Search results for: locomotor standard score

Authors: Karthick Prasad Gunasekaran, B. Chase Babrich, Saurabh Shirodkar, Hee Hwang

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Construction preparation is crucial for the success of a construction project. By involving project participants early in the construction phase, project managers can plan ahead and resolve issues early, resulting in project success and satisfaction. This study uses quantitative data from construction management projects to determine the relationship between the pre-construction phase, construction schedule, and customer satisfaction. This study examined a total of 65 construction projects and 93 clients per job to (a) identify the relationship between the pre-construction phase and program reduction and (b) the pre-construction phase and customer retention. Based on a quantitative analysis, this study found a negative correlation between pre-construction status and project schedule in 65 construction projects. This finding means that the more preparatory work done on a particular project, the shorter the total construction time. The Net Promoter Score of 93 clients from 65 projects was then used to determine the relationship between construction preparation and client satisfaction. The pre-construction status and the projects were further analyzed, and a positive correlation between them was found. This shows that customers are happier with projects with a higher ready-to-build ratio than projects with less ready-to-build.

Keywords: NLP, BERT, LLM, deep learning, classification

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Authors: Naveen Porika, Snigdho Majumdar, Niraj Sethi

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Water, food and energy securities are emerging as increasingly important and vital issues for India and the world. Hyderabad urban agglomeration (HUA), the capital city of Andhra Pradesh State in India, is the sixth largest city has a population of about 8.2 million. The Musi River, which is a tributary of Krishna river flows from west to east right through the heart of Hyderabad, about 80% of the water used by people is released back as sewage, which flows back into Musi every day with detrimental effects on the environment and people downstream of the city. The average daily sewage generated in Hyderabad city is 950 MLD, however, treatment capacity exists only for 541 Million Liters per Day (MLD) but only 407 MLD of sewage is treated. As a result, 543 MLD of sewage daily flows into Musi river. Hyderabad’s current estimated water demand stands at 320 Million Gallons per Day (MGD). However, its installed capacity is merely 270 MGD; by 2020 estimated demand will grow to 400 MGD. There is huge gap between current supply and demand, and this is likely to widen by 2021. Developing new fresh water sources is a challenge for Hyderabad, as the fresh water sources are few and far from the City (about 150-200 km) and requires excessive pumping. The constraints presented above make the conventional alternatives for supply augmentation unsustainable and unattractive .One such dependable and captive source of easily available water is the treated sewage. With proper treatment, water of desired quality can be recovered from the waste water (sewage) for recycle and reuse. Hyderabad Amberpet sewage treatment of capacity 339 MLD is Asia’s largest sewage treatment plant. Tertiary sewage treatment Standard basic engineering modules of 30 MLD,60 MLD, 120MLD & 180 MLD for sewage treatment plants has been developed which are utilized for developing Sewage Reclamation & Reuse model in Asia’s largest sewage treatment plant. This paper will focus on Hyderabad Water Supply & Demand, Sewage Generation & Treatment, Technical aspects of Tertiary Sewage Treatment and Utilization of developed standard modules for reclamation & reuse of treated sewage to overcome the deficit of 130 MGD as projected by 2021.

Keywords: water reclamation, reuse, Andhra Pradesh, hyderabad, musi river, sewage, demand and supply, recycle, Amberpet, 339 MLD, engineering modules, tertiary treatment

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Authors: Myung Hwan Na, Ho- Chun Song, EunHee Hong

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We widely use normal linear mixed-effects model to analysis data in repeated measurement. In case of detecting heteroscedasticity and the non-normality of the population distribution at the same time, normal linear mixed-effects model can give improper result of analysis. To achieve more robust estimation, we use heavy tailed linear mixed-effects model which gives more exact and reliable analysis conclusion than standard normal linear mixed-effects model.

Keywords: reliability, tires, field data, linear mixed-effects model

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Authors: Nattapong Techarattanased

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This research paper aimed to identify determinants of airline service quality on passengers’ repeated purchase of service. The population of this study was Thai passengers flying domestic flights with Thai Airways, making a total of 300 samples. These 300 samples participated in this research by answering a collection of questions by means of a questionnaire. An analysis of means score and multiple regression revealed that perceived service quality for tangible elements, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy had determined repeated purchase of flight service of the passengers at a high level. Moreover, reliability and responsiveness factors could predict the passengers’ repeated purchase of flight service at the percentage of 30.6. The findings gave a signal that Thai Airways may consider a development of route network and fleet strategy as well as an establishment of aircraft and seat qualification to meet passengers’ needs and requirements. Passengers’ level of satisfaction could also be maximized by offering service value through various kinds of special deals and programs, whereas value- added pricing strategy should be considered in order to differentiate from and beat other leading airline competitors.

Keywords: repeated purchase, service quality, domestic flight, Thai Airways

Procedia PDF Downloads 271

Authors: Christine A. Odinga, G. Sanjay, M. Mathew, S. Gupta, F. M. Swalaha, F. A. O. Otieno, F. Bux

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Wastewater discharged from municipal treatment plants contain an amalgamation of trace metals. The presence of metal pollutants in wastewater poses a huge challenge to the choice and applications of the preferred treatment method. Conventional treatment methods are inefficient in the removal of trace metals due to their design approach. This study evaluated the treatment performance of a constructed rhizofiltration system in the removal of heavy metals from municipal wastewater. The study was conducted at an eThekwni municipal wastewater treatment plant in Kingsburgh - Durban in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The construction details of the pilot-scale rhizofiltration unit included three different layers of substrate consisting of medium stones, coarse gravel and fine sand. The system had one section planted with Phragmites australis L. and Kyllinga nemoralis L. while the other section was unplanted and acted as the control. Influent, effluent and sediment from the system were sampled and assessed for the presence of and removal of selected trace heavy metals using standard methods. Efficiency of metals removal was established by gauging the transfer of metals into leaves, roots and stem of the plants by calculations based on standard statistical packages. The Langmuir model was used to assess the heavy metal adsorption mechanisms of the plants. Heavy metals were accumulated in the entire rhizofiltration system at varying percentages of 96.69% on planted and 48.98% on control side for cadmium. Chromium was 81% and 24%, Copper was 23.4% and 1.1%, Nickel was 72% and 46.5, Lead was 63% and 31%, while Zinc was 76% and 84% on the on the water and sediment of the planted and control sides of the rhizofilter respectively. The decrease in metal adsorption efficiencies on the planted side followed the pattern of Cd>Cr>Zn>Ni>Pb>Cu and Ni>Cd>Pb>Cr>Cu>Zn on the control side. Confirmatory analysis using Electron Scanning Microscopy revealed that higher amounts of metals was deposited in the root system with values ranging from 0.015mg/kg (Cr), 0.250 (Cu), 0.030 (Pb) for P. australis, and 0.055mg/kg (Cr), 0.470mg/kg (Cu) and 0.210mg/kg,(Pb) for K. nemoralis respectively. The system was found to be efficient in removing and reducing metals from wastewater and further research is necessary to establish the immediate mechanisms that the plants display in order to achieve these reductions.

Keywords: wastewater treatment, Phragmites australis L., Kyllinga nemoralis L., heavy metals, pathogens, rhizofiltration

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Authors: Reem Al-Garni

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Malnutrition is a global epidemic, but the under-weight or Failure-To-Thrive risk is increasing in rehabilitation setting and considered one of the contribution factor for developmental delay. Beside the consequences of malnutrition on children growth and development, there are other side-effects that might delay or hold the progress of rehabilitation. The awareness for malnutrition must be raised and discussed by the rehabilitation team, to promote the treatment and to optimize the client care. The solution can start from food supplements intake and / or Enteral Nutrition plan, depending on the malnutrition level and to reach the goal, the medical team should to work together in order to provide comprehensive treatment and to help the family to be able to manage their child condition. We have explore the outcomes of rehabilitation between the children with CP whose diagnosed with malnutrition and children with normal body Wight Over a period of 4 months who received 4-6 weeks of rehabilitation two hours daily by using WeeFIM score to measure rehabilitation outcomes. WeeFIM measures and covers various domains, such as: self-care, mobility, locomotion, communication and other psycho-social aspects. Our findings reported that children with normal body Wight has better outcomes and improvement comparing with children with malnutrition for the entire study sample.

Keywords: Cerebral Palsy (CP), pediatric Functional Independent Measure (WeeFIM), rehabilitation, malnutrition

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Authors: Nuntaporn Aukkanit

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The aim of this study was to determine the effect of oils on chemical, physical, and sensory properties of deep-fried dough stick. Five kinds of vegetable oil which were used for addition and frying consist of: palm oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil, and canola oil. The results of this study showed that using different kinds of oil made significant difference in the quality of deep-fried dough stick. Deep-fried dough stick fried with the rice bran oil had the lowest moisture loss and oil absorption (p≤0.05), but it had some unsatisfactory physical properties (color, specific volume, density, and texture) and sensory characteristics. Nonetheless, deep-fried dough stick fried with the sunflower oil had moisture loss and oil absorption slightly more than the rice bran oil, but it had almost higher physical and sensory properties. Deep-fried dough sticks together with the sunflower oil did not have different sensory score from the palm oil, commonly used for production of deep-fried dough stick. These results indicated that addition and frying with the sunflower oil are appropriate for the production of deep-fried dough stick.

Keywords: deep-fried dough stick, palm oil, sunflower oil, rice bran oil

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Authors: Abdul Qadir Jangda, Khadija Mariam, Usman Ahmed, Sharib Ahmed

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The Gafchromic EBT3 film has the characteristic of high spatial resolution, weak energy dependence and near tissue equivalence which makes them viable to be used for in-vivo dosimetry in External Beam and Brachytherapy applications. The aim of this study is to assess the smallest film dimension that may be feasible for the use in in-vivo dosimetry. To evaluate the viability, the film sizes from 3 x 3 mm to 20 x 20 mm were calibrated with 6 MV Photon and 6 MeV electron beams. The Gafchromic EBT3 (Lot no. A05151201, Make: ISP) film was cut into five different sizes in order to establish the relationship between absorbed dose vs. film dimensions. The film dimension were 3 x 3, 5 x 5, 10 x 10, 15 x 15, and 20 x 20 mm. The films were irradiated on Varian Clinac® 2100C linear accelerator for dose range from 0 to 1000 cGy using PTW solid water phantom. The irradiation was performed as per clinical absolute dose rate calibratin setup, i.e. 100 cm SAD, 5.0 cm depth and field size of 10x10 cm2 and 100 cm SSD, 1.4 cm depth and 15x15 cm2 applicator for photon and electron respectively. The irradiated films were scanned with the landscape orientation and a post development time of 48 hours (minimum). Film scanning accomplished using Epson Expression 10000 XL Flatbed Scanner and quantitative analysis carried out with ImageJ freeware software. Results show that the dose variation with different film dimension ranging from 3 x 3 mm to 20 x 20 mm is very minimal with a maximum standard deviation of 0.0058 in Optical Density for a dose level of 3000 cGy and the the standard deviation increases with the increase in dose level. So the precaution must be taken while using the small dimension films for higher doses. Analysis shows that there is insignificant variation in the absorbed dose with a change in film dimension of EBT3 film. Study concludes that the film dimension upto 3 x 3 mm can safely be used up to a dose level of 3000 cGy without the need of recalibration for particular dimension in use for dosimetric application. However, for higher dose levels, one may need to calibrate the films for a particular dimension in use for higher accuracy. It was also noticed that the crystalline structure of the film got damage at the edges while cutting the film, which can contribute to the wrong dose if the region of interest includes the damage area of the film

Keywords: external beam radiotherapy, film calibration, film dosimetery, in-vivo dosimetery

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Authors: Murni Sianturi, Andreas Au Hurit

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The low level of Indigenous Papuan students’ literacy and numeracy in Merauke Regency-Indonesia needs to be considered. The development of a learnable storybook with pictures related to their lives might raise their curiosity to read. This study aimed to design a storybook as a complementary resource for the third graders using Indigenous Malind cultural approaches by employing research and development methods. The product developed was a thematic-integrative picture storybook using funds of knowledge from Indigenous students. All the book contents depicted Indigenous students’ lives and were in line with the national curriculum syllabus, specifically representing one sub-theme−multiplication topic. Multiplication material of grade 3 was modified in the form of a story, and at the end of the reading, students were given several multiplication exercises. Based on the results of the evaluation from the expert team, it was found that the average score was in the excellent category. The students’ and teacher’s responses to the storybook were very positive. Students were thrilled when reading this book and also effortlessly understood the concept of multiplication. Therefore, this book might be used as a companion book to the main book and serve as introductory reading material for students prior to discussing multiplication material.

Keywords: a picture storybook, funds of knowledge, Indigenous elementary students, literacy, numeracy

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Authors: Novita Linda Akbar, Elmeida Effendy, Mustafa M. Amin

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Background: The most common of psychotic disorders is schizophrenia. Vitamin D is made from sunlight, and in the skin from UVB radiation from sunlight. If people with Vitamin D deficiency is common severe mental illness such as schizophrenia.Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness characterised by positive symptoms and negatives symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, flat affect and lack of motivation we can found. In patients with Schizophrenia maybe have several environmental risk factors for schizophrenia, such as season of birth, latitude, and climate has been linked to vitamin D deficiency. There is also relationship between the risk of schizophrenia and latitude, and with an increased incidence rate of schizophrenia seen at a higher latitude. Methods: This study was an analytical study, conducted in BLUD RS Jiwa Propinsi Sumatera Utara and RSUD Deli Serdang, the period in May 2016 and ended in June 2016 with a sample of the study 60 sample (20 patients live in the Highland and Lowland, 20 healthy controls). Inclusion criteria were schizophrenic patients both men and women, aged between 18 to 60 years old, acute phase no agitation or abstinence antipsychotic drugs for two weeks, live in the Highland and Lowland, and willing to participate this study. Exclusion criteria were history of other psychotic disorders, comorbidities with other common medical condition, a history of substance abuse. Sample inspection for serum vitamin D using ELFA method. Statistical analysis using numeric comparative T-independent test. Results: The results showed that average levels of vitamin D for a group of subjects living in areas of high land was 227.6 ng / mL with a standard deviation of 86.78 ng / mL, the lowest levels of vitamin D is 138 ng / mL and the highest 482 ng / mL. In the group of subjects who settled in the low lands seem mean vitamin D levels higher than the mountainous area with an average 237.8 ng / mL with a standard deviation of 100.16 ng / mL. Vitamin D levels are lowest and the highest 138-585 ng / mL. Conclusion and Suggestion: The results of the analysis using the Mann Whitney test showed that there were no significant differences between the mean for the levels of vitamin D based on residence subject with a value of p = 0.652.

Keywords: latitude, schizophrenia, Vitamin D, Sumatera Utara

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Authors: Chang Yu Chuan

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Background and Aim: Pressure sore is not only the consequence of any gradual damage of the skin leading to tissue defects but also an important indicator of clinical care. If hospitalized patients develop pressure sores without proper care, it would result in delayed healing, wound infection, increase patient physical pain, prolonged hospital stay and even death, which would have a negative impact on the quality of care and also increase nursing manpower and medical costs. This project is aimed at decreasing the incidence of pressure sore in one ward of internal medicine. Our data showed 53 cases (0.61%) of pressure sore in 2015, which exceeded the average (0.5%) of Taiwan Clinical Performance Indicator (TCPI) for medical centers. The purpose of this project is to reduce the incidence rate of pressure sore in the ward. After data collection and analysis from January to December 2016, the reasons of developing pressure sore were found: 1. Lack of knowledge to prevent pressure among nursing staffs; 2. No relevant courses about preventing pressure ulcers and pressure wound care being held in this unit; 3. Low complete rate of pressure sore care education that family members should receive from nursing staffs; 4. Decompression equipment is not enough; 5. Lack of standard procedures for body-turning and positioning care. After team members brainstorming, several strategies were proposed, including holding in-service education, pressure sore care seed training, purchasing decompression mattress and memory pillows, designing more elements of health education tools, such as health education pamphlet, posters and multimedia films of body-turning and positioning demonstration, formulation and promotion of standard operating procedures. In this way, nursing staffs can understand the body-turning and positioning guidelines for pressure sore prevention and enhance the quality of care. After the implementation of this project, the pressure sore density significantly decreased from 0.61%(53 cases) to 0.45%(28 cases) in this ward. The project shows good results and good example for nurses working at the ward and helps to enhance quality of care.

Keywords: body-turning and positioning, incidence density, nursing, pressure sore

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Authors: Nuradeen Abdullahi Nadabo, Kasali Adewale Bello, Istifanus Chindo, Nurudeen Ayeni

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Ten acid dyes were synthesized from 1-amino-4-bromo anthraghinone-2 sulphuric acid by condensation with different substituted amilines. These dyes were characterized by IR Spectroscopy and the results revealed an incorporation of various substituents. Application of these dyes were carried out on Nylon and wool fabrics using standard procedure melting point, percentage yield, molar extinction coefficient, wash, light and staining of adjacent fibre, of these dyes were also evaluated and the results obtained are within a reasonable range acceptable for commercial dyes.

Keywords: acid dyes, dyeing, exhaustion, extinction co-efficient

Procedia PDF Downloads 326

Authors: Emma O’ Keeffe, Helen Hughes, Peter McLoughlin, Shiau Pin Tan, Nick McCarthy

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Biosecurity is emerging as one of the most important issues facing the agricultural and forestry community. This is as a result of increased invasion from new pests and diseases with the main protocol for dealing with these species being the use of synthetic pesticides. However, these chemicals have been shown to exhibit negative effects on the environment. Seaweeds represent a vast untapped resource of bio-molecules with a broad range of biological activities including pesticidal. This project investigated both the antifungal and antibacterial activity of seaweed species against two problematic root rot fungi, Armillaria mellea and Heterobasidion annosum and ten quarantine bacterial plant pathogens including Xanthomonas arboricola, Xanthomonas fragariae, and Erwinia amylovora. Four seaweed species were harvested from the South-East coast of Ireland including brown, red and green varieties. The powdered seaweeds were extracted using four different solvents by liquid extraction. The poisoned food technique was employed to establish the antifungal efficacy, and the standard disc diffusion assay was used to assess the antibacterial properties of the seaweed extracts. It was found that extracts of the green seaweed exhibited antifungal activity against H. annosum, with approximately 50% inhibition compared to the negative control. The protectant activities of the active extracts were evaluated on disks of Picea sitchensis, a plant species sensitive to infection from H. annosum and compared to the standard chemical control product urea. The crude extracts exhibited very similar activity to the 10% and 20% w/v concentrations of urea, demonstrating the ability of seaweed extracts to compete with commercially available products. Antibacterial activity was exhibited by a number of seaweed extracts with the red seaweed illustrating the strongest activity, with a zone of inhibition of 15.83 ± 0.41 mm exhibited against X. arboricola whilst the positive control (10 μg/disk of chloramphenicol) had a zone of 26.5 ± 0.71 mm. These results highlight the potential application of seaweed extracts in the forestry and agricultural industries for use as biopesticides. Further work is now required to identify the bioactive molecules that are responsible for this antifungal and antibacterial activity in the seaweed extracts, including toxicity studies to ensure the extracts are non-toxic to plants and humans.

Keywords: antibacterial, antifungal, biopesticides, seaweeds

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Authors: T. T. Tham

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The aim of this study is to propose an integrated approach to determine the most suitable programs, based on Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Sensitivity Analysis (SA) and Multi-Objective Linear Programming model (MOLP). Firstly, QFD is used to determine business requirements and transform them into business and supply chain programs. From the QFD, technical scores of all programs are obtained. All programs are then evaluated through five criteria (productivity, quality, cost, technical score, and feasibility). Sets of weight of these criteria are built using Sensitivity Analysis. Multi-Objective Linear Programming model is applied to select suitable programs according to multiple conflicting objectives under a budget constraint. A case study from the Sai Gon-Mien Tay Beer Company is given to illustrate the proposed methodology. The outcome of the study provides a comprehensive picture for companies to select suitable programs to obtain the optimal solution according to their preference.

Keywords: business program, multi-objective linear programming model, quality function deployment, sensitivity analysis, supply chain management

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Authors: Kankurize Josiane, Nizigama Mediatrice

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Introduction: Burundi records a still high infant mortality rate. Despite efforts to reduce it, prematurity is still the leading cause of death in the neonatal period. The objective of this study was to assess the quality of care for premature babies hospitalized in the neonatology unit of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kamenge. Method: This was a descriptive and evaluative prospective carried out in the neonatology unit of the CHUK (Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kamenge) from December 1, 2016, to May 31, 2017, including 70 premature babies, 65 mothers of premature babies and 15 providers including a pediatrician and 14 nurses. Using a tool developed by the World Health Organization and adapted to the local context by national experts, the quality of care for premature babies was assessed. Results: Prematurity accounted for 44.05% of hospitalizations in neonatology at the University Hospital of Kamenge. The assessment of the quality of care for premature babies was of low quality, with an average global score of 2/5 (50%), indicating that there is a considerable need for improvement to reach the standards. Conclusion: Efforts must be made to have infrastructures, materials, and human resources sufficient in quality and quantity so that the neonatology unit of the CHUK can be efficient and optimize the care of premature babies.

Keywords: quality of care, evaluation, premature, standards

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Authors: Tadesse Anberbir, Felix Bankole, Tomio Takara, Girma Mamo

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In the development of a text-to-speech synthesizer, automatic derivation of correct pronunciation from the grapheme form of a text is a central problem. Particularly deriving phonological features which are not shown in orthography is challenging. In the Amharic language, geminates and epenthetic vowels are very crucial for proper pronunciation but neither is shown in orthography. In this paper, we proposed and integrated a morphological analyzer into an Amharic Text-to-Speech system, mainly to predict geminates and epenthetic vowel positions, and prepared a duration modeling method. Amharic Text-to-Speech system (AmhTTS) is a parametric and rule-based system that adopts a cepstral method and uses a source filter model for speech production and a Log Magnitude Approximation (LMA) filter as the vocal tract filter. The naturalness of the system after employing the duration modeling was evaluated by sentence listening test and we achieved an average Mean Opinion Score (MOS) 3.4 (68%) which is moderate. By modeling the duration of geminates and controlling the locations of epenthetic vowel, we are able to synthesize good quality speech. Our system is mainly suitable to be customized for other Ethiopian languages with limited resources.

Keywords: Amharic, gemination, speech synthesis, morphology, epenthesis

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Authors: Pataraporn Kheawwan

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Preceptorship represents an important aspect in new nurse orientation. However, there was no formal preceptor training program developed for nurse preceptor in Thailand. The purposes of this study were to develop and evaluate formal preceptor training program for nurse preceptors in King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand. A research and development study design was utilized in this study. Participants were 37 nurse preceptors. The program contents were delivered by e-learning material, class lecture, group discussion followed by simulation training. Knowledge of the participants was assessed pre and post program. Skill and critical thinking were assessed using Preceptor Skill and Decision Making Evaluation form at the end of program. Statistical significant difference in knowledge regarding preceptor role and coaching strategies between pre and post program were found. All participants had satisfied skill and decision making score after completed the program. Most of participants perceived benefits of preceptor training course. In conclusion, The results of this study reveal that the newly developed preceptorship course is an effective formal training course for nurse preceptors.

Keywords: preceptor, preceptorship, new nurse, clinical education

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Authors: Vasupradaa Manivannan, Santosh Maruthy

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Background/Aims: Preliminary evidence suggests that code-switching and code-mixing may act as one of the voluntary coping behavior to avoid the stuttering characteristics in children and adults; however, less is known about the types and patterns of code-mixing (CM) and code-switching (CS). Further, it is not known how it is different between children to adults who stutter. This study aimed to identify and compare the CM and CS patterns between Kannada-English bilingual children and adults who stutter. Method: A standard group comparison was made between five children who stutter (CWS) in the age range of 9-13 years and five adults who stutter (AWS) in the age range of 20-25 years. The participants who are proficient in Kannada (first language- L1) and English (second language- L2) were considered for the study. There were two tasks given to both the groups, a) General conversation (GC) with 10 random questions, b) Narration task (NAR) (Story / General Topic, for example., A Memorable Life Event) in three different conditions {Mono Kannada (MK), Mono English (ME), and Bilingual (BIL) Condition}. The children and adults were assessed online (via Zoom session) with a high-quality internet connection. The audio and video samples of the full assessment session were auto-recorded and manually transcribed. The recorded samples were analyzed for the percentage of dysfluencies using SSI-4 and CM, and CS exhibited in each participant using Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model parameters. The obtained data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software package (Version 20.0). Results: The mean, median, and standard deviation values were obtained for the percentage of dysfluencies (%SS) and frequency of CM and CS in Kannada-English bilingual children and adults who stutter for various parameters obtained through the MLF model. The inferential results indicated that %SS significantly varied between population (AWS vs CWS), languages (L1 vs L2), and tasks (GC vs NAR) but not across free (BIL) and bound (MK, ME) conditions. It was also found that the frequency of CM and CS patterns varies between CWS and AWS. The AWS had a lesser %SS but greater use of CS patterns than CWS, which is due to their excessive coping skills. The language mixing patterns were more observed in L1 than L2, and it was significant in most of the MLF parameters. However, there was a significantly higher (P<0.05) %SS in L2 than L1. The CS and CS patterns were more in conditions 1 and 3 than 2, which may be due to the higher proficiency of L2 than L1. Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of assessing the CM and CS behaviors, their patterns, and the frequency of CM and CS between CWS and AWS on MLF parameters in two different tasks across three conditions. The results help us to understand CM and CS strategies in bilingual persons who stutter.

Keywords: bilinguals, code mixing, code switching, stuttering

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Authors: Mehravar Javid, James Sexton, S. Taridashti, Joseph Dorer

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Objective: Intimacy is among the most important factors in marital relationships and includes different aspects. Communication skills can enable couples to promote their intimacy. This experimental study was conducted to measure the effectiveness of communication skills using Transactional Analysis (TA) on various dimensions of marital intimacy. Method: The participants in this study were female teachers. Analysis of covariance was recruited in the experimental group (n =15) and control group (n =15) with pre-test and post-test. Random assignment was applied. The experimental group received the Transactional Analysis training program for 9 sessions of 2 hours each week. The instrument was the Marital Intimacy Questionnaire, with 87 items and 9 subscales. Result: The findings suggest that training in Transactional Analysis significantly increased the total score of intimacy except spiritual intimacy on the post-test. Discussion: According to the obtained data, it is concluded that communication skills using Transactional Analysis (TA) training could increase intimacy and improve marital relationships. The study highlights the differential effects on emotional, rational, sexual, and psychological intimacy compared to physical, social/recreational, and relational intimacy over a 9-week period.

Keywords: communication skills, intimacy, marital relationships, transactional analysis

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Authors: Ramona Zharfpeykan

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The concept of sustainability is generally considered as a key topic in many countries, and sustainability reporting is becoming an important tool for companies to communicate their sustainability plans and performance to their stakeholders. There have been various studies on factors that may influence sustainability reporting in companies. This study examines the possible effect of some of the organisational factors on corporate sustainability reporting. The organisational factors included in this study are a company’s type (public or private), industry, and size as well as managers’ perception of the level of importance of indicators in reporting these indicators. A survey was conducted from 240 Australian and New Zealand companies in various industries. They were asked about their perception of the importance of sustainability indicators in their performance and if they report these indicators. The GRI indicators used to develop the survey. A multiple regression model was developed using reporting strategy score as dependent and type, size, industry categorisation, and managers’ perception of the level of importance of the GRI indicators as independent factors. The results show that among all the factors included in the model, size of a company and the perception of managers of the level of importance of environmental and labour practice indicators can affect the sustainability scores of these companies.

Keywords: sustainability reporting, global reporting initiative, sustainability reporting strategy, organisational features

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Authors: Fernanda M. Bastos, Teógenes A. da Silva

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Extrapolation chambers were designed to be used as primary standard dosimeter for measuring absorbed dose in a medium in beta radiation and low energy x-rays. The International Organization for Standardization established series of reference x-radiation for calibrating and determining the energy dependence of dosimeters that are to be reproduced in metrology laboratories. Standardization of the low energy x-ray beams with tube potential lower than 30 kV may be affected by the instrument used for dosimetry. In this work, parameters of a 23392 model PTW extrapolation chamber were determined aiming its use in low energy x-ray beams as a reference instrument.

Keywords: extrapolation chamber, low energy x-rays, x-ray dosimetry, X-ray metrology

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Authors: Megha Gupta, Nupur Prakash

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Identification of plant diseases has been performed using machine learning and deep learning models on the datasets containing images of healthy and diseased plant leaves. The current study carries out an evaluation of some of the deep learning models based on convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures for identification of plant diseases. For this purpose, the publicly available New Plant Diseases Dataset, an augmented version of PlantVillage dataset, available on Kaggle platform, containing 87,900 images has been used. The dataset contained images of 26 diseases of 14 different plants and images of 12 healthy plants. The CNN models selected for the study presented in this paper are AlexNet, ZFNet, VGGNet (four models), GoogLeNet, and ResNet (three models). The selected models are trained using PyTorch, an open-source machine learning library, on Google Colaboratory. A comparative study has been carried out to analyze the high degree of accuracy achieved using these models. The highest test accuracy and F1-score of 99.59% and 0.996, respectively, were achieved by using GoogLeNet with Mini-batch momentum based gradient descent learning algorithm.

Keywords: comparative analysis, convolutional neural networks, deep learning, plant disease identification

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Authors: Dolhadi Bin Zainudin

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The study attempts to predict the relationship between influencing factors in the adoption of ISO 9000:2008 and to identify which how these factors play the main role in achieving ISO 9000 standard. A survey using structured questionnaire was employed. A total of 255 respondents from 255 small and medium enterprises participated in this study. With regards to influencing factors, a discriminant analysis was conducted and the results showed that three out of nine critical success factors is statistically significant between ISO 9000:2008 and non-ISO 9000 certified companies which are communication for quality, information and analysis and organizational culture.

Keywords: ISO 9000, quality management, factors, small and medium enterprise, Malaysia, influencing factors

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Authors: Mahmoud Abdelrazig Mahmoud Barakat

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Achievement tests administered at national level play a significant role in the lives of test-takers as well as the whole society. This paper aims to investigate the effect of giving students a choice between two optional questions on their overall performance in a high stake achievement test for university admission. It is hypothesized that questions targeting writing-based productive skills and language system necessitate display of abilities which are different from fact-based questions designed around story content. The two items are assumed to reflect different constructs that require different criteria of assessment. Consequently, the student’s overall score is affected by the item they choose to answer, which might not be reflective of their real language abilities. An open-ended interview was carried out with ten teachers working with grade 3 students in model secondary schools to investigate the nature of the two test items and their impact on the student’s performance. The data has proved that giving choice in an achievement test generates different performances that are assessed differently. It is recommended that in order to address the question of fairness, it is important to clearly define and balance the construct of the items that affect the student’s choice and performance.

Keywords: achievement test, assessment, choice, fairness performance

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Authors: Sara Zelman, Courtney Meyer, Hiren Patel, Lisa Philpotts, Sue Lahey, Thomas Burke

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Background: As the global burden of disease shifts from infectious diseases to noncommunicable diseases, there is growing urgency to provide treatment for time-sensitive illnesses, such as ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarctions (STEMIs). The standard of care for STEMIs in developed countries is Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI). However, this is inaccessible in resource-limited settings. Before the discovery of PCI, Streptokinase (STK) and other thrombolytic drugs were first-line treatments for STEMIs. STK has been recognized as a cost-effective and safe treatment for STEMIs; however, in settings which lack access to PCI, it has not become the established second-line therapy. A systematic literature review was conducted to geographically map the use of STK for STEMIs in resource-limited settings. Methods: Our literature review group searched the databases Cinhal, Embase, Ovid, Pubmed, Web of Science, and WHO’s Index Medicus. The search terms included ‘thrombolytics’ AND ‘myocardial infarction’ AND ‘resource-limited’ and were restricted to human studies and papers written in English. A considerable number of studies came from Latin America; however, these studies were not written in English and were excluded. The initial search yielded 3,487 articles, which was reduced to 3,196 papers after titles were screened. Three medical professionals then screened abstracts, from which 291 articles were selected for full-text review and 94 papers were chosen for final inclusion. These articles were then analyzed and mapped geographically. Results: This systematic literature review revealed that STK has been used for the treatment of STEMIs in 33 resource-limited countries, with 18 of 94 studies taking place in India. Furthermore, 13 studies occurred in Pakistan, followed by Iran (6), Sri Lanka (5), Brazil (4), China (4), and South Africa (4). Conclusion: Our systematic review revealed that STK has been used for the treatment of STEMIs in 33 resource-limited countries, with the highest utilization occurring in India. This demonstrates that even though STK has high utility for STEMI treatment in resource-limited settings, it still has not become the standard of care. Future research should investigate the barriers preventing the establishment of STK use as second-line treatment after PCI.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease, global health, resource-limited setting, ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction, Streptokinase

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Authors: Nishank Raisinghani

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Efficiently predicting drug response remains a challenge in the realm of drug discovery. To address this issue, we propose four model architectures that combine graphical representation with varying positions of multiheaded self-attention mechanisms. By leveraging two types of multi-omics data, transcriptomics and genomics, we create a comprehensive representation of target cells and enable drug response prediction in precision medicine. A majority of our architectures utilize multiple transformer models, one with a graph attention mechanism and the other with a multiheaded self-attention mechanism, to generate latent representations of both drug and omics data, respectively. Our model architectures apply an attention mechanism to both drug and multiomics data, with the goal of procuring more comprehensive latent representations. The latent representations are then concatenated and input into a fully connected network to predict the IC-50 score, a measure of cell drug response. We experiment with all four of these architectures and extract results from all of them. Our study greatly contributes to the future of drug discovery and precision medicine by looking to optimize the time and accuracy of drug response prediction.

Keywords: drug discovery, transformers, graph neural networks, multiomics

Procedia PDF Downloads 128

Authors: V. Agostini, S. Gino, S. Inturri, A. Piccinini

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In cases of corpse identification or parental testing performed on exhumed alleged dead father, usually, we seek and acquire organic samples as bones and/or bone fragments, teeth, nails and muscle’s fragments. The DNA analysis of these cadaveric matrices usually leads to identifying success, but it often happens that the results of the typing are not satisfactory with highly degraded, partial or even non-interpretable genetic profiles. To aggravate the interpretative panorama deriving from the analysis of such 'classical' organic matrices, we must add a long and laborious treatment of the sample that starts from the mechanical fragmentation up to the protracted decalcification phase. These steps greatly increase the chance of sample contamination. In the present work, instead, we want to report the use of 'unusual' cadaveric matrices, demonstrating that their forensic genetics analysis can lead to better results in less time and with lower costs of reagents. We report six case reports, result of on-field experience, in which eyeswabs and cartilage were sampled and analyzed, allowing to obtain clear single genetic profiles, useful for identification purposes. In all cases we used the standard DNA tissue extraction protocols (as reported on the user manuals of the manufacturers such as QIAGEN or Invitrogen- Thermo Fisher Scientific), thus bypassing the long and difficult phases of mechanical fragmentation and decalcification of bones' samples. PCR was carried out using PowerPlex® Fusion System kit (Promega), and capillary electrophoresis was carried out on an ABI PRISM® 310 Genetic Analyzer (Applied Biosystems®), with GeneMapper ID v3.2.1 (Applied Biosystems®) software. The software Familias (version 3.1.3) was employed for kinship analysis. The genetic results achieved have proved to be much better than the analysis of bones or nails, both from the qualitative and quantitative point of view and from the point of view of costs and timing. This way, by using the standard procedure of DNA extraction from tissue, it is possible to obtain, in a shorter time and with maximum efficiency, an excellent genetic profile, which proves to be useful and can be easily decoded for later paternity tests and/or identification of human remains.

Keywords: DNA, eye swabs and cartilage, identification human remains, paternity testing

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Nicolas Lopez-Villalobos, Dorian J. Garrick, Hugh T. Blair

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Many dairy goat farmers of New Zealand milk herds of mixed breed does. Simultaneous evaluation of sires and does across breed is required to select the best animals for breeding on a common basis. Across-breed estimated breeding values (EBV) and estimated producing values for 208-day lactation yields of milk (MY), fat (FY), protein (PY) and somatic cell score (SCS; LOG2(SCC) of Saanen, Nubian, Alpine, Toggenburg and crossbred dairy goats from 75 herds were estimated using a test day model. Evaluations were based on 248,734 herd-test records representing 125,374 lactations from 65,514 does sired by 930 sires over 9 generations. Averages of MY, FY and PY were 642 kg, 21.6 kg and 19.8 kg, respectively. Average SCC and SCS were 936,518 cells/ml milk and 9.12. Pure-bred Saanen does out-produced other breeds in MY, FY and PY. Average EBV for MY, FY and PY compared to a Saanen base were Nubian -98 kg, 0.1 kg and -1.2 kg; Alpine -64 kg, -1.0 kg and -1.7 kg; and Toggenburg -42 kg, -1.0 kg and -0.5 kg. First-cross heterosis estimates were 29 kg MY, 1.1 kg FY and 1.2 kg PY. Average EBV for SCS compared to a Saanen base were Nubian 0.041, Alpine -0.083 and Toggenburg 0.094. Heterosis for SCS was 0.03. Breeding values are combined with respective economic values to calculate an economic index used for ranking sires and does to reflect farm profit.

Keywords: breed effects, dairy goats, milk traits, test-day model

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Authors: Nirav Jadav, M. G.Vanza

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Black cotton soils mainly exhibit the property of swelling/shrinkage when they react to moisture variations. This property causes development of cracks in the structures resting on these soils, which poses instability to the structures. Soil stabilization is a technique to enhance the geotechnical characteristics of Black cotton soils by changing their properties. Due to rapid growth in construction industry, a lot of waste material is being generated every day, which poses the problem of its disposal. If the waste material can be utilized for soil stabilization, it will mitigate the problems of its disposal. The tests results evaluate that the strength of the Black cotton soils increased by the use of C&D waste material. This study determines various Index and engineering properties of soil and compare for different proportions of soil and C&D Waste. For finding properties of soil and C&D Waste, various test is carried out like sieve analysis, hydrometer test, specific gravity test, Atterberg’s limit test, Standard proctor test and soil Triaxial unconsolidated undrained test. It also takes into account the characteristics alteration due to addition of C&D Waste in active and passive pressure. This study presents the efficacy for use of C&D Waste as a stabilizing material to be mixed with backfill soil in retaining walls. Standard proctor test was conducted at proportions S1W0 (soil = 100%, Waste = 0%), S7W1 (soil = 87.5%, waste = 12.5%), S3W1, S5W3 and S1W1. From these, S5W3 showed optimum results, so this proportion was considered for Soil Triaxial UU-Test. Also, S1W0 was considered too. When 37.5% of soil is replaced by C&D Waste, the Optimum moisture content (OMC) decrease by 11.48%, further, increase C&D Waste in soil OMC remains constant, and maximum dry density (MDD) were observed to be increased by 9.27%, further increased C&D Waste in soil MDD reduces. Carried out strength test, which shows cohesion decreased by 162% and the internal friction angle increased by 49.4% with compare to virgin soil. The study focuses on the potential use of C&D Waste as a stabilizing material in the retaining wall backfill. The active earth pressure decreases, and the passive earth pressure increases in the S5W3 mixture compared to the S1W0 mixture at the same depth.

Keywords: black cotton soil, construction demolition waste, compaction test, strength test

Procedia PDF Downloads 69

Authors: Rob Gesley Capistrano, Jasper James Isaac, Rose Mae Moralda, Therese Anne Peleo, Danica Rillo, Maria Virginia Santillian

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One of the valuable things that shows the intelligence among individuals is the academic background specifically their Grade Weighted Average and the significant result of the Comprehensive Examination. The general objective of the researchers to this study is to determine if there is a significant difference between General Weighted Average and Comprehensive Examination Result of Psychometrician Board Passers and Non-Board Passers. The respondents of this study composed of board passers and non-board passers. The researchers used purposive sampling technique. The result utilized by using T-test Independent Sample to determine the comparison of General Weighted Average and Comprehensive Examination Result of Board Passers and Non Board Passers. At the end, it concluded that the General Weighted Average of Board Passers and Non-Board Passers shows that there is no significant difference, but the average showed a minimal variation. The Comprehensive Examination Result of Board Passers and Non-Board Passers result revealed that there is a significant difference. The performance of comprehensive examination that will test the overall knowledge of an individual and will determine whose more proficient will likely to have a higher score. The result of the comprehensive examination had an impact in the passing performance of board examination.

Keywords: board passers, comprehensive examination result, grade weighted average, non board passers

Procedia PDF Downloads 166