Search results for: work related musculoskeletal disorder

Authors: Azza El-Medany, Jamila El-Medany

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Residential and agricultural pesticide use is widespread in the world. Their extensive and indiscriminative use, in addition with their ability to interact with biological systems other than their primary targets constitute a health hazards to both humans and animals. The toxic effects of pesticides include alterations in metabolism; there is a lack of knowledge that organophosphates can cause pancreatic toxicity. The primary goal of this work is to study the effects of chronic exposure to Diazinon an organophosphate used in agriculture on pancreatic tissues and evaluate the ameliorating effect of Mesna as antioxidant on the toxicity of Diazinon on pancreatic tissues.40 adult male rats, their weight ranged between 300-350 g. The rats were classified into three groups; control (10 rats) was received corn oil at a dose of 1 0 mg/kg/day by gavage once a day for 2 months. Diazinon (15 rats) was received Diazinon at a dose of 10 mg/kg/day dissolved in corn oil by gavage once a day for 2 months. Treated group (15 rats), were received Mesna 180mg/kg once a week by gavage 15 minutes before administration of Diazinon for 2 months. At the end of the experiment, animals were anesthetized, blood samples were taken by cardiac puncture for glucose and insulin assays and pancreas was removed and divided into 3 portions; first portion for histopathological study; second portion for ultrastructural study; third portion for biochemical study using Elisa Kits including determination of malondialdehyde (MDA), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), myeloperoxidase activity (MPO), interleukin 1β (IL-1β). A significant increase in the levels of MDA, TNF-α, MPO activity, IL-1β, serum glucose levels in the toxicated group with Diazinon were observed, while a significant reduction was noticed in GSH in serum insulin levels. After treatment with Mesna a significant reduction was observed in the previously mentioned parameters except that there was a significant rise in GSH in insulin levels. Histopathological and ultra-structural studies showed destruction in pancreatic tissues and β cells were the most affected cells among the injured islets as compared with the control group. The current study try to spot light about the effects of chronic exposure to pesticides on vital organs as pancreas also the role of oxidative stress that may be induced by them in evoking their toxicity. This study shows the role of antioxidant drugs in ameliorating or preventing the toxicity. This appears to be a promising approach that may be considered as a complementary treatment of pesticide toxicity.

Keywords: Diazinon, reduced glutathione, myeloperoxidase activity, tumor necrosis factor α, Mesna

Procedia PDF Downloads 218

Authors: Jelena Maletkovic

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Background: Endogenous Cushing’s syndrome is a rare disease, but iatrogenic or drug related Cushing syndrome from glucocorticoid products is commonly seen in clinical practice. With high dose and long term use of glucocorticoids, patients can develop isolated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) suppression, or HPA axis suppression can be accompanied by overt iatrogenic Cushing’s syndrome. This is a rare case where severe Cushing’s syndrome developed from an unknown medication and was followed by severe and prolonged adrenal insufficiency and multiple potentially fatal complications. Case: This is a 37-year-old woman who is presented to Emergency Room (ER) with shortness of breath and chest pain. Four months prior to this presentation the patient was a generally healthy woman who was looking for improvement in her appearance and visited local Rejuvenation Clinic. After initial consultation with a nurse, she was contacted by a physician over the phone and was advised to start taking multiple injectable medications that will arrive by mail. Medications without any labels on bottles were delivered and the patient started daily intramuscular injections. Over the next two months, she noticed rounding of her face and swelling around her eyes. She gained 20 pounds, mostly abdominal fat and became extremely fatigued. Her muscles on legs were visibly decreasing in size and she felt significant muscle weakness. Unexplained bruising occurred. She started growing hair on face and developed secondary amenorrhea. New severe back pain started. She developed depression and headaches. Finally, over a few days, a number of red-purple stretch marks that were sensitive and painful appeared over her abdomen, upper part of arms and legs. She then became suspicious that these dramatic symptoms are caused by injectable medication and she discontinued injections. Over the next few days she presented to ER with low blood pressure and oxygen saturation of 75%. Studies revealed extensive pneumonia as well as multiple pulmonary emboli. Her white blood count was elevated with 32 000 and she also had acute kidney failure on admission. She was treated for sepsis and was also given stress dose steroids. Steroids were tapered over 48 hours and discontinued. After being discharged to home, on her first visit to endocrinology clinic she had undetectable ACTH of < 2pg/mL and undetectable 8am cortisol of < 0.2mcg/dL. She did not respond to an intramuscular injection of cosyntropin 250mcg and her repeated cortisol after 60 minutes was only 1mcg/dL. The patient was diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency and was started on hydrocortisone 20mg+10mg. It took close to 2 years of slow tapering for recovery of this patient’s HPA axis and resolve all the sequelae from Cushing’s syndrome. Conclusion: Misuse and abuse of glucocorticoids have been present almost since these medications were discovered. This is a rare case where not only severe Cushing’s syndrome in full clinical picture developed but also the patient suffered multiple potentially fatal complications and prolonged adrenal insufficiency. Visits to herbal, rejuvenation, esthetic, and similar clinics are becoming more and more popular and physicians need to be aware of possible non-benign nature of medications that their patients may be using.

Keywords: iatrogenic, Cushing's syndrome, adrenal crisis, steroid abuse

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Authors: Chiahsu Yang, Peiling Wu, Ted Ho

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From emphasizing economic development to stressing public happiness, the international community mainly hopes to be able to understand whether the quality of life for the public is becoming better. The Better Life Index (BLI) constructed by OECD uses living conditions and quality of life as starting points to cover 11 areas of life and to convey the state of the general public’s well-being. In light of the BLI framework, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) of the Executive Yuan instituted the Gross National Happiness Index to understand the needs of the general public and to measure the progress of the aforementioned conditions in residents across the island. Whereas living conditions consist of income and wealth, jobs and earnings, and housing conditions, health status, work and life balance, education and skills, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environmental quality, personal security. The ICT area consists of health care, living environment, ICT-enabled communication, transportation, government, education, pleasure, purchasing, job & employment. In the wake of further science and technology development, rapid formation of information societies, and closer integration between lifestyles and information societies, the public’s well-being within information societies has indeed become a noteworthy topic. the Board of Science and Technology of the Executive Yuan use the OECD’s BLI as a reference in the establishment of the Taiwan-specific ICT-Enabled Better Life Index. Using this index, the government plans to examine whether the public’s quality of life is improving as well as measure the public’s satisfaction with current digital quality of life. This understanding will enable the government to gauge the degree of influence and impact that each dimension of digital services has on digital life happiness while also serving as an important reference for promoting digital service development. The content of the ICT Enabled Better Life Index. Information and communications technology (ICT) has been affecting people’s living styles, and further impact people’s quality of life (QoL). Even studies have shown that ICT access and usage have both positive and negative impact on life satisfaction and well-beings, many governments continue to invest in e-government programs to initiate their path to information society. This research is the few attempts to link the e-government benchmark to the subjective well-being perception, and further address the gap between user’s perception and existing hard data assessment, then propose a model to trace measurement results back to the original public policy in order for policy makers to justify their future proposals.

Keywords: information and communications technology, quality of life, satisfaction, well-being

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Authors: M. Naimi, M. B. Khaled

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The aim of the present work was to test in vitro inhibition of food pathogens and spoilage bacteria by crude bacteriocins from autochthonous lactic acid bacteria. Thirty autochthonous lactic acid bacteria isolated previously, belonging to the genera: Lactobacillus, Carnobacterium, Lactococcus, Vagococcus, Streptococcus, and Pediococcus, have been screened by an agar spot test and a well diffusion assay against Gram-positive and Gram-negative harmful bacteria: Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633, Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, Salmonella typhimurium ATCC 14028, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa under conditions means to reduce lactic acid and hydrogen peroxide effect to select bacteria with high bacteriocinogenic potential. Furthermore, crude bacteriocins semiquantification and heat sensitivity to different temperatures (80, 95, 110°C, and 121°C) were performed. Another exploratory test concerning the response of St. aureus ATCC 6538 to the presence of crude bacteriocins was realized. It has been observed by the agar spot test that fifteen candidates were active toward Gram-positive targets strains. The secondary screening demonstrated an antagonistic activity oriented only against St. aureus ATCC 6538, leading to the selection of five isolates: Lm14, Lm21, Lm23, Lm24, and Lm25 with a larger inhibition zone compared to the others. The ANOVA statistical analysis reveals a small variation of repeatability: Lm21: 0.56%, Lm23: 0%, Lm25: 1.67%, Lm14: 1.88%, Lm24: 2.14%. Conversely, slight variation was reported in terms of inhibition diameters: 9.58± 0.40, 9.83± 0.46, and 10.16± 0.24 8.5 ± 0.40 10 mm for, Lm21, Lm23, Lm25, Lm14and Lm24, indicating that the observed potential showed a heterogeneous distribution (BMS = 0.383, WMS = 0.117). The repeatability coefficient calculated displayed 7.35%. As for the bacteriocins semiquantification, the five samples exhibited production amounts about 4.16 for Lm21, Lm23, Lm25 and 2.08 AU/ml for Lm14, Lm24. Concerning the sensitivity the crude bacteriocins were fully insensitive to heat inactivation, until 121°C, they preserved the same inhibition diameter. As to, kinetic of growth , the µmax showed reductions in pathogens load for Lm21, Lm23, Lm25, Lm14, Lm24 of about 42.92%, 84.12%, 88.55%, 54.95%, 29.97% in the second trails. Inversely, this pathogen growth after five hours displayed differences of 79.45%, 12.64%, 11.82%, 87.88%, 85.66% in the second trails, compared to the control. This study showed potential inhibition to the growth of this food pathogen, suggesting the possibility to improve the hygienic food quality.

Keywords: exploratory test, lactic acid bacteria, crude bacteriocins, spoilage, pathogens

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Authors: Begum Koru, Isik Aybay, Demet Celik Ulusoy

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The discipline of law is quite complex and has its own terminology. Apart from written legal rules, there is also living law, which refers to legal practice. Basic legal rules aim at the happiness of individuals in social life and have different characteristics in different branches such as public or private law. On the other hand, law is a national phenomenon. The law of one nation and the legal system applied on the territory of another nation may be completely different. People who are experts in a particular field of law in one country may have insufficient expertise in the law of another country. Today, in addition to the local nature of law, international and even supranational law rules are applied in order to protect basic human values and ensure the protection of human rights around the world. Systems that offer algorithmic solutions to legal problems using artificial intelligence (AI) tools will perhaps serve to produce very meaningful results in terms of human rights. However, algorithms to be used should not be developed by only computer experts, but also need the contribution of people who are familiar with law, values, judicial decisions, and even the social and political culture of the society to which it will provide solutions. Otherwise, even if the algorithm works perfectly, it may not be compatible with the values of the society in which it is applied. The latest developments involving the use of AI techniques in legal systems indicate that artificial law will emerge as a new field in the discipline of law. More AI systems are already being applied in the field of law, with examples such as predicting judicial decisions, text summarization, decision support systems, and classification of documents. Algorithms for legal systems employing AI tools, especially in the field of prediction of judicial decisions and decision support systems, have the capacity to create automatic decisions instead of judges. When the judge is removed from this equation, artificial intelligence-made law created by an intelligent algorithm on its own emerges, whether the domain is national or international law. In this work, the aim is to make a general analysis of this new topic. Such an analysis needs both a literature survey and a perspective from computer experts' and lawyers' point of view. In some societies, the use of prediction or decision support systems may be useful to integrate international human rights safeguards. In this case, artificial law can serve to produce more comprehensive and human rights-protective results than written or living law. In non-democratic countries, it may even be thought that direct decisions and artificial intelligence-made law would be more protective instead of a decision "support" system. Since the values of law are directed towards "human happiness or well-being", it requires that the AI algorithms should always be capable of serving this purpose and based on the rule of law, the principle of justice and equality, and the protection of human rights.

Keywords: AI and law, artificial law, protection of human rights, AI tools for legal systems

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Authors: Amin Asgarian, Ghyslaine McClure

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Proper seismic evaluation of Non-Structural Components (NSCs) mandates an accurate estimation of floor seismic demands (i.e. acceleration and displacement demands). Most of the current international codes incorporate empirical equations to calculate equivalent static seismic force for which NSCs and their anchorage system must be designed. These equations, in general, are functions of component mass and peak seismic acceleration to which NSCs are subjected to during the earthquake. However, recent studies have shown that these recommendations are suffered from several shortcomings such as neglecting the higher mode effect, tuning effect, NSCs damping effect, etc. which cause underestimation of the component seismic acceleration demand. This work is aimed to circumvent the aforementioned shortcomings of code provisions as well as improving them by proposing a simplified, practical, and yet accurate approach to generate acceleration Floor Design Spectra (FDS) directly from corresponding Uniform Hazard Spectra (UHS) (i.e. design spectra for structural components). A database of 27 Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings in which Ambient Vibration Measurements (AVM) have been conducted. The database comprises 12 low-rise, 10 medium-rise, and 5 high-rise buildings all located in Montréal, Canada and designated as post-disaster buildings or emergency shelters. The buildings are subjected to a set of 20 compatible seismic records and Floor Response Spectra (FRS) in terms of pseudo acceleration are derived using the proposed approach for every floor of the building in both horizontal directions considering 4 different damping ratios of NSCs (i.e. 2, 5, 10, and 20% viscous damping). Several effective parameters on NSCs response are evaluated statistically. These parameters comprise NSCs damping ratios, tuning of NSCs natural period with one of the natural periods of supporting structure, higher modes of supporting structures, and location of NSCs. The entire spectral region is divided into three distinct segments namely short-period, fundamental period, and long period region. The derived roof floor response spectra for NSCs with 5% damping are compared with the 5% damping UHS and procedure are proposed to generate roof FDS for NSCs with 5% damping directly from 5% damped UHS in each spectral region. The generated FDS is a powerful, practical, and accurate tool for seismic design and assessment of acceleration-sensitive NSCs particularly in existing post-critical buildings which have to remain functional even after the earthquake and cannot tolerate any damage to NSCs.

Keywords: earthquake engineering, operational and functional components (OFCs), operational modal analysis (OMA), seismic assessment and design

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Authors: Jayanta Basak, Somprakash Bandyopadhyay, Parama Bhaumik, Siuli Roy

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To solve the life and livelihood related problems of socially and economically backward rural women in India, several Women Self-Help Groups (WSHG) are formed in Indian villages. WSHGs are micro-communities (with 10-to 15 members) within a village community. WSHGs have been conceived not just to promote savings and provide credit, but also to act as a vehicle of change through the creation of women micro-entrepreneurs at the village level. However, in spite of huge investment and volume of people involved in the whole process, the success is still limited. Most of these entrepreneurial activities happen in small household workspaces where sales are limited to the inconsistent and unpredictable local markets. As a result, these entrepreneurs are perennially trapped in the vicious cycle of low risk taking ability, low investment capacity, low productivity, weak market linkages and low revenue. Market separation including customer-producer separation is one of the key problems in this domain. Researchers suggest that there are four types of market separation: (i) spatial, (ii) financial, (iii) temporal, and (iv) informational, which in turn impacts the nature of markets and marketing. In this context, a large group of intermediaries (the 'middleman') plays important role in effectively reducing the factors that separate markets by utilizing the resource of rural entrepreneurs, their products and thus, accelerate market development. The rural entrepreneurs are heavily dependent on these middlemen for marketing of their products and these middlemen exploit rural entrepreneurs by creating a huge informational separation between the rural producers and end-consumers in the market and thus hiding the profit margins. The objective of this study is to develop a transparent, online communities of purpose among rural and urban entrepreneurs using internet and web 2.0 technologies in order to decrease market separation and improve mutual awareness of available and potential products and market demands. Communities of purpose are groups of people who have an ability to influence, can share knowledge and learn from others, and be committed to achieving a common purpose. In this study, a cluster of SHG women located in a village 'Kandi' of West Bengal, India has been studied closely for six months. These women are primarily engaged in producing garments, soft toys, fabric painting on clothes, etc. These women were equipped with internet-enabled smart-phones where they can use chat applications in local language and common social networking websites like Facebook, Instagram, etc. A few handicraft experts and micro-entrepreneurs from the city (the 'seed') were included in their mobile messaging app group that enables the creation of a 'community of purpose' in order to share thoughts and ideas on product designs, market trends, and practices, and thus decrease the rural-urban market separation. After six months of regular group interaction in mobile messaging app among these rural-urban community members, it is observed that SHG women are empowered now to share their product images, design ideas, showcase, and promote their products in global marketplace using some common social networking websites through which they can also enhance and augment their community of purpose.

Keywords: communities of purpose, market separation, self-help group, social technologies

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Authors: Le Jiang, Chua Jinxing

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Introduction: The recent outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the west Africa has drawn global concern. With a high fatality rate and direct human-to-human transmission, it has spread between countries and caused great damages for patients and family who are affected. Being the designated hospital to manage epidemic outbreak in Singapore, Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) is facing great challenges in preparation and managing of potential outbreak of emerging infectious disease such as Ebola virus disease. Aim: We conducted an infection control drill in TTSH emergency department to assess the readiness of healthcare and allied health workers in managing suspected Ebola patients. It also helps to review current Ebola clinical protocol and work instruction to ensure more smooth and safe practice in managing Ebola patients in TTSH emergency department. Result: General preparedness level of staffs involved in managing Ebola virus disease in TTSH emergency department is not adequate. Knowledge deficits of staffs on Ebola personal protective equipment gowning and degowning process increase the risk of potential cross contamination in patient care. Loopholes are also found in current clinical protocol, such as unclear instructions and inaccurate information, which need to be revised to promote better staff performance in patient management. Logistic issues such as equipment dysfunction and inadequate supplies can lead to ineffective communication among teams and causing harm to patients in emergency situation. Conclusion: The infection control drill identified the need for more well-structured and clear clinical protocols to be in place to promote participants performance. In addition to quality protocols and guidelines, systemic training and annual refresher for all staffs in the emergency department are essential to prepare staffs for the outbreak of Ebola virus disease. Collaboration and communication with allied health staffs are also crucial for smooth delivery of patient care and minimising the potential human suffering, properties loss or injuries caused by disease. Therefore, more clinical drills with collaboration among various departments involved are recommended to be conducted in the future to monitor and assess readiness of TTSH emergency department in managing Ebola virus disease.

Keywords: ebola, emergency department, infection control drill, Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Procedia PDF Downloads 101

Authors: Yasmin A. M. Ferreira, Ana C. K. Pelissari, Sofia De C. F. Vicente, Raquel M. Da S. Campos, Deborah C. L. Masquio, Lian Tock, Lila M. Oyama, Flavia C. Corgosinho, Valter T. Boldarine, Ana R. Dâmaso

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The prevalence of overweight and obesity is growing around the world and currently considered a global epidemic. Food and nutrition are essential requirements for promoting health and protecting non-communicable chronic diseases, such as obesity and cardiovascular disease. Specific dietary components may modulate the inflammation and oxidative stress in obese individuals. Few studies have investigated the dietary Inflammation Factor Rating (IFR) in obese adolescents. The IFR was developed to characterize an individual´s diet on anti- to pro-inflammatory score. This evaluation contributes to investigate the effects of inflammatory diet in metabolic profile in several individual conditions. Objectives: The present study aims to investigate the effects of a multidisciplinary weight loss therapy on inflammation factor rating and cardiometabolic risk in obese adolescents. Methods: A total of 26 volunteers (14-19 y.o) were recruited and submitted to 20 weeks interdisciplinary therapy allied to health education website- Ciclo do Emagrecimento®, including clinical, nutritional, psychological counseling and exercise training. The body weight was monitored weekly by self-report and photo. The adolescents answered a test to evaluate the knowledge of the topics covered in the videos. A 24h dietary record was applied at the baseline and after 20 weeks to assess the food intake and to calculate IFR. A negative IFR suggests that diet may have inflammatory effects and a positive IFR indicates an anti-inflammatory effect. Statistical analysis was performed using the program STATISTICA version 12.5 for Windows. The adopted significant value was α ≤ 5 %. Data normality was verified with the Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Data were expressed as mean±SD values. To analyze the effects of intervention it was applied test t. Pearson´s correlations test was performed. Results: After 20 weeks of treatment, body mass index (BMI), body weight, body fat (kg and %), abdominal and waist circumferences decreased significantly. The mean of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) increased after the therapy. Moreover, it was found an improvement of inflammation factor rating from -427,27±322,47 to -297,15±240,01, suggesting beneficial effects of nutritional counselling. Considering the correlations analysis, it was found that pro-inflammatory diet is associated with increase in the BMI, very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL), triglycerides, insulin and insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR); while an anti-inflammatory diet is associated with improvement of HDL-c and insulin sensitivity Check index (QUICKI). Conclusion: The 20-week blended multidisciplinary therapy was effective to reduce body weight, anthropometric circumferences and improve inflammatory markers in obese adolescents. In addition, our results showed that an increase in inflammatory profile diet is associated with cardiometabolic parameters, suggesting the relevance to stimulate anti-inflammatory diet habits as an effective strategy to treat and control of obesity and related comorbidities. Financial Support: FAPESP (2017/07372-1) and CNPq (409943/2016-9)

Keywords: cardiometabolic risk, inflammatory diet, multidisciplinary therapy, obesity

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Authors: Alsu F. Saifitdinova, Alexey S. Komissarov, Svetlana A. Galkina, Elena I. Koshel, Maria M. Kulak, Stephen J. O'Brien, Elena R. Gaginskaya

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The mystery of sex determination is one of the most ancient and still not solved until the end so far. In many species, sex determination is genetic and often accompanied by the presence of dimorphic sex chromosomes in the karyotype. Genomic sequencing gave the information about the gene content of sex chromosomes which allowed to reveal their origin from ordinary autosomes and to trace their evolutionary history. Female-specific W chromosome in birds as well as mammalian male-specific Y chromosome is characterized by the degeneration of gene content and the accumulation of repetitive DNA. Tandem repeats complicate the analysis of genomic data. Despite the best efforts chicken W chromosome assembly includes only 1.2 Mb from expected 55 Mb. Supplementing the information on the sex chromosome composition not only helps to complete the assembly of genomes but also moves us in the direction of understanding of the sex-determination systems evolution. A whole-genome survey to the assembly Gallus_gallus WASHUC 2.60 was applied for repeats search in assembled genome and performed search and assembly of high copy number repeats in unassembled reads of SRR867748 short reads datasets. For cytogenetic analysis conventional methods of fluorescent in situ hybridization was used for previously cloned W specific satellites and specifically designed directly labeled synthetic oligonucleotide DNA probe was used for bioinformatically identified repetitive sequence. Hybridization was performed with mitotic chicken chromosomes and manually isolated giant meiotic lampbrush chromosomes from growing oocytes. A novel chicken W specific satellite (GGAAA)n which is not co-localizes with any previously described classes of W specific repeats was identified and mapped with high resolution. In the composition of autosomes this repeat units was found as a part of upstream regions of gonad specific protein coding sequences. These findings may contribute to the understanding of the role of tandem repeats in sex specific differentiation regulation in birds and sex chromosome evolution. This work was supported by the postdoctoral fellowships from St. Petersburg State University (#1.50.1623.2013 and #1.50.1043.2014), the grant for Leading Scientific Schools (#3553.2014.4) and the grant from Russian foundation for basic researches (#15-04-05684). The equipment and software of Research Resource Center “Chromas” and Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics of Saint Petersburg State University were used.

Keywords: birds, lampbrush chromosomes, sex chromosomes, tandem repeats

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Authors: Paula Quiterio, Arlete Apolinario, Celia T. Sousa, Joao Azevedo, Paula Dias, Adelio Mendes, Joao P. Araujo

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Nowadays one of the mankind's greatest challenges has been the supply of low-cost and environmentally friendly energy sources as an alternative to non-renewable fossil fuels. Hydrogen has been considered a promising solution, representing a clean and low-cost fuel. It can be produced directly from clean and abundant resources, such as sunlight and water, using photoelectrochemical cells (PECs), in a process that mimics the nature´s photosynthesis. Hematite (alpha-Fe2O3) has attracted considerable attention as a promising photoanode for solar water splitting, due to its high chemical stability, nontoxicity, availability and low band gap (2.2 eV), which allows reaching a high thermodynamic solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 16.8 %. However, the main drawbacks of hematite such as the short hole diffusion length and the poor conductivity that lead to high electron-hole recombination result in significant PEC efficiency losses. One strategy to overcome these limitations and to increase the PEC efficiency is to use 1D nanostructures, such as nanotubes (NTs) and nanowires (NWs), which present high aspect ratios and large surface areas providing direct pathways for electron transport up to the charge collector and minimizing the recombination losses. In particular, due to the ultrathin walls of the NTs, the holes can reach the surface faster than in other nanostructures, representing a key factor for the NTs photoresponse. In this work, we prepared hematite NWs and NTs, respectively by hydrothermal process and electrochemical anodization. For hematite NWs growing, we studied the effect of variable hydrothermal conditions, different annealing temperatures and time, and the use of Ti and Sn dopants on the morphology and PEC performance. The crystalline phase characterization by X-ray diffraction was crucial to distinguish the formation of hematite and other iron oxide phases, alongside its effect on the photoanodes conductivity and consequent PEC efficiency. The conductivity of the as-prepared NWs is very low, in the order of 10-5 S cm-1, but after doping and annealing optimization it increased by a factor of 105. A high photocurrent density of 1.02 mA cm-2 at 1.45 VRHE was obtained under simulated sunlight, which is a very promising value for this kind of hematite nanostructures. The stability of the photoelectrodes was also tested, presenting good stability after several J-V measurements over time. The NTs, synthesized by fast anodizations with potentials ranging from 20-100 V, presented a linear growth of the NTs pore walls, with very low thicknesses from 10 - 18 nm. These preliminary results are also very promising for the use of hematite photoelectrodes on PEC hydrogen applications.

Keywords: hematite, nanotubes, nanowires, photoelectrochemical cells

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Authors: Kim Norgaard Helmersen, Jan Silberberger

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Questions of style and reproducibility in relation to architectural design are not only continuously debated; the very concepts can seem quite provocative to architects, who like to think of architectural design as depending on intuition, ideas, and individual personalities. This standpoint - dominant in architectural discourse - is challenged in the present paper presenting early findings from a comparative STS-inspired research study of architectural design teaching and research at different architecture schools in varying national contexts. In philosophy of science framework, the paper reflects empirical observations of design teaching at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and presents a tentative theoretical framework for the on-going research project. The framework suggests that architecture – as a field of knowledge production – is mainly dominated by three epistemological positions, which will be presented and discussed. Besides serving as a loosely structured framework for future data analysis, the proposed framework brings forth the argument that architecture can be roughly divided into different schools of thought, like the traditional science disciplines. Without reducing the complexity of the discipline, describing its main intellectual positions should prove fruitful for the future development of architecture as a theoretical discipline, moving an architectural critique beyond discussions of taste preferences. Unlike traditional science disciplines, there is a lack of a community-wide, shared pool of codified references in architecture, with architects instead referencing art projects, buildings, and famous architects, when positioning their standpoints. While these inscriptions work as an architectural reference system, to be compared to codified theories in academic writing of traditional research, they are not used systematically in the same way. As a result, architectural critique is often reduced to discussions of taste and subjectivity rather than epistemological positioning. Architects are often criticized as judges of taste and accused that their rationality is rooted in cultural-relative aesthetical concepts of taste closely linked to questions of style, but arguably their supposedly subjective reasoning, in fact, forms part of larger systems of thought. Putting architectural ‘styles’ under a loop, and tracing their philosophical roots, can potentially open up a black box in architectural theory. Besides ascertaining and recognizing the existence of specific ‘styles’ and thereby schools of thought in current architectural discourse, the study could potentially also point at some mutations of the conventional – something actually ‘new’ – of potentially high value for architectural design education.

Keywords: architectural theory, design research, science and technology studies (STS), sociology of architecture

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Authors: Aprajeeta Jha, Punyadarshini P. Tripathy

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Drying technologies for various food processing operations shares an inevitable linkage with energy, cost and environmental sustainability. Hence, solar drying of food grains has become imperative choice to combat duo challenges of meeting high energy demand for drying and to address climate change scenario. But performance and reliability of solar dryers depend hugely on sunshine period, climatic conditions, therefore, offer a limited control over drying conditions and have lower efficiencies. Solar drying technology, supported by Photovoltaic (PV) power plant and hybrid type solar air collector can potentially overpower the disadvantages of solar dryers. For development of such robust hybrid dryers; to ensure quality and shelf-life of paddy grains the optimization of process parameter becomes extremely critical. Investigation of the moisture distribution profile within the grains becomes necessary in order to avoid over drying or under drying of food grains in hybrid solar dryer. Computational simulations based on finite element modeling can serve as potential tool in providing a better insight of moisture migration during drying process. Hence, present work aims at optimizing the process parameters and to develop a 3-dimensional (3D) finite element model (FEM) for predicting moisture profile in paddy during solar drying. COMSOL Multiphysics was employed to develop a 3D finite element model for predicting moisture profile. Furthermore, optimization of process parameters (power level, air velocity and moisture content) was done using response surface methodology in design expert software. 3D finite element model (FEM) for predicting moisture migration in single kernel for every time step has been developed and validated with experimental data. The mean absolute error (MAE), mean relative error (MRE) and standard error (SE) were found to be 0.003, 0.0531 and 0.0007, respectively, indicating close agreement of model with experimental results. Furthermore, optimized process parameters for drying paddy were found to be 700 W, 2.75 m/s at 13% (wb) with optimum temperature, milling yield and drying time of 42˚C, 62%, 86 min respectively, having desirability of 0.905. Above optimized conditions can be successfully used to dry paddy in PV integrated solar dryer in order to attain maximum uniformity, quality and yield of product. PV-integrated hybrid solar dryers can be employed as potential and cutting edge drying technology alternative for sustainable energy and food security.

Keywords: finite element modeling, moisture migration, paddy grain, process optimization, PV integrated hybrid solar dryer

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Authors: Charalabos Antonatos, Mariza Panoutsopoulou, Georgios K. Georgakilas, Evangelos Evangelou, Yiannis Vasilopoulos

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The extended tissue damage and severe clinical outcomes of autoimmune diseases, accompanied by the high annual costs to the overall health care system, highlight the need for an efficient therapy. Increasing knowledge over the pathophysiology of specific chronic inflammatory diseases, namely Psoriasis (PsO), Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) consisting of Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative colitis (UC), and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), has provided insights into the underlying mechanisms that lead to the maintenance of the inflammation, such as Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF-α). Hence, the anti-TNFα biological agents pose as an ideal therapeutic approach. Despite the efficacy of anti-TNFα agents, several clinical trials have shown that 20-40% of patients do not respond to treatment. Nowadays, high-throughput technologies have been recruited in order to elucidate the complex interactions in multifactorial phenotypes, with the most ubiquitous ones referring to transcriptome quantification analyses. In this context, a random effects meta-analysis of available gene expression cDNA microarray datasets was performed between responders and non-responders to anti-TNFα therapy in patients with IBD, PsO, and RA. Publicly available datasets were systematically searched from inception to 10th of November 2020 and selected for further analysis if they assessed the response to anti-TNFα therapy with clinical score indexes from inflamed biopsies. Specifically, 4 IBD (79 responders/72 non-responders), 3 PsO (40 responders/11 non-responders) and 2 RA (16 responders/6 non-responders) datasetswere selected. After the separate pre-processing of each dataset, 4 separate meta-analyses were conducted; three disease-specific and a single combined meta-analysis on the disease-specific results. The MetaVolcano R package (v.1.8.0) was utilized for a random-effects meta-analysis through theRestricted Maximum Likelihood (RELM) method. The top 1% of the most consistently perturbed genes in the included datasets was highlighted through the TopConfects approach while maintaining a 5% False Discovery Rate (FDR). Genes were considered as Differentialy Expressed (DEGs) as those with P ≤ 0.05, |log2(FC)| ≥ log2(1.25) and perturbed in at least 75% of the included datasets. Over-representation analysis was performed using Gene Ontology and Reactome Pathways for both up- and down-regulated genes in all 4 performed meta-analyses. Protein-Protein interaction networks were also incorporated in the subsequentanalyses with STRING v11.5 and Cytoscape v3.9. Disease-specific meta-analyses detected multiple distinct pro-inflammatory and immune-related down-regulated genes for each disease, such asNFKBIA, IL36, and IRAK1, respectively. Pathway analyses revealed unique and shared pathways between each disease, such as Neutrophil Degranulation and Signaling by Interleukins. The combined meta-analysis unveiled 436 DEGs, 86 out of which were up- and 350 down-regulated, confirming the aforementioned shared pathways and genes, as well as uncovering genes that participate in anti-inflammatory pathways, namely IL-10 signaling. The identification of key biological pathways and regulatory elements is imperative for the accurate prediction of the patient’s response to biological drugs. Meta-analysis of such gene expression data could aid the challenging approach to unravel the complex interactions implicated in the response to anti-TNFα therapy in patients with PsO, IBD, and RA, as well as distinguish gene clusters and pathways that are altered through this heterogeneous phenotype.

Keywords: anti-TNFα, autoimmune, meta-analysis, microarrays

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Authors: Saori Fujimoto, Hiromi Kawasaki, Mari Murakami, Yoko Ueno

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Background: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been spreading throughout the world. In Japan, many nursing universities have conducted online clinical practices to secure students’ learning opportunities. In the field of women’s health nursing, even after the pandemic ended, it will be worthwhile to utilize online practice in declining birthrate and reducing the burden of mothers. This study examined the learning effects of conducting online visits for mothers with infants during the COVID-19 pandemic by nursing students to enhance the students’ ability to carry out the online practice even in ordinary times effectively. Methods: Students were divided into groups of three, and information on the mothers was assessed, and the visits were planned. After role-play was conducted by the students and teachers, an online visit was conducted. The analysis target was the self-evaluation score of nine students who conducted online visits in June 2020 and had consented to participate. The evaluation contents included three items for assessment, two items for planning, one item for ethical consideration, five items for nursing practice, and two items for evaluation. The self-evaluation score ranged from 4 (‘Can do with a little advice’) to 1 (‘Can’t do with a little advice’). A univariate statistical analysis was performed. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee for Epidemiology of Hiroshima University. Results: The items with the highest mean (standard deviation) scores were ‘advocates for the dignity and the rights of mothers’ (3.89 (0.31)) and ‘communication behavior needed to create a trusting relationship’ (3.89 (0.31)).’ Next were the ‘individual nursing practice tailored to mothers (3.78 (0.42))’ and ‘review own practice and work on own task (3.78 (0.42)).’ The mean (standard deviation) of the items by type were as follows: three assessment items, 3.26 (0.70), two planning items, 3.11 (0.49), one ethical consideration item, 3.89 (0.31), five nursing practice items, 3.56 (0.54), and two evaluation items, 3.67 (0.47). Conclusion: The highest self-evaluations were for ‘advocates for the dignity and the rights of mothers’ and ‘communication behavior needed to create a trusting relationship.’ These findings suggest that the students were able to form good relationships with the mothers by improving their ability to effectively communicate and by presenting a positive attitude, even when conducting health visits online. However, the self-evaluation scores for assessment and planning were lower than those of ethical consideration, nursing practice, and evaluation. This was most likely due to a lack of opportunities and time to gather information and the need to modify and add plans in a short amount of time during one online visit. It is necessary to further consider the methods used in conducting online visits from the following viewpoints: methods of gathering information and the ability to make changes through multiple visits.

Keywords: infants, learning effects, mothers, online visit practice

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Authors: Chia-Pei Chen, Yu-Ju Chen, Yu-Juei Hsu

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The prevalence and incidence of end-stage renal disease in Taiwan ranks the highest in the world. According to the statistical survey of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2019, kidney disease is the ninth leading cause of death in Taiwan. It leads to autonomic dysfunction, inflammatory response and symptom distress, and further increases the damage to the structure and function of the kidneys, leading to increased demand for renal replacement therapy and risks of cardiovascular disease, which also has medical costs for the society. If we can intervene in a feasible manual to effectively regulate the autonomic nerve function of CKD patients, reduce the inflammatory response and symptom distress. To prolong the progression of the disease, it will be the main goal of caring for CKD patients. This study aims to test the effect of heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVBF) on improving autonomic nerve function (Heart Rate Variability, HRV), inflammatory response (Interleukin-6 [IL-6], C reaction protein [CRP] ), symptom distress (Piper fatigue scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI], and Beck Depression Inventory-II [BDI-II] ) in patients with chronic kidney disease. This study was experimental research, with a convenience sampling. Participants were recruited from the nephrology clinic at a medical center in northern Taiwan. With signed informed consent, participants were randomly assigned to the HRVBF or control group by using the Excel BINOMDIST function. The HRVBF group received four weekly hospital-based HRVBF training, and 8 weeks of home-based self-practice was done with StressEraser. The control group received usual care. We followed all participants for 3 months, in which we repeatedly measured their autonomic nerve function (HRV), inflammatory response (IL-6, CRP), and symptom distress (Piper fatigue scale, PSQI, and BDI-II) on their first day of study participation (baselines), 1 month, and 3 months after the intervention to test the effects of HRVBF. The results were analyzed by SPSS version 23.0 statistical software. The data of demographics, HRV, IL-6, CRP, Piper fatigue scale, PSQI, and BDI-II were analyzed by descriptive statistics. To test for differences between and within groups in all outcome variables, it was used by paired sample t-test, independent sample t-test, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: Thirty-four patients with chronic kidney disease were enrolled, but three of them were lost to follow-up. The remaining 31 patients completed the study, including 15 in the HRVBF group and 16 in the control group. The characteristics of the two groups were not significantly different. The four-week hospital-based HRVBF training combined with eight-week home-based self-practice can effectively enhance the parasympathetic nerve performance for patients with chronic kidney disease, which may against the disease-related parasympathetic nerve inhibition. In the inflammatory response, IL-6 and CRP in the HRVBF group could not achieve significant improvement when compared with the control group. Self-reported fatigue and depression significantly decreased in the HRVBF group, but they still failed to achieve a significant difference between the two groups. HRVBF has no significant effect on improving the sleep quality for CKD patients.

Keywords: heart rate variability biofeedback, autonomic nerve function, inflammatory response, symptom distress, chronic kidney disease

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Authors: Mahmoud Farrag, Alaa Elhaweet, El-Sayed Akel, Mohsen Moustafa

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The present work aimed to study the reproductive strategy of the common lesspsian puffer fish Lagocephalus sceleratus (Gmeln, 1879) from the Egyptian Mediterranean Waters. It is a famous migratory species plays an important role in the field of fisheries and ecology of aquatic ecosystem. The obtained results illustrated seven maturity stages of gonads as; I- Thread like stage: II- Immature stage (Virgin stage), III- Maturing stage (Developing Virgin and recovering spent), IV - Nearly ripe stage, V- Fully ripe; VI-Spawning stage, VII- Spent stage. Sex ratio, exhibited males had higher number than females representing 52.44 % of the total fishes with sex ratio 1: 0.91. Fish length corresponding to 50% maturation was 38.5 cm for males and 41 cm for females. The corresponding ages (age at first maturity) are equal to 2.14 and 2.27 years for male and female respectively. The gonado somatic index (GSI) increased from April for both sexes with peak in June (8.567±4.729) for males and May (6.769±4.662) for females, then the sharp decrease was observed in October showing prolong spawning season from April to September for both sexes. The hepato somatic indices (HSI) for males were lower values than those of females, it were high from December to early spawning (April & May), with the peak in April (5.217 ± 2.167) for males, and in March (5.453± 1.792) for females, then these values started to decrease towards the end of spawning period. The ova diameter ranged from 0.02 to 0.85mm, the mature ova ranged from 0.16 to 0.85mm and showed progressive increase from April towards September during spawning period introducing one peak of mature and ripe eggs. The absolute fecundity increased as the fish grew in weight and length; it was ranged from 260288 to 2372931 for fish weight and ranged from 698 to 3285 cm for length with an average of 1449522±720975. The relative fecundity ranged from 373 to 722 for fish weight with an average of 776±231, while it range from 5784 to 32957 for fish length groups ranged from 43-45 to 70-72 cm with an average of 24478 ±10011 eggs. Histological characters of gonads during the year of study indicating this fish species has prolonged spawning season from April to September where ripe oocytes were observed during this period. This species is considered totally or uni spawner with synchronous group as it contained one to two developmental stages at the same gonad and releases its ripe ova in one batch during the spawning season. These results illustrated more adaptation of this species in new habitat.

Keywords: reproductive biology, histology, Lagocephalus sceleratus, Mediterranean Sea, Egypt

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Authors: Geyang Xia

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In many countries, governments have responded to the growing demand for educational resources through school district systems, and there is substantial evidence that school district systems have been effective in promoting inter-district and inter-school equity in educational resources. However, the scarcity of quality educational resources has brought about varying levels of education among different school districts, making it a common choice for many parents to buy a house in the school district where a quality school is located, and they are even willing to bear huge commuting costs for this purpose. Moreover, this is evidenced by the fact that parents of families in school districts with quality education resources have longer average commute lengths and longer average commute distances than parents in average school districts. This "unequal traveling" under the influence of the school district system is more common in school districts at the primary level of education. This further reinforces the differential hierarchy of educational resources and raises issues of inequitable educational public services, education-led residential segregation, and gentrification of school district housing. Against this background, this paper takes Nanjing, a famous educational city in China, as a case study and selects the school districts where the top 10 public elementary schools are located. The study first identifies the spatio-temporal behavioral trajectory dataset of these high-quality school district households by using spatial vector data, decrypted cell phone signaling data, and census data. Then, by constructing a "house-school-work (HSW)" commuting pattern of the population in the school district where the high-quality educational resources are located, and based on the classification of the HSW commuting pattern of the population, school districts with long employment hours were identified. Ultimately, the mechanisms and patterns inherent in this unequal commuting are analyzed in terms of six aspects, including the centrality of school district location, functional diversity, and accessibility. The results reveal that the "unequal commuting" of Nanjing's high-quality school districts under the influence of the school district system occurs mainly in the peripheral areas of the city, and the schools matched with these high-quality school districts are mostly branches of prestigious schools in the built-up areas of the city's core. At the same time, the centrality of school district location and the diversity of functions are the most important influencing factors of unequal commuting in high-quality school districts. Based on the research results, this paper proposes strategies to optimize the spatial layout of high-quality educational resources and corresponding transportation policy measures.

Keywords: school-district system, high quality school district, commuting pattern, unequal traveling

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Authors: Aklima Jesmin, Ubaidur Rob, M. Ashrafur Rahman

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Rohingya population of Arakan state in Myanmar are one the most persecuted ethnic minorities in this 21st century. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), all human beings are born free, equal in dignity and rights. However, these populations are systematically excluded from this universal proclamation of human rights as they are Rohingya, which signify ‘other’. Based on the accessible and available literatures about Rohingya issue, this study firstly found there are chronological pattern of human rights violations against the ethnic Rohingya which follows the pathology of the Holocaust in this 21st century of human civilization. These violations have been possible due to modern technology, bureaucracy which has been performed through authorization, routinization and dehumanization; not only in formal institutions but in the society as a whole. This kind of apparently never-ending situation poses any author with the problem of available many scientific articles. The most important sources are, therefore the international daily newspapers, social media and official webpage of the non-state actors for nitty-gritty day to day update. Although it challenges the validity and objectivity of the information, but to address the critical ongoing human rights violations against Rohingya population can become a base for further work on this issue. One of the aspects of this paper is to accommodate all the social movements since August 2017 to date. The findings of this paper is that even though it seemed only human rights violations occurred against Rohingya historically but, simultaneously the process of social movements had also started, can be traced more after the military campaign in 2017. Therefore, the Rohingya crisis can be conceptualized within one ‘campaign’ movement for justice, not as episodic events, especially within the Political Process Model than any other social movement theories. This model identifies that the role of international political movements as well as the role of non-state actors are more powerful than any other episodes of violence conducted against Rohinyga in reframing issue, blaming and shaming to Myanmar government and creating the strategic opportunities for social changes. The lack of empowerment of the affected Rohingya population has been found as the loop to utilize this strategic opportunity. Their lack of empowerment can also affect their capacity to reframe their rights and to manage the campaign for their justice. Therefore, this should be placed at the heart of the international policy agenda within the broader socio-political movement for the justice of Rohingya population. Without ensuring human rights of Rohingya population, achieving the promise of the united nation’s sustainable development goals - no one would be excluded – will be impossible.

Keywords: civilization, holocaust, human rights violation, military campaign, political process model, Rohingya population, sustainable development goal, social justice, social movement, strategic opportunity

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Authors: Nasser S. Shebka

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Fuzzy logic is used in complex adaptive systems where classical tools of representing knowledge are unproductive. Nevertheless, the incorporation of fuzzy logic, as it’s the case with all artificial intelligence tools, raised some inconsistencies and limitations in dealing with increased complexity systems and rules that apply to real-life situations and hinders the ability of the inference process of such systems, but it also faces some inconsistencies between inferences generated fuzzy rules of complex or imprecise knowledge-based systems. The use of fuzzy logic enhanced the capability of knowledge representation in such applications that requires fuzzy representation of truth values or similar multi-value constant parameters derived from multi-valued logic, which set the basis for the three t-norms and their based connectives which are actually continuous functions and any other continuous t-norm can be described as an ordinal sum of these three basic ones. However, some of the attempts to solve this dilemma were an alteration to fuzzy logic by means of non-monotonic logic, which is used to deal with the defeasible inference of expert systems reasoning, for example, to allow for inference retraction upon additional data. However, even the introduction of non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning faces a major issue of conflict resolution for which many principles were introduced, such as; the specificity principle and the weakest link principle. The aim of our work is to improve the logical representation and functional modelling of AI systems by presenting a method of resolving existing and potential rule conflicts by representing temporal modalities within defeasible inference rule-based systems. Our paper investigates the possibility of resolving fuzzy rules conflict in a non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning-based system by introducing temporal modalities and Kripke's general weak modal logic operators in order to expand its knowledge representation capabilities by means of flexibility in classifying newly generated rules, and hence, resolving potential conflicts between these fuzzy rules. We were able to address the aforementioned problem of our investigation by restructuring the inference process of the fuzzy rule-based system. This is achieved by using time-branching temporal logic in combination with restricted first-order logic quantifiers, as well as propositional logic to represent classical temporal modality operators. The resulting findings not only enhance the flexibility of complex rule-base systems inference process but contributes to the fundamental methods of building rule bases in such a manner that will allow for a wider range of applicable real-life situations derived from a quantitative and qualitative knowledge representational perspective.

Keywords: fuzzy rule-based systems, fuzzy tense inference, intelligent systems, temporal modalities

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Authors: Veronica Botero, Karen Ortiz

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The Faculty of Mines, of the National University of Colombia, Medellín Campus, is a faculty that has 136 years of history and represents one of the most important study centers in the country in the field of engineering and scientific research, as well as a reference at a global, national, and Latin American level in this matter. Despite being a faculty with so many years of history and having trained a large number of graduates under the traditional mechanistic and androcentric paradigm, which reproduces the logic of the traditional scientific method and the differentiated and severe look between subject-object of research among other binarisms, has also been the place where professors and students have become aware of the need to transform this paradigm into engineering, and focus on the sustainability of diversity and the well-being of the natural and social systems that inhabit the territories and has opened possibilities for the implementation of classes that address feminist pedagogical theories and practices. The class: The return of the witches, is an initiative that constitutes an important training exercise that provides students with the study of feminisms, the importance of closing gender gaps and critical readings on the traditional paradigm of engineering. The objective of this article is to present a systematization of the experience of design, implementation and development of this elective class, describing the tensions that arose at the time when a subject of this style was created and proposed in the Department of Geosciences and Environment, from the Faculty of Mines in 2022; the reactions of the groups of students who have taken it and their perceptions and opinions about ecofeminism as proposals for critical analysis and practices in relation to the environment and, above all, how their readings of the world have changed after having studied this subject for a semester. The pedagogical journey and the feminist methodologies that have been designed and adjusted over two years of work will be explained based on the sharing of situated knowledge of the students and the two teachers who teach the course, who pose challenges to the dominant ideology in engineering since one of them is trained in human sciences and feminist studies and the other, although trained in civil engineering and geosciences, is a woman with diverse sexual orientation and is the first professor to have assumed the position of dean in the 135 years of history of the Faculty. The transformations in the life experience of the students are revealing since they affirm that the training process is forceful and powerful to outline a much more qualified and critical professional profile that contributes to the transformation of gender gaps in the country. This class is therefore a challenge in this Faculty of Engineering that still presents a dominant ideology on gender that has not been questioned or challenged before.

Keywords: feminisms, gender equality, gender bias, engineering for life Manifiesto.

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Authors: Bistra Kunovska, Kremena Ivanova, Jana Djounova, Desislava Djunakova, Zdenka Stojanovska

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The carcinogenic effects of radon as a radioactive noble gas have been studied and show a strong correlation between radon exposure and lung cancer occurrence, even in the case of low radon levels. The major part of the natural radiation dose in humans is received by inhaling radon and its progenies, which originates from the decay chain of U-238. Indoor radon poses a substantial threat to human health when build-up occurs in confined spaces such as homes, mines and caves and the risk increases with the duration of radon exposure and is proportional to both the radon concentration and the time of exposure. Tourist caves are a case of special environmental conditions that may be affected by high radon concentration. Tourist caves are a recognized danger in terms of radon exposure to cave workers (guides, employees working in shops built above the cave entrances, etc.), but due to the sensitive nature of the cave environment, high concentrations cannot be easily removed. Forced ventilation of the air in the caves is considered unthinkable due to the possible harmful effects on the microclimate, flora and fauna. The risks to human health posed by exposure to elevated radon levels in caves are not well documented. Various studies around the world often detail very high concentrations of radon in caves and exposure of employees but without a follow-up assessment of the overall impact on human health. This study was developed in the implementation of a national project to assess the potential health effects caused by exposure to elevated levels of radon in buildings with public access under the National Science Fund of Bulgaria, in the framework of grant No КП-06-Н23/1/07.12.2018. The purpose of the work is to assess the radon level in Bulgarian caves and the exposure of the visitors and workers. The number of caves (sampling size) was calculated for simple random selection from total available caves 65 (sampling population) are 13 caves with confidence level 95 % and confidence interval (margin of error) approximately 25 %. A measurement of the radon concentration in air at specific locations in caves was done by using CR-39 type nuclear track-etch detectors that were placed by the participants in the research team. Despite the fact that all of the caves were formed in karst rocks, the radon levels were rather different from each other (97–7575 Bq/m3). An assessment of the influence of the orientation of the caves in the earth's surface (horizontal, inclined, vertical) on the radon concentration was performed. Evaluation of health hazards and radon risk exposure causing by inhaling the radon and its daughter products in each surveyed caves was done. Reducing the time spent in the cave has been recommended in order to decrease the exposure of workers.

Keywords: tourist caves, radon concentration, exposure, Bulgaria

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Authors: Rui Huang, Thomas Richard, Masood Mostofi

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The lifetime of impregnated diamond bits and their drilling efficiency are in part governed by the bit wear conditions, not only the extent of the diamonds’ wear but also their exposure or protrusion out of the matrix bonding. As much as individual diamonds wear, the bonding matrix does also wear through two-body abrasion (direct matrix-rock contact) and three-body erosion (cuttings trapped in the space between rock and matrix). Although there is some work dedicated to the study of diamond bit wear, there is still a lack of understanding on how matrix erosion and diamond exposure relate to the bit drilling response and drilling efficiency, as well as no literature on the process that governs bit sharpening a procedure commonly implemented by drillers when the extent of diamond polishing yield extremely low rate of penetration. The aim of this research is (i) to derive a correlation between the wear state of the bit and the drilling performance but also (ii) to gain a better understanding of the process associated with tool sharpening. The research effort combines specific drilling experiments and precise mapping of the tool-cutting face (impregnated diamond bits and segments). Bit wear is produced by drilling through a rock sample at a fixed rate of penetration for a given period of time. Before and after each wear test, the bit drilling response and thus efficiency is mapped out using a tailored design experimental protocol. After each drilling test, the bit or segment cutting face is scanned with an optical microscope. The test results show that, under the fixed rate of penetration, diamond exposure increases with drilling distance but at a decreasing rate, up to a threshold exposure that corresponds to the optimum drilling condition for this feed rate. The data further shows that the threshold exposure scale with the rate of penetration up to a point where exposure reaches a maximum beyond which no more matrix can be eroded under normal drilling conditions. The second phase of this research focuses on the wear process referred as bit sharpening. Drillers rely on different approaches (increase feed rate or decrease flow rate) with the aim of tearing worn diamonds away from the bit matrix, wearing out some of the matrix, and thus exposing fresh sharp diamonds and recovering a higher rate of penetration. Although a common procedure, there is no rigorous methodology to sharpen the bit and avoid excessive wear or bit damage. This paper aims to gain some insight into the mechanisms that accompany bit sharpening by carefully tracking diamond fracturing, matrix wear, and erosion and how they relate to drilling parameters recorded while sharpening the tool. The results show that there exist optimal conditions (operating parameters and duration of the procedure) for sharpening that minimize overall bit wear and that the extent of bit sharpening can be monitored in real-time.

Keywords: bit sharpening, diamond exposure, drilling response, impregnated diamond bit, matrix erosion, wear rate

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Authors: Nynke de Jong, Inge G. P. Duimel-Peeters

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The flipped classroom as an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, off- and online, in- and outside the classroom, has been implemented in a 4-weeks module focusing on ageing in Europe at the Maastricht University. The main aim regarding the organization of this module was implementing flipped classroom-principles in order to create meaningful learning opportunities, while educational technologies are used to deliver content outside of the classroom. Technologies used in this module were an online interactive real time lecture from England, two interactive face-to-face lectures with visual supports, one group session including role plays and team-based learning meetings. The cohort of 2015-2016, using educational technologies, was compared with the cohort of 2014-2015 on module evaluation such as organization and instructiveness of the module, who studied the same content, although conforming the problem-based educational strategy, i.e. educational base of the Maastricht University. The cohort of 2015-2016 with its specific organization, was also more profound evaluated on outcomes as (1) experienced duration of the lecture by students, (2) experienced content of the lecture, (3) experienced the extent of the interaction and (4) format of lecturing. It was important to know how students reflected on duration and content taken into account their background knowledge so far, in order to distinguish between sufficient enough regarding prior knowledge and therefore challenging or not fitting into the course. For the evaluation, a structured online questionnaire was used, whereby above mentioned topics were asked for to evaluate by scoring them on a 4-point Likert scale. At the end, there was room for narrative feedback so that interviewees could express more in detail, if they wanted, what they experienced as good or not regarding the content of the module and its organization parts. Eventually, the response rate of the evaluation was lower than expected (54%), however, due to written feedback and exam scores, we dare to state that it gives a good and reliable overview that encourages to work further on it. Probably, the response rate may be explained by the fact that resit students were included as well, and that there maybe is too much evaluation as some time points in the program. However, overall students were excited about the organization and content of the module, but the level of self-directed behavior, necessary for this kind of educational strategy, was too low. They need to be more trained in self-directness, therefore the module will be simplified in 2016-2017 with more clear and fewer topics and extra guidance (step by step procedure). More specific information regarding the used technologies will be explained at the congress, as well as the outcomes (min and max rankings, mean and standard deviation).

Keywords: blended learning, flipped classroom, public health, self-directness

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Authors: Saska Alexandria Hayes

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Multiple Convention Refugees in New Zealand are stuck in a state of immigration limbo due to a lack of defined immigration policies. The Refugee Convention of 1951 does not give the right to be issued a permanent right to live and work in the country of asylum. A gap in New Zealand's immigration law and policy has left Convention Refugees without the right to obtain a resident or temporary entry visa. The significant lack of literature on this topic suggests that the lack of visa options for Convention Refugees in New Zealand is a widely unknown or unacknowledged issue. Refugees in New Zealand enjoy the right of non-refoulement contained in Article 33 of the Refugee Convention 1951, whether lawful or unlawful. However, a number of rights contained in the Refugee Convention 1951, such as the right to gainful employment and social security, are limited to refugees who maintain lawful immigration status. If a Convention Refugee is denied a resident visa, the only temporary entry visa a Convention Refugee can apply for in New Zealand is discretionary. The appeal cases heard at the Immigration Protection Tribunal establish that Immigration New Zealand has declined resident and discretionary temporary entry visa applications by Convention Refugees for failing to meet the health or character immigration instructions. The inability of a Convention Refugee to gain residency in New Zealand creates a dependence on the issue of discretionary temporary entry visas to maintain lawful status. The appeal cases record that this reliance has led to Convention Refugees' lawful immigration status being in question, temporarily depriving them of the rights contained in the Refugee Convention 1951 of lawful refugees. In one case, the process of applying for a discretionary temporary entry visa led to a lawful Convention Refugee being temporarily deprived of the right to social security, breaching Article 24 of the Refugee Convention 1951. The judiciary has stated a constant reliance on the issue of discretionary temporary entry visas for Convention Refugees can lead to a breach of New Zealand's international obligations under Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The appeal cases suggest that, despite successful judicial proceedings, at least three persons have been made to rely on the issue of discretionary temporary entry visas potentially indefinitely. The appeal cases establish that a Convention Refugee can be denied a discretionary temporary entry visa and become unlawful. Unlawful status could ultimately breach New Zealand's obligations under Article 33 of the Refugee Convention 1951 as it would procedurally deny Convention Refugees asylum. It would force them to choose between the right of non-refoulement or leaving New Zealand to seek the ability to access all the human rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights elsewhere. This paper discusses how the current system has given rise to these breaches and emphasizes a need to create a designated temporary entry visa category for Convention Refugees.

Keywords: domestic policy, immigration, migration, New Zealand

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Authors: Sudeshna Chandra, Christian Gäbler, Christian Schliebe, Heinrich Lang

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Highly branched dendrimers provide structural homogeneity, controlled composition, comparable size to biomolecules, internal porosity and multiple functional groups for conjugating reactions. Electro-active dendrimers containing multiple redox units have generated great interest in their use as electrode modifiers for development of biosensors. The electron transfer between the redox-active dendrimers and the biomolecules play a key role in developing a biosensor. Ferrocenes have multiple and electrochemically equivalent redox units that can act as electron “pool” in a system. The ferrocenyl-terminated polyamidoamine dendrimer is capable of transferring multiple numbers of electrons under the same applied potential. Therefore, they can be used for dual purposes: one in building a film over the electrode for immunosensors and the other for immobilizing biomolecules for sensing. Electrochemical immunosensor, thus developed, exhibit fast and sensitive analysis, inexpensive and involve no prior sample pre-treatment. Electrochemical amperometric immunosensors are even more promising because they can achieve a very low detection limit with high sensitivity. Detection of the cancer biomarkers at an early stage can provide crucial information for foundational research of life science, clinical diagnosis and prevention of disease. Elevated concentration of biomarkers in body fluid is an early indication of some type of cancerous disease and among all the biomarkers, IgG is the most common and extensively used clinical cancer biomarkers. We present an IgG (=immunoglobulin) electrochemical immunosensor using a newly synthesized redox-active ferrocenyl dendrimer of generation 2 (G2Fc) as glassy carbon electrode material for immobilizing the antibody. The electrochemical performance of the modified electrodes was assessed in both aqueous and non-aqueous media using varying scan rates to elucidate the reaction mechanism. The potential shift was found to be higher in an aqueous electrolyte due to presence of more H-bond which reduced the electrostatic attraction within the amido groups of the dendrimers. The cyclic voltammetric studies of the G2Fc-modified GCE in 0.1 M PBS solution of pH 7.2 showed a pair of well-defined redox peaks. The peak current decreased significantly with the immobilization of the anti-goat IgG. After the immunosensor is blocked with BSA, a further decrease in the peak current was observed due to the attachment of the protein BSA to the immunosensor. A significant decrease in the current signal of the BSA/anti-IgG/G2Fc/GCE was observed upon immobilizing IgG which may be due to the formation of immune-conjugates that blocks the tunneling of mass and electron transfer. The current signal was found to be directly related to the amount of IgG captured on the electrode surface. With increase in the concentration of IgG, there is a formation of an increasing amount of immune-conjugates that decreased the peak current. The incubation time and concentration of the antibody was optimized for better analytical performance of the immunosensor. The developed amperometric immunosensor is sensitive to IgG concentration as low as 2 ng/mL. Tailoring of redox-active dendrimers provides enhanced electroactivity to the system and enlarges the sensor surface for binding the antibodies. It may be assumed that both electron transfer and diffusion contribute to the signal transformation between the dendrimers and the antibody.

Keywords: ferrocenyl dendrimers, electrochemical immunosensors, immunoglobulin, amperometry

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Authors: Anderson Braga Mendes

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Itaipu Hydroelectric Power Plant is settled on the Paraná River, which is a natural boundary between Brazil and Paraguay; thus, the facility is shared by both countries. Itaipu Power Plant is the biggest hydroelectric generator in the world, and provides clean and renewable electrical energy supply for 17% and 76% of Brazil and Paraguay, respectively. The plant started its generation in 1984. It counts on 20 Francis turbines and has installed capacity of 14,000 MWh. Its historic generation record occurred in 2016 (103,098,366 MWh), and since the beginning of its operation until the last day of 2016 the plant has achieved the sum of 2,415,789,823 MWh. The distinct sedimentologic aspects of the drainage area of Itaipu Power Plant, from its stretch upstream (Porto Primavera and Rosana dams) to downstream (Itaipu dam itself), were taken into account in order to best estimate the increase/decrease in the sediment yield by using data from 2001 to 2016. Such data are collected through a network of 14 automatic sedimentometric stations managed by the company itself and operating in an hourly basis, covering an area of around 136,000 km² (92% of the incremental drainage area of the undertaking). Since 1972, a series of lifespan studies for the Itaipu Power Plant have been made, being first assessed by Sir Hans Albert Einstein, at the time of the feasibility studies for the enterprise. From that date onwards, eight further studies were made through the last 44 years aiming to confer more precision upon the estimates based on more updated data sets. From the analysis of each monitoring station, it was clearly noticed strong increase tendencies in the sediment yield through the last 14 years, mainly in the Iguatemi, Ivaí, São Francisco Falso and Carapá Rivers, the latter situated in Paraguay, whereas the others are utterly in Brazilian territory. Five lifespan scenarios considering different sediment yield tendencies were simulated with the aid of the softwares SEDIMENT and DPOSIT, both developed by the author of the present work. Such softwares thoroughly follow the Borland & Miller methodology (empirical method of area-reduction). The soundest scenario out of the five ones under analysis indicated a lifespan foresight of 168 years, being the reservoir only 1.8% silted by the end of 2016, after 32 years of operation. Besides, the mass balance in the reservoir (water inflows minus outflows) between 1986 and 2016 shows that 2% of the whole Itaipu lake is silted nowadays. Owing to the convergence of both results, which were acquired by using different methodologies and independent input data, it is worth concluding that the mathematical modeling is satisfactory and calibrated, thus assigning credibility to this most recent lifespan estimate.

Keywords: Borland and Miller method, hydroelectricity, Itaipu Power Plant, lifespan, mass balance

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Authors: Dr. Jenit Gandhi, Dr. Manojith SS, Dr. Nakul GV, Dr. Sharath Honnani, Dr. Shaurav Ghosh, Dr. Neel Shetty, Dr. Nagabhushan JS, Dr. Manish Joshi

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Introduction: Acute pancreatitis is an inflammatory condition of the pancreas which begins in pancreatic acinar cells and triggers local inflammation that may progress to systemic inflammatory response (SIRS) and causing distant organ involvement and its function and ending up with multiple organ dysfunction syndromes (MODS). Aim: A comparative study in acute pancreatitis to find out the effectiveness of early addition of Ulinastatin to current standard care in Indian subjects . Methodology: A current prospective observational study is done during study period of 1year (Dec 2018 –Dec 2019) duration to evaluate the effect of early addition of Ulinastatin to the current standard treatment and its efficacy to reduce the early complication, analgesic requirement and duration of hospital stay in patients with Acute Pancreatitis. Results: In the control group 25 were males and 05 were females. In the test group 18 were males and 12 females. Majority was in the age group between 30 - 70 yrs of age with >50% in the 30-50yrs age group in both test and control groups. The VAS was median grade 3 in control group as compared to median grade 2 in test group , the pain was more in the initial 2 days in test group compared to 4 days in test group , the analgesic requirement was used for more in control group (median 6) to test group( median 3 days ). On follow up after 5 days for a period of 2 weeks none of the patients in the test group developed any complication. Where as in the control group 8 patients developed pleural effusion, 04-Pseudopancreatic cyst, 02 – patient developed portal vein and splenic vein thrombosis, 02 patients – ventilator with ARDS which were treated symptomatically whereas in test group 02 patient developed pleural effusions and 01 pseudo pancreatic cyst with splenic artery aneurysm, 01 – patient with AKI and MODS symptomatically treated. The duration of hospital stay for a median period of 4 days (2 – 7 days) in test group and 7 days (4 -10 days) in control group. All patients were able to return to normal work on an average of 5days compared 8days in control group, the difference was significant. Conclusion:The study concluded that early addition of Ulinastatin to current standard treatment of acute Pancreatitis is effective in reducing pain, early complication and duration of hospital stay in Indian subject

Keywords: Ulinastatin, VAS – visual analogue score , AKI – acute kidney injury , ARDS – acute respiratory distress syndrome

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Authors: Mehrnaz Mostafavi

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Recent advances in single-molecule protein identification (ID) and quantification techniques are poised to revolutionize proteomics, enabling researchers to delve into single-cell proteomics and identify low-abundance proteins crucial for biomedical and clinical research. This paper introduces a different approach to single-molecule protein ID and quantification using tri-color amino acid tags and a plasmonic nanopore device. A comprehensive simulator incorporating various physical phenomena was designed to predict and model the device's behavior under diverse experimental conditions, providing insights into its feasibility and limitations. The study employs a whole-proteome single-molecule identification algorithm based on convolutional neural networks, achieving high accuracies (>90%), particularly in challenging conditions (95–97%). To address potential challenges in clinical samples, where post-translational modifications affecting labeling efficiency, the paper evaluates protein identification accuracy under partial labeling conditions. Solid-state nanopores, capable of processing tens of individual proteins per second, are explored as a platform for this method. Unlike techniques relying solely on ion-current measurements, this approach enables parallel readout using high-density nanopore arrays and multi-pixel single-photon sensors. Convolutional neural networks contribute to the method's versatility and robustness, simplifying calibration procedures and potentially allowing protein ID based on partial reads. The study also discusses the efficacy of the approach in real experimental conditions, resolving functionally similar proteins. The theoretical analysis, protein labeler program, finite difference time domain calculation of plasmonic fields, and simulation of nanopore-based optical sensing are detailed in the methods section. The study anticipates further exploration of temporal distributions of protein translocation dwell-times and the impact on convolutional neural network identification accuracy. Overall, the research presents a promising avenue for advancing single-molecule protein identification and quantification with broad applications in proteomics research. The contributions made in methodology, accuracy, robustness, and technological exploration collectively position this work at the forefront of transformative developments in the field.

Keywords: nano proteomics, nanopore-based optical sensing, deep learning, artificial intelligence

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Authors: Yaser Ghasemi Aryan, Firoozeh Moghiminejad, Mohammadreza Shahraki

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Background: The cooperative institution is considered the first and most essential pillar of strengthening social capital, whose sustainability is the main guarantee of survival and continued participation of local communities in natural resource management projects. The Village Development Group and the Microcredit Fund are two important social and economic institutions in the implementation of the International Project for the Restoration of Degraded Forest Lands (RFLDL) in Sarayan City, South Khorasan Province, which has learned positive lessons from the participation of the beneficiaries in the implementation. They have brought more effective projects to deal with desertification. However, the low activity or liquidation of some of these institutions has become one of the important challenges and concerns of project executive experts. The current research was carried out with the aim of explaining the main components of the instability of these institutions. Materials and Methods: This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of method, practical in terms of purpose, and the method of collecting information is two documentary and survey methods. The statistical population of the research included all the members of the village development groups and microcredit funds in the target villages of the RFLDL project of Sarayan city, based on the Kochran formula and matching with the Karjesi and Morgan table. Net people were selected as a statistical sample. After confirming the validity of the expert's opinions, the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83, which shows the appropriate reliability of the researcher-made questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS software. Results: The results related to the extraction of obstacles to the stability of social and economic networks were classified and prioritized in the form of 5 groups of social-cultural, economic, administrative, educational-promotional and policy-management factors. Based on this, in the socio-cultural factors, the items ‘not paying attention to the structural characteristics and composition of groups’, ‘lack of commitment and moral responsibility in some members of the group,’ and ‘lack of a clear pattern for the preservation and survival of groups’, in the disciplinary factors, The items ‘Irregularity in holding group meetings’ and ‘Irregularity of members to participate in meetings’, in the economic factors of the items "small financial capital of the fund’, ‘the low amount of loans of the fund’ and ‘the fund's inability to conclude contracts and attract capital from other sources’, in the educational-promotional factors of the items ‘non-simultaneity of job training with the granting of loans to create jobs’ and ‘insufficient training for the effective use of loans and job creation’ and in the policy-management factors of the item ‘failure to provide government facilities for support From the funds, they had the highest priority. Conclusion: In general, the results of this research show that policy-management factors and social factors, especially the structure and composition of social and economic institutions, are the most important obstacles to their sustainability. Therefore, it is suggested to form cooperative institutions based on network analysis studies in order to achieve the appropriate composition of members.

Keywords: cooperative institution, social capital, network analysis, participation, Sarayan.

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