Search results for: northern areas

Authors: P. Weerkamp Bartholomeus

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Autism treatment evaluation is crucial for monitoring the development of an intervention at an early stage. ‘ReAttach’ is a new intervention based on the principles of attachment and social cognitive training. Practical research suggests promising results on a variety of developmental areas. Five years after the first ReAttach sessions these findings can be extended with qualitative research by means of follow-up interviews. The potential impact of this treatment on daily life functioning and well-being of autistic persons becomes clear.

Keywords: autism, innovation, treatment, social cognitive training

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Authors: Rao Muhammad Afzal Khan

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Nano technology is emerging as a useful technology in nearly all areas of Science and Technology. Its role in medical imaging is attracting the researchers towards existing and new imaging modalities and techniques. This presentation gives an overview of the development of the work done throughout the world. Furthermore, it lays an idea into the scope of the future use of this technology for diagnosing different diseases. A comparative analysis has also been discussed with an emphasis to detect diseases, in general, and cancer, in particular.

Keywords: medical imaging, cancer detection, diagnosis, nano-imaging, nanotechnology

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Authors: Z. Abdullah, A. R. Hamdan

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Clustering is a process of grouping objects and data into groups of clusters to ensure that data objects from the same cluster are identical to each other. Clustering algorithms in one of the areas in data mining and it can be classified into partition, hierarchical, density based, and grid-based. Therefore, in this paper, we do a survey and review for four major hierarchical clustering algorithms called CURE, ROCK, CHAMELEON, and BIRCH. The obtained state of the art of these algorithms will help in eliminating the current problems, as well as deriving more robust and scalable algorithms for clustering.

Keywords: clustering, unsupervised learning, algorithms, hierarchical

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Authors: Ranjit Kumar Sahu, Ramakar Jha

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Urban Water Management is the practice of managing freshwater, waste water, and storm water as components of a basin-wide management plan. It builds on existing water supply and sanitation considerations within an urban settlement by incorporating urban water management within the scope of the entire river basin. The pervasive problems generated by urban development have prompted, in the present work, to study the spatial extent of urbanization in Golden Triangle of Odisha connecting the cities Bhubaneswar (20.2700° N, 85.8400° E), Puri (19.8106° N, 85.8314° E) and Konark (19.9000° N, 86.1200° E)., and patterns of periodic changes in urban development (systematic/random) in order to develop future plans for (i) urbanization promotion areas, and (ii) urbanization control areas. Remote Sensing, using USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) Landsat8 maps, supervised classification of the Urban Sprawl has been done for during 1980 - 2014, specifically after 2000. This Work presents the following: (i) Time series analysis of Hydrological data (ground water and rainfall), (ii) Application of SWMM (Storm Water Management Model) and other soft computing techniques for Urban Water Management, and (iii) Uncertainty analysis of model parameters (Urban Sprawl and correlation analysis). The outcome of the study shows drastic growth results in urbanization and depletion of ground water levels in the area that has been discussed briefly. Other relative outcomes like declining trend of rainfall and rise of sand mining in local vicinity has been also discussed. Research on this kind of work will (i) improve water supply and consumption efficiency (ii) Upgrade drinking water quality and waste water treatment (iii) Increase economic efficiency of services to sustain operations and investments for water, waste water, and storm water management, and (iv) engage communities to reflect their needs and knowledge for water management.

Keywords: Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), uncertainty analysis, urban sprawl, land use change

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Authors: Naomi W. Maina

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Fertility preference is a subject of great significance in developing countries. Studies reveal that the preferences of fertility are actually significant in determining the society’s fertility levels because the fertility behavior of the future has a high likelihood of falling under the effect of currently observed fertility inclinations. The objective of this study was to establish the factors associated with fertility preference amongst couples in Kenya by fitting a multinomial logistic regression model against 5,265 couple data obtained from Kenya demographic health survey 2014. Results revealed that the type of place of residence, the region of residence, age and spousal age gap significantly influence desire for additional children among couples in Kenya. There was the notable high likelihood of couples living in rural settlements having similar fertility preference compared to those living in urban settlements. Moreover, geographical disparities such as in northern Kenya revealed significant differences in a couples desire to have additional children compared to Nairobi. The odds of a couple’s desire for additional children were further observed to vary dependent on either the wife or husbands age and to a large extent the spousal age gap. Evidenced from the study, was the fact that as spousal age gap increases, the desire for more children amongst couples decreases. Insights derived from this study would be attractive to demographers, health practitioners, policymakers, and non-governmental organizations implementing fertility related interventions in Kenya among other stakeholders. Moreover, with the adoption of devolution, there is a clear need for adoption of population policies that are County specific as opposed to a national population policy as is the current practice in Kenya. Additionally, researchers or students who have little understanding in the application of multinomial logistic regression, both theoretical understanding and practical analysis in SPSS as well as application on real datasets, will find this article useful.

Keywords: couples' desire, fertility, fertility preference, multinomial regression analysis

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Authors: Jeisson A. Estrella, Laura C. Herrera, Cristian A. Arenas

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The Colombian electricity sector has been transforming through the insertion of new energy sources to generate electricity, one of them being solar energy, which is being promoted by companies interested in photovoltaic technology. The study of this technology is important for electricity generation in general and for the planning of the sector from the perspective of energy complementarity. Precisely in this last approach is where the project is located; we are interested in answering the concerns about the reliability of the electrical system when climatic phenomena such as El Niño occur or in defining whether it is viable to replace or expand thermoelectric plants. Reliability of the electrical system when climatic phenomena such as El Niño occur, or to define whether it is viable to replace or expand thermoelectric plants with renewable electricity generation systems. In this regard, some difficulties related to the basic information on renewable energy sources from measured data must first be solved, as these come from automatic weather stations. Basic information on renewable energy sources from measured data, since these come from automatic weather stations administered by the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) and, in the range of study (2005-2019), have significant amounts of missing data. For this reason, the overall objective of the project is to complete the global solar irradiance datasets to obtain time series to develop energy complementarity analyses in a subsequent project. Global solar irradiance data sets to obtain time series that will allow the elaboration of energy complementarity analyses in the following project. The filling of the databases will be done through numerical and statistical methods, which are basic techniques for undergraduate students in technical areas who are starting out as researchers technical areas who are starting out as researchers.

Keywords: time series, global solar irradiance, imputed data, energy complementarity

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Authors: Jorn Fricke, Frans Melissen

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Citizens in urban areas are prone to increased levels of stress due to urbanization, inadequate and overburdened infrastructure and services, and environmental degradation. Moreover, communities are fragile and subject to shocks and stresses through various social and political processes. A loss of (a sense of) community is often seen as related to increasing political and civic disintegration. Feelings of community can manifest themselves in various ways but underlying all these manifestations is the need for trust between people. One of the main drivers of trust between individuals is (shared) experiences. It is these shared experiences that may play an important role in building resilience, i.e., the ability of a community and its members to adapt to and deal with stresses, as well as ensure the ongoing development of a community. So far, experience design, as a discipline and academic field, has mainly focused on designing products or services. However, people-to-people experiences are the ones that play a pivotal role in building inclusiveness, safety, and resilience in communities. These experiences represent challenging objects of design as they develop in an interactive space of spontaneity, serendipity, and uniqueness that is based on intuition, freedom of expression, and interaction. Therefore, there is a need for research to identify which elements are required in designing the social and physical environment (or ‘experience scape’) to increase the chance for people-to-people experiences to be successful and what elements are required for these experiences to help in building resilience in urban communities that can resist shocks and stresses. By means of a comparative case study approach in urban areas in Germany and the Netherlands, using a range of qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, storytelling techniques, and life stories, this research identifies relevant actors and their roles in creating building blocks of optimal experience scrapes for building resilience in communities.

Keywords: community development, experiences, experience scapes, resilience

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Authors: Gurcharan Singh Buttar

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It has been discovered that although these two areas, statistics, and information theory, are independent in their nature, they can be combined to create applications in multidisciplinary mathematics. This is due to the fact that where in the field of statistics, statistical parameters (measures) play an essential role in reference to the population (distribution) under investigation. Information measure is crucial in the study of ambiguity, assortment, and unpredictability present in an array of phenomena. The following communication is a link between the two, and it has been demonstrated that the well-known conventional statistical measures can be used as a measure of information.

Keywords: probability distribution, entropy, concavity, symmetry, variance, central tendency

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Authors: M. Shivakumar, S. R. Somashekhar, C. V. Raju

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Secondary salinization of agricultural lands in any command areas of the world is the major issue in the recent past. Currently, it is estimated that the 954 mh of saline and alkaline soil is present in the world. Thousands of hectares of land, getting added every year. Argentina, Bangladesh and Australia are most affected countries. In India, out of 142.80 million hectare (mh) cropped area, 56 mh is irrigated area. Of which, more than 9 mh (about 16.%) of land is found to be alkaline/saline. Due to continuous utilization of same land for same agricultural activities, excessive usage of fertilizers and water, most of the soils have become alkaline, saline or water logged. These lands are low productive and at times totally unfit for agricultural activities. These soils may or may not posses good physical condition, but plants may suffer from its inability to absorb water from salty solution. Plants suffer from dehydration and loose water to the soil, shrink, resulting death of plant. This process is called plasmolysis. It is the fact that soil is an independent, organic body of nature that acquires properties in accordance with forces which act upon it. Aquaculture is one of the solutions to utilize such problematic soils for food production. When the impoundments are constructed in an area 10-15% of the affected areas, the excess water along with the salts gets into impoundments and management of salt is easier in water than in the soil. Due to high organic input in aquaculture such as feed, manure and continuous deposition of fecal matter, pH of the soil gets reduced and over the period of time such soils can be put back into the original activity. Under National Agricultural Development Program (NADP), the project was implemented in 258 villages of Mandya District, Karnataka State, India and found that these lands can be effectively utilized for fish culture and increase the proteinacious food production by many folds while conserving the soils. The findings of the research can be adopted and up scaled in any country.

Keywords: saline and alkaline soils, Aquaculture, Problematic soils, Reclamation

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Authors: Edda E. Falcone, Cinzia Federico, Sergio Bellomo, Lorenzo Brusca, Manfredi Longo, Walter D’Alessandro

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Although trace metals are an essential element for living beings, they can become toxic at high concentrations. Their potential toxicity is related not only to the total content in the environment but mostly upon their bioavailability. Volcanoes are important natural metal emitters and they can deeply affect the quality of air, water and soils, as well as the human health. Trace metals tend to accumulate in the tissues of living organisms, depending on the metal contents in food, air and water and on the exposure time. Birds are considered as bioindicators of interest, because their feathers directly reflects the metals uptake from the blood. Birds are exposed to the atmospheric pollution through the contact with rainfall, dust, and aerosol, and they accumulate metals over the whole life cycle. We report on the first data combining the rainfall metal content in three different areas of Mt Etna, variably fumigated by the volcanic plume, and the metal contents in the feathers of pigeons, collected in the same areas. Rainfall samples were collected from three rain gauges placed at different elevation on the Eastern flank of the volcano, the most exposed to airborne plume, filtered, treated with HNO₃ Suprapur-grade and analyzed for Fe, Cr, Co, Ni, Se, Zn, Cu, Sr, Ba, Cd and As by ICP-MS technique, and major ions by ion chromatography. Feathers were collected from single individuals, in the same areas where the rain gauges were installed. Additionally, some samples were collected in an urban area, poorly interested by the volcanic plume. The samples were rinsed in MilliQ water and acetone, dried at 50°C until constant weight and digested in a mixture of 2:1 HNO₃ (65%) - H₂O₂ (30%) Suprapur-grade for 25-50 mg of sample, in a bath at near-to-boiling temperature. The solutions were diluted up to 20 ml prior to be analyzed by ICP-MS. The rainfall samples most contaminated by the plume were collected at close distance from the summit craters (less than 6 km), and show lower pH values and higher concentrations for all analyzed metals relative to those from the sites at lower elevation. Analyzed samples are enriched in both metals directly emitted by the volcanic plume and transported by acidic gases (SO₂, HCl, HF), and metals leached from the airborne volcanic ash. Feathers show different patterns in the different sites related to the exposure to natural or anthropogenic pollutants. They show abundance ratios similar to rainfall for lithophile elements (Ba, Sr), whereas are enriched in Zn and Se, known for their antioxidant properties, probably as adaptive response to oxidative stress induced by toxic metal exposure. The pigeons revealed a clear heterogeneity of metal uptake in the different parts of the volcano, as an effect of volcanic plume impact. Additionally, some physiological processes can modify the fate of some metals after uptake and this offer some insights for translational studies.

Keywords: bioindicators, environmental pollution, feathers, trace metals, volcanic plume

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Authors: Julien Caudeville, Muriel Ismert

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Analyzing the relationship between environment and health has become a major preoccupation for public health as evidenced by the emergence of the French national plans for health and environment. These plans have identified the following two priorities: (1) to identify and manage geographic areas, where hotspot exposures are suspected to generate a potential hazard to human health; (2) to reduce exposure inequalities. At a regional scale and fine resolution of exposure outcome prerequisite, environmental monitoring networks are not sufficient to characterize the multidimensionality of the exposure concept. In an attempt to increase representativeness of spatial exposure assessment approaches, risk composite indicators could be built using additional available databases and theoretical framework approaches to combine factor risks. To achieve those objectives, combining data process and transfer modeling with a spatial approach is a fundamental prerequisite that implies the need to first overcome different scientific limitations: to define interest variables and indicators that could be built to associate and describe the global source-effect chain; to link and process data from different sources and different spatial supports; to develop adapted methods in order to improve spatial data representativeness and resolution. A GIS-based modeling platform for quantifying human exposure to chemical substances (PLAINE: environmental inequalities analysis platform) was used to build health risk indicators within the Lorraine region (France). Those indicators combined chemical substances (in soil, air and water) and noise risk factors. Tools have been developed using modeling, spatial analysis and geostatistic methods to build and discretize interest variables from different supports and resolutions on a 1 km2 regular grid within the Lorraine region. By example, surface soil concentrations have been estimated by developing a Kriging method able to integrate surface and point spatial supports. Then, an exposure model developed by INERIS was used to assess the transfer from soil to individual exposure through ingestion pathways. We used distance from polluted soil site to build a proxy for contaminated site. Air indicator combined modeled concentrations and estimated emissions to take in account 30 polluants in the analysis. For water, drinking water concentrations were compared to drinking water standards to build a score spatialized using a distribution unit serve map. The Lden (day-evening-night) indicator was used to map noise around road infrastructures. Aggregation of the different factor risks was made using different methodologies to discuss weighting and aggregation procedures impact on the effectiveness of risk maps to take decisions for safeguarding citizen health. Results permit to identify pollutant sources, determinants of exposure, and potential hotspots areas. A diagnostic tool was developed for stakeholders to visualize and analyze the composite indicators in an operational and accurate manner. The designed support system will be used in many applications and contexts: (1) mapping environmental disparities throughout the Lorraine region; (2) identifying vulnerable population and determinants of exposure to set priorities and target for pollution prevention, regulation and remediation; (3) providing exposure database to quantify relationships between environmental indicators and cancer mortality data provided by French Regional Health Observatories.

Keywords: health risk, environment, composite indicator, hotspot areas

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Authors: Myunggon Yoon, Jung-Ho Moon

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In this paper, we present a transfer function representation of a general one-dimensional combustor. The input of the transfer function is a heat rate perturbation of a burner and the output is a flow velocity perturbation at the burner. This paper considers a general combustor model composed of multiple cans with different cross sectional areas, along with a non-zero flow rate.

Keywords: combustor, dynamics, thermoacoustics, transfer function

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Authors: Katharina Lapin, Debashis Sanyal

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Worldwide urban areas are growing. Urbanization has a great impact on social and economic development and ecosystem services. This global trend of urbanization also has significant impact on habitat and biodiversity. The impact of urbanization on the biodiversity of cities in Europe and North America is well studied, while there is a lack of data from cities in currently fast growing urban areas. Indian cities are expanding. The scientific community and the governmental authorities are facing the ongoing urbanization process as an opportunity for the environment. This case study supports the evaluation of urban biodiversity of the city Raipur in the North-West of India. The aim of this study is to assess the overview of the environmental and ecological implications of urbanization. The collected data and analysis was used to discuss the challenges for the sustainable city development. Vascular plants were chosen as an appropriate indicator for the assessment of local biodiversity changes. On the one hand, the vegetation cover is sensible to anthropogenic influence, and in the other hand, the local species composition is comparable to changes at the regional and national scale, using the plant index of India. Further information of abiotic situation can be gathered with the determination of indicator species. In order to calculate the influence of urbanization on the native plant diversity, the Shannon diversity index H´ was chosen. The Pielou`s pooled quadrate method was used for estimating diversity when a random sample is not expected. It was used to calculate the Pilou´s index of evenness. The estimated species coverage was used for calculating the H´ and J. Pearson correlation was performed to test the relationship between urbanization pattern and plant diversity. Further, a SWOT analysis was used in for analyzing internal and external factors impinging on a decision making process. The city of Raipur (21.25°N 81.63°E) has a population of 1,010,087 inhabitants living in an urban area of 226km², in the district of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Within the last decade, the urban area of Raipur increased. The results show that various novel ecosystems exist in the urban area of Raipur. The high amount of native flora is mainly to find at the shore of urban lakes and along the river Karun. These areas of high Biodiversity Index are to protect as urban biodiversity hot spots. The governmental authorities are well informed about the environmental challenges for the sustainable development of the city. Together with the scientific community of the Technical University of Raipur many engineering solutions are discussed for implementation of the future. The case study helped to point out the importance environmental measures that support the ecosystem services of green infrastructure. The fast process of urbanization is difficult to control. Uncontrolled creation of urban housing leads to difficulties in unsustainable use of natural resources. This is the major threat for the urban biodiversity.

Keywords: India, novel ecosystems, plant diversity, urban ecology

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Authors: Kushal Patel, Manasa Dittakavi, Cyrus Falsafi, Gretchen Lovett

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Rural America has seen a surge in opioid addiction rates and overdose deaths in recent years, becoming a significant public health crisis. This may be due to a variety of factors, such as lack of access to healthcare or other economic and social factors that can contribute to addiction such as poverty, unemployment, and social isolation. As the opioid epidemic has disproportionately affected rural communities, pregnant women in these areas may be highly susceptible and face additional difficulties in facing the appropriate care they need. Opioid use disorder has many negative effects on prenatal infants. These include changes in their microbiome, mental health, neurodevelopment and cognition. These can affect how the child performs in various activities in life and how they interact with others. It has been demonstrated that using cognitive behavioral therapy improves not just pain-related results but also mobility, quality of life, disability, and mood outcomes. This indicates that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may be a useful therapeutic strategy for enhancing general health and wellbeing in people with opioid use problems. In terms of treating psychiatric diseases, CBT carries fewer dangers than opioids. One study that illustrates the potential for CBT to promote a reduction in opioid use disorder used self-reported drug use patterns 6 months prior to and during their pregnancy. At the beginning of the study, participants reported an average of 3.78 drug or alcohol use days in the previous 28 days, which decreased to 1.63 days after treatment. The study also found a decrease in depression scores, as measured by IDS scores, from 23.9 to 17.1 at the end of treatment. These and other results show that CBT can have meaningful impacts on pregnant women in Rural America who struggle with an opioid use disorder. This project has been approved by the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine- Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and deemed non-research scholarly work.

Keywords: appalachia, CBT, opiods, pregnancy

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Authors: D. Bikiaris, M. Nerantzaki, I. Koliakou, A. Francone, N. Kehagias

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In the present study, the formation of structures in poly(lactic acid) (PLA) has been investigated with respect to producing areas of regular, superficial features with dimensions comparable to those of cells or biological macromolecules. Nanoimprint lithography, a method of pattern replication in polymers, has been used for the production of features ranging from tens of micrometers, covering areas up to 1 cm², down to hundreds of nanometers. Both micro- and nano-structures were faithfully replicated. Potentially, PLA has wide uses within biomedical fields, from implantable medical devices, including screws and pins, to membrane applications, such as wound covers, and even as an injectable polymer for, for example, lipoatrophy. The possibility of fabricating structured PLA surfaces, with structures of the dimensions associated with cells or biological macro- molecules, is of interest in fields such as cellular engineering. Imprint-based technologies have demonstrated the ability to selectively imprint polymer films over large areas resulting in 3D imprints over flat, curved or pre-patterned surfaces. Here, we compare nano-patterned with nano-patterned by nanoimprint lithography (NIL) PLA film. A silicon nanostructured stamp (provided by Nanotypos company) having positive and negative protrusions was used to pattern PLA films by means of thermal NIL. The polymer film was heated from 40°C to 60°C above its Tg and embossed with a pressure of 60 bars for 3 min. The stamp and substrate were demolded at room temperature. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images showed good replication fidelity of the replicated Si stamp. Contact-angle measurements suggested that positive microstructuring of the polymer (where features protrude from the polymer surface) produced a more hydrophilic surface than negative micro-structuring. The ability to structure the surface of the poly(lactic acid), allied to the polymer’s post-processing transparency and proven biocompatibility. Films produced in this were also shown to enhance the aligned attachment behavior and proliferation of Wharton’s Jelly Mesenchymal Stem cells, leading to the observed growth contact guidance. The bacterial attachment patterns of some bacteria, highlighted that the nano-patterned PLA structure can reduce the propensity for the bacteria to attach to the surface, with a greater bactericidal being demonstrated activity against the Staphylococcus aureus cells. These biocompatible, micro- and nanopatterned PLA surfaces could be useful for polymer– cell interaction experiments at dimensions at, or below, that of individual cells. Indeed, post-fabrication modification of the microstructured PLA surface, with materials such as collagen (which can further reduce the hydrophobicity of the surface), will extend the range of applications, possibly through the use of PLA’s inherent biodegradability. Further study is being undertaken to examine whether these structures promote cell growth on the polymer surface.

Keywords: poly(lactic acid), nano-imprint lithography, anti-bacterial properties, PLA

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Authors: H. H. Elewa, E. M. Ramadan, A. M. Nosair

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Rainfall water harvesting is considered as an important tool for overcoming water scarcity in arid and semi-arid region. Wadi Watir in the southeastern part of Sinai Peninsula is considered as one of the main and active basins in the Gulf of Aqaba drainage system. It is characterized by steep hills mainly consist of impermeable rocks, whereas the streambeds are covered by a highly permeable mixture of gravel and sand. A comprehensive approach involving the integration of geographic information systems, remote sensing and watershed modeling was followed to identify the RWH capability in this area. Eight thematic layers, viz volume of annual flood, overland flow distance, maximum flow distance, rock or soil infiltration, drainage frequency density, basin area, basin slope and basin length were used as a multi-parametric decision support system for conducting weighted spatial probability models (WSPMs) to determine the potential areas for the RWH. The WSPMs maps classified the area into five RWH potentiality classes ranging from the very low to very high. Three performed WSPMs' scenarios for W. Watir reflected identical results among their maps for the high and very high RWH potentiality classes, which are the most suitable ones for conducting surface water harvesting techniques. There is also a reasonable match with respect to the potentiality of runoff harvesting areas with a probability of moderate, low and very low among the three scenarios. WSPM results have shown that the high and very high classes, which are the most suitable for the RWH are representing approximately 40.23% of the total area of the basin. Accordingly, several locations were decided for the establishment of water harvesting dams and cisterns to improve the water conditions and living environment in the study area.

Keywords: Sinai, Wadi Watir, remote sensing, geographic information systems, watershed modeling, runoff water harvesting

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Authors: Devanshu Gupta, Kailash Chandra, Priyanka Das, Joyjit Ghosh

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Beetles, in the insect order Coleoptera are the most species-rich group on this planet today. They represent about 40% of the total insect diversity of the world. With a considerable range of landform types including significant mountain ranges, deserts, fertile irrigational plains, and hilly forested areas, India is one of the mega-diverse countries and includes more than 0.1 million faunal species. Despite having rich biodiversity, the efforts to catalogue the beetle diversity of the extant species/taxa reported from India have been less. Therefore, in this paper, the information on the beetle fauna of India is provided based on the data available with the museum collections of Zoological Survey of India and taxa extracted from zoological records and published literature. The species were listed with their valid names, synonyms, type localities, type depositories, and their distribution in states and biogeographic zones of India. The catalogue also incorporates the bibliography on Indian Coleoptera. The exhaustive species inventory, prepared by us include distributional records from Himalaya, Trans Himalaya, Desert, Semi-Arid, Western Ghats, Deccan Peninsula, Gangetic Plains, Northeast, Islands, and Coastal areas of the country. Our study concludes that many of the species are still known from their type localities only, so there is need to revisit and resurvey those collection localities for the taxonomic evaluation of those species. There are species which exhibit single locality records, and taxa-specific biodiversity assessments are required to be undertaken to understand the distributional range of such species. The primary challenge is taxonomic identifications of the species which were described before independence, and the type materials are present in overseas museums. For such species, taxonomic revisions of the different group of beetles are required to solve the problems of identification and classification.

Keywords: checklist, taxonomy, museum collections, biogeographic zones

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Authors: Suyeon Bae, Abimbola Asojo, Denise Guerin, Caren Martin

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Post-occupancy evaluations (POEs) have been recognized for documenting occupant well-being and responses to indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors such as thermal, lighting, and acoustic conditions. Sustainable Post-Occupancy evaluation survey (SPOES) developed by an interdisciplinary team at a Midwest University provides an evidence-based quantitative analysis of occupants’ satisfaction in office, classroom, and residential spaces to help direct attention to successful areas and areas that need improvement in buildings. SPOES is a self-administered and Internet-based questionnaire completed by building occupants. In this study, employees in three different office buildings rated their satisfaction on a Likert-type scale about 12 IEQ criteria including thermal condition, indoor air quality, acoustic quality, daylighting, electric lighting, privacy, view conditions, furnishings, appearance, cleaning and maintenance, vibration and movement, and technology. Employees rated their level of satisfaction on a Likert-type scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied). They also rate the influence of their physical environment on their perception of their work performance and the impact of their primary workspaces on their health on a scale from 1 (hinders) to 7 (enhances). Building A is a three-story building that includes private and group offices, classrooms, and conference rooms and amounted to 55,000 square-feet for primary workplace (N=75). Building B, a six-story building, consisted of private offices, shared enclosed office, workstations, and open desk areas for employees and amounted to 14,193 square-feet (N=75). Building C is a three-story 56,000 square-feet building that included classrooms, therapy rooms, an outdoor playground, gym, restrooms, and training rooms for clinicians (N=76). The results indicated that 10 IEQs for Building A except acoustic quality and privacy showed statistically significant correlations on the impact of the primary workspace on health. In Building B, 11 IEQs except technology showed statistically significant correlations on the impact of the primary workspace on health. Building C had statistically significant correlations between all 12 IEQ and the employees’ perception of the impact of their primary workspace on their health in two-tailed correlations (P ≤ 0.05). Out of 33 statistically significant correlations, 25 correlations (76%) showed at least moderate relationship (r ≥ 0.35). For the three buildings, daylighting, furnishings, and indoor air quality IEQs ranked highest on the impact on health. IEQs about vibration and movement, view condition, and electric lighting ranked second, followed by IEQs about cleaning and maintenance and appearance. These results imply that 12 IEQs developed in SPOES are highly related to employees’ perception of how their primary workplaces impact their health. The IEQs in this study offer an opportunity for improving occupants’ well-being and the built environment.

Keywords: post-occupancy evaluation, built environment, sustainability, well-being, indoor air quality

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Authors: Farzam Fatolazadeh, Kalifa Goita, Mehdi Eshagh, Shusen Wang

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The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a satellite mission with twin satellites for the precise determination of spatial and temporal variations in the Earth’s gravity field. The products of this mission are monthly global gravity models containing the spherical harmonic coefficients and their errors. These GRACE models can be used for estimating terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations across the globe at large scales, thereby offering an opportunity for surface and groundwater storage (GWS) assessments. Yet, the ability of GRACE to monitor changes at smaller scales is too limited for local water management authorities. This is largely due to the low spatial and temporal resolutions of its models (~200,000 km2 and one month, respectively). High-resolution GRACE data products would substantially enrich the information that is needed by local-scale decision-makers while offering the data for the regions that lack adequate in situ monitoring networks, including northern parts of Canada. Such products could eventually be obtained through downscaling. In this study, we extended the spectral combination theory to simultaneously downscale spatiotemporally the 3o spatial coarse resolution of GRACE to 0.25o degrees resolution and monthly coarse resolution to daily resolution. This method combines the monthly gravity field solution of GRACE and daily hydrological model products in the form of both low and high-frequency signals to produce high spatiotemporal resolution TWSA and GWSA products. The main contribution and originality of this study are to comprehensively and simultaneously consider GRACE and hydrological variables and their uncertainties to form the estimator in the spectral domain. Therefore, it is predicted that we reach downscale products with an acceptable accuracy.

Keywords: GRACE satellite, groundwater storage, spectral combination, terrestrial water storage

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Authors: Ghadir Hummeid

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Undoubtedly, our world is leading all the purposes and efforts to achieve sustainable development in life in all respects. Sustainability has been regarded as a solution to many challenges of our world today, materiality and immateriality. With the new consequences and challenges our world today, such as global climate change, the use of non-renewable resources, environmental pollution, the decreasing of urban health, the urban areas’ aging, the highly increasing migrations into urban areas linked to many consequences such as highly infrastructure density, social segregation. All of that required new forms of governance, new urban policies, and more efficient efforts and urban applications. Based on the fact that cities are the core of life and it is a fundamental life axis, their development can increase or decrease the life quality of their inhabitants. Architects and planners see themselves today in the need to create new approaches and new sustainable policies to develop urban areas to correspond with the physical and non-physical transformations that cities are nowadays experiencing. To enhance people's lives and provide for their needs in this present without compromising the needs and lives of future generations. The application of sustainability has become an inescapable part of the development and projections of cities' planning. Yet its definition has been indefinable due to the plurality and difference of its applications. As the conceptualizations of technology are arising and have dominated all life aspects today, from smart citizens and smart life rhythms to smart production and smart structures to smart frameworks, it has influenced the sustainability applications as well in the planning and urbanization of cities. The term "smart city" emerged from this influence as one of the possible key solutions to sustainability. The term “smart city” has various perspectives of applications and definitions in the literature and in urban applications. However, after the observation of smart city applications in current cities, this paper defined the smart city as an urban environment that is controlled by technologies yet lacks the physical architectural representation of this smartness as the current smart applications are mostly obscured from the public as they are applied now on a diminutive scale and highly integrated into the built environment. Regardless of the importance of these technologies in improving the quality of people's lives and in facing cities' challenges, it is important not to neglect their architectural and urban presentations will affect the shaping and development of city neighborhoods. By investigating the concept of smart cities and exploring its potential applications on a neighbourhood scale, this paper aims to shed light on understanding the challenges faced by cities and exploring innovative solutions such as smart city applications in urban mobility and how they affect the different aspects of communities. The paper aims to shape better articulations of smart neighborhoods’ morphologies on the social, architectural, functional, and material levels. To understand how to create more sustainable and liveable future approaches to developing urban environments inside cities. The findings of this paper will contribute to ongoing discussions and efforts in achieving sustainable urban development.

Keywords: sustainability, urban development, smart city, resilience, sense of belonging

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Authors: Luis Javier Serrano-Tamayo

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This paper focuses on the recent interest in the concept of inclusion from multiple areas of social sciences, but particularly from the academic studies on what do scholars mean when they refer to inclusive education. Therefore, this paper has been based on a three-year systematic review of near two hundred peer-reviewed documents in the last two decades. The results illustrate some of the use, misuse, and abuse of inclusive education as well as shed some light on the identification of the different stakeholders involved in the dynamic concept of inclusive education and their suggested practices.

Keywords: inclusion, inclusive education, inclusive practices, education stakeholders

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Authors: Quyen Vu Dang Ha, Oanh Truong Thi, Thuoc Tran Linh, Kent Carpenter, Thinh Doan Vu, Binh Dang Thuy

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Enzyme restriction site associated DNA (EzRAD) has recently emerged as a promising genomic approach for exploring fish genetic diversity on a genome-wide scale. This is a simplified method for genomic genotyping in non-model organisms and applied for SNPs discovery in the population genetics of freshwater and marine fish in the South of Vietnam. The observations of regional-scale differentiation of commercial freshwater fish (smallscale croakers Boesemania microlepis) and marine fish (emperor Lethrinus lentjan) are clarified. Samples were collected along Hau River and coastal area in the south and center Vietnam. 52 DNA samples from Tra Vinh, An Giang Province for Boesemania microlepis and 34 DNA samples of Lethrinus lentjan from Phu Quoc, Nha Trang, Da Nang Province were used to prepare EzRAD libraries from genomic DNA digested with MboI and Sau3AI. A pooled sample of regional EzRAD libraries was sequenced using the HiSeq 2500 Illumina platform. For Boesemania microlepis, the small scale population different from upstream to downstream of Hau river were detected, An Giang population exhibited less genetic diversity (SNPs per individual from 14 to 926), in comparison to Tra Vinh population (from 11 to 2172). For Lethrinus lentjan, the result showed the minor difference between populations in the Northern and the Southern Mekong River. The numbers of contigs and SNPs vary from 1315 to 2455 and from 7122 to 8594, respectively (P ≤ 0.01). The current preliminary study reveals regional scale population disconnection probably reflecting environmental changing. Additional sampling and EzRad libraries need to be implemented for resource management in the Mekong Delta.

Keywords: Boesemania microlepis, EzRAD, Lethrinus lentjan, SNPs

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Authors: Saad M. Algharib

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The major concern of planners when placing fire stations is finding their optimal locations such that the fire companies can reach fire locations within reasonable response time or distance. Planners are also concerned with the numbers of fire stations that are needed to cover all service areas and the fires, as demands, with standard response time or distance. One of the tools for such analysis is location-allocation models. Location-allocation models enable planners to determine the optimal locations of facilities in an area in order to serve regional demands in the most efficient way. The purpose of this study is to examine the geographic distribution of the existing fire stations in Kuwait City. This study utilized location-allocation models within the Geographic Information System (GIS) environment and a number of statistical functions to assess the current locations of fire stations in Kuwait City. Further, this study investigated how well all service areas are covered and how many and where additional fire stations are needed. Four different location-allocation models were compared to find which models cover more demands than the others, given the same number of fire stations. This study tests many ways to combine variables instead of using one variable at a time when applying these models in order to create a new measurement that influences the optimal locations for locating fire stations. This study also tests how location-allocation models are sensitive to different levels of spatial dependency. The results indicate that there are some districts in Kuwait City that are not covered by the existing fire stations. These uncovered districts are clustered together. This study also identifies where to locate the new fire stations. This study provides users of these models a new variable that can assist them to select the best locations for fire stations. The results include information about how the location-allocation models behave in response to different levels of spatial dependency of demands. The results show that these models perform better with clustered demands. From the additional analysis carried out in this study, it can be concluded that these models applied differently at different spatial patterns.

Keywords: geographic information science, GIS, location-allocation models, geography

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Authors: Mary Abigail T. Ty, Mary Jocelyn Yu-Laygo, Jocelyn Z. Mariano

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This is a case of L.S.T., a 61 year old, G6P4 (3124) who presented with a one month history of intermittent, brownish, watery, non foul smelling vaginal discharge. There were no other accompanying symptoms. On rectovaginal examination, a palpable adnexal mass on the left was appreciated, with the lower border measuring 3 cm. The mass was non-tender, had irregular borders and solid areas. On transvaginal sonography, it revealed a left pelvic mass measuring 3 x 4 x 2 cm, with a Sassone score of 9. It had vascularization. The primary consideration was Ovarian Newgrowth, probably malignant in nature. CA-125 results were slightly elevated at 43.2 u/ml (NV: 0-35 u/ml). After intraoperative evaluation, the left fallopian tube was converted into a 9 x 4.5 x 3 cm bulbous cystic mass with solid areas. On cut section, the ampullary portion of the fallopian tube contained necrotic and friable looking tissues. Specimen was sent for frozen section and results revealed adenocarcinoma of the left fallopian tube. Patient subsequently underwent complete surgical staging with unremarkable post-operative course. The Surg Ico pathologic diagnosis was G6P4 (3124) Fallopian tube serous cystadenocarcinoma stage 1. The mean incidence of PFTC is 3.6 per million women yearly. This is associated with a generally low survival rate. The primary diagnosis is very difficult to establish because only 0–10% of patients suffering from PFTC are diagnosed pre-operatively. Symptoms play a very important role in the discovery of this disease, because there will be no presentation to the hospital without symptoms. The most common of which may be vaginal bleeding, abdominal pain, a palpable mass and ascites. A conglomerate of manifestations may be encountered, but not at all times. This is termed hydrops tubae profluens where there is presence of colicky pain with relief from intermittent passage of serosanguinous vaginal discharge. The significance of this report is to emphasize the rarity of the case and how the dilemma in the diagnosis is almost always present despite ancillary procedures.

Keywords: fallopian tube carcinoma, prognosis, rare, risk factors

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Authors: Mulligan T., Barker-Collo S., Gobson K., Jones K.

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There is a relatively scarce body of literature regarding adolescent experiences of traumatic brain injury (TBI). This qualitative study explored how sustaining a TBI at this unique stage of development might impact a young person as they navigate the challenges of adolescence and transition to adulthood, and what might support recovery. Thirteen young adults who sustained a mild-moderate TBI as an adolescent (aged 13 – 17 years), approximately 7.7 years (range = 6.7 – 8.0 years) prior, participated in the research. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted to explore participants’ experiences surrounding and following their TBIs. Thematic analysis of interview data produced five key categories of findings: (1) Following their TBIs, many participants experienced problems with cognitive (e.g., forgetfulness, concentration difficulties), physical (e.g., migraines, fatigue) and emotional (e.g., depression, anxiety) functioning, which were often endured into adulthood. (2) TBI-related problems often adversely affected important areas of life for the participant, including school, work and friendships. (3) Changes following TBI commonly impacted identity formation. (4) Recovery processes evolved over time as the participants coped initially by just ‘getting on with it’, before learning to accept new limitations and, ultimately, growing from their TBI experiences. (5) While the presence of friends and family assisted recovery, struggles were often exacerbated by a lack of emotional support from others, in addition to the absence of any assistance or information-provision from professionals regarding what to expect following TBI. The findings suggest that even mild TBI sustained during adolescence can have consequences for an individual’s functioning, engagement in life and identity development, whilst also giving rise to post-traumatic growth. Recovery following adolescent TBI might be maximised by facilitating greater understanding of the injury and acknowledging its impacts on important areas of life, as well as the provision of emotional support and facilitating self-reflection and meaning-making.

Keywords: adolescent, brain Injury, qualitative, post-traumatic growth

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Authors: Tamunotonye Mayowa Braide, Isaac Oluwatayo

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This study investigates multidimensional poverty, and its correlates among rural households in Sekhukhune and Capricorn District municipalities (SDM & CDM) in Limpopo Province, South Africa. Primary data were collected from 407 rural households selected through purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Analytical techniques employed include descriptive statistics, principal component analysis (PCA), and the Alkire Foster (A-F) methodology. The results of the descriptive statistics showed there are more females (66%) than males (34%) in rural areas of Limpopo Province, with about 45% of them having secondary school education as the highest educational level attained and only about 3% do not have formal education. In the analysis of deprivation, eight dimensions of deprivation, constructed from 21 variables, were identified using the PCA. These dimensions include type and condition of dwelling water and sanitation, educational attainment and income, type of fuel for cooking and heating, access to clothing and cell phone, assets and fuel for light, health condition, crowding, and child health. In identifying the poor with poverty cut-off (0.13) of all indicators, about 75.9% of the rural households are deprived in 25% of the total dimensions, with the adjusted headcount ratio (M0) being 0.19. Multidimensional poverty estimates showed higher estimates of poor rural households with 71%, compared to 29%, which fall below the income poverty line. The study conducted poverty decomposition, using sub-groups within the area by examining regions and household characteristics. In SDM, there are more multidimensionally poor households than in CDM. The water and sanitation dimension is the largest contributor to the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) in rural areas of Limpopo Province. The findings can, therefore, assist in better design of welfare policy and target poverty alleviation programs and as well help in efficient resource allocation at the provincial and local municipality levels.

Keywords: Alkire-Foster methodology, Limpopo province, multidimensional poverty, principal component analysis, South Africa

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Authors: Amal Jmaii, Damien Rousseliere, Besma Belhadj

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We explore the relationship between internal migration and poverty in Tunisia. We present a methodology combining potential outcomes approach with multiple imputation to highlight the effect of internal migration on poverty states. We find that probability of being poor decreases when leaving the poorest regions (the west areas) to the richer regions (greater Tunis and the east regions).

Keywords: internal migration, potential outcomes approach, poverty dynamics, Tunisia

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Authors: Kumudini Apsara Munasinghe, Devin Gregory Lissau, Ryan Thomas Wade

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Fresh fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fibers and help maintain a healthy weight over high-calorie food. Eating fruits and vegetables protects us from free radicals produced by metabolic reactions and safeguards us from cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, there has been an increased concern about foodborne diseases tied to contaminated farmers’ market produce. In addition, very little information is available about the contribution of eating raw fruits and vegetables to human exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This research aims to identify bacteria isolated from farmers’ market fruits and vegetables and understand their antibiotic resistance. Vegetables and fruits were collected from farmers’ markets around Frostburg and Cumberland areas in Maryland and transported to the microbiology lab at Frostburg State University for the isolation of bacteria. Bacteria were extracted from tomatoes, cucumber, strawberry, and lettuce using Tryptic soy broth overnight at 37°C, and Tryptic Soy agar was used for the streak plate technique to isolate bacteria. Pure cultures were used to identify bacteria using biochemical reactions after conducting Gram staining technique. The research used many biochemical reactions, including Mannitol Salt agar, MacConkey agar, and Eosin Methylene blue agar, for identification. Antibiotic sensitivity was tested for many different types of antibiotics, including amoxicillin, penicillin, tetracycline, ampicillin, and erythromycin. Most prevalent bacteria in the isolates were Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Micrococcus, Enterococcus, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, and other bacteria from the family Enterobacteriaceae. The data obtained from this research will be useful to educate and train farmers and individuals involved in post-harvest processes such as transportation and selling in farmers’ markets. Further results for bacterial antibiotic resistance will be obtained, and unculturable bacteria will be identified by next-generation DNA sequencing.

Keywords: antibiotic resistance, farmers markets, fruits, bacteria, vegetables

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Authors: Malay K. Pramanik

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In recent years, climate change has become a major threat and has been widely documented in the geographic distribution of many plant species. However, the impacts of climate change on the distribution of ecologically vulnerable medicinal species remain largely unknown. The identification of a suitable habitat for a species under climate change scenario is a significant step towards the mitigation of biodiversity decline. The study, therefore, aims to predict the impact of current, and future climatic scenarios on the distribution of the threatened Garcinia indica across the northern Western Ghats using Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modelling. The future projections were made for the year 2050 and 2070 with all Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenario (2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5) using 56 species occurrence data, and 19 bioclimatic predictors from the BCC-CSM1.1 model of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s (IPCC) 5th assessment. The bioclimatic variables were minimised to a smaller number of variables after a multicollinearity test, and their contributions were assessed using jackknife test. The AUC value of 0.956 ± 0.023 indicates that the model performs with excellent accuracy. The study identified that temperature seasonality (39.5 ± 3.1%), isothermality (19.2 ± 1.6%), and annual precipitation (12.7 ± 1.7%) would be the major influencing variables in the current and future distribution. The model predicted 10.5% (19318.7 sq. km) of the study area as moderately to very highly suitable, while 82.60% (151904 sq. km) of the study area was identified as ‘unsuitable’ or ‘very low suitable’. Our predictions of climate change impact on habitat suitability suggest that there will be a drastic reduction in the suitability by 5.29% and 5.69% under RCP 8.5 for 2050 and 2070, respectively. Finally, the results signify that the model might be an effective tool for biodiversity protection, ecosystem management, and species re-habitation planning under future climate change scenarios.

Keywords: Garcinia Indica, maximum entropy modelling, climate change, MaxEnt, Western Ghats, medicinal plants

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Authors: Tuba Zahra, Aakash Parekh

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Hyperspectral remote sensing refers to imaging of objects or materials in narrow conspicuous spectral bands. Hyperspectral images (HSI) enable the extraction of spectral signatures for objects or materials observed. These images contain information about the reflectance of each pixel across the electromagnetic spectrum. It enables the acquisition of data simultaneously in hundreds of spectral bands with narrow bandwidths and can provide detailed contiguous spectral curves that traditional multispectral sensors cannot offer. The contiguous, narrow bandwidth of hyperspectral data facilitates the detailed surveying of Earth's surface features. This would otherwise not be possible with the relatively coarse bandwidths acquired by other types of imaging sensors. Hyperspectral imaging provides significantly higher spectral and spatial resolution. There are several use cases that represent the commercial applications of hyperspectral remote sensing. Each use case represents just one of the ways that hyperspectral satellite imagery can support operational efficiency in the respective vertical. There are some use cases that are specific to VNIR bands, while others are specific to SWIR bands. This paper discusses the different commercially viable use cases that are significant for HSI application areas, such as agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment, and climate, to name a few. Theoretically, there is n number of use cases for each of the application areas, but an attempt has been made to streamline the use cases depending upon economic feasibility and commercial viability and present a review of literature from this perspective. Some of the specific use cases with respect to agriculture are crop species (sub variety) detection, soil health mapping, pre-symptomatic crop disease detection, invasive species detection, crop condition optimization, yield estimation, and supply chain monitoring at scale. Similarly, each of the industry verticals has a specific commercially viable use case that is discussed in the paper in detail.

Keywords: agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment and climate, hyperspectral, VNIR, SWIR

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