Search results for: inter-layer cold working

Authors: A. Knezović

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21st century has transformed the labor market landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher education context to their future professional careers. Given the context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic skills and competences. These include media and information literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers. This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in economics and/or business working in management positions in mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into consideration in this research, including reading and listening comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence, write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those elements are included in their courses and how consistently and thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements. Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same elements of the LSP course content in their working environments. Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of their course syllabi.

Keywords: languages for specific purposes (LSP), language skills, topic-centred syllabus, transferable skills

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Authors: Kensho Takahashi, Ko Watanabe, Takashi Kaburagi, Hiroshi Tanaka, Kajiro Watanabe, Yosuke Kurihara

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Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been widely used as a non-invasive method to measure brain activity, but it is corrupted by baseline drift noise. Here we present a method to measure regional cerebral blood flow as a derivative of NIRS output. We investigate whether, when listening to languages, blood flow can reasonably localize and represent regional brain activity or not. The prefrontal blood flow distribution pattern when advanced second-language listeners listened to a second language (L2) was most similar to that when listening to their first language (L1) among the patterns of mean and standard deviation. In experiments with 25 healthy subjects, the maximum blood flow was localized to the left BA46 of advanced listeners. The blood flow presented is robust to baseline drift and stably localizes regional brain activity.

Keywords: NIRS, oxy-hemoglobin, baseline drift, blood flow, working memory, BA46, first language, second language

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Authors: Nirav P. Vaghela

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Work-related musculoskeletal symptoms (WMS) are a major health issue in many occupations all over the world. Past research on hospital workers have mainly been focused on nurses [8] and very few studies have examined musculoskeletal symptoms among doctors in various specialties. The work of surgeons can involve high levels of mental concentration and very precise movements that can be categorized as mild-to-moderate physical demands. Design: Forty-three surgeons were enrolled in this study. To investigate musculoskeletal disorder among the surgeons we had used Standardised Nordic Questionnaire, Quick Exposure Check (QEC) and Workstyle Short Form. Result: In the current study, total 43 surgeons participants out of 30 males and 13 females. Their mean age was 42.07 ± 12.35, and the mean working years of the group were 15.14years ±9.017. On the average, they worked a total of about 8.58 h (±1.967) per day. The prevalence of work related musculoskeletal symptoms among the surgeons indicating 83.70% surgeons had atleast one joint affected while 16.30% had no symptoms at all. Conclusion: The present survey study has shown high prevalence rates of neck, back and shoulder musculoskeletal symptoms in surgeons.

Keywords: repetitive stress injury, pain, occupational hazards, disability, abneetism, physical health, quality of life

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Authors: J. H. O. Nascimento, F. R. Oliveira, K. K. O. S. Silva, J. Neves, V. Teixeira, J. Carneiro

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These the aliphatic polyesters such as Polylactic Acid (PLA) in the form of fibers, nanofibers or plastic films, generally possess chemically inert surfaces, free porosity, and surface free energy (ΔG) lesser than 32 mN/m. It is therefore considered a low surface energy material, consequently has a low work of adhesion. For this reason, the products manufactured using these polymers are often subjected to surface treatments in order to change its physic-chemical surface, improving their wettability and the Work of Adhesion (WA). Plasma Radio Frequency low pressure (RF) treatment was performed in order to improve the Work of Adhesion (WA) on PLA fibers. Different parameters, such as, power, ratio of working gas (Argon/Oxygen) and treatment time were used to optimize the plasma conditions to modify the PLA surface properties. With plasma treatment, a significant increase in the work of adhesion on PLA fiber surface was observed. The analysis performed by XPS showed an increase in polar functional groups and the SEM and AFM image revealed a considerable increase in roughness.

Keywords: RF plasma, surface modification, PLA fabric, atomic force macroscopic, Nanotechnology

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Authors: Fiona Tan, Cheryl Tan, Thomas Wong, Remesh

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Background: An increasing number of working adults undergo knee arthroplasty in Singapore. There is limited data concerning Southeast Asian patients returning to work (RTW) following knee replacement surgery. Our aim was to identify and study factors influencing patients' RTW following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) or unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA). Methods: Patients who underwent TKA or UKA between August 2017 to March 2020 in our center were included in this study. Outcomes include RTW and duration prior to RTW. Results: 441 patients underwent TKA (295 women, 146 men, mean age 67.3 years), and 69 underwent UKA (48 women, 21 men, mean age 61.1 years). Patients who underwent TKA returned to work earlier (mean 83.7 ± 27.1 days) compared to UKA (mean 94.4 ± 42.3 days). 90.0% of TKA patients RTW compared to 95.5% who underwent UKA. Of patients who RTW, 94.3% of the TKA group returned to employment of the same nature compared to 92.9% of UKA patients. Patients who RTW were of a younger age (p = 0.03), white-collared workers (p = 0.04), and had independent preoperative ambulatory status (p <0.01). Conclusion: Younger and independently ambulating patients may have a better capacity for rehabilitation and RTW post-arthroplasty surgery.

Keywords: return to work, total knee arthroplasty, unilateral knee arthroplasty, employment

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Authors: M. Hilani, B. Nassih

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Phishing is one of the oldest and best known scams on the Internet. It can be defined as any type of telecommunications fraud that uses social engineering tricks to obtain confidential data from its victims. It’s a cybercrime aimed at stealing your sensitive information. Phishing is generally done via private email, so scammers impersonate large companies or other trusted entities to encourage victims to voluntarily provide information such as login credentials or, worse yet, credit card numbers. The COVID-19 theme is used by cybercriminals in multiple malicious campaigns like phishing. In this environment, messaging filtering solutions have become essential to protect devices that will now be used outside of the secure perimeter. Despite constantly updating methods to avoid these cyberattacks, the end result is currently insufficient. Many researchers are looking for optimal solutions to filter phishing emails, but we still need good results. In this work, we concentrated on solving the problem of detecting phishing emails using the different steps of NLP preprocessing, and we proposed and trained a model using one-dimensional CNN. Our study results show that our model obtained an accuracy of 99.99%, which demonstrates how well our model is working.

Keywords: phishing, e-mail, NLP preprocessing, CNN, e-mail filtering

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Authors: Lusungu Ndovi

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Radio propagation from point-to-point is affected by the physical channel in many ways. A signal arriving at a destination travels through a number of different paths which are referred to as multi-paths. Research in this area of wireless communications has progressed well over the years with the research taking different angles of focus. By this is meant that some researchers focus on ways of reducing or eluding Multipath effects whilst others focus on ways of mitigating the effects of Multipath through compensation schemes. Baseband processing is seen as one field of signal processing that is cardinal to the advancement of software-defined radio technology. This has led to wide research into the carrying out certain algorithms at baseband. This paper considers compensating for Multipath for Frequency Modulated signals. The compensation process is carried out at Radio frequency (RF) and at Quadrature baseband (QBB) and the results are compared. Simulations are carried out using MatLab so as to show the benefits of working at lower QBB frequencies than at RF.

Keywords: quadrature baseband, qadio frequency, qultipath compensation, frequency qodulation, signal processing

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Authors: Sungho Kim, Jaechoul Shin, Yujin Baek, Nakseok Kim, Kyungnam Kim, Shinhaeng Jo

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The climate change and increase in heavy traffic have been accelerating damages that cause the problems such as pothole on asphalt pavement. Pothole causes traffic accidents, vehicle damages, road casualties and traffic congestion. A quick and efficient maintenance method is needed because pothole is caused by stripping and accelerates pavement distress. In this study, we propose a rapid and systematic pothole management by developing a pothole automated repairing equipment including a volume measurement system of pothole. Three kinds of cold mix asphalt mixture were investigated to select repair materials. The materials were evaluated for satisfaction with quality standard and applicability to automated equipment. The volume measurement system of potholes was composed of multi-sensor that are combined with laser sensor and ultrasonic sensor and installed in front and side of the automated repair equipment. An algorithm was proposed to calculate the amount of repair material according to the measured pothole volume, and the system for releasing the correct amount of material was developed. Field test results showed that the loss of repair material amount could be reduced from approximately 20% to 6% per one point of pothole. Pothole rapid automated repair equipment will contribute to improvement on quality and efficient and economical maintenance by not only reducing materials and resources but also calculating appropriate materials. Through field application, it is possible to improve the accuracy of pothole volume measurement, to correct the calculation of material amount, and to manage the pothole data of roads, thereby enabling more efficient pavement maintenance management. Acknowledgment: The author would like to thank the MOLIT(Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport). This work was carried out through the project funded by the MOLIT. The project name is 'development of 20mm grade for road surface detecting roadway condition and rapid detection automation system for removal of pothole'.

Keywords: automated equipment, management, multi-beam sensor, pothole

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Authors: Zainul Huda, Mohammed Hani Ajani

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The design, manufacture, and operation of thin-walled pressure vessels must be based on maximum safe operating pressure and an adequate factor of safety (FoS). This research paper first reports experimental evaluation of longitudinal and hoops stresses based on working pressure as well as maximum pressure; and then includes a critical study of factor of safety (FoS) in the design of a glass fiber pressure vessel. Experimental work involved the use of measuring instruments and the readings from pressure gauges. Design calculations involved the computations of design stress and FoS; the latter was based on breaking strength of 55 MPa for the glass fiber (pressure-vessel material). The experimentally determined FoS value has been critically compared with the general FoS allowed in the design of glass fiber pressure vessels.

Keywords: thin-walled pressure vessel, hoop stress, longitudinal stress, factor of safety (FoS), fiberglass

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Authors: Zainul Huda, Mohammad Hani Ajani

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The design, manufacture, and operation of thin-walled pressure vessels must be based on maximum safe operating pressure and an adequate factor of safety (FoS). This research paper first reports experimental evaluation of longitudinal and hoops stresses based on working pressure as well as maximum pressure; and then includes a critical study of factor of safety (FoS) in the design of a glass fiber pressure vessel. Experimental work involved the use of measuring instruments and the readings from pressure gauges. Design calculations involved the computations of design stress and FoS; the latter was based on breaking strength of 55 MPa for the glass fiber (pressure-vessel material). The experimentally determined FoS value has been critically compared with the general FoS allowed in the design of glass fiber pressure vessels.

Keywords: thin-walled pressure vessel, hoop stress, longitudinal stress, factor of safety (FoS), fiberglass

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Authors: Sandiso Mahlala, Fulufhelo Netswera

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Anecdotes of corruption and clear-cut lines of patronage in political parties and the government are frequently featured in South African newspapers and news media. Such graft and favouritism have institutionalised themselves more and more, resulting in the phenomenon of governmental capture and the diversion of Covid-19 relief monies. In order to further their own interests, political elites and those working in the public and private sectors influenced government decisions in this way. This paper presents examples of state capture, Covid-19 corruption, and patronage, as well as how these have a negative impact on broader governance and society at large. The fact that such corruption and patronage are occurring at a time when the South African economy is stagnating is particularly troubling since it implies that more people are getting less and raises concerns about the country's future political stability. This article further examines how party patronage as one method by which political parties exploit the state. The conceptual nature of the study is supported by a survey of the relevant literature from a range of sources, such as government regulations, media excepts, and scholarly works.

Keywords: political corruption, political patronage, patronage, state capture, COVID-19, corruption, South Africa

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Authors: Sehrish Qayyum

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Active military power contention is shifting to economic and cyberwar to retain hegemony. Attuned Pestle analysis confirms that structural stress of hegemon’s power loss drives a containment approach towards caging actions. Ongoing diplomatic, asymmetric, proxy and direct wars are increasing stress hegemon’s power retention due to tangled military and economic alliances. It creates the condition of catalepsy with defective reflexive control which affects the core warfare operations. When one’s own power is doubted it gives power to one’s own doubt to ruin all planning either done with superlative cost-benefit analysis. Strategically calculated estimation of Hegemon’s power game since the early WWI to WWII, WWII-to Cold War and then to the current era in three chronological periods exposits that Thucydides’s trap became the reason for war broke out. Thirst for power is the demise of imagination and cooperation for better sense to prevail instead it drives ashes to dust. Pestle analysis is a wide array of evaluation from political and economic to legal dimensions of the state matters. It helps to develop the Pacification and Security Policy Plan (PSPP) to avoid hegemon’s structural stress of power loss in fact, in turn, creates an alliance with maximum amicable outputs. PSPP may serve to regulate and pause the hurricane of power clashes. PSPP along with a strategic work plan is based on Pestle analysis to deal with any conceivable war condition and approach for saving international peace. Getting tangled into self-imposed epistemic dilemmas results in regret that becomes the only option of performance. It is a generic application of probability tests to find the best possible options and conditions to develop PSPP for any adversity possible so far. Innovation in expertise begets innovation in planning and action-plan to serve as a rheostat approach to deal with any plausible power clash.

Keywords: alliance, hegemon, pestle analysis, pacification and security policy plan, security

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Authors: M. H. Imam, Imran A. Tasadduq, Abdul-Rahim Ahmad, Fahd M. Aldosari

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Learning outcomes of a course (CLOs) and the abilities at the time of graduation referred to as Student Outcomes (SOs) are required to be assessed for ABET accreditation. A question in an assessment must target a CLO as well as an SO and must represent a required level of competence. This paper presents the idea of an Expert System (ES) to select a proper question to satisfy ABET accreditation requirements. For ES implementation, seven attributes of a question are considered including the learning outcomes and Bloom’s Taxonomy level. A database contains all the data about a course including course content topics, course learning outcomes and the CLO-SO relationship matrix. The knowledge base of the presented ES contains a pool of questions each with tags of the specified attributes. Questions and the attributes represent expert opinions. With implicit rule base the inference engine finds the best possible question satisfying the required attributes. It is shown that the novel idea of such an ES can be implemented and applied to a course with success. An application example is presented to demonstrate the working of the proposed ES.

Keywords: expert system, student outcomes, course learning outcomes, question attributes

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Authors: Gaurav Kumar, Baldev Setia

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Water is essential for sustenance of life and the ecosystem. Among the various uses of water, the water required for drinking and domestics has the priority over other needs. Water that is required for human consumption must be available in sufficient quantity and should be of good quality. Keeping in view the futuristic needs of water of Kurukshetra town, a durable and cost-effective water supply system with the help of Ranney well has been proposed. This has been proposed on the premise that Brahmsarovar, the largest static water body in the state of Haryana provides sufficient recharge to the groundwater aquifer. In the study, a 30 year design period has been adopted and the water demand up to the year 2050 has been computed. The proposed Ranney well to be constructed in the vicinity of the Brahmsarovar will have a caisson of diameter of 12 m and will be laid at a depth of 30 m below MSL. The laterals, 20 in number, 300 mm in diameter and 15 m in length will be located in two layer separated by 1.5 m. the impact on environment because of the construction and working of the Ranney well is also studied and it has been found that there are no adverse impacts of the proposed scheme. However, the present study is limited to the hydraulics design of the scheme and does not address the structural design of components of Ranney well and the cost involved.

Keywords: drawdown, Ranney well, LPCD, MSL, transmissibility, storativity

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Authors: Khader Titi

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Information technology developments have changed the way how businesses are working. Organizations are required to become visible online and stay connected to take advantages of costs reduction and improved operation of existing resources. The approval and the application areas of the cloud computing has significantly increased since it was presented by Google in 2007. Internet Cloud computing has attracted the IT enterprise attention especially the e-business enterprise. At this time, there is a great issue of environmental costs during the enterprises apply the e- business, but with the coming of cloud computing, most of the problem will be solved. Organizations around the world are facing with the continued budget challenges and increasing in the size of their computational data so, they need to find a way to deliver their services to clients as economically as possible without negotiating the achievement of anticipated outcomes. E- business companies need to provide better services to satisfy their clients. In this research, the researcher proposed a paradigm that use and deploy cloud computing technology environment to be used for e-business in small enterprises. Cloud computing might be a suitable model for implementing e-business and e-commerce architecture to improve efficiency and user satisfaction.

Keywords: E-commerce, cloud computing, B2C, SaaS

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Authors: Martina Perinkova, Lenka Kolarcikova, Marketa Twrda

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Brownfields are one of the most important problems that must be solved by today's cities. The topic of this article is description of developing a comprehensive transformation of post-industrial area of the former iron factory national cultural heritage Lower Vítkovice. City of Ostrava used to be industrial superpower of the Czechoslovak Republic, especially in the area of coal mining and iron production, after declining industrial production and mining in the 80s left many unused areas of former factories generally brownfields and backfields. Since the late 90s we are observing how the city officials or private entities seeking to remedy this situation. Regeneration of brownfields is a very expensive and long-term process. The area is now rebuilt for tourists and residents of the city in the entertainment, cultural, and social center. It was necessary do the reconstruction of the industrial monuments. Equally important was the construction of new buildings, which helped reusing of the entire complex. This is a unique example of transformation of technical monuments and completion of necessary new objects, so that the area could start working again and reintegrate back into the urban system.

Keywords: brown fields, conversion, historical and industrial buildings, reconstruction

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Authors: Patrick Guggenberger

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Extant literature has highlighted the importance of individual employees in the entrepreneurial process, as they are those that come up with novel ideas and promote their implementation throughout the organization. However, research on antecedents of individual entrepreneurial behavior (IEB) is very limited. The present study takes an initial step to investigate the interplay between transformational leader behaviors of direct supervisors and employees’ ability and willingness to act entrepreneurial and sheds light on the moderating role of an individual’s hierarchical level. A theoretically derived research model is empirically tested, drawing on survey data of 450 individuals working in medium- and large-sized corporations in two countries. Findings indicate that various transformational leader behaviors have a strong positive impact on IEB, while the ability of direct supervisors to influence their followers’ entrepreneurial behavior depends strongly on their own hierarchical level. The study reveals that transformational leadership has most impact at lower hierarchical levels, where employees’ motivation to act entrepreneurial is the lowest.

Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship, hierarchy, individual entrepreneurial behavior, transformational leadership

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Authors: Katie Jerram, Jacqui Nevols, Rebecca Howes, Hayley Richardson, Debbie Suso, Thomas Batten, Reny Mathai

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Pyomyositis is an uncommon acute purulent skeletal muscle infection, usually caused by Staphylococcus aureus, occurring either spontaneously or following local trauma. Immunocompromise is a risk factor. It presents with pyrexia, pain, and tenderness of the affected muscle, which may have a firm ‘woody’ feel. Management usually involves surgery and prolonged courses of antibiotics, but alongside these active treatments, palliation of symptoms such as pain is also a priority. A short case series of diabetic inpatients under the care of the Renal Medicine team with pyomyositis is presented, demonstrating that Hospital Palliative Care Teams may be well placed to provide symptom management advice by working jointly with the patient’s medical or surgical team. A review of the literature on the management of pain in pyomyositis is also presented, and there was no clear consensus on the best strategy. It may be that a combination of analgesics and adjuncts is the most effective strategy, perhaps combined with the holistic approach used within palliative care.

Keywords: pyomyositis, pain, palliation, analgesia

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Authors: Frew Yirgalem Mane

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This study has examined Africa’s experiment with authoritarian model of development drawing from the experience of Ethiopia. With the tectonic crisis of neoliberal ideology, the dominant policy agenda in Africa pertains to bringing the state back to development. More concretely, countries epitomized by Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda have been constructing a highly interventionist state with authoritarian character. The central motive appears to facilitate development and salvage people out of appalling and grinding poverty. Each country warrants closer inspection. However, this study focuses on Ethiopia- a country often applauded as ‘Africa’s Great Run’ for delivering socio-economic success over the past two decades. In fact, inspired by East Asia’s including Chinese model of authoritarian development, Ethiopia orchestrated a vanguard party, centralized rent control system with politicized bureaucracy and militaristic mobilization resources for development. This arrangement may explain Ethiopia economic success story as one the fastest growing countries in the world. However, this paper detected, Ethiopia’s attempt to bring the state back in development has precipitated institutionalization of a new breed of authoritarianism and informalization of public institutions. Ethiopia’s model of state-led development may constitute a noticeable shift away from the vengeful adherence to neoliberal policies. However, the manner the model has been practiced proved to be neither smooth nor appears to address Ethiopia’s aspiration for political and economic transformation. Partly, this can be illustrated by recent widespread grievances that fed into the popular uprising and animated opposition against the state. Sources of the grievance are complex, but they are highly ingrained with the way the authoritarian model of development is functioning and also the model’s dis-functioning in terms of benefiting people. In light of these findings, the study has arrived at the following conclusion. Africa’s attempt to emulate development models from other countries is not such a ‘bad’ thing. However, emulation makes sense if it is contextualized and sensitive to complex local socio-economic interests.

Keywords: Africa, authoritarianism, development, Ethiopia, neoliberalism

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Authors: Davoud Masoumi, Maryam Bourbour

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By characterizing children’s actions in the scaffolding process, which is often undermined and ignored in the studies reviewed, this study aimed to examine children’s different (re)actions in relation to the teachers’ actions in a context where digital technologies are used. Over five months, 22 children aged 4-6 with five preschool teachers were video observed. The study brought in rich details of the children’s actions in relation to the teacher’s actions in the scaffolding process. The findings of the study reveal thirteen (re)actions, including Giving short response; Explaining; Participating in the activities; Examining; Smiling and laughing; Pointing and showing; Working together; Challenging each other; Problem-solving skills; Developing vocabulary; Choosing the activity; Expressing of the emotions; and Identifying the similarities and differences. Our findings expanded and deepened the understanding of the scaffolding process, which can contribute to the notion of scaffolding and help us to gain further understanding about scaffolding of children’s learning. Characterizing the children’s (re)action in relation to teacher’s scaffolding actions further can contribute to ongoing discussions about how teachers can scaffold children’s learning using digital technologies in the learning process.

Keywords: children’ (re)actions, scaffolding process, technologies, preschools

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Authors: Sheraz Akhtar

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In recent years, a massive influx of refugees into developing countries has placed significant constraints on the host government’s capacities to provide social services, including education, to all. As a result, the refugee communities often find themselves deprived of their rights to education in these host countries, particularly for those who to live outside camps in urban locations. While previous research has examined the educational experiences of refugees who have resettled in developed nations, there remains a dearth of research on the educational experiences of urban refugees in developing nations. This study examines this issue through a case study of Pakistani Christian refugees living in urban settings in Thailand. Using a combination of observations within community learning centres set up by international non-government organisations (INGOs) working with these communities, and interviews with young Pakistani Christian refugees and their families, the research aims to give greater voice to the Pakistani Christian refugee community living in Thailand, and better understand their educational aspirations.

Keywords: Education, Developing Countries , INGOs, Urban Refugees

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Authors: William Batson, Yunsik Song, Abel Simie

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Recent trends in suburban design and planning have centered on economic efficiency in construction and completion. In doing so, developers, builders, and architects have bypassed free and reliable sustainable solutions to minimize the carbon footprint and improve the environment. Often, suburban areas are designed without landscape features, sidewalks, parks, adequate lighting, or walking space. Much of the design concern involves minimizing construction costs and streamlining streets and utilities. A new development in creating retention ponds to mitigate flooding and slow runoff is one step in the positive direction. However, "if you build them (suburbs), they (fauna) will come." The inevitable flora and fauna that soon propagate and take refuge within these artificial retention ponds create an additional dilemma. Architects, planners, and developers know the requirements and current strategies to provide residents and wildlife with a viable and sustainable environment. This includes habitat for hibernating animals and facilitating opportunities, especially for cold-blooded mammals. Many species that migrate to these artificial ponds struggle to survive, especially during flooding and when the water table drains below the artificial rim, preventing aquatic mammals from climbing on land. This flooding often results from large areas of impervious asphalt and concrete. These impervious surfaces retain and dispense large amounts of rainwater and contaminants that carry industrial pollutants, oil, plastics, animal waste, and fertilizers into storm drains and then deposited in these retention ponds. This paper will identify and show how simple and logical solutions are used to create a sustainable suburb and reduce the carbon footprint using landscape architectural strategies and cost-free design solutions. We will also demonstrate simple changes in the present suburban design model to provide a viable and sustainable suburb for the 21st century.

Keywords: sustainavilty, suburban, flora, fauna, carbon footprint

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Authors: Su-Thing Ho, Shiao-Shing Chen, Hung-Te Hsu, Saikat Sinha Ray

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Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging technology for direct and indirect potable water reuse application. However, successful implementation of FO is still hindered by the lack of draw solution recovery with high efficiency. Membrane distillation (MD) is a thermal separation process by using hydrophobic microporous membrane that is kept in sandwich mode between warm feed stream and cold permeate stream. Typically, temperature difference is the driving force of MD which attributed by the partial vapor pressure difference across the membrane. In this study, the direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) system was used to recover diluted draw solution of FO. Na3PO4 at pH 9 and EDTA-2Na at pH 8 were used as the feed solution for MD since it produces high water flux and minimized salt leakage in FO process. At high pH, trivalent and tetravalent ions are much easier to remain at draw solution side in FO process. The result demonstrated that PTFE with pore size of 1 μm could achieve the highest water flux (12.02 L/m2h), followed by PTFE 0.45 μm (10.05 L/m2h), PTFE 0.1 μm (7.38 L/m2h) and then PP (7.17 L/m2h) while using 0.1 M Na3PO4 draw solute. The concentration of phosphate and conductivity in the PTFE (0.45 μm) permeate were low as 1.05 mg/L and 2.89 μm/cm respectively. Although PTFE with the pore size of 1 μm could obtain the highest water flux, but the concentration of phosphate in permeate was higher than other kinds of MD membranes. This study indicated that four kinds of MD membranes performed well and PTFE with the pore size of 0.45 μm was the best among tested membranes to achieve high water flux and high rejection of phosphate (99.99%) in recovery of diluted draw solution. Besides that, the results demonstrate that it can obtain high water flux and high rejection of phosphate when operated with cross flow velocity of 0.103 m/s with Tfeed of 60 ℃ and Tdistillate of 20 ℃. In addition to that, the result shows that Na3PO4 is more suitable for recovery than EDTA-2Na. Besides that, while recovering the diluted Na3PO4, it can obtain the high purity of permeate water. The overall performance indicates that, the utilization of DCMD is a promising technology to recover the diluted draw solution for FO process.

Keywords: membrane distillation, forward osmosis, draw solution, recovery

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Authors: Lucie Pospíšilová, Robert Osman, Hana Porkertová

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The scholarly literature demonstrates disability and masculinity in conflict with each other. While disability is associated with dependence, weakness, or helplessness, masculinity is associated with independence, strength, and power. Thus, disabled masculinity might be a dilemma experienced on a personal level. The relationship between masculinity and disability is also interesting from a geographical point of view because the conception of space is gendered. In our society, the skills like spatial orientation, working with the maps, and navigation technologies as same as with scale are associated with masculinity. And because these skills are related to the visual imagination, it is the blindness that is associated with the limitation or even the absence of them. Thus, the conflict of masculinity and disability in the spatial experience is very well apparent in the case of visually impaired men. To study this conflict can tell us a lot not only about the experience of visually impaired men but also about the conception of space in geography and in our society. The paper uses Henri Lefebvre's theory of space based on a triad of spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space. It answers the question: How masculinity and disability intersect in the spatial experience of visually impaired men? The data come from research conducted in Brno and Prague (Czechia) in 2020 and 2021 and include 7 interviews and 6 go-alongs with visually impaired men.

Keywords: disability, masculinity, abstract space, spatial experience, visually impaired men

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Authors: Inayatullah Jan, Sidra Pervez

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Effective institutional arrangements at local and national levels are quintessential for promotion of renewable energy in a country. This study attempts to examine the institutional arrangements for development of domestic renewable energy in rural northwest Pakistan. The study describes that very limited number of public and private organizations were working on clean development in the area. Surprisingly, no institutional arrangements exclusively meant for domestic clean energy promotion were observed in the area. The study concludes that the objectives of Kyoto Protocol in Pakistan can be achieved only if the government and non-governmental organizations work together to launch cost-effective renewable energy interventions, particularly in rural areas. The need is to have a coordinated, consistent, and focused cooperation of all stakeholders involved in promotion of domestic renewable energy at all levels. This will not only improve the socioeconomic and environmental conditions in the local context, but will play a key role in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

Keywords: governance, clean energy, greenhouse gases, CDM, Northwest Pakistan

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Authors: Samaneh Sadat Fattahi Massoom, Hossein Salimi Bajestani

Abstract:

The study examines loneliness and depression in students who regularly care for themselves after school (latchkey students) in Mashhad and compares them with parent supervised students using a causal-comparative research method. The 270 participants, aged 7 -13, were selected using convenience and cluster random-assignment sampling. Independent t-test results showed significant differences between loneliness (-4.32, p ≤ 0.05) and depression (-3.02, p ≤0.05) among latchkey and non-latchkey students. Using the Pearson correlation test, significant correlation between depression and loneliness among latchkey students was also discovered (r=0.59, p ≤ 0.05). However, regarding non latchkey students, no significant difference between loneliness and depression was observed (r= 0.02. p ≥ 0.05). Multiple regression results also showed that depression variance can be determined by gender (22%) and loneliness (34%). The findings of this study, specifically the significant difference between latchkey and non-latchkey children regarding feelings of loneliness and depression, carries clear implications for parents. It can be concluded that mothers who spend most of their time working out of the house and devoid their children of their presence in the home may cause some form of mental distress like loneliness and depression. Moreover, gender differences affect the degree of these psychological disorders.

Keywords: loneliness, depression, self-care students, latchkey and non-latchkey students, gender

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Authors: Parvin Ghafarian, Mohammadreza Mohammadpur Panchah, Mehri Fallahi

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Synoptic patterns from surface up to tropopause are very important for forecasting the weather and atmospheric conditions. There are many tools to prepare and analyze these maps. Reanalysis data and the outputs of numerical weather prediction models, satellite images, meteorological radar, and weather station data are used in world forecasting centers to predict the weather. The forecasting extreme precipitating on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea (CS) is the main issue due to complex topography. Also, there are different types of climate in these areas. In this research, we used two reanalysis data such as ECMWF Reanalysis 5th Generation Description (ERA5) and National Centers for Environmental Prediction /National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) for verification of the numerical model. ERA5 is the latest version of ECMWF. The temporal resolution of ERA5 is hourly, and the NCEP/NCAR is every six hours. Some atmospheric parameters such as mean sea level pressure, geopotential height, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, sea surface temperature, etc. were selected and analyzed. Some different type of precipitation (rain and snow) was selected. The results showed that the NCEP/NCAR has more ability to demonstrate the intensity of the atmospheric system. The ERA5 is suitable for extract the value of parameters for specific point. Also, ERA5 is appropriate to analyze the snowfall events over CS (snow cover and snow depth). Sea surface temperature has the main role to generate instability over CS, especially when the cold air pass from the CS. Sea surface temperature of NCEP/NCAR product has low resolution near coast. However, both data were able to detect meteorological synoptic patterns that led to heavy rainfall over CS. However, due to the time lag, they are not suitable for forecast centers. The application of these two data is for research and verification of meteorological models. Finally, ERA5 has a better resolution, respect to NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data, but NCEP/NCAR data is available from 1948 and appropriate for long term research.

Keywords: synoptic patterns, heavy precipitation, reanalysis data, snow

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Authors: Hediye Saglam

Abstract:

This research has been carried out to bring in the 6 acquisitions in the 2014 Preschool Teaching Programme of the Turkish Ministry of Education through the method of analogy. This research is practiced based on the experimental pattern with pre-test and final test controlling groups. The working group of the study covers the group between 5-6 ages. The study takes 5 weeks including the 2 weeks spent for pre-test and the final test. It is conducted with the preschool teacher who gives the lesson along with the researcher in the in-class and out-of-class rainbow experiments of the students for 5 weeks. 'One Sample T Test' is used for the evaluation of the pre-test and final test. SPSS 17 programme is applied for the analysis of the data. Results: As an outcome of the study it is observed that analogy method affects children’s learning of the rainbow. For this very reason teachers should receive inservice training for different methods and techniques like analogy. This method should be included in preschool education programme and should be applied by teachers more often.

Keywords: acquisitions of preschool education programme, analogy method, pre-test/final test, rainbow experiments

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Authors: S. Barabas, F. Sarbu, B. Barabas, A. Fota

Abstract:

Main objective of this paper is to establish a link between inertial forces of the bearings used in construction of wind power plant and its behavior. Using bearings with lower inertial forces has the immediate effect of decreasing inertia rotor system, with significant results in increased energy efficiency, due to decreased friction forces between rollers and raceways. The FEM analysis shows the appearance of uniform contact stress at the ends of the rollers, demonstrated the necessity of production of low mass bearings. Favorable results are expected in the economic field, by reducing material consumption and by increasing the durability of bearings. Using low mass bearings with hollow rollers instead of solid rollers has an impact on working temperature, on vibrations and noise which decrease. Implementation of types of hollow rollers of cylindrical tubular type, instead of expensive rollers with logarithmic profile, will bring significant inertial forces decrease with large benefits in behavior of wind power plant.

Keywords: inertial forces, Von Mises stress, hollow rollers, wind turbine

Procedia PDF Downloads 345

Authors: Piedad Garrido, Fernando Repulles, Andy Bloor, Julio A. Sanguesa, Jesus Gallardo, Vicente Torres, Jesus Tramullas

Abstract:

With the emergence and development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), Higher Education is experiencing rapid changes, not only in its teaching strategies but also in student’s learning skills. However, we have noticed that students often have difficulty when seeking innovative, useful, and interesting learning resources for their work. This is due to the lack of supervision in the selection of good query tools. This paper presents AINA, an Information Retrieval (IR) computer system aimed at providing motivating and stimulating content to both students and teachers working on different areas and at different educational levels. In particular, our proposal consists of an open virtual resource environment oriented to the vast universe of Disney comics and cartoons. Our test suite includes Disney’s long and shorts films, and we have performed some activities based on the Just In Time Teaching (JiTT) methodology. More specifically, it has been tested by groups of university and secondary school students.

Keywords: information retrieval, animation, educational resources, JiTT

Procedia PDF Downloads 328