Search results for: interest free banking

Authors: Fathi Abubrig, Mohamed Delfag, Suad Abuzariba

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The influence of the crystal field interactions on the mixed spin-3/2 and spin-5/2 ferromagnetic Ising system is considered by using the mean field theory based on Bogoliubov inequality for the Gibbs free energy. The ground-state phase diagram is constructed, the phase diagrams of the second-order critical temperatures are obtained, and the thermal variation of the sublattice magnetizations is investigated in detail. We find some interesting phenomena for the sublattice magnetizations at particular values of the crystal field interactions.

Keywords: crystal field, Ising system, ferromagnetic, magnetization, phase diagrams

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Authors: Sofia Matoug, Amr Abdel-Dayem

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This paper presents a comprehensive survey of recent research studies to segment and classify brain MR (magnetic resonance) images in order to detect significant changes to brain ventricles. The paper also presents a general framework for detecting regions that atrophy, which can help neurologists in detecting and staging Alzheimer. Furthermore, a prototype was implemented to segment brain MR images in order to extract the region of interest (ROI) and then, a classifier was employed to differentiate between normal and abnormal brain tissues. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can provide a reliable second opinion that neurologists can benefit from.

Keywords: Alzheimer, brain images, classification techniques, Magnetic Resonance Images MRI

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Authors: Joseph Ignagni, Rebecca Deen

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In this study, the decision making of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court will be considered in terms of constrained maximization and cognitive-cybernetic theory. This paper will integrate research in such fields as law, psychology, political science, economics and decision-making theory. It will be argued that due to its heavy workload, the Supreme Court may be forced to make decisions in a boundedly rational manner. The ideas and theory put forward here will be considered in the area of the Court’s decisions involving religion. Therefore, the cases involving the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause will be analyzed.

Keywords: bounded rationality, cognitive-cybernetic, US supreme court, religion

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Authors: Amad Nasseef, Layan Zugail, Joud Musalli, Layan Shaikan

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Technology has become an essential part of our lives. We have also witnessed the significant emergence of artificial intelligence in so many areas. Throughout this research paper, the following will be discussed: an introduction on AI and Socratic application, we also did an overview on the application’s background and other similar applications, as for the methodology, we conducted a survey to collect results on users experience in using the Socratic application. The results of the survey strongly supported the usefulness and interest of users in the Socratic application. Finally, we concluded that Socratic is a meaningful tool for learning purposes due to it being supported by artificial intelligence, which made the application easy to use and familiar to users to deal with through a click of a button.

Keywords: Socratic, artificial intelligence, application, features

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Authors: Temitayo Abayomi Ewemoje, Isaac Olugbemiga Afolayan, Badmus Alao Tayo

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Researchers in developing countries have worked on improving cassava resistance to diseases and pests, high yielding and early maturity However, water management has received little or no attention as cassava cultivation in Sub-Saharan Africa depended on available precipitation (rain-fed condition). Therefore the need for water management in Agricultural crop production cannot be overemphasized. As other sectors compete with agricultural sector for fresh water (which is not readily available), there is need to increase water productivity in agricultural production. Experimentation was conducted to examine water use, growth and yield of improved cassava varieties under rain fed condition using Latin- square design with four replications. Four improved disease free stem cassava varieties TMS (30572, 980505, 920326 and 090581) were planted and growth parameters of the varieties were monitored for 90 and 120 days after planting (DAP). Effective rainfall useful for the plant growth was calculated using CROPWAT8 for Windows. Results indicated TMS090581 was having the highest tuber yield and plant height while TMS30572 had highest number of nodes. Tuber stem and leaf water productivities at 90 and 120 DAP of TMS (30572, 980505, 920326 and 090581) are (1.27 and 3.58, 1.44 and 2.35, 0.89 and 1.86, 1.64 and 3.77) kg/m3 (1.56 and 2.59, 1.95 and 2.02, 1.98 and 2.05, 1.95 and 2.18) kg/m3, and (1.34 and 2.32, 1.94 and 2.16, 1.57 and 1.40, 1.27 and 1.80) kg/m3 respectively. Based on tuber water productivity TMS090581 are recommended while TMS30572 are recommended based on leaf and stem productivity in water scarce regions.Experimentation was conducted to examine water use, growth and yield of improved cassava varieties under rain fed condition using Latin- square design with four replications. Four improved disease free stem cassava varieties TMS (30572, 980505, 920326 and 090581) were planted and growth parameters of the varieties were monitored for 90 and 120 days after planting (DAP). Effective rainfall useful for the plant growth was calculated using CROPWAT8 for Windows. Results indicated TMS090581 was having the highest tuber yield and plant height while TMS30572 had the highest number of nodes. Tuber, stem and leaf water productivities at 90 and 120 DAP of TMS (30572, 980505, 920326 and 090581) are (1.27 and 3.58, 1.44 and 2.35, 0.89 and 1.86, 1.64 and 3.77) kg/m3 (1.56 and 2.59, 1.95 and 2.02, 1.98 and 2.05, 1.95 and 2.18) kg/m3, and (1.34 and 2.32, 1.94 and 2.16, 1.57 and 1.40, 1.27 and 1.80) kg/m3 respectively. Based on tuber water productivity TMS090581 are recommended while TMS30572 are recommended based on leaf and stem productivity in water scarce regions

Keywords: improved TMS varieties, leaf productivity, rain-fed cassava production, stem productivity, tuber productivity

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Authors: V. Geza, J. Vencels, G. Zageris, S. Pavlovs

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One of the most perspective methods to produce SoG-Si is refinement via metallurgical route. The most critical part of this route is refinement from boron and phosphorus. Therefore, a new approach could address this problem. We propose an approach of creating surface waves on silicon melt’s surface in order to enlarge its area and accelerate removal of boron via chemical reactions and evaporation of phosphorus. A two dimensional numerical model is created which includes coupling of electromagnetic and fluid dynamic simulations with free surface dynamics. First results show behaviour similar to experimental results from literature.

Keywords: numerical modelling, silicon refinement, surface waves, VOF method

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Authors: M. J. Rodríguez, F. M. Sánchez, B. Velardo, P. Calvo, M. J. Serradilla, J. Delgado, J. M. López

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The main problems in storage and later transport of fruits, are the decays developed that reduce the quality on destination’s markets. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest in the use of compounds to avoid decays in post-harvest. Triazole fungicides are agrochemicals widely used in the agricultural industry due to their wide spectrum of actions, and in some case, they are used in citrus fruit post-harvest. Moreover, its use is not authorized in plum post-harvest, but in order to a future possible authorization, the evolutions of propiconazole and tebuconazole residues are studied after its post-harvest application in ‘Angeleno’ plum.

Keywords: maximum residue limit (MRL), triazole fungicides, decay, Prunus salicina

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Authors: Andreas D. Jansson

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The availability of inexpensive, yet competent hardware allows for increased level of automation and self-optimization in the context of Industry 4.0. However, such agents require high quality information about their surroundings along with a robust strategy for collision avoidance, as they may cause expensive damage to equipment or other agents otherwise. Manually defining a strategy to cover all possibilities is both time-consuming and counter-productive given the capabilities of modern hardware. This paper explores the idea of a model-free self-optimizing obstacle avoidance strategy for multiple autonomous agents in a simulated dynamic environment using the Q-learning algorithm.

Keywords: autonomous vehicles, industry 4.0, multi-agent system, obstacle avoidance, Q-learning, simulation

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Authors: Erika Martínez Lugo

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Candidates to some graduate studies are asked to write essays in English to prove their competence to write essays and to do it in English. In the present study, language transfer (LT) in 15 written essays is identified, documented, analyzed, and classified. The essays were written in 2019, and the graduate program is a Masters in Modern Languages in a North-Western Mexican city border with USA. This study is of interest since it is important to determine whether or not some errors have been fossilized and have become mistakes, or if it is part of the candidates’ interlanguage. The results show that most language transfer is negative and syntactic, where the influence of candidates L1 (Spanish) is evident in their use of L2 (English).

Keywords: language transfer, cross-linguistic influence, interlanguage, error vs mistake

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Authors: Busayo Fashoto, Abdulhakeem Shaibu, Justice Agbadu, Samuel Aiyeoribe

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Data has gone from just rows and columns to being an infrastructure itself. The traditional medium of data infrastructure has been managed by individuals in different industries and saved on personal work tools; one of such is the laptop. This hinders data sharing and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 for infrastructure sustainability across all countries and regions. However, there has been a constant demand for data across different agencies and ministries by investors and decision-makers. The rapid development and adoption of open-source technologies that promote the collection and processing of data in new ways and in ever-increasing volumes are creating new data infrastructure in sectors such as lands and health, among others. This paper examines the process of developing data infrastructure and, by extension, a data portal to provide baseline data for sustainable development and decision making in Nigeria. This paper employs the FAIR principle (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) of data management using open-source technology tools to develop data portals for public use. eHealth Africa, an organization that uses technology to drive public health interventions in Nigeria, developed a data portal which is a typical data infrastructure that serves as a repository for various datasets on administrative boundaries, points of interest, settlements, social infrastructure, amenities, and others. This portal makes it possible for users to have access to datasets of interest at any point in time at no cost. A skeletal infrastructure of this data portal encompasses the use of open-source technology such as Postgres database, GeoServer, GeoNetwork, and CKan. These tools made the infrastructure sustainable, thus promoting the achievement of SDG 9 (Industries, Innovation, and Infrastructure). As of 6th August 2021, a wider cross-section of 8192 users had been created, 2262 datasets had been downloaded, and 817 maps had been created from the platform. This paper shows the use of rapid development and adoption of technologies that facilitates data collection, processing, and publishing in new ways and in ever-increasing volumes. In addition, the paper is explicit on new data infrastructure in sectors such as health, social amenities, and agriculture. Furthermore, this paper reveals the importance of cross-sectional data infrastructures for planning and decision making, which in turn can form a central data repository for sustainable development across developing countries.

Keywords: data portal, data infrastructure, open source, sustainability

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Authors: J. Fernandez de Canete, P. Del Saz Orozco, I. Garcia-Moral, A. Akhrymenka

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Object-oriented modeling is spreading in current simulation of wastewater treatments plants through the use of the individual components of the process and its relations to define the underlying dynamic equations. In this paper, we describe the use of the free-software OpenModelica simulation environment for the object-oriented modeling of an activated sludge process under feedback control. The performance of the controlled system was analyzed both under normal conditions and in the presence of disturbances. The object-oriented described approach represents a valuable tool in teaching provides a practical insight in wastewater process control field.

Keywords: object-oriented programming, activated sludge process, OpenModelica, feedback control

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Authors: Luminiţa Duţică, Gheorghe Duţică

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One of the most powerful language innovation in the twentieth century music was the heterophony–hypostasis of the vertical syntax entered into the sphere of interest of many composers, such as George Enescu, Pierre Boulez, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti and others. The heterophonic syntax has a history of its growth, which means a succession of different concepts and writing techniques. The trajectory of settling this phenomenon does not necessarily take into account the chronology: there are highly complex primary stages and advanced stages of returning to the simple forms of writing. In folklore, the plurimelodic simultaneities are free or random and originate from the (unintentional) differences/‘deviations’ from the state of unison, through a variety of ornaments, melismas, imitations, elongations and abbreviations, all in a flexible rhythmic and non-periodic/immeasurable framework, proper to the parlando-rubato rhythmics. Within the general framework of the multivocal organization, the heterophonic syntax in elaborate (academic) version has imposed itself relatively late compared with polyphony and homophony. Of course, the explanation is simple, if we consider the causal relationship between the sound vocabulary elements – in this case, the modalism – and the typologies of vertical organization appropriate for it. Therefore, adding up the ‘classic’ pathway of the writing typologies (monody – polyphony – homophony), heterophony - applied equally to the structures of modal, serial or synthesis vocabulary – reclaims necessarily an own macrotemporal form, in the sense of the analogies enshrined by the evolution of the musical styles and languages: polyphony→fugue, homophony→sonata. Concerned about the prospect of edifying a new musical ontology, the composer Ştefan Niculescu experienced – along with the mathematical organization of heterophony according to his own original methods – the possibility of extrapolation of this phenomenon in macrostructural plan, reaching this way to the unique form of ‘synchrony’. Founded on coincidentia oppositorum principle (involving the ‘one-multiple’ binom), the sound architecture imagined by Ştefan Niculescu consists in one (temporal) model / algorithm of articulation of two sound states: 1. monovocality state (principle of identity) and 2. multivocality state (principle of difference). In this context, the heterophony becomes an (auto)generative mechanism, with macrotemporal amplitude, strategy that will be grown by the composer, practically throughout his creation (see the works: Ison I, Ison II, Unisonos I, Unisonos II, Duplum, Triplum, Psalmus, Héterophonies pour Montreux (Homages to Enescu and Bartók etc.). For the present demonstration, we selected one of the most edifying works of Ştefan Niculescu – Simphony II, Opus dacicum – where the form of (heterophony-)synchrony acquires monumental-symphonic features, representing an emblematic case for the complexity level achieved by this type of vertical syntax in the twentieth century music.

Keywords: heterophony, modalism, serialism, synchrony, syntax

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Authors: S. Bae, J. Shin, S. Lee

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As the development of smart devices such as Smart TV, Smartphone, Tablet PC, Laptop, the interest in N-Screen Services that can be cross-linked with heterogeneous devices is increasing. N-Screen means User-centric services that can share and constantly watch multimedia contents anytime and anywhere. However, the existing N-Screen system has the limitation that N-Screen system has to implement the application for each platform and device to provide multimedia service. To overcome this limitation, Multimedia N-Screen Service System is proposed through the web, and it is independent of different environments. The combination of Web and cloud computing technologies from this study results in increasing efficiency and reduction in costs.

Keywords: N-screen, web, cloud, multimedia

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Authors: Min Kyung An, Hyuk Cho

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In this paper, we study the Minimum Latency Broadcast Scheduling (MLBS) problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The main issue of the MLBS problem is to compute schedules with the minimum number of timeslots such that a base station can broadcast data to all other sensor nodes with no collisions. Unlike existing works that utilize the traditional omni-directional WSNs, we target the directional WSNs where nodes can collaboratively determine and orientate their antenna directions. We first develop a 7-approximation algorithm, adopting directional WSNs. Our ratio is currently the best, to the best of our knowledge. We then validate the performance of the proposed algorithm through simulation.

Keywords: broadcast, collision-free, directional antenna, approximation, wireless sensor networks

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Authors: Abobaker Abrahem M. Saad, Asma Abudasalam

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The stem node segments were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. In the case of using MS+ Zeatin (1 mg/l), small shoot buds were formed directly in 70% of explants after 15 days, their length range between 0.1 to 0.3 cm after two weeks and reached 0.3 cm in length and three shoots in numbers after 4 weeks. When those small shoots were sub cultured on the same medium, they increased in length, number and reached 0.4 cm with 4 shoots, 0.4 cm with 5 shoots after six, eight and ten weeks respectively. In the case of using MS free hormones, MS+IAA (0.2mg/l) +BA (0.5mg/l), MS + kin(0.5mg/l), MS + kin (3mg/l) and MS +NAA (3mg/l) +BA (1mg/l), no sign of responses were noticed and only change in color in some cases. Different types of parenchyma cells and many layers of thick wall sclerenchyma cells were observed on MS+BA (1mg/l).

Keywords: Maerua, stem node, shoots, buds, In vitro

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Authors: Aleksander Mendoza

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Glushkov's construction has many interesting properties, and they become even more evident when applied to transducers. This article strives to show the vast range of possible extensions and optimisations for this algorithm. Special flavour of regular expressions is introduced, which can be efficiently converted to e-free functional subsequential weighted finite state transducers. Produced automata are very compact, as they contain only one state for each symbol (from input alphabet) of original expression and only one transition for each range of symbols, no matter how large. Such compactified ranges of transitions allow for efficient binary search lookup during automaton evaluation. All the methods and algorithms presented here were used to implement open-source compiler of regular expressions for multitape transducers.

Keywords: weighted automata, transducers, Glushkov, follow automata, regular expressions

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Authors: M. Dasgupta, S. Banerjee

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Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) coupled with Case Based Reasoning (CBR) is a paradigm that is becoming increasingly popular in the diagnosis and therapy planning of medical ailments utilizing the digital content of medical images. This paper presents a survey of some of the promising approaches used in the detection of abnormalities in retina images as well in mammographic screening and detection of regions of interest in MRI scans of the brain. We also describe our proposed algorithm to detect hard exudates in fundus images of the retina of Diabetic Retinopathy patients.

Keywords: case based reasoning, exudates, retina image, similarity based retrieval

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Authors: L. Hoade, O. O. Onafowokan, K. Anderson, G. E. Bartlett, E. D. Fern, M. R. Norton, R. G. Middleton

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Aims: Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) was first recognised as a potential driver for hip pain at the turn of the last millennium. While there is an increasing trend towards surgical management of FAI by arthroscopic means, open surgical hip dislocation and debridement (SHD) remains the Gold Standard of care in terms of reported outcome measures. (1) Long-term functional and survivorship outcomes of SHD as a treatment for FAI are yet to be sufficiently reported in the literature. This study sets out to help address this imbalance. Methods: We undertook a retrospective review of our institutional database for all patients who underwent SHD for FAI between January 2003 and December 2008. A total of 223 patients (241 hips) were identified and underwent a ten year review with a standardised radiograph and patient-reported outcome measures questionnaire. The primary outcome measure of interest was survivorship, defined as progression to total hip arthroplasty (THA). Negative predictive factors were analysed. Secondary outcome measures of interest were survivorship to further (non-arthroplasty) surgery, functional outcomes as reflected by patient reported outcome measure scores (PROMS) scores, and whether a learning curve could be identified. Results: The final cohort consisted of 131 females and 110 males, with a mean age of 34 years. There was an overall native hip joint survival rate of 85.4% at ten years. Those who underwent a THA were significantly older at initial surgery, had radiographic evidence of preoperative osteoarthritis and pre- and post-operative acetabular undercoverage. In those whom had not progressed to THA, the average Non-arthritic Hip Score and Oxford Hip Score at ten year follow-up were 72.3% and 36/48, respectively, and 84% still deemed their surgery worthwhile. A learning curve was found to exist that was predicated on case selection rather than surgical technique. Conclusion: This is only the second study to evaluate the long-term outcomes (beyond ten years) of SHD for FAI and the first outside the originating centre. Our results suggest that, with correct patient selection, this remains an operation with worthwhile outcomes at ten years. How the results of open surgery compared to those of arthroscopy remains to be answered. While these results precede the advent of collison software modelling tools, this data helps set a benchmark for future comparison of other techniques effectiveness at the ten year mark.

Keywords: femoroacetabular impingement, hip pain, surgical hip dislocation, hip debridement

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Authors: Moizza Tahir, Uzma Bashir, Aisha Akhtar, Zainab Ansari, Sameen Ansari, Muhammad Ali Tahir

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Cancer burden has globally increased. Among cutaneous cancers basal cell carcinoma constitute vast majority of skin cancer. There is need for appropriate diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic significance evaluation for skin cancers Present study report intraoperative frozen section (FS) histopathological clearance for excision of BCC in a tertiary care center and find the frequency of involvement of surgical margin with reference to anatomical site, with size and surgical technique. It was prospective open label interventional study conducted at Dermatology department of tertiary care hospital Rawalpindi Pakistan in lais on with histopathology department from January 2023 to April 2024. Total of thirty-six (n = 36) patients between age 45-80 years with basal cell carcinoma of 10-20mm on face were included following inclusion exclusion criteria by purposive sampling technique. Informed consent was taken. Surgical excision was performed and intraoperative frozen section histopathology clearance of tumor margin was taken from histopathologist on telephone. Surgical reconstruction was done. Final Histopathology report was reexamined on day 10th for margin and depth clearance. Descriptive statistics were calculated for age, gender, sun exposure, reconstructive technique, anatomical site, and tumor free margin report on frozen section analysis. Chi square test was employed for statistical significance of involvement of surgical margin with reference to anatomical site, size and decision on reconstructive surgical technique, p value of <0.05 was considered significant. Total of 36 patients of BCC were enrolled, males 12 (33.3%) and females were 24 (66.6%). Age ranged from 45 year to 80 year mean of 58.36 ±SD7.8. Size of BCC ranged from 10mm to 35mm mean of 25mm ±SD 0.63. Morphology was nodular 18 (50%), superficial spreading 11(30.6%), morphoeic 1 (2.8%) and ulcerative in 6(16.7%) cases. Intraoperative frozen section for histopathological margin clearance with 2-3 mm safety margin and surgical technique has p-value0.51, for anatomical site p value 0.24 and size p-0.84. Intraoperative frozen section (FS) histopathological clearance for BCC face with 2-3mm safety margin with reference to reconstructive technique, anatomical site and size of BCC were insignificant.

Keywords: basal cell carcinoma, tumor free amrgin, basal cell carcinoma and frozen section, safety margin

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Authors: Jung-Ho Moon, Tae Kwon Ha

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The effect of Yttrium addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Sn-Zn eutectic alloy, which has been attracting intensive focus as a Pb-free solder material, was investigated in this study. Phase equilibrium has been calculated by using FactSage® to evaluate the composition and fraction of equilibrium intermetallic compounds and construct a phase diagram. In the case of Sn-8.8 Zn eutectic alloy, the as-cast microstructure was typical lamellar. With addition of 0.25 wt. %Y, a large amount of pro-eutectic phases have been observed and various YZnx intermetallic compounds were expected to successively form during cooling. Hardness of Sn-8.8 Zn alloy was not affected by Y-addition and both alloys could be rolled by 90% at room temperature.

Keywords: Sn-Zn eutectic alloy, yttrium, FactSage®, microstructure, mechanical properties

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Authors: Trias Setiawati, Rizkika Awalia

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The study title is “In Working, Career is not everything: A Case Study of Family Friendly Policies (FFP) on Bank Company.” This study aims to describe the application of FFP in the banking, especially Bank Rakyat Indonesia or BRI (Indonesian People Bank) in Katamso Branch Office in Yogyakarta Katamso Branch Office in Yogyakarta (KBOY) as a support company to create a work-life balance, as well as the achievement of career and family harmony is seen from the work-family conflict faced by the employees. The importance of the application of FFP in an organization is basically to build competitive advantage of a company. This study used qualitative research methods with a case study approach in BRI in KBOY. Data collection techniques used non-participant observation and in-depth structured interviews with three employees. The results showed that FFP is in general adoption and not optimal yet. Optimal FFP policy is not yet implemented; it just in the in-formal policies such as the lack of flexible-time, the lack of daycare, the lack of counseling for employees of personal nature, despite it was the availability of lactation rooms for feeding. The employees found difficulties in balancing between achieving careers at work and reaching family harmony. Not pursued a career does not mean that they do not want to reach a better position, but they do not want to ignore the family harmony because of the hours of work overload.

Keywords: career, family friendly policies, work-family balance, work-family conflict

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Authors: Olfa Kaabia, Ilyes Abid, Khaled Guesmi

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This pioneer paper studies whether and how Bitcoin shocks are transmitted to the U.S economy. We employ a new methodology: TVP FAVAR model with stochastic volatility. We use a large dataset of 111 major U.S variables from 1959:m1 to 2016:m12. The results show that Bitcoin shocks significantly impact the U.S. economy. This significant impact is pronounced in a volatile and increasing U.S economy. The Bitcoin has a positive relationship on the U.S real activity, and a negative one on U.S prices and interest rates. Effects on the Monetary Policy exist via the inter-est rates and the Money, Credit and Finance transmission channels.

Keywords: bitcoin, US economy, FAVAR models, stochastic volatility

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Authors: Joel S. Mtebe, Aron Kondoro, Mussa M. Kissaka, Elia Kibga

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Sub-Saharan Africa is described as the second fastest growing mobile phone penetration in the world more than in the United States or the European Union. Mobile phones have been used to provide a lot of opportunities to improve people’s lives in the region such as in banking, marketing, entertainment, and paying various bills such as water, TV, and electricity. However, the potential of using mobile phones to enhance teaching and learning has not been explored. This study presents an experience of developing and delivering SMS quizzes questions that were used to assess mastery of the subject content knowledge of science and mathematics secondary school teachers in Tanzania. The SMS quizzes were used as a follow up support mechanism to 500 teachers who participated in a project to upgrade subject content knowledge of science and mathematics subjects. Quizzes of 10-15 questions were sent to teachers each week for 8 weeks and the results were analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that chemistry and biology had better performance compared to mathematics and physics. Teachers reported some challenges that led to poor performance, invalid answers, and non-responses and they are presented. This research has several practical implications for those who are implementing or planning to use mobile phones for teaching and learning especially in rural secondary schools in sub-Saharan Africa.

Keywords: mobile learning, elearning, educational technolgies, SMS, secondary education, assessment

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Authors: Tea Poklepović, Zdravka Aljinović, Mario Matković

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Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) according to Markowitz states that investors form mean-variance efficient portfolios which maximizes their utility. Markowitz proposed the standard deviation as a simple measure for portfolio risk and the lower semi-variance as the only risk measure of interest to rational investors. This paper uses a third volatility estimator based on intraday data and compares three efficient frontiers on the Croatian Stock Market. The results show that range-based volatility estimator outperforms both mean-variance and lower semi-variance model.

Keywords: variance, lower semi-variance, range-based volatility, MPT

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Authors: Joe Collins, Matthias Rother

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Background: Oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used for the relief of joint pain during and post-exercise. However, oral NSAIDs increase the risk of systemic side effects, even in healthy individuals, and retard recovery from muscle soreness. TDT 064 (Flexiseq®), a topical formulation containing ultra-deformable drug-free Sequessome™ vesicles, has demonstrated equivalent efficacy to oral celecoxib in reducing osteoarthritis-associated joint pain and stiffness. TDT 064 does not cause NSAID-related adverse effects. We describe clinical study data and a case report on the effectiveness of TDT 064 in reducing joint pain after exercise. Methods: Participants with a pain score ≥3 (10-point scale) 12–16 hours post-exercise were randomized to receive TDT 064 plus oral placebo, TDT 064 plus oral ketoprofen, or ketoprofen in ultra-deformable phospholipid vesicles plus oral placebo. Results: In the 168 study participants, pain scores were significantly higher with oral ketoprofen plus TDT 064 than with TDT 064 plus placebo in the 7 days post-exercise (P = 0.0240) and recovery from muscle soreness was significantly longer (P = 0.0262). There was a low incidence of adverse events. These data are supported by clinical experience. A 24-year-old male professional rugby player suffered a traumatic lisfranc fracture in March 2014 and underwent operative reconstruction. He had no relevant medical history and was not receiving concomitant medications. He had undergone anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction in 2008. The patient reported restricted training due to pain (score 7/10), stiffness (score 9/10) and poor function, as well as pain when changing direction and running on consecutive days. In July 2014 he started using TDT 064 twice daily at the recommended dose. In November 2014 he noted reduced pain on running (score 2-3/10), decreased morning stiffness (score 4/10) and improved joint mobility and was able to return to competitive rugby without restrictions. No side effects of TDT 064 were reported. Conclusions: TDT 064 shows efficacy against exercise- and injury-induced joint pain, as well as that associated with osteoarthritis. It does not retard muscle soreness recovery after exercise compared with an oral NSAID, making it an alternative approach for the treatment of joint pain during and post-exercise.

Keywords: exercise, joint pain, TDT 064, phospholipid vesicles

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Authors: Theoktisti Makridou, Konstantinos Tsaprailis, George Arvanitakis, Charalampos Kontoes

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In the literature, the data-driven approaches for mosquito abundance prediction relaying on supervised machine learning models that get trained with historical in-situ measurements. The counterpart of this approach is once the model gets trained on pointlevel (specific x,y coordinates) measurements, the predictions of the model refer again to point-level. These point-level predictions reduce the applicability of those solutions once a lot of early warning and mitigation actions applications need predictions for an area level, such as a municipality, village, etc... In this study, we apply a data-driven predictive model, which relies on public-open satellite Earth Observation and geospatial data and gets trained with historical point-level in-Situ measurements of mosquito abundance. Then we propose a methodology to extract information from a point-level predictive model to a broader area-level prediction. Our methodology relies on the randomly spatial sampling of the area of interest (similar to the Poisson hardcore process), obtaining the EO and geomorphological information for each sample, doing the point-wise prediction for each sample, and aggregating the predictions to represent the average mosquito abundance of the area. We quantify the performance of the transformation from the pointlevel to the area-level predictions, and we analyze it in order to understand which parameters have a positive or negative impact on it. The goal of this study is to propose a methodology that predicts the mosquito abundance of a given area by relying on point-level prediction and to provide qualitative insights regarding the expected performance of the area-level prediction. We applied our methodology to historical data (of Culex pipiens) of two areas of interest (Veneto region of Italy and Central Macedonia of Greece). In both cases, the results were consistent. The mean mosquito abundance of a given area can be estimated with similar accuracy to the point-level predictor, sometimes even better. The density of the samples that we use to represent one area has a positive effect on the performance in contrast to the actual number of sampling points which is not informative at all regarding the performance without the size of the area. Additionally, we saw that the distance between the sampling points and the real in-situ measurements that were used for training did not strongly affect the performance.

Keywords: mosquito abundance, supervised machine learning, culex pipiens, spatial sampling, west nile virus, earth observation data

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Authors: Kehinde Augustina Odukoya

Abstract:

This study examines the portrayal of women in Nigerian magazine advertisements, with the aim to investigate whether there is sexualization of women in the advertisements. To achieve this aim, content analyses of 61 magazine advertisements from 5 different categories of magazines; a general interest magazine (Genevieve), fashion magazine (Hints Complete Fashion), men’s magazine (Mode), women’s magazine (Totally Whole) and a relationship magazine (Forever) were carried out. Erving Goffman’s 1979 frame analysis and Kang’s two additional coding categories were used to investigate the sexualization of women. Findings show that women are used for decorative purposes and objectified in over 70 per cent of the advertisements analyzed. Also, there is sexualization of women in magazine advertisements because women are nude 57.4 percent of the magazine advertisements.

Keywords: advertisements, magazine, sexualization, women

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Authors: A. Bara, D. Barkat

Abstract:

Liquid-liquid extraction is one of the most useful techniques for selective removal and recovery of metal ions from aqueous solutions, applied in purification processes in numerous chemical and metallurgical industries. In this work, The liquid-liquid extraction of cobalt (II) and copper (II) from aqueous solution by capric acid (HL) in chloroform at 25°C has been studied. Our interest in this paper is to study the effect of concentration of capric acid on the extraction of Co(II) and Cu(II) to see the complexes could be formed in the organic phase using various concentration of capric acid. The extraction of cobalt (II) and copper (II) is extracted as the complex CoL2 (HL )2, CuL2 (HL)2.

Keywords: capric acid, Cobalt(II), copper(II), liquid-liquid extraction

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Authors: Cletus Abhulimen, L. A. Ukpebor

Abstract:

In this paper, we construct a class of four-step third derivative exponential fitting integrator of order six for the numerical integration of stiff initial-value problems of the type: y’= f(x,y); y(x₀) =y₀. The implicit method has free parameters which allow it to be fitted automatically to exponential functions. For the purpose of effective implementation of the proposed method, we adopted the techniques of splitting the method into predictor and corrector schemes. The numerical analysis of the stability of the new method was discussed; the results show that the method is A-stable. Finally, numerical examples are presented, to show the efficiency and accuracy of the new method.

Keywords: third derivative four-step, exponentially fitted, a-stable, stiff differential equations

Procedia PDF Downloads 239

Authors: Jonathan Frank, Michelle Salmona

Abstract:

We conducted quantitative and qualitative analyses of nurses’ perceived ease of use of electronic medical records and telemedicine in the Cook Islands. We examined antecedents of perceived ease of use through the lens of social construction of learning, and cultural diffusion. Our findings confirmed expected linkages between PEOU, attitudes and intentions. Interviews with nurses suggested infrastructural barriers to engaged learning. We discussed managerial implications of our findings, and areas of interest for future research.

Keywords: health information technology, ICT4D, TAM, developing countries

Procedia PDF Downloads 268