Search results for: physical attractiveness

Authors: Priyal Sepaha

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A refugee crisis is manifested by challenges, both for the refugees and the asylum giving state. The situation turns into a mega-crisis when the situation is prejudicially handled by the home state, inappropriate refugee laws, exploding refugee population, and above all, no hope of any foreseeable solution or remedy. This paper studies the impact on the capability of stateless Rohingyas to migrate and seek refuge due to the enforcement of rigid criteria of movement imposed both by Myanmar as well as the adjoining countries in the name of national security. This theoretical study identifies the issues and the key factors and players which have precipitated the crisis. It further discusses the possible ramifications in the home, asylum giving, and the adjoining countries for not discharging their roles aptly. Additionally, an attempt has been made to understand the scarce response given to the impending crisis by the regional organizations like SAARC, ASEAN and CHOGAM as well as international organizations like United Nations Human Rights Council, Security Council, Office of High Commissioner for Refugees and so on, in the name of inadequacy of monetary funds and physical resources. Based on the refugee laws and practices pertaining to the case of Rohingyas, this paper analyses that the Rohingya Crisis is in dire need of an effective action plan to curb and resolve the biggest humanitarian crisis situation of the century. This mounting human tragedy can be mitigated permanently, by strengthening existing and creating new interdependencies among all stakeholders, as further ignorance can drive the countries of the Indian Sub-continent, in particular, and South East Asia, by and large into a violent civil war for seizing long-awaited civil rights by the marginalized Rohingyas. To curb this mass crisis, it will require the application of coercive pressure and diplomatic pursuance on the home country to acknowledge the rights of its fleeing citizens. This further necessitates mustering adequate monetary funds and physical resources for the asylum providing state. Additional challenges such as devising mechanisms for the refugee’s safe return, comprehensive planning for their holistic economic development and rehabilitation plan are needed. These, however, can only come into effect with a conscious strive by the regional and international community to fulfil their assigned role.

Keywords: asylum, citizenship, crisis, humanitarian, human rights, refugee, rohingya

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Authors: Majid A. AlSayari

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The study reported here investigated social cognitive theory (SCT) in the context of Vocational Rehab (VR) for people with disabilities. The prime purpose was to increase knowledge of VR phenomena and make recommendations for improving VR services. The sample consisted of 242 persons with Spinal Cord Injuries (SCI) who completed questionnaires. A further 32 participants were Trainers. Analysis of questionnaire data was carried out using factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and thematic analysis. The analysis suggested that, in motivational terms, and consistent with research carried out in other academic contexts, self-efficacy was the best predictor of VR performance. The author concludes that that VR self-efficacy predicted VR training performance.

Keywords: people with physical disabilities, social cognitive theory, self-efficacy, vocational training

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Authors: Cesar Vazquez-Gonzalez, Sophie Avila-Foucat, Leonardo Ortiz-Lozano, Patricia Moreno-Casasola, Alejandro Granados-Barba

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In the last twenty years, academic and scientific literature has been focused on understanding the processes and factors of coastal social-ecological systems vulnerability and resilience. Some scholars argue that resilience and vulnerability are isolated concepts due to their epistemological origin, while others note the existence of a strong resilience-vulnerability relationship. Here we present an ordinal logistic regression model based on the analytical framework about dynamic resilience-vulnerability interaction along adaptive cycle of complex systems and disasters process phases (during, recovery and learning). In this way, we demonstrate that 1) during the disturbance, absorptive capacity (resilience as a core of attributes) and external response capacity explain the probability of households capitals to diminish the damage, and exposure sets the thresholds about the amount of disturbance that households can absorb, 2) at recovery, absorptive capacity and external response capacity explain the probability of households capitals to recovery faster (resilience as an outcome) from damage, and 3) at learning, adaptive capacity (resilience as a core of attributes) explains the probability of households adaptation measures based on the enhancement of physical capital. As a result, during the disturbance phase, exposure has the greatest weight in the probability of capital’s damage, and households with absorptive and external response capacity elements absorbed the impact of floods in comparison with households without these elements. At the recovery phase, households with absorptive and external response capacity showed a faster recovery on their capital; however, the damage sets the thresholds of recovery time. More importantly, diversity in financial capital increases the probability of recovering other capital, but it becomes a liability so that the probability of recovering the household finances in a longer time increases. At learning-reorganizing phase, adaptation (modifications to the house) increases the probability of having less damage on physical capital; however, it is not very relevant. As conclusion, resilience is an outcome but also core of attributes that interacts with vulnerability along the adaptive cycle and disaster process phases. Absorptive capacity can diminish the damage experienced by floods; however, when exposure overcomes thresholds, both absorptive and external response capacity are not enough. In the same way, absorptive and external response capacity diminish the recovery time of capital, but the damage sets the thresholds in where households are not capable of recovering their capital.

Keywords: absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, capital, floods, recovery-learning, social-ecological systems

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Authors: K. Menad, A. Faddeg

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Zeolites are a family of mineral compounds. With special properties that have led to several important industrial applications. Ion exchange has enabled the first industrial application in the field of water treatment. The exchange by aqueous pathway is the method most used in the case of such microporous materials and this technique will be used in this work. The objective of this work is to find performance materials for the recovery of heavy metals such as cadmium. The study is to compare the properties of different ion exchange zeolite Na-X, Na-A, their physical mixture and the composite A (LTA) / X (FAU). After the synthesis of various zeolites X and A, it was designed a model Core-Shell to form a composite zeolite A on zeolite X. Finally, ion exchange studies were performed on these zeolite materials. The cation is exclusively tested for cadmium, a toxic element and is harmful to health and the environment.

Keywords: zeolite A, zeolite X, ion exchange, water treatment

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Authors: Kyunghee Oh, Dooho Choi

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Although there is no theoretical weakness in a cryptographic algorithm, Side Channel Analysis can find out some secret data from the physical implementation of a cryptosystem. The analysis is based on extra information such as timing information, power consumption, electromagnetic leaks or even sound which can be exploited to break the system. Differential Power Analysis is one of the most popular analyses, as computing the statistical correlations of the secret keys and power consumptions. It is usually necessary to calculate huge data and takes a long time. It may take several weeks for some devices with countermeasures. We suggest and evaluate the methods to shorten the time to analyze cryptosystems. Our methods include distributed computing and parallelized processing.

Keywords: DPA, distributed computing, parallelized processing, side channel analysis

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Authors: Monika Szpringer, Aneta Pawlinska

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Adverse childhood experiences are linked to various types of health and adapt problems at different stages of life. They include various types of abuse, neglect, and dysfunctional environment. They have an unfavorable impact on the development of a child and his future functioning in society. Adolescents who were exposed to bad treatment may suffer from health problems during adulthood, like chronic diseases, psychological disorders, drug addiction, and suicide attempts. Objective: The aim of the project is to assess the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and the sense of efficacy and coping with emotions among teenagers aged 16-18 taking drugs. Material And Methods: The research was carried out in the period from March to December 2018 in Mazowieckie, Świętokrzyskie, Łódzkie, and Lubelskie Voivodship. The group consisted of 600 people aged 16-18 (M=16,58; SD=0, 78), men (63,2%) aged 16-18 (M=16,60;SD= 0,78) and women (35,5%) aged 16-18 (M16,55;SD=0,79). Participants included residents from Youth Educational Centers and Youth Sociotherapy Centers. Each participant filled in Author's Questionnaire, Adverse Childhood Questionnaire, then Courtland Emotional Control Scale-CECS and Generalized Self Efficacy Scale-GSES. Results and conclusions: The most common adverse experiences, according to teenagers, were family abuse, divorce/separation/parent's death, overuse of alcohol or drugs by an inmate, and emotional neglect. Adolescents who suffered from five to twelve adverse experiences had a higher level of depression's control. Adverse childhood experiences have an importance for the level of anger and depression's control among teenagers taking drugs. The greatest importance of the level of anger's control has emotional neglect. A higher level of emotional neglect is linked to a lower ability to control anger. The greatest importance of the level of depression's control has physical abuse and emotional neglect. The higher physical abuse during childhood, and the higher frequency of emotional neglect, the bigger the depression's control. The sense of efficacy in the group of people who suffered from one to four adverse experiences is close to the sense of efficacy that suffered people from five to twelve adverse experiences. The most important factor lowering the sense of one's efficacy was the intensification of sexual abuse. It was confirmed that the intensification and frequency of adverse childhood experiences were higher among women than men. Women also characterized lower anger control and greater depression's control. The authors’ own analyses confirmed the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and the sense of efficacy and coping with emotions among teenagers aged 16-18 taking drugs.

Keywords: adolescences, adverse childhood experiences, coping with emotions, drugs

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Authors: Sajeda Elbashabsheh, Kamel Al-Khaled

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This paper applies a modified Laplace Adomian decomposition method to solve the time-fractional JaulentMiodek system. The method produce convergent series solutions with easily compatible components. This paper considers the Caputo fractional derivative. The effectiveness and applicability of the method are demonstrated by comparing its results with those of prior studies. Results are presented in tables and figures. These solutions might be imperative and significant for the explanation of some practical physical phenomena. All computations and figures in the work are done using MATHEMATICA. The numerical results demonstrate that the current methods are effective, reliable, and simple to i implement for nonlinear fractional partial differential equations.

Keywords: approximate solutions, Jaulent-Miodek system, Adomian decomposition method, solitons

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Authors: Artem Sedov, Aigerim Uyzbayeva, Valeriya Tyo

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The presented article is showing results of dynamic modeling with Mathlab software of optimal automatic room climate control system for two experimental houses in Astana, one of which has circle plan and the other one has square plan. These results are showing that building geometry doesn't influence on climate system PID-controls configuring. This confirms theoretical implication that optimal automatic climate control system parameters configuring should depend on building's internal space volume, envelope heat transfer, number of people inside, supply ventilation air flow and outdoor temperature.

Keywords: climate control system, climate physics, dome-like building, mathematical modeling

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Authors: Anna Wiltshire, Rebecca Markham

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Over the last decade, a growing body of evidence has indicated that children with disabilities are often amongst the most excluded and vulnerable in society. The World Bank estimates that 20% of those living in poverty in developing countries are disabled which means that those with the least bear the greatest burden. Furthermore, children with disabilities in Africa have to face a multitude of difficulties ranging from the physical to the psychological. Misconceptions and cultural beliefs are used to justify violence against, or complete shunning of these individuals and their families. In addition, discrimination can prevent access to both education and health services, further compromising these individuals. All children, irrespective of their disability should be able to enjoy human rights without discrimination, but this is often not the case. This poster explores how and why children with disabilities in Africa are subject to violations of their human rights, and suggests ways of addressing these problems.

Keywords: Africa, children, disability, discrimination, human rights

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Authors: M. S. M. El-Bady

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Water quality and heavy metals pollution of the Damietta Nile Branch at Damietta governorate were investigated in the current work. Fourteen different sampling points were selected along the Damietta Nile branch from Ras EL-Bar (sample 1) to Sheremsah (sample 14). Physical and chemical parameters and the concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Fe, Al, Hg, Pb and Zn were investigated for water quality assessment of Damietta Nile Branch at Damietta Governorate. Most of the samples show that the water is suitable for drinking and irrigation purposes. All locations of samples near the sea are unsuitable water but the samples in the south direction away from the sea are suitable or good water for drinking and irrigation.

Keywords: water quality indices, Damietta Governorate, Nile river, pollution

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Authors: Elizabeth Laguaite, Alexandria Purdy

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Heart transplant recipients face psycho-physiological stressors, including pain, lengthy hospitalizations, delirium, and existential crises. They pose an increased risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and can be a predictor of poorer mental and physical Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) outcomes and increased mortality. There is limited research on the prevention of Post Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) in transplant patients. This case report focuses on a collaborative Music and Art Therapy intervention used to improve outcomes for HMH transplant recipient John (Alias). John, a 58-year-old man with congestive heart failure, was admitted to HMH in February of 2021 with cardiogenic shock, cannulated with an Intra-aortic Balloon Pump, Impella 5.5, and Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (VA-ECMO) as a bridge to heart and kidney transplant. He was listed as status 1 for transplant. Music Therapy and Art Therapy (MT and AT) were ordered by the physician for mood regulation, trauma processing and anxiety management. During MT/AT sessions, John reported a history of anxiety and depression exacerbated by medical acuity, shortness of breath, and lengthy hospitalizations. He expressed difficulty sleeping, pain, and existential questions. Initially seen individually by MT/AT, it was determined he could benefit from a collaborative approach due to similar thematic content within sessions. A Life Review intervention was developed by MT/AT. The purpose was for him to creatively express, reflect and process his medical narrative, including the identification of positive and negative events leading up to admission at HMH, the journey to transplant, and his hope for the future. Through this intervention, he created artworks that symbolized each event and paired them with songs, two of which were composed with the MT during treatment. As of September 2023, John has not been readmitted to the hospital and expressed that this treatment is what “got him through transplant”. MT and AT can provide opportunities for a patient to reminisce through creative expression, leading to a shift in the personal meaning of these experiences, promoting resolution, and ameliorating associated trauma. The closer to trauma it is processed, the less likely to develop PTSD. This collaborative MT/AT approach could improve long-term outcomes by reducing mortality and readmission rates for transplant patients.

Keywords: art therapy, music therapy, critical care, PTSD, trauma, transplant

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Authors: Michael N. O'Sullivan, Con Sheahan

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Researchers have spent decades developing tools and techniques to aid teams in the new product development (NPD) process. Despite this, it is evident that there is a huge gap between their academic prevalence and their industry adoption. For the fuzzy front-end, in particular, there is a wide range of tools to choose from, including the Kano Model, the House of Quality, and many others. In fact, there are so many tools that it can often be difficult for teams to know which ones to use and how they interact with one another. Moreover, while the benefits of using these tools are obvious to industrialists, they are rarely used as they carry a learning curve that is too steep and they become too complex to manage over time. In essence, it is commonly believed that they are simply not worth the effort required to learn and use them. This research explores a streamlined process for the fuzzy front-end, assembling the most effective tools and making them accessible to everyone. The process was developed iteratively over the course of 3 years, following over 80 final year NPD teams from engineering, design, technology, and construction as they carried a product from concept through to production specification. Questionnaires, focus groups, and observations were used to understand the usability issues with the tools involved, and a human-centred design approach was adopted to produce a solution to these issues. The solution takes the form of physical toolkit, similar to a board game, which allows the team to play through an example of a new product development in order to understand the process and the tools, before using it for their own product development efforts. A complimentary website is used to enhance the physical toolkit, and it provides more examples of the tools being used, as well as deeper discussions on each of the topics, allowing teams to adapt the process to their skills, preferences and product type. Teams found the solution very useful and intuitive and experienced significantly less confusion and mistakes with the process than teams who did not use it. Those with a design background found it especially useful for the engineering principles like Quality Function Deployment, while those with an engineering or technology background found it especially useful for design and customer requirements acquisition principles, like Voice of the Customer. Products developed using the toolkit are added to the website as more examples of how it can be used, creating a loop which helps future teams understand how the toolkit can be adapted to their project, whether it be a small consumer product or a large B2B service. The toolkit unlocks the potential of these beneficial tools to those in industry, both for large, experienced teams and for inexperienced start-ups. It allows users to assess the market potential of their product concept faster and more effectively, arriving at the product design stage with technical requirements prioritized according to their customers’ needs and wants.

Keywords: new product development, fuzzy front-end, usability, Kano model, quality function deployment, voice of customer

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Authors: D. Pérez, M. M. E. Alemany

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In this work a Framework to model the Supply Chain (SC) Collaborative Planning (CP) Process is proposed, and particularly its Decisional view. The main Framework contributions with regards to previous related works are the following, 1) the consideration of not only the Decision view, the most important one due to the Process type, but other additional three views which are the Physical, Organisation and Information ones, closely related and complementing the Decision View, 2) the joint consideration of two interdependence types, the Temporal (among Decision Centres belonging to different Decision Levels) and Spatial (among Decision Centres belonging to the same Decision Level) to support the distributed Decision-Making process in SC where several decision Centres interact among them in a collaborative manner.

Keywords: collaborative planning, decision view, distributed decision-making, framework

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Authors: Khadidja Belbachir, Hafida Belbachir

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subsequently the expansion of the physical supports storage and the needs ceaseless to accumulate several data, the sequential algorithms of associations’ rules research proved to be ineffective. Thus the introduction of the new parallel versions is imperative. We propose in this paper, a parallel version of a sequential algorithm “Partition”. This last is fundamentally different from the other sequential algorithms, because it scans the data base only twice to generate the significant association rules. By consequence, the parallel approach does not require much communication between the sites. The proposed approach was implemented for an experimental study. The obtained results, shows a great reduction in execution time compared to the sequential version and Count Distributed algorithm.

Keywords: association rules, distributed data mining, partition, parallel algorithms

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Authors: Ali Noorian

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Crude oil contains various compounds of hydrocarbons but low concentrations of inorganic compounds or metals. Vanadium and Nickel are the most common metals in crude oil. These metals usually exist in solution in the oil and residual fuel oil in the refining process is condensed. Deleterious effects of metals in petroleum have been known for some time. These metals do not only contaminate the product but also cause intoxication and loss of catalyst and corrosion to equipment. In this study, removal of heavy metals and petroleum residues were investigated. These methods include physical, chemical and biological treatment processes. For example, processes such as solvent extraction and hydro-catalytic and catalytic methods are effective and practical methods, but typically often have high costs and cause environmental pollution. Furthermore, biological methods that do not cause environmental pollution have been discussed in recent years, but these methods have not yet been industrialized.

Keywords: removal, metal, heavy oil, nickel, vanadium

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Authors: Ouazoul Abdelouahd, Jemjami Nadia

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The concept of well-being at work is one of today's significant challenges in maintaining quality of life and managing psycho-social risks at work. Indeed, work in the sports sector has evolved, and this exponential evolution, marked by increasing demands and psychological, physical, and social challenges, which sometimes exceed the resources of sports actors, influences their sense of well-being at work. Well-being and burnout as antagonists provide information on the quality of working life in sports. The Basic aim of this literature review is to analyze the scientific corpus dealing with the subject of well-being at work in the sports sector while exploring the link between sports burnout and well-being. The results reveal the richness of the conceptual approaches and the difficulties of implementing them. Prospects for future research have, therefore, been put forward.

Keywords: Well-being, quality of life, Burnout, ; psycho-social risk, Sports sector

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Authors: Linette van der Merwe

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It is known that visual artists, performing artists, and literary artists have inspired each other since time immemorial. The enduring, symbiotic relationship between the various art genres is evident where words, colours, lines, and sounds act as metaphors, a physical separation of the transcendental reality of art. Simonides of Keos (c. 556-468 BC) confirmed this, stating that a poem is a talking picture, or, in a more modern expression, a picture is worth a thousand words. It can be seen as an ancient relationship, originating from the epigram (tombstone or artefact inscriptions), the carmen figuratum (figure poem), and the ekphrasis (a description in the form of a poem of a work of art). Visual artists, including Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Goethe, wrote poems and songs. Goya, Degas, and Picasso are famous for their works of art and for trying their hands at poetry. Afrikaans writers whose fine art is often published together with their writing, as in the case of Andries Bezuidenhout, Breyten Breytenbach, Sheila Cussons, Hennie Meyer, Carina Stander, and Johan van Wyk, among others, are not a strange phenomenon either. Imitating one art form into another art form is a form of translation, transposition, contemplation, and discovery of artistic impressions, showing parallel interpretations rather than physical comparison. It is especially about the harmony that exists between the different art genres, i.e., a poem that describes a painting or a visual text that portrays a poem that becomes a translation, interpretation, and rediscovery of the verbal text, or rather, from the word text to the image text. Poetry-film, as a form of such a translation of the word text into an image text, can be considered a hybrid, transdisciplinary art form that connects poetry and film. Poetry-film is regarded as an intertwined entity of word, sound, and visual image. It is an attempt to transpose and transform a poem into a new artwork that makes the poem more accessible to people who are not necessarily open to the written word and will, in effect, attract a larger audience to a genre that usually has a limited market. Poetry-film is considered a creative expression of an inverted ekphrastic inspiration, a visual description, interpretation, and expression of a poem. Research also emphasises that animated poetry-film is not widely regarded as a genre of anything and is thus severely under-theorized. This paper will focus on Afrikaans animated poetry-films as a multimodal transposition of a poem text to an animated poetry film, with specific reference to animated poetry-films in Filmverse I (2014) and Filmverse II (2016).

Keywords: poetry film, animated poetry film, poetic metaphor, conceptual metaphor, monomodal metaphor, multimodal metaphor, semiotic metaphor, multimodality, metaphor analysis, target domain, source domain

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Authors: Mohammed Khenfouch, Fokotsa V. Molefe, Bakang M. Mothudi

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Nowadays, graphene and its composites are universally known as promising materials. They show their potential in a large field of applications including photovoltaics. This study reports on the role of nanohybrids and nanosystems known as strong light harvesters in the efficiency of graphene hybrid solar cells. Our system included Graphene/ZnO/Porphyrin/P3HT layers. Moreover, the physical properties including surface/interface, optical and vibrational properties were also studied. Our investigations confirmed the interaction between the different components as well as the sensitivity of their photonics to the synthesis conditions. Remarkable energy and charge transfer were detected and deeply investigated. Hence, the optimization of the conditions will lead to the fabrication of higher conversion efficiency in graphene solar cells.

Keywords: graphene, optoelectronics, nanohybrids, solar cells

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Authors: Mohamed Elshobaki, Alessandro Valiani, Valerio Caleffi

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In this paper, we solve 1-D shallow water equation for sub-critical and super-critical water flow at junction. The water flow at junction has been studied for the last 50 years from the physical-hydraulic point of views and for numerical computations need more attention. For numerical simulation, we need to establish an inner boundary condition at the junction to avoid an oscillation which rise from the waves interactions at the junction. Indeed, we introduce a new boundary condition at the junction based on the mass conservation, total head, and the admissible wave relations between the flow parameters in the three branches to predict the water depths and discharges at the junction. These boundary conditions are valid for sub-critical flow and super-critical flow.

Keywords: numerical simulation, junction flow, sub-critical flow, super-critical flow

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Authors: Manar Y. Abd El-Aziz, Alyaa E. Morgham, Amira A. El-Fallal, Heba Tolla E. Abo El Naga

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Sport wears almost preferred with knitted fabrics, specially interlock construction. But, there is a need for higher comfortability and functional properties for fabrics to be more fitted to this application. This study compared cotton and polyester microfibers and blended them to improve the functional activity of interlock in sport wear by mercerized and non-mercerized. also, fabric dyeing and dyeability are affected by mercerization. Many functional properties, such as UV protection as well as antimicrobial activity. The changes in different mechanical as well as physical properties were investigated. The washing fastness properties of the dyed fabrics are also given. The changes in moisture regain, loss in weight, and burst and burst elongation for all mercerized fabrics have been studied.

Keywords: interlock, mercirization, dyeability, function properties, moisture management

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Authors: Azadeh Afrasyabi, Ali Khaleghi, Aliakbar Alijarahi

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Training at an early age is so important, because of tremendous changes in adolescence, including the formation of character, physical changes and other factors. One of the most sensitive sectors in this field is the children with a disability and are somehow special children who have trouble in communicating with their environment. One of the emerging technologies in the field of education that can be effectively profitable called augmented reality, where the combination of real world and virtual images in real time produces new concepts that can facilitate learning. The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective training method for special and disabled children based on augmented reality. Of course, in particular, the efficiency of augmented reality in teaching children with autism will consider, also examine the various aspect of this disease and different learning methods in this area.

Keywords: technology in education, augmented reality, special education, teaching methods

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Authors: Haythem Barrak, Gaetan Laroche, Adel M’nif, Ahmed Hichem Hamzaoui

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The use of semiconductor oxides, as chemical or biological, requires their functionalization with appropriate dependent molecules of the substance to be detected. generally, the support materials used are TiO2 and SiO2. In the present work, we used zinc oxide (ZnO) known for its interesting physical properties. The synthesis of nano scale ZnO was performed by co-precipitation at low temperature (60 ° C).To our knowledge, the obtaining of this material at this temperature was carried out for the first time. This shows the low cost of this operation. On the other hand, the surface functionalization of ZnO was performed with (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) by using a specific method using ethanol for the first time. In addition, the duration of this stage is very low compared to literature. The samples obtained were analyzed by XRD, TEM, DLS, FTIR, and TGA shows that XPS that the operation of grafting of APTES on our support was carried out with success.

Keywords: functionalization, nanoparticle, ZnO, APTES, caractérisation

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Authors: Shih-Chieh Liao, Cheng-Yan Shuai

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The feature of a side-scrolling shooting game is facing the surrounding enemy and barraging in entire screen. The player will be in trouble when they are trying to do complicated operations because of the physical and system limitations of the joystick in the games. This study designed the prototype of a new type of arcade stick by focus group and assessed by the expert. By filtering the most representative, and build up the control system for the arcade stick, and testing time and bullets consumed in two experiments, try to prove it works in the game. Finally, the prototype of L-1 solves the dilemma of scroll shooting games when the player uses the arcade stick and improves the function of the arcade stick.

Keywords: arcade stick, joystick, user interface, 2D STG

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Authors: Ouazoul Abdeloauhd, Jemjami Nadia

Abstract:

The concept of well-being at work is one of today's significant challenges in maintaining quality of life and managing psycho-social risks at work. Indeed, work in the sports sector has evolved, and this exponential evolution, marked by increasing demands and psychological, physical, and social challenges, which sometimes exceed the resources of sports actors, influences their sense of well-being at work. Well-being and burnout as antagonists provide information on the quality of working life in sports. The Basic aim of this literature review is to analyze the scientific corpus dealing with the subject of well-being at work in the sports sector while exploring the link between sports burnout and well-being. The results reveal the richness of the conceptual approaches and the difficulties of implementing them. Prospects for future research have, therefore, been put forward.

Keywords: well-being, burnout, quality of life, psycho-social risk, work on sports sector

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Authors: Ophir Segal, Daniel Weltsch, Shay Tenenbaum, Ran Thein

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Purpose: Patients with lateral patellar dislocation (LPD) are not always referred to perform an MRI. This might be the case in first time LPD patients without surgical indications or in patients with recurrent LPD who had MRI in previous episodes. Unfortunately, in some cases, there are additional knee pathological findings, which include tearing of the collateral or cruciate ligaments and injury to the tendons or menisci. These findings might be overlooked during the physical examination or masked by nonspecific clinical findings like knee pain, effusion, or hemarthrosis. The prevalence of these findings, which can be revealed by MRI, is misreported in literature and is considered rare. In our practice, all patients with LPD are sent for MRI after LPD. Therefore, we have designed a retrospective comparative study to evaluate the prevalence of additional pathological findings in patients with acute traumatic LPD that had performed MRI, comparing different groups of patients according to age, sex, and Tibial Tuberosity-Trochlear Groove(TT-TG) distance. Methods: MRI of the knee in patients after traumatic LPD were evaluated for the presence of additional pathological findings such as injuries to ligaments: Anterior/Posterior cruciate ligament(ACL, PCL), Medial/Lateral collateral ligament(MCL, LCL), injuries to tendons(QUADICEPS, PATELLAR), menisci(Medial/Lateral meniscus(MM, LM)) and tibial plateau, by a fellowship-trained, senior musculoskeletal radiologist. A comparison between different groups of patients was performed according to age (age group < 25 years, age group > 25 years), sex (Male/Female group), and TT-TG distance (TT-TG<15 groups, TT-TG>15 groups). A descriptive and comparative statistical analysis was performed. Results: 150 patients were included in this study. All suffered from LPD between the years 2012-2017 (mean age 21.3( ± SD 8.9), 86 males). ACL, PCL, MCL, and LCL complete or partial tears were found in 17(11.3%), 3(2%), 22(14.6%), and 4(2.7%) of the patients, respectively. MM and LM tears were found in 10(6.7%) and 3(2%) of the patients, respectively. A higher prevalence of PCL injury, MM tear, and LM tear were found in the older age group compared to the younger group of patients (10.5% vs. 1.8%, 18.4% vs. 2.7%, and 7.9% vs. 0%, respectively, p<0.05). A higher prevalence of non-displaced MM tear and LCL injury was found in the male group compared to the female group (8.1% vs. 0% and 8.1% vs. 0% respectively, p<0.05). A higher prevalence of ACL injury was found in the normal TT-TG group compared to the pathologic TT-TG group (17.5% vs. 2.3%, p= 0.0184). Conclusions: Overall, 43 out of 150 (28.7%) of the patient's MRI’s were positive for additional pathological radiological findings. Interestingly, a higher prevalence of additional pathologies was found in the groups of patients with a lower risk for recurrent LPD, including males, patients older than 25, and patients with TT-TG lower than 15mm, and therefore might not be referred for an MRI scan. Thus, we recommend a strict physical examination, awareness to the high prevalence of additional pathological findings, and to consider performing an MRI in all patients after LPD.

Keywords: additional findings, lateral patellar dislocation (LPD), MRI scan, traumatic patellar dislocation, cruciate ligaments injuries, menisci injuries, collateral ligaments injuries

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Authors: Stephen Osakue Amiandamhen, Schwaller Andreas, Martina Meincken, Luvuyo Tyhoda

Abstract:

Invasive alien tree species are currently being cleared in South Africa as a result of the forest and water imbalances. These species grow wildly constituting about 40% of total forest area. They compete with the ecosystem for natural resources and are considered as ecosystem engineers by rapidly changing disturbance regimes. As such, they are harvested for commercial uses but much of it is wasted because of their form and structure. The waste is being sold to local communities as fuel wood. These species can be considered as potential feedstock for the production of phosphate bonded composites. The presence of bark in wood-based composites leads to undesirable properties, and debarking as an option can be cost implicative. This study investigates the potentials of these invasive species processed without debarking on some fundamental properties of wood-based panels. Some invasive alien tree species were collected from EC Biomass, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. They include Acacia mearnsii (Black wattle), A. longifolia (Long-leaved wattle), A. cyclops (Red-eyed wattle), A. saligna (Golden-wreath wattle) and Eucalyptus globulus (Blue gum). The logs were chipped as received. The chips were hammer-milled and screened through a 1 mm sieve. The wood particles were conditioned and the quantity of bark in the wood was determined. The binding matrix was prepared using a reactive magnesia, phosphoric acid and class S fly ash. The materials were mixed and poured into a metallic mould. The composite within the mould was compressed at room temperature at a pressure of 200 KPa. After initial setting which took about 5 minutes, the composite board was demoulded and air-cured for 72 h. The cured product was thereafter conditioned at 20°C and 70% relative humidity for 48 h. Test of physical and strength properties were conducted on the composite boards. The effect of binder formulation and fly ash content on the properties of the boards was studied using fitted response surface technology, according to a central composite experimental design (CCD) at a fixed wood loading of 75% (w/w) of total inorganic contents. The results showed that phosphate/magnesia ratio of 3:1 and fly ash content of 10% was required to obtain a product of good properties and sufficient strength for intended applications. The proposed products can be used for ceilings, partitioning and insulating wall panels.

Keywords: invasive alien tree species, phosphate bonded composites, physical properties, strength

Procedia PDF Downloads 280

Authors: A. I. Al-Bassam, A. M. El-Nggar

Abstract:

Polycrystalline Cu In I-x GaxSe2 thin films have been fabricated. Some physical properties such as lattice parameters, crystal structure and microstructure of Cu In I-x GaxSe2 were determined using X-ray diffractometry and scanning electron microscopy. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the films with x ≥ 0.5 have a chalcopyrite structure and the films with x ≤ 0.5 have a zinc blende structure. The lattice parameters were found to vary linearly with composition over a wide range from x = 0 to x =1.0. The variation of lattice parameters with composition was found to obey Vegard's law. The variation of the c/a with composition was also linear. The quality of a wide range of Cu In I-xGaxSe2 thin film absorbers from CuInSe to CuGaSe was evaluated by Photoluminescence (PL) measurements.

Keywords: grain size, polycrystalline, solar cells, lattice parameters

Procedia PDF Downloads 500

Authors: Vincent Andrew Cappellano

Abstract:

In the early phases of critical infrastructure system design, translating distributed computing requirements to an architecture has risk given the multitude of approaches (e.g., cloud, edge, fog). In many systems, a single requirement for system uptime / availability is used to encompass the system’s intended operations. However, when architected systems may perform to those availability requirements only during normal operations and not during component failure, or during outages caused by adversary attacks on critical infrastructure (e.g., physical, cyber). System designers lack a structured method to evaluate availability requirements against candidate system architectures through deep degradation scenarios (i.e., normal ops all the way down to significant damage of communications or physical nodes). This increases risk of poor selection of a candidate architecture due to the absence of insight into true performance for systems that must operate as a piece of critical infrastructure. This research effort proposes a process to analyze critical infrastructure system availability requirements and a candidate set of systems architectures, producing a metric assessing these architectures over a spectrum of degradations to aid in selecting appropriate resilient architectures. To accomplish this effort, a set of simulation and evaluation efforts are undertaken that will process, in an automated way, a set of sample requirements into a set of potential architectures where system functions and capabilities are distributed across nodes. Nodes and links will have specific characteristics and based on sampled requirements, contribute to the overall system functionality, such that as they are impacted/degraded, the impacted functional availability of a system can be determined. A machine learning reinforcement-based agent will structurally impact the nodes, links, and characteristics (e.g., bandwidth, latency) of a given architecture to provide an assessment of system functional uptime/availability under these scenarios. By varying the intensity of the attack and related aspects, we can create a structured method of evaluating the performance of candidate architectures against each other to create a metric rating its resilience to these attack types/strategies. Through multiple simulation iterations, sufficient data will exist to compare this availability metric, and an architectural recommendation against the baseline requirements, in comparison to existing multi-factor computing architectural selection processes. It is intended that this additional data will create an improvement in the matching of resilient critical infrastructure system requirements to the correct architectures and implementations that will support improved operation during times of system degradation due to failures and infrastructure attacks.

Keywords: architecture, resiliency, availability, cyber-attack

Procedia PDF Downloads 93

Authors: Kirill D. Kapustin, Mikhail B. Krasilnikov, Anatoly A. Kudryavtsev

Abstract:

Physical formation mechanisms of differential electron fluxes is high pressure positive column gas discharge are discussed. It is shown that the spatial differential fluxes of the electrons are directed both inward and outward depending on the energy relaxation law. In some cases the direction of energy differential flux at intermediate energies (5-10eV) in whole volume, except region near the wall, appeared to be down directed, so electron in this region dissipate more energy than gain from axial electric field. Paradoxical behaviour of electron flux in spatial-energy space is presented.

Keywords: plasma kinetics, electron distribution function, excitation and radiation rates, local and nonlocal EDF

Procedia PDF Downloads 392

Authors: Supatchalee Sirichokworrakit

Abstract:

Fishbone of Nile tilapia (Tilapia nilotica), waste from the frozen Nile tilapia fillet factory, is one of calcium sources. In order to increase fish bone powder value, this study aimed to investigate the effect of tilapia bone flour (TBF) addition (5, 10, 15% by flour weight) on cooking quality, texture and sensory attributes of noodles. The results indicated that tensile strength, color value (a*) and water absorption of noodles significantly decreased (p≤0.05) as the levels of TBF increased from 0-15%. While cooking loss, cooking time and color values (L* and b*) of noodles significantly increased (p≤0.05). Sensory evaluation indicated that noodles with 5% TBF received the highest overall acceptability score.

Keywords: tilapia bone flour, noodles, cooking quality, calcium

Procedia PDF Downloads 396