Though, the novelty of metabolites was determined through the insignificant resemblance with known biosynthetic gene clusters. The current study gives insight into the bioactive potential of Streptomyces sp. isolate BR123 with respect to the synthesis of bioactive secondary metabolites through genomic and spectrometric analysis. Moreover, the comparative genome study revealed the connection of isolate BR123 with other Streptomyces strains, which could expand the knowledge of this genus and the mechanism involved in the discovery of new antimicrobial metabolites.

Keywords: streptomyces, secondary metabolites, genome, biosynthetic gene clusters, high performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry

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1581 The Role of E-Learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education

Authors: Annette McArthur

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The traditional model of teaching and learning, where ICT sits as a separate entity is not a model for a 21st century school. It is imperative that teaching and learning embraces technological advancements. The challenge in schools lies in shifting the mindset of teachers so they see ICT as integral to their teaching, learning and curriculum rather than a separate E-Learning curriculum stream. This research project investigates how the effective, planned, intentional integration of ICT into a STEM curriculum, can enable the shift in the teacher mindset. The project incorporated: • Developing a professional coaching relationship with key STEM teachers. • Facilitating staff professional development involving student centered project based learning pedagogy in the context of a STEM curriculum. • Facilitating staff professional development involving digital literacy. • Establishing a professional community where collaboration; sharing and reflection were part of the culture of the STEM community. • Facilitating classroom support for the effective delivery innovative STEM curriculum. • Developing STEM learning spaces where technologies were used to empower and engage learners to participate in student-centered, project-based learning.

Keywords: e-learning, ICT, project based learning, STEM

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1580 Optimal Allocation of Distributed Generation Sources for Loss Reduction and Voltage Profile Improvement by Using Particle Swarm Optimization

Authors: Muhammad Zaheer Babar, Amer Kashif, Muhammad Rizwan Javed

Abstract:

Nowadays distributed generation integration is best way to overcome the increasing load demand. Optimal allocation of distributed generation plays a vital role in reducing system losses and improves voltage profile. In this paper, a Meta heuristic technique is proposed for allocation of DG in order to reduce power losses and improve voltage profile. The proposed technique is based on Multi Objective Particle Swarm optimization. Fewer control parameters are needed in this algorithm. Modification is made in search space of PSO. The effectiveness of proposed technique is tested on IEEE 33 bus test system. Single DG as well as multiple DG scenario is adopted for proposed method. Proposed method is more effective as compared to other Meta heuristic techniques and gives better results regarding system losses and voltage profile.

Keywords: Distributed generation (DG), Multi Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO), particle swarm optimization (PSO), IEEE standard Test System

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1579 Correlation Between Political Awareness and Political Participation for University Students: An Applied Study

Authors: Rana Mohamed Abd El Aal

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This is an exploratory study that aims to answer the question of whether and to what extent the prevailing political culture with a special focus to the factor of political awareness for Egyptian university students is influential in shaping their participatory behavior; more precisely in four main Universities ;(Cairo University- BaniSwif University- BUE University- Suez Canal University). To ensure the validity of my results, I deployed a number of different data collection methods: the collection, analysis, integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods; for investigating two main hypothesis H1: There is a positive relation between the political awareness level and political participation for university students, H2: There is a positive relation between political values in the society and the level of political participation of university students. The study reveals that though the sample represented the portion of political science students in different Universities, the level of political awareness and political participation was low with a statistically significant relationship; also, the patterns of values in Egyptian culture affects significantly the level of participation in the different universities. Therefore; the study using SWOT analysis recommends some policies for increasing the level of awareness and integrating youth in the political process.

Keywords: political awareness, political participation, civic culture, citizenship, egyptian universities, political knowledge

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1578 An Investigation of Surface Water Quality in an Industrial Area Using Integrated Approaches

Authors: Priti Saha, Biswajit Paul

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Rapid urbanization and industrialization has increased the pollution load in surface water bodies. However, these water bodies are major source of water for drinking, irrigation, industrial activities and fishery. Therefore, water quality assessment is paramount importance to evaluate its suitability for all these purposes. This study focus to evaluate the surface water quality of an industrial city in eastern India through integrating interdisciplinary techniques. The multi-purpose Water Quality Index (WQI) assess the suitability for drinking, irrigation as well as fishery of forty-eight sampling locations, where 8.33% have excellent water quality (WQI:0-25) for fishery and 10.42%, 20.83% and 45.83% have good quality (WQI:25-50), which represents its suitability for drinking irrigation and fishery respectively. However, the industrial water quality was assessed through Ryznar Stability Index (LSI), which affirmed that only 6.25% of sampling locations have neither corrosive nor scale forming properties (RSI: 6.2-6.8). Integration of these statistical analysis with geographical information system (GIS) helps in spatial assessment. It identifies of the regions where the water quality is suitable for its use in drinking, irrigation, fishery as well as industrial activities. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of statistical and GIS techniques for water quality assessment.

Keywords: surface water, water quality assessment, water quality index, spatial assessment

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1577 Knowledge Management Best Practice Model in Higher Learning Institution: A Systematic Literature Review

Authors: Ismail Halijah, Abdullah Rusli

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Introduction: This systematic literature review aims to identify the Knowledge Management Best Practice components in the Knowledge Management Model for Higher Learning Institutions environment. Study design: Systematic literature review. Methods: A systematic literature re-view of Knowledge Management Best Practice to identify and define the components of Best Practice from the Knowledge Management models was conducted recently. Results: This review of published papers of conference and journals’ articles shows the components of Best Practice in Knowledge Management are basically divided into two aspect which is the soft aspect and the hard aspect. The lacks of combination of these two aspects into an integrated model decelerate Knowledge Management Best Practice to fully throttle. Evidence from the literature shows the lack of integration of this two aspects leads to the immaturity of the Higher Learning Institution (HLI) towards the implementation of Knowledge Management System. Conclusion: The first steps of identifying the attributes to measure the Knowledge Management Best Practice components from the models in the literature will led to the definition of the Knowledge Management Best Practice component for the higher learning environment.

Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge management system, knowledge management best practice, knowledge management higher learning institution

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1576 Communities of Practice as a Training Model for Professional Development of In-Service Teachers: Analyzing the Sharing of Knowledge by Teachers

Authors: Panagiotis Kosmas

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The advent of new technologies in education inspires practitioners to approach teaching from a different angle with the aim to professionally develop and improve teaching practices. Online communities of practice among teachers seem to be a trend associated with the integration efforts for a modern and pioneering educational system and training program. This study attempted to explore the participation in online communities of practice and the sharing of knowledge between teachers with aims to explore teachers' incentives to participate in such a community of practice. The study aims to contribute to international research, bringing in global debate new concerns and issues related to the professional learning of current educators. One official online community was used as a case study for the purposes of research. The data collection was conducted from the content analysis of online portal, by questionnaire in 184 community members and interviews with ten active users of the portal. The findings revealed that sharing of knowledge is a key motivation of members of a community. Also, the active learning and community participation seem to be essential factors for the success of an online community of practice.

Keywords: communities of practice, teachers, sharing knowledge, professional development

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1575 The Role of Uncertainty in the Integration of Environmental Parameters in Energy System Modeling

Authors: Alexander de Tomás, Miquel Sierra, Stefan Pfenninger, Francesco Lombardi, Ines Campos, Cristina Madrid

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Environmental parameters are key in the definition of sustainable energy systems yet excluded from most energy system optimization models. Still, decision-making may be misleading without considering them. Environmental analyses of the energy transition are a key part of industrial ecology but often are performed without any input from the users of the information. This work assesses the systemic impacts of energy transition pathways in Portugal. Using the Calliope energy modeling framework, 250+ optimized energy system pathways are generated. A Delphi study helps to identify the relevant criteria for the stakeholders as regards the environmental assessment, which is performed with ENBIOS, a python package that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA) with a metabolic analysis based on complex relations. Furthermore, this study focuses on how the uncertainty propagates through the model’s consortium. With the aim of doing so, a soft link between the Calliope/ENBIOS cascade and Brightway’s data capabilities is built to perform Monte Carlo simulations. These findings highlight the relevance of including uncertainty analysis as a range of values rather than informing energy transition results with a single value.

Keywords: energy transition, energy modeling, uncertainty, sustainability

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1574 Digital Control Algorithm Based on Delta-Operator for High-Frequency DC-DC Switching Converters

Authors: Renkai Wang, Tingcun Wei

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In this paper, a digital control algorithm based on delta-operator is presented for high-frequency digitally-controlled DC-DC switching converters. The stability and the controlling accuracy of the DC-DC switching converters are improved by using the digital control algorithm based on delta-operator without increasing the hardware circuit scale. The design method of voltage compensator in delta-domain using PID (Proportion-Integration- Differentiation) control is given in this paper, and the simulation results based on Simulink platform are provided, which have verified the theoretical analysis results very well. It can be concluded that, the presented control algorithm based on delta-operator has better stability and controlling accuracy, and easier hardware implementation than the existed control algorithms based on z-operator, therefore it can be used for the voltage compensator design in high-frequency digitally- controlled DC-DC switching converters.

Keywords: digitally-controlled DC-DC switching converter, digital voltage compensator, delta-operator, finite word length, stability

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1573 Attachment Systems and Psychotherapy: An Internal Secure Caregiver to Heal and Protect the Parts of Our Clients: InCorporer Method

Authors: Julien Baillet

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In light of 30 years of scientific research, InCorporer Method was created in 2019 as a new approach to heal traumatic, developmental, and dissociative injuries. Following natural nervous system functions, InCorporer aims to heal, develop, and update the different defensive mammalian subsystems: fight, flight, freeze, feign death, cry for help, & energy regulator. The dimensions taken into account are: (i) Heal the traumatic injuries who are still bleeding, (ii) Develop the systems that never received the security, attention, and affection they needed. (iii) Update the parts that stayed stuck in the past, ignoring for too long that they are out of danger now. Through the Present Part and its caregiving skills, InCorporer method enables a balanced, soothed, and collaborative personality system. To be as integrative as possible, InCorporer method has been designed according to several fields of research, such as structural dissociation theory, attachment theory, and information processing theory. In this paper, the author presents how the internal caregiver is developed and trained to heal all the different parts/subsystems of our clients through mindful attention and reflex movement integration.

Keywords: PTSD, attachment, dissociation, part work

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1572 Impact of Extended Enterprise Resource Planning in the Context of Cloud Computing on Industries and Organizations

Authors: Gholamreza Momenzadeh, Forough Nematolahi

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The Extended Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPII) system usually requires massive amounts of storage space, powerful servers, and large upfront and ongoing investments to purchase and manage the software and the related hardware which are not affordable for organizations. In recent decades, organizations prefer to adapt their business structures with new technologies for remaining competitive in the world economy. Therefore, cloud computing (which is one of the tools of information technology (IT)) is a modern system that reveals the next-generation application architecture. Also, cloud computing has had some advantages that reduce costs in many ways such as: lower upfront costs for all computing infrastructure and lower cost of maintaining and supporting. On the other hand, traditional ERPII is not responding for huge amounts of data and relations between the organizations. In this study, based on a literature study, ERPII is investigated in the context of cloud computing where the organizations operate more efficiently. Also, ERPII conditions have a response to needs of organizations in large amounts of data and relations between the organizations.

Keywords: extended enterprise resource planning, cloud computing, business process, enterprise information integration

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1571 Dielectric Study of Ethanol Water Mixtures at Different Concentration Using Hollow Channel Cantilever Platform

Authors: Maryam S. Ghoraishi, John E. Hawk, Thomas Thundat

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Understanding liquid properties in small scale has become important in recent decades as immerging new microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices have been widely used for micro pumps, drug delivery, and many other laboratory-on-microchips analysis. Often in microfluidic devices, fluids are transported electrokinetically. Therefore, extensive knowledge of fluid flow, heat transport, electrokinetics and electrochemistry are key to successful lab on a chip design. Among different microfluidic devices, recently developed hollow channel cantilever offers an ideal platform to study different fluid properties simultaneously without drastic decrease in quality factor which normally occurs when traditional cantilevers operate in the liquid phase. Using hollow channel cantilever, we monitor changes in density and viscosity of liquid while simultaneously investigating dielectric properties of alcohol water binary mixtures. Considerable research has been conducted on alcohol-water mixtures since such a mixture is a typical prototype for biomolecules, Micelle formation, and structural stability of proteins (to name a few). Here we show that hollow channel cantilever can be employed to investigate dielectric properties of ethanol/water mixtures in different concentrations. We study dynamic amplitude shifts of hollow channel cantilever oscillation at different concentrations of ethanol/water for different voltages. Our results show how interactions between solute and solvent, and possibly cluster formation, could change dielectric properties and dipole reorientation of the mixture, as well as the resulting force on the hollow cantilever. For comparison, we also examine higher conductivity ionic mixtures of sodium sulfate solution under the same conditions as low conductivity ethanol/water mixtures. We will show the results from systematic investigation of solvent effects on dielectric properties of the binary mixture. We will also address the question of resolution limits in dielectric study of analyte molecules imposed by solvent concentrations.

Keywords: dielectric constant, cantilever sensors, ethanol water mixtures, low frequency

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1570 The Implementation of the Multi-Agent Classification System (MACS) in Compliance with FIPA Specifications

Authors: Mohamed R. Mhereeg

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The paper discusses the implementation of the MultiAgent classification System (MACS) and utilizing it to provide an automated and accurate classification of end users developing applications in the spreadsheet domain. However, different technologies have been brought together to build MACS. The strength of the system is the integration of the agent technology with the FIPA specifications together with other technologies, which are the .NET widows service based agents, the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services, the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Oracle Data Mining (ODM). Microsoft's .NET windows service based agents were utilized to develop the monitoring agents of MACS, the .NET WCF services together with SOA approach allowed the distribution and communication between agents over the WWW. The Monitoring Agents (MAs) were configured to execute automatically to monitor excel spreadsheets development activities by content. Data gathered by the Monitoring Agents from various resources over a period of time was collected and filtered by a Database Updater Agent (DUA) residing in the .NET client application of the system. This agent then transfers and stores the data in Oracle server database via Oracle stored procedures for further processing that leads to the classification of the end user developers.

Keywords: MACS, implementation, multi-agent, SOA, autonomous, WCF

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1569 The Integration of Patient Health Record Generated from Wearable and Internet of Things Devices into Health Information Exchanges

Authors: Dalvin D. Hill, Hector M. Castro Garcia

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A growing number of individuals utilize wearable devices on a daily basis. The usage and functionality of these wearable devices vary from user to user. One popular usage of said devices is to track health-related activities that are typically stored on a device’s memory or uploaded to an account in the cloud; based on the current trend, the data accumulated from the wearable device are stored in a standalone location. In many of these cases, this health related datum is not a factor when considering the holistic view of a user’s health lifestyle or record. This health-related data generated from wearable and Internet of Things (IoT) devices can serve as empirical information to a medical provider, as the standalone data can add value to the holistic health record of a patient. This paper proposes a solution to incorporate the data gathered from these wearable and IoT devices, with that a patient’s Personal Health Record (PHR) stored within the confines of a Health Information Exchange (HIE).

Keywords: electronic health record, health information exchanges, internet of things, personal health records, wearable devices, wearables

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1568 Unique Interprofessional Mental Health Education Model: A Pre/Post Survey

Authors: Michele L. Tilstra, Tiffany J. Peets

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Interprofessional collaboration in behavioral healthcare education is increasingly recognized for its value in training students to address diverse client needs. While interprofessional education (IPE) is well-documented in occupational therapy education to address physical health, limited research exists on collaboration with counselors to address mental health concerns and the psychosocial needs of individuals receiving care. Counseling education literature primarily examines the collaboration of counseling students with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists. This pretest/posttest survey research study explored changes in attitudes toward interprofessional teams among 56 Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) (n = 42) and Counseling and Human Development (CHD) (n = 14) students participating in the Counselors and Occupational Therapists Professionally Engaged in the Community (COPE) program. The COPE program was designed to strengthen the behavioral health workforce in high-need and high-demand areas. Students accepted into the COPE program were divided into small MOT/CHD groups to complete multiple interprofessional multicultural learning modules using videos, case studies, and online discussion board posts. The online modules encouraged reflection on various behavioral healthcare roles, benefits of team-based care, cultural humility, current mental health challenges, personal biases, power imbalances, and advocacy for underserved populations. Using the Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education- Revision 2 (SPICE-R2) scale, students completed pretest and posttest surveys using a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly Agree = 5 to Strongly Disagree = 1) to evaluate their attitudes toward interprofessional teamwork and collaboration. The SPICE-R2 measured three different factors: interprofessional teamwork and team-based practice (Team), roles/responsibilities for collaborative practice (Roles), and patient outcomes from collaborative practice (Outcomes). The mean total scores for all students improved from 4.25 (pretest) to 4.43 (posttest), Team from 4.66 to 4.58, Roles from 3.88 to 4.30, and Outcomes from 4.08 to 4.36. A paired t-test analysis for the total mean scores resulted in a t-statistic of 2.54, which exceeded both one-tail and two-tail critical values, indicating statistical significance (p = .001). When the factors of the SPICE-R2 were analyzed separately, only the Roles (t Stat=4.08, p =.0001) and Outcomes (t Stat=3.13, p = .002) were statistically significant. The item ‘I understand the roles of other health professionals’ showed the most improvement from a mean score for all students of 3.76 (pretest) to 4.46 (posttest). The significant improvement in students' attitudes toward interprofessional teams suggests that the unique integration of OT and CHD students in the COPE program effectively develops a better understanding of the collaborative roles necessary for holistic client care. These results support the importance of IPE through structured, engaging interprofessional experiences. These experiences are essential for enhancing students' readiness for collaborative practice and align with accreditation standards requiring interprofessional education in OT and CHD programs to prepare practitioners for team-based care. The findings contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the integration of IPE in behavioral healthcare curricula to improve holistic client care and encourage students to engage in collaborative practice across healthcare settings.

Keywords: behavioral healthcare, counseling education, interprofessional education, mental health education, occupational therapy education

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1567 Poverty Reduction in European Cities: Local Governments’ Strategies and Programmes to Reduce Poverty; Interview Results from Austria

Authors: Melanie Schinnerl, Dorothea Greiling

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In the context of the 2020 strategy, poverty and its fight returned to the center of national political efforts. This served as motivation for an Austrian research grant-funded project to focus on the under-researched local government level with the aim to identify municipal best-practice cases and to derive policy implications for Austria. Designing effective poverty reduction strategies is a complex challenge which calls for an integrated multi-actor in approach. Cities are increasingly confronted to combat poverty, even in rich EU-member states. By doing so cities face substantial demographic, cultural, economic and social challenges as well as changing welfare state regimes. Furthermore, there is a low willingness of (right-wing) governments to support the poor. Against this background, the research questions are: 1. How do local governments define poverty? 2. Who are the main risk groups and what are the most pressing problems when fighting urban poverty? 3. What is regarded as successful anti-poverty initiatives? 4. What is the underlying welfare state concept? To address the research questions a multi-method approach was chosen, consisting of a systematic literature analysis, a comprehensive document analysis, and expert interviews. For interpreting the data the project follows the qualitative-interpretive paradigm. Municipal approaches for reducing poverty are compared based on deductive, as well as inductive identified criteria. In addition to an intensive literature analysis, interviews (40) were conducted in Austria since the project started in March 2018. From the other countries, 14 responses have been collected, providing a first insight. Regarding the definition of poverty the EU SILC-definition as well as counting the persons who receive need-based minimum social benefits, the Austrian form of social welfare, are the predominant approaches in Austria. In addition to homeless people, single-parent families, un-skilled persons, long-term unemployed persons, migrants (first and second generation), refugees and families with at least 3 children were frequently mentioned. The most pressing challenges for Austrian cities are: expected reductions of social budgets, a great insecurity of the central government's social policy reform plans, the growing number of homeless people and a lack of affordable housing. Together with affordable housing, old-age poverty will gain more importance in the future. The Austrian best practice examples, suggested by interviewees, focused primarily on homeless, children and young people (till 25). Central government’s policy changes have already negative effects on programs for refugees and elderly unemployed. Social Housing in Vienna was frequently mentioned as an international best practice case, other growing cities can learn from. The results from Austria indicate a change towards the social investment state, which primarily focuses on children and labour market integration. The first insights from the other countries indicate that affordable housing and labor market integration are cross-cutting issues. Inherited poverty and old-age poverty seems to be more pressing outside Austria.

Keywords: anti-poverty policies, European cities, empirical study, social investment

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1566 A Study on the Impact of Employment Status of the Elderly on Their Mental Well-Being in India

Authors: Santosh B. Phad, Priyanka V. Janbandhu, Dhananjay W. Bansod

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Population Ageing is a growing concern for the social scientists. There is a higher level of aged male participation compared to elderly females. Now, the critical question is whether participation in work improves the quality of life among the elderly and the impact of working status on the mental well-being of the elderly. While examining these research questions, the present paper focuses on the workforce participation of the elderly and the reasons behind it, additionally, determines the association between employment status and the mental well-being of the elderly. The present study has a base of two data sources. First one is Census of India data, 2001 and 2011, and another one is – the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE), a survey conducted in 2007. To capture the trend of workforce participation elderly Census data is significant and to obtain other information associated with this issue the SAGE data is studied. The research piece consists of univariate and bivariate analysis along with some statistical methods like principal component analysis (PCA) and regression modeling – to investigate the association between workforce participation of elderly and subjective well-being (SWB). The results show that the percentage of elderly participating in the labor market is gradually reducing, but the share of working elderly has increased within the group of overall workers. i.e., the ratio of aged workers to non-aged workers is rising. The findings from survey data specify that there is a considerable share of the elderly in the labor market; three-fourths of the employed elderly enrolled the workforce unwillingly. They are in need of some earnings mainly to afford the medical expenses on their health or the health of their spouse, also to support their family members who are economically inactive. Apart from need, duration of working is another vital aspect for the elderly, whereas more than 80 percent of the elderly are working for six hours or more, and most of them engaged in self-employment. However, more than one-third of the working elderly falls into a negative cluster of the subjective well-being (SWB) index, and it is consistent with the result of the discriminant analysis. Here, the SWB index calculated from the 12 items and the reliability score of these items is 0.89.

Keywords: ageing, workforce, census of India, SAGE

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1565 A Multi-Tenant Problem Oriented Medical Record System for Representing Patient Care Cases using SOAP (Subjective-Objective-Assessment-Plan) Note

Authors: Sabah Mohammed, Jinan Fiaidhi, Darien Sawyer

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Describing clinical cases according to a clinical charting standard that enforces interoperability and enables connected care services can save lives in the event of a medical emergency or provide efficient and effective interventions for the benefit of the patients through the integration of bedside and bench side clinical research. This article presented a multi-tenant extension to the problem-oriented medical record that we have prototyped previously upon using the GraphQL Application Programming Interface to represent the notion of a problem list. Our implemented extension enables physicians and patients to collaboratively describe the patient case via using multi chatbots to collaboratively describe the patient case using the SOAP charting standard. Our extension also connects the described SOAP patient case with the HL7 FHIR (Health Interoperability Resources) medical record for connecting the patient case to the bench data.

Keywords: problem-oriented medical record, graphQL, chatbots, SOAP

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1564 Accelerated Evaluation of Structural Reliability under Tsunami Loading

Authors: Sai Hung Cheung, Zhe Shao

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It is of our great interest to quantify the risk to structural dynamic systems due to earthquake-induced tsunamis in view of recent earthquake-induced tsunamis in Padang, 2004 and Tohoku, 2011 which brought huge losses of lives and properties. Despite continuous advancement in computational simulation of the tsunami and wave-structure interaction modeling, it still remains computationally challenging to evaluate the reliability of a structural dynamic system when uncertainties related to the system and its modeling are taken into account. The failure of the structure in a tsunami-wave-structural system is defined as any response quantities of the system exceeding specified thresholds during the time when the structure is subjected to dynamic wave impact due to earthquake-induced tsunamis. In this paper, an approach based on a novel integration of a recently proposed moving least squares response surface approach for stochastic sampling and the Subset Simulation algorithm is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is discussed by comparing its results with those obtained from the Subset Simulation algorithm without using the response surface approach.

Keywords: response surface, stochastic simulation, structural reliability tsunami, risk

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1563 NanoSat MO Framework: Simulating a Constellation of Satellites with Docker Containers

Authors: César Coelho, Nikolai Wiegand

Abstract:

The advancement of nanosatellite technology has opened new avenues for cost-effective and faster space missions. The NanoSat MO Framework (NMF) from the European Space Agency (ESA) provides a modular and simpler approach to the development of flight software and operations of small satellites. This paper presents a methodology using the NMF together with Docker for simulating constellations of satellites. By leveraging Docker containers, the software environment of individual satellites can be easily replicated within a simulated constellation. This containerized approach allows for rapid deployment, isolation, and management of satellite instances, facilitating comprehensive testing and development in a controlled setting. By integrating the NMF lightweight simulator in the container, a comprehensive simulation environment was achieved. A significant advantage of using Docker containers is their inherent scalability, enabling the simulation of hundreds or even thousands of satellites with minimal overhead. Docker's lightweight nature ensures efficient resource utilization, allowing for deployment on a single host or across a cluster of hosts. This capability is crucial for large-scale simulations, such as in the case of mega-constellations, where multiple traditional virtual machines would be impractical due to their higher resource demands. This ability for easy horizontal scaling based on the number of simulated satellites provides tremendous flexibility to different mission scenarios. Our results demonstrate that leveraging Docker containers with the NanoSat MO Framework provides a highly efficient and scalable solution for simulating satellite constellations, offering not only significant benefits in terms of resource utilization and operational flexibility but also enabling testing and validation of ground software for constellations. The findings underscore the importance of taking advantage of already existing technologies in computer science to create new solutions for future satellite constellations in space.

Keywords: containerization, docker containers, NanoSat MO framework, satellite constellation simulation, scalability, small satellites

Procedia PDF Downloads 42
1562 Detection of Concrete Reinforcement Damage Using Piezoelectric Materials: Analytical and Experimental Study

Authors: C. P. Providakis, G. M. Angeli, M. J. Favvata, N. A. Papadopoulos, C. E. Chalioris, C. G. Karayannis

Abstract:

An effort for the detection of damages in the reinforcement bars of reinforced concrete members using PZTs is presented. The damage can be the result of excessive elongation of the steel bar due to steel yielding or due to local steel corrosion. In both cases the damage is simulated by considering reduced diameter of the rebar along the damaged part of its length. An integration approach based on both electromechanical admittance methodology and guided wave propagation technique is used to evaluate the artificial damage on the examined longitudinal steel bar. Two actuator PZTs and a sensor PZT are considered to be bonded on the examined steel bar. The admittance of the Sensor PZT is calculated using COMSOL 3.4a. Fast Furrier Transformation for a better evaluation of the results is employed. An effort for the quantification of the damage detection using the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between the healthy condition and damage state of the sensor PZT is attempted. The numerical value of the RSMD yields a level for the difference between the healthy and the damaged admittance computation indicating this way the presence of damage in the structure. Experimental measurements are also presented.

Keywords: concrete reinforcement, damage detection, electromechanical admittance, experimental measurements, finite element method, guided waves, PZT

Procedia PDF Downloads 251
1561 MBR-RO System Operation in Quantitative and Qualitative Promotion of Waste Water Cleaning: Case Study of Shokohieyh Qoms’ Waste Water Cleaning

Authors: A. A. Hassani, M. Nasri Nasrabadi

Abstract:

According to population growth and increasing water needs of industrial and agricultural sections and lack of existing water sources, also increases of wastewater and new wastewater treatment plant construction’s high costs, it is inevitable to reuse wastewater with the approach of increasing wastewater treatment capacity and output sewage quality. In this regard, the first sewage reuse plan in industrial uses was designed with the approach of qualitative and quantitative improvement due to the increased organic load of the output sewage of Qom Shokohieh city’s’ in wastewater treatment plant. This research investigated qualitative factors COD, BOD, TSS, TDS, and input and output heavy metal of MBR-RO system and ability of increase wastewater acceptance capacity by existing in wastewater treatment plant. For this purpose, experimental results of seven-month navigation system have been used from 07/01/2013 to 02/01/2014. Existing data analysis showed that MBR system is able to remove 93.2% COD, 94.4% BOD, 13.8% TDS, 98% heavy metals and RO system is able to remove 98.9% TDS. This study showed that MBR-RO integration system is able to increase the capacity of refinery by 30%.

Keywords: industrial wastewater, wastewater reuse, MBR, RO

Procedia PDF Downloads 286
1560 Adoption of Digital Storytelling Tool to Teach 21st Century Skills by Malaysian Pre-service Teachers

Authors: Siti Aisyah binti Jumpaan

Abstract:

21ˢᵗ century skills (PAK-21) integration has made its way into Malaysian curriculum when Ministry of Education introduce its implementation since 2016. This study was conducted to explore pre-service teachers’ readiness in integrating 21st century skills in the classroom via the digital storytelling (DST) method and to find gaps between theory and practice that can be integral towards pre-service teachers’ professional growth. Qualitative research method was used in this research involving six respondents who were selected using a purposive sampling method. Their response from interviews and lesson plan analysis were analysed using narrative analysis. The findings showed that pre-service teachers showed a moderate level of readiness in integrating 21st century skills using DST. Pre-service teachers demonstrated high level of preparedness in writing their lesson plan, but their interview revealed that they faced struggles in implementation due to several factors, such as lack of technology and failure to obtain students’ participation. This study further strengthens the need for specialised curriculum for pre-service teachers in teaching 21st century skills via DST.

Keywords: digital storytelling, 21ˢᵗ century skills, preservice teachers, teacher training

Procedia PDF Downloads 87
1559 Integration of Climatic Factors in the Meta-Population Modelling of the Dynamic of Malaria Transmission, Case of Douala and Yaoundé, Two Cities of Cameroon

Authors: Justin-Herve Noubissi, Jean Claude Kamgang, Eric Ramat, Januarius Asongu, Christophe Cambier

Abstract:

The goal of our study is to analyse the impact of climatic factors in malaria transmission taking into account migration between Douala and Yaoundé, two cities of Cameroon country. We show how variations of climatic factors such as temperature and relative humidity affect the malaria spread. We propose a meta-population model of the dynamic transmission of malaria that evolves in space and time and that takes into account temperature and relative humidity and the migration between Douala and Yaoundé. We also integrate the variation of environmental factors as events also called mathematical impulsion that can disrupt the model evolution at any time. Our modelling has been done using the Discrete EVents System Specification (DEVS) formalism. Our implementation has been done on Virtual Laboratory Environment (VLE) that uses DEVS formalism and abstract simulators for coupling models by integrating the concept of DEVS.

Keywords: compartmental models, DEVS, discrete events, meta-population model, VLE

Procedia PDF Downloads 551
1558 A Creative Strategy to Functionalize TiN/CNC Composites as Cathode for High-Energy Zinc Ion Capacitors

Authors: Ye Ling, Jiang Yuting, Ruan Haihui

Abstract:

Zinc ion capacitors (ZICs) have garnered tremendous interest recently from researchers due to the perfect integration of batteries and supercapacitors (SC). However, ZICs are currently still facing two major challenges, one is low specific capacitance because of the limited capacity of capacitive cathode materials. In this work, TiN/CNC composites were obtained by a creative method composed of simple mixing and calcination treatment of tetrabutyl titanate (TBOT) and ZIF-8. The formed TiN particles are of ultra-small size and distributed uniformly on the nanoporous carbon matrix, which enhances the conductivity of the composites and the micropores caused by the evaporation of zinc during the calcination process and can serve as the reservoir of electrolytes; both are beneficial to zinc ion storage. When it was used as a cathode with zinc metal and 2M ZnSO₄ as the anode and electrolyte, respectively, in a ZIC device, the assembled device delivered a maximum energy density as high as 153 Wh kg-¹ at a power density of 269.4 W kg-¹, which is superior to many ZICs as reported. Also, it can maintain an energy density of 83.7 Wh kg-¹ at a peak power density of 8.6 kW kg-¹, exhibiting good rate performance. Moreover, when it was charged/discharged for 5000 cycles at a current density of 5 A g-¹, it remained at 85.8% of the initial capacity with a Coulombic efficiency (CE) of nearly 100%.

Keywords: zinc ion capacitor, metal nitride, zif-8, supercapacitor

Procedia PDF Downloads 40
1557 Detection of Concrete Reinforcement Damage Using Piezoelectric Materials: Analytical and Experimental Study

Authors: C. P. Providakis, G. M. Angeli, M. J. Favvata, N. A. Papadopoulos, C. E. Chalioris, C. G. Karayannis

Abstract:

An effort for the detection of damages in the reinforcement bars of reinforced concrete members using PZTs is presented. The damage can be the result of excessive elongation of the steel bar due to steel yielding or due to local steel corrosion. In both cases the damage is simulated by considering reduced diameter of the rebar along the damaged part of its length. An integration approach based on both electro-mechanical admittance methodology and guided wave propagation technique is used to evaluate the artificial damage on the examined longitudinal steel bar. Two actuator PZTs and a sensor PZT are considered to be bonded on the examined steel bar. The admittance of the Sensor PZT is calculated using COMSOL 3.4a. Fast Furrier Transformation for a better evaluation of the results is employed. An effort for the quantification of the damage detection using the root mean square deviation (RMSD) between the healthy condition and damage state of the sensor PZT is attempted. The numerical value of the RSMD yields a level for the difference between the healthy and the damaged admittance computation indicating this way the presence of damage in the structure. Experimental measurements are also presented.

Keywords: concrete reinforcement, damage detection, electromechanical admittance, experimental measurements, finite element method, guided waves, PZT

Procedia PDF Downloads 287
1556 Right To Return & Narrative In Refugee Camps: Case Study In Palestinian Displacement

Authors: Naomi I. Austin

Abstract:

Following WWII, the Geneva Conventions and Universal Declaration of Human Rights declared the right to return an unalienable right. The right to return has been disputed by the Israeli government and upheld as an individual by prominent Palestinian activists. Those who contest the Palestinian right to return argue that it would effectively end the state of Israel. After the conquest of Lebanon, the concept of a two-state solution has been effectively shut down. This research paper will seek to utilize interviews from NGO actors and those displaced to be gathered from fieldwork conducted in refugee camps and bases of international actors, exploring durable and multilateral solutions for not only the refugee crisis but the forced displacement of Palestinians that go beyond state actors and government entities. The research will center on the perspective of those displaced to generate a plausible solution to mitigate negative effects on displaced persons. This paper will seek to address whether the right to return is plausible with the expansion of Israeli territorial conquest and the impact of the Israeli expansion on migrations within the Mediterranean region especially with policies of integration into the host community.

Keywords: durable solutions, forced displacement, protracted conflict, refugee studies, narrative building, memory, right to return

Procedia PDF Downloads 1