Search results for: personal behavior

Authors: G. Aloh Obianuju, C. Chukwu Kelvin, Henry Aloh

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The study was undertaken to assess the environmental and socio-economic impact of quarrying in Umuoghara quarrying community of Ebonyi State, South East Nigeria. Questionnaires were distributed targeting quarry workers and people living within the community; personal interviews with other key informants were also conducted. All these were used as data gathering instruments. The study reveals that there were actually some benefits as well as marked environmental impacts in the community as a result of quarrying activities. Recommendations that can assist in mitigating these adverse impacts were suggested.

Keywords: environment, quarrying, environmental degradation, mitigation

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Authors: Hina Abdul Majeed

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The story has a powerful impact on the human mind of all age groups. There are various ways to tell stories; one of the forms is digital storytelling. Digital storytelling is getting popular nowadays; it mainly catalyzes a child's holistic development in the early years. Thus, this study's primary purpose is to explore parents' perception of the impact of digital storytelling on developing children's moral values and the change that occurs in child's moral behavior and attitude using the digital storytelling tool. Literature was reviewed by exploring the recent studies on digital stories and their impact on child's development. This study was based on a mixed-method approach, considering qualitative and quantitative research designs. The population for this study included parents of early years children who resided in Karachi. However, parents of two to six years old children were targeted as samples by selecting using a purposive sample method. Thus, 100 parents were chosen for the quantitative survey, and five parents were interviewed to collect qualitative data. Questionnaires were developed for collecting data from parents through surveys and interviews. The SPSS was used to analyze the quantitative data, and the parents' responses collected during discussions were presented in narrative form. The findings show that the impact of digital storytelling, in most parents' opinion, is positive in inculcating moral values in their children. Moreover, parents also endorse the changes in child's behavior and attitude due to digital stories.

Keywords: digital storytelling, moral development, early years, parents

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Authors: Jaan-Willem Simon, Bertram Stier, Brett Bednarcyk, Evan Pineda, Stefanie Reese

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Textile composites, in which the reinforcing fibers are woven or braided, have become very popular in numerous applications in aerospace, automotive, and maritime industry. These textile composites are advantageous due to their ease of manufacture, damage tolerance, and relatively low cost. However, physics-based modeling of the mechanical behavior of textile composites is challenging. Compared to their unidirectional counterparts, textile composites introduce additional geometric complexities, which cause significant local stress and strain concentrations. Since these internal concentrations are primary drivers of nonlinearity, damage, and failure within textile composites, they must be taken into account in order for the models to be predictive. The macro-scale approach to modeling textile-reinforced composites treats the whole composite as an effective, homogenized material. This approach is very computationally efficient, but it cannot be considered predictive beyond the elastic regime because the complex microstructural geometry is not considered. Further, this approach can, at best, offer a phenomenological treatment of nonlinear deformation and failure. In contrast, the mesoscale approach to modeling textile composites explicitly considers the internal geometry of the reinforcing tows, and thus, their interaction, and the effects of their curved paths can be modeled. The tows are treated as effective (homogenized) materials, requiring the use of anisotropic material models to capture their behavior. Finally, the micro-scale approach goes one level lower, modeling the individual filaments that constitute the tows. This paper will compare meso- and micro-scale approaches to modeling the deformation, damage, and failure of textile-reinforced polymer matrix composites. For the mesoscale approach, the woven composite architecture will be modeled using the finite element method, and an anisotropic damage model for the tows will be employed to capture the local nonlinear behavior. For the micro-scale, two different models will be used, the one being based on the finite element method, whereas the other one makes use of an embedded semi-analytical approach. The goal will be the comparison and evaluation of these approaches to modeling textile-reinforced composites in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and utility.

Keywords: multiscale modeling, continuum damage model, damage interaction, textile composites

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Authors: Divya P. Soman, S. Karthika, P. Kalaichelvi, T. K. Radhakrishnan

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Heat transfer characteristics of ionic liquid solution as cold fluid in plate heat exchanger with dimple plate geometry was studied. The ionic liquid solution used in this study was 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide in water. The present experimental study is to understand the heat transfer behavior of different 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide concentrations (0.1 and 0.2% w/w) in water. In addition, the heat transfer activity of ionanofluid as cold fluid was investigated. The ionanofluid was prepared by dispersing 0.3% w/w Al2O3 in the ionic liquid solution as base fluid. Experiments were also conducted to determine thermophysical properties of ionanofluid. The empirical correlations as a function of temperature were developed to predict the thermophysical properties. Finally, the heat transfer performance of ionic liquid solution, ionanofluid, nanofluid and water were compared. The impact of hot fluid’s (water) Reynolds number on overall heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number of cold fluids were analyzed. The nanofluid and ionanofluid were found to possess better heat transfer behavior than water and ionic liquid solution. Heat transfer augmentation was observed for ionanofluid when compared with the base fluid (0.1% w/w ionic liquid solution).

Keywords: ionic liquid, nanofluid, ionanofluid, dimple plate heat exchanger, Nusselt number, overall heat transfer coefficient

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Authors: Hamilton V. Niculescu

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This paper discusses findings relating to people's engagement with mobile communication technologies and remote automated systems. This interdisciplinary study employs a constructivist grounded theory methodology, with qualitative data that was generated following in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 people living in Ireland being corroborated with participants' observations and quantitative data. Additional data was collected following participants' remote interaction with six custom-built automated enclosures, located at six different sites around Dublin, Republic of Ireland. This paper argues that ownership and education play a vital role in people engaging with and adoption of new technologies. Analysis of participants' behavior and attitude towards Information Communication Technologies (ICT) suggests that innovations do not always improve peoples' social inclusion. Technological innovations are sometimes perceived as destroying communities and create a dysfunctional society. Moreover, the findings indicate that a lack of public information and support from Irish governmental institutions, as well as limited off-the-shelves availability, has led to low trust and adoption of renewable technologies. A limited variation in participants' behavior and interaction patterns with technologies was observed during the study. This suggests that people will eventually adopt new technologies according to their needs and experience, even though they initially rejected the idea of changing their lifestyle.

Keywords: automation, communication, ICT, renewables

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Authors: Catherine S. Fichten, Tali Heiman, Mary Jorgensen, Mai Nhu Nguyen, Rhonda Amsel, Dorit Olenik-Shemesh

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The study examined Canadian and Israeli students' perceptions related to their intention to graduate from their program of studies. Canada and Israel are dissimilar in many ways that affect education, including language and alphabet. In addition, the postsecondary education systems differ. For example, in some parts of Canada (e.g., in Quebec, Canada’s 2nd largest province), students matriculate after 11 years of high school; in Israel, this typically occurs after 12 years. In addition, Quebec students attend two compulsory years of junior college before enrolling in a three-year university Bachelor program; in Israel students enroll in a three-year Bachelor program directly after matriculation. In addition, Israeli students typically enroll in the army shortly after high school graduation; in Canada, this is not the case. What the two countries do have in common is concern about the success of postsecondary students with disabilities. The present study was based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB); the model suggests that behavior is influenced by Intention to carry it out. This, in turn, is predicted by the following correlated variables: Perceived Behavioral Control (i.e., ease or difficulty enacting the behavior - in this case graduation), Subjective Norms (i.e., perceived social/peer pressure from individuals important in the student’s life), and Attitude (i.e., positive or negative evaluation of graduation). A questionnaire was developed to test the TPB in previous Canadian studies and administered to 845 Canadian college students (755 nondisabled, 90 with LD/ADHD) who had completed at least one semester of studies) and to 660 Israeli university students enrolled in a Bachelor’s program (537 nondisabled, 123 with LD/ADHD). Because Israeli students were older than Canadian students we covaried age in SPSS-based ANOVA comparisons and included it in regression equations. Because females typically have better academic outcomes than males, gender was included in all analyses. ANOVA results indicate only a significant gender effect for Intention to graduate, with females having higher scores. Four stepwise regressions were conducted, with Intention to graduate as the predicted variable, and Gender and the three TPB predictors as independent variables (separate analyses for Israeli and Canadian samples with and without LD/ADHD). Results show that for samples with LD/ADHD, although Gender and Age were not significant predictors, the TPB predictors were, with all three TPB predictors being significant for the Canadian sample (i.e., Perceived Behavioral Control, Subjective Norms, Attitude, R2=.595), and two of the three (i.e., Perceived Behavioral Control, Subjective Norms) for the Israeli sample (R2=.528). For nondisabled students, the results for both countries show that all three TPB predictors were significant along with Gender: R2=.443 for Canada and R2=.332 for Israel; age was not significant. Our findings show that despite vast differences between our Canadian and Israeli samples, Intention to graduate was related to the three TPB predictors. This suggests that our TPB measure is valid for diverse samples and countries that it can be used as a quick, inexpensive way to predict graduation rates, and that strengthening the three predictor variables may result in higher graduation rates.

Keywords: disability, higher education, students, theory of planned behavior

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Authors: Rehab Mahmoud El Sayed, Toka Fahmy Nasr, Dalia M. Rasmi

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Environmental psychology studies the interaction between the user and the environment. This field is crucial in understanding how the built environment affects human behaviour, moods and feelings. Studying and understanding the aspects and influences of environmental psychology is a crucial key to investigating how the design can influence human behaviour to be environmentally friendly. This is known as pro-environmental behaviour where human actions are sustainable and impacts the environment positively. Accordingly, this paper aims to explore the impact of built environment design on environmental psychology to foster pro-environmental behaviour in university campus open spaces. In order to achieve this, an exploratory research method was conducted where a detailed study of the influences of environmental psychology was done and clarified its elements. Moreover, investigating the impact of design elements on human psychology took place. Besides, an empirical study of the outdoor spaces of the British University in Egypt occurred and a survey for students and staff was distributed. The research concluded that the four main psychological aspects are mostly influenced by the following design elements colours, lighting and thermal comfort respectively. Additionally, focusing on these design elements in the design process will create a sustainable environment. As a consequence, the pro-environmental behaviour of the user will be fostered.

Keywords: environmental psychology, pro-environmental behavior, sustainable environment, psychological influences

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Authors: Mustapha Sadouk

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This study investigates the sensitivity of high-frequency acoustic parameters in a rigid air-saturated porous bilayer material within the framework of the equivalent fluid theory, a specific case of the Biot model. The study specifically focuses on the sensitivity analysis in the frequency domain. The interaction between the fluid and solid phases of the porous medium incorporates visco-inertial and thermal exchange, characterized by two functions: the dynamic tortuosity α(ω) proposed by Johnson et al. and the dynamic compressibility β(ω) proposed by Allard, refined by Sadouki for the low-frequency domain of ultrasound. The parameters under investigation encompass porosity, tortuosity, viscous characteristic length, thermal characteristic length, as well as viscous and thermal shape factors. A +30% variation in these parameters is considered to assess their impact on the transmitted wave amplitudes. By employing this larger variation, a more comprehensive understanding of the sensitivity of these parameters is obtained. The outcomes of this study contribute to a better comprehension of the high-frequency wave behavior in porous bilayer materials, providing valuable insights for the design and optimization of such materials across various applications.

Keywords: bilayer materials, ultrasound, sensitivity analysis, equivalent fluid theory, dynamic tortuosity., porous material

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Authors: Jana Petru, Marie Kudrnova

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The use of technologies working with molten salts is conditioned by finding suitable construction materials that must meet several demanding criteria. In addition to temperature resistance, materials must also show corrosion resistance to salts; they must meet mechanical requirements and other requirements according to the area of use – for example, radiation resistance in Molten Salt Reactors. The present text describes an experimental device for studying the corrosion resistance of candidate materials in molten mixtures of salts and is a partial task of the international project ADAR, dealing with the evaluation of advanced nuclear reactors based on molten salts. The design of the device is based on a test exposure of Inconel 625 in the mixture of salts Hitec in a high temperature tube furnace. The result of the pre-exposure is, in addition to the metallographic evaluation of the behavior of material 625 in the mixture of nitrate salts, mainly a list of operational and construction problems that were essential for the construction of the new experimental equipment. The main output is a scheme of a newly designed gas-tight experimental apparatus capable of operating in an inert argon atmosphere, temperature up to 600 °C, pressure 3 bar, in the presence of a corrosive salt environment, with an exposure time of hundreds of hours. This device will enable the study of promising construction materials for nuclear energy.

Keywords: corrosion, experimental device, molten salt, steel

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Authors: Mahdi Kazemi

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Today's performances on Piano Forte or Fortepiano are cheerful, musical, expressive, and at the same time informative. AlterMuskie is an exciting and richly drawn magazine that is unmatched in its field. First published in 1973, it is a magazine for anyone interested in early music and its contemporary interpretation. Alexander Scriabin's (1871_1915) work has traditionally focused on his music in the mid and late 1902s. The discussion of his personal philosophy and his influence on music also focuses on these two periods. Over the last few decades, the repertoire of British classical solo pianos has received increasing interest from researchers. From the piano rolls of the early 20th century, much can be inferred about the practice of romantic piano playing. Summary Haydn's most important piano works are the sonatas, which generally represent Haydn's development as a composer from the early to the last three sonata dates, 1794.

Keywords: piano, classic piano, performance, music

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Authors: S. H. Abo Sabah, A. B. H. Kueh, M. A. Megat Johari, T. A. Majid

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In a recent study, a new bio-inspired honeycomb sandwich beam (BHSB) mimicking the head configuration of the woodpecker was developed. The beam consists of two carbon/epoxy composite face sheets, aluminum honeycomb core, and rubber core to enhance the repeated low-velocity impact resistance of sandwich structures. This paper aims to numerically enhance the repeated low-velocity impact resistance of the BHSB via optimizing the aluminum honeycomb core thickness. The beam was investigated employing three core thicknesses: 20 mm, 25 mm, and 30 mm at three impact energy levels (13.5 J, 15.55 J, 21.43 J). The results revealed that increasing the thickness of the aluminum honeycomb core to a certain level enhances the sandwich beam stiffness. The beam with the 25 mm honeycomb core thickness was the only beam that can sustain five repeated impacts achieving the highest impact resistance efficiency index, especially at high energy levels. Furthermore, the bottom face sheet of this beam developed the lowest stresses indicating that this thickness has a relatively better performance during impact events since it allowed minimal stress to reach the bottom face sheet. Overall, increasing the aluminum core thickness will increase the height of its cells subjecting it to buckling phenomenon. Therefore, this study suggests that the optimal thickness of the aluminum honeycomb core should be 65 % of the overall thickness of the sandwich beam to have the best impact resistance.

Keywords: sandwich beams, core thickness, impact behavior, finite element analysis, modeling

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Authors: Dwipa Rizki Utama, Hanief Ibrahim

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The development of industry retail in Indonesia is very fast, various strategy was undertaken to boost the customer satisfaction and the productivity purchases to boost the profit, one of which is implementing strategies layout. The purpose of this study is to determine the layout of Qita supermarket, a retail industry in Indonesia, in order to improve customer satisfaction and to maximize the rate of products’ sale as a whole, so as the infrequently purchased products will be purchased. This research uses a literature study method, and one of the data mining methods is association rule which applied in market basket analysis. Data were tested amounted 100 from 160 after pre-processing data, so then the distribution department and 26 departments corresponding to the data previous layout will be obtained. From those data, by the association rule method, customer behavior when purchasing items simultaneously can be studied, so then the layout of the supermarket based on customer behavior can be determined. Using the rapid miner software by the minimal support 25% and minimal confidence 30% showed that the 14th department purchased at the same time with department 10, 21st department purchased at the same time with department 13, 15th department purchased at the same time with department 12, 14th department purchased at the same time with department 12, and 10th department purchased at the same time with department 14. From those results, a better supermarket layout can be arranged than the previous layout.

Keywords: industry retail, strategy, association rule, supermarket

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Authors: Dhanesh Sing Das, Bharat Tadikonda Venkata

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Collapsible soils undergo significant volume reduction upon wetting under the pre-existing mechanically applied normal stress (inundation pressure). These soils exhibit a very high strength in air-dried conditions and can carry up to a considerable magnitude of normal stress without undergoing significant volume change. The soil strength is, however, lost upon saturation and results in a sudden collapse of the soil structure under the existing mechanical stress condition. The intrusion of water into the dry deposits of such soil causes ground subsidence leading to damages in the overlying buildings/structures. A study on the wetting-induced volume change behavior of collapsible soils is essential in dealing with the ground subsidence problems in various geotechnical engineering practices. The collapse of loosely compacted Kaolin soil upon wetting under various inundation pressures has been reported in recent studies. The collapse in the Kaolin soil is attributed to the alteration in the soil particle-particle association (fabric) resulting due to the changes in the various inter-particle (microscale) forces induced by the water saturation. The inundation pressure plays a significant role in the fabric evolution during the wetting process, thus controls the collapse potential of the compacted soil. A microstructural study is useful to understand the collapse mechanisms at various pore-fabric levels under different inundation pressure. Kaolin soil compacted to a dry density of 1.25 g/cc was used in this work to study the wetting-induced volume change behavior under different inundation pressures in the range of 10-1600 kPa. The compacted specimen of Kaolin soil exhibited a consistent collapse under all the studied inundation pressure. The collapse potential was observed to be increasing with an increase in the inundation pressure up to a maximum value of 13.85% under 800 kPa and then decreased to 11.7% under 1600 kPa. Microstructural analysis was carried out based on the fabric images and the pore size distributions (PSDs) obtained from FESEM analysis and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), respectively. The PSDs and the soil fabric images of ‘as-compacted’ specimen and post-collapse specimen under 400 kPa were analyzed to understand the changes in the soil fabric and pores due to wetting. The pore size density curve for the post-collapse specimen was found to be on the finer side with respect to the ‘as-compacted’ specimen, indicating the reduction of the larger pores during the collapse. The inter-aggregate pores in the range of 0.1-0.5μm were identified as the major contributing pore size classes to the macroscopic volume change. Wetting under an inundation pressure results in the reduction of these pore sizes and lead to an increase in the finer pore sizes. The magnitude of inundation pressure influences the amount of reduction of these pores during the wetting process. The collapse potential was directly related to the degree of reduction in the pore volume contributed by these pore sizes.

Keywords: collapse behavior, inundation pressure, kaolin, microstructure

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Authors: Gulay Oncu Ince, Sibel Karakaya

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Food is a worldwide concern. Among the factors that have influences on human health, food, nutrition and life style have been regarded as the most important factors since they can be intervened. While some parts of the world has been faced with food shortages and hence, chronic metabolic diseases, the other part of the world have been emerged from over consumption of food. Both situations can result in shorter life expectancy and represent a major global health problem. Hunger, satiety and appetite sensation form a balance ensures the operation of feeding behavior between food intake and energy consumption. Satiety is one of the approaches that is effective in ensuring weight control and avoid eating more in the postprandial period. By manipulating the microstructure of food macro and micronutrient bioavailability may be increased or reduced. For the food industry appearance, texture, taste structural properties as well as the gastrointestinal tract behavior of the food after the consumption is becoming increasingly important. Also, this behavior has been the subject of several researches in recent years by the scientific community. Numerous studies have been published about changing the food matrix in order to increase expected impacts. In this study, yogurts were enriched with caseinomacropeptide (CMP), whey protein (WP), CMP and sodium alginate (SA), and WP + SA in order to produce goat yogurts having different food matrices. SDS Page profiles of the samples after in vitro digestion and viscosities of the stomach digesta at different share rates were determined. Energy values were 62.11kcal/100 g, 70.27 kcal/100 g, 70.61 kcal/100 g, 71.20 kcal/100 g and 71.67 kcal/100 g for control, CMP added WP added, WP + SA added, and CMP + SA added yogurts respectively. The results of viscosity analysis showed that control yogurt had the lowest viscosity value and this was followed by CMP added, WP added, CMP + SA added and WP + SA added yogurts, respectively. Protein contents of the stomach and duedonal digests of the samples after subjected to two different in vitro digestion methods were changed between 5.34-5.91 mg protein / g sample and 16.93-19.75 mg protein /g of sample, respectively. Viscosity measurements of the stomach digests showed that CMP + SA added yogurt displayed the highest viscosity value in both in vitro digestion methods. There were differences between the protein profiles of the stomach and duedonal digests obtained by two different in vitro digestion methods (p<0.05).

Keywords: caseinomacropeptide, protein profile, whey protein, yogurt

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Authors: Mehdi Modabberifar, Milad Roodi, Ehsan Souri

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In recent years, honeycomb fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) sandwich panels have been increasingly used in various industries. Low weight, low price, and high mechanical strength are the benefits of these structures. However, their mechanical properties and behavior have not been fully explored. The objective of this study is to conduct a combined numerical-statistical investigation of honeycomb FRP sandwich beams subject to torsion load. In this paper, the effect of geometric parameters of the sandwich panel on the maximum shear strain in both face and core and angle of torsion in a honeycomb FRP sandwich structures in torsion is investigated. The effect of Parameters including core thickness, face skin thickness, cell shape, cell size, and cell thickness on mechanical behavior of the structure were numerically investigated. Main effects of factors were considered in this paper and regression equations were derived. Taguchi method was employed as experimental design and an optimum parameter combination for the maximum structure stiffness has been obtained. The results showed that cell size and face skin thickness have the most significant impacts on torsion angle, maximum shear strain in face and core.

Keywords: finite element, honeycomb FRP sandwich panel, torsion, civil engineering

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Authors: Barbara Rebecca Mutonyi, Chukwuemeka Echebiri, Terje Slåtten, Gudbrand Lien

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The concept of affective commitment to change has been scarcely explored among employees in the higher education literature. The present study addresses this knowledge gap in the literature by examining how various psychological factors, such as psychological empowerment (PsyEmp), and psychological capital (PsyCap), promotes affective commitment to change. As affective commitment to change has been identified by previous studies as an important aspect to implementation behavior, the study examines the correlation of affective commitment to change on employee innovative behavior (EIB) in higher education. The study proposes mediation relationship between PsyEmp, PsyCap, and affective commitment to change. 250 employees in higher education in Norway were sampled for this study. The study employed online survey for data collection, utilizing Stata software to perform Partial least square equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses of the study. Through bootstrapping, the study was able to test for mediating effects. Findings of the study shows a strong direct relationship between the leadership factor PsyEmp on the individual factor PsyCap ( = 0.453). In addition, the findings of the study reveal that both PsyEmp and PsyCap are related to affective commitment to change ( = 0.28 and  = 0.249, respectively). In total, PsyEmp and PsyCap explains about 10% of the variance in the concept of affective commitment to change. Further, the direct effect of effective commitment to change and EIB is also supported ( = 0.183). The three factors, PsyEmp, PsyCap, and affective commitment to change, explains nearly 40% (R2 = 0.39) of the variance found in EIB. The relationship between PsyEmp, PsyCap, and affective commitment to change are mediated through the individual factor PsyCap. In order to effectively promote affective commitment to change among higher education employees, higher education managers should focus on both the leadership factor, PsyEmp, as well as the individual factor, PsyCap, of their employees. In this regard, higher education managers should strengthen employees EIB through providing autonomy, creating a safe environment that encourages innovation thinking and action, and providing employees in higher education opportunities to be involved in changes occurring at work. This contributes to strengthening employees´ affective commitment to change, that further improves their EIB in their work roles as higher education employees. As such, the results of this study implicate the ambidextrous nature of the concepts of affective commitment to change and EIB that should be considered in future studies of innovation in higher education research.

Keywords: affective commitment to change, psychological capital, innovative behavior, psychological empowerment, higher education

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Authors: Sara T. K. Li, Belinda H. J. Chung, Jeffery C. N. Yip, Janet H. Hsiao

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Music notation and text reading both involve statistical learning of music or linguistic structures. However, it remains unclear how music reading expertise influences text reading behavior. The present study examined this issue through an eye-tracking study. Chinese-English bilingual musicians and non-musicians read English sentences, Chinese sentences, musical phrases, and sentences in Tibetan, a language novel to the participants, with their eye movement recorded. Each set of stimuli consisted of two conditions in terms of structural regularity: syntactically correct and syntactically incorrect musical phrases/sentences. They then completed a sentence comprehension (for syntactically correct sentences) or a musical segment/word recognition task afterwards to test their comprehension/recognition abilities. The results showed that in reading musical phrases, as compared with non-musicians, musicians had a higher accuracy in the recognition task, and had shorter reading time, fewer fixations, and shorter fixation duration when reading syntactically correct (i.e., in diatonic key) than incorrect (i.e., in non-diatonic key/atonal) musical phrases. This result reflects their expertise in music reading. Interestingly, in reading Tibetan sentences, which was novel to both participant groups, while non-musicians did not show any behavior differences between reading syntactically correct or incorrect Tibetan sentences, musicians showed a shorter reading time and had marginally fewer fixations when reading syntactically correct sentences than syntactically incorrect ones. However, none of the musicians reported discovering any structural regularities in the Tibetan stimuli after the experiment when being asked explicitly, suggesting that they may have implicitly acquired the structural regularities in Tibetan sentences. This group difference was not observed when they read English or Chinese sentences. This result suggests that music reading expertise facilities reading texts in a novel language (i.e., Tibetan), but not in languages that the readers are already familiar with (i.e., English and Chinese). This phenomenon may be due to the similarities between reading music notations and reading texts in a novel language, as in both cases the stimuli follow particular statistical structures but do not involve semantic or lexical processing. Thus, musicians may transfer their statistical learning skills stemmed from music notation reading experience to implicitly discover structures of sentences in a novel language. This speculation is consistent with a recent finding showing that music reading expertise modulates the processing of English nonwords (i.e., words that do not follow morphological or orthographic rules) but not pseudo- or real words. These results suggest that the modulation of music reading expertise on language processing depends on the similarities in the cognitive processes involved. It also has important implications for the benefits of music education on language and cognitive development.

Keywords: eye movement behavior, eye-tracking, music reading expertise, sentence reading, structural regularity, visual processing

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Authors: Valeria Corinaldesi, Nicola Generosi, Jacopo Donnini

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Ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) is an innovative material which tends to exhibit superior properties such as incredible mechanical and durability performance and non-brittleness behavior. Over the last twenty years, phenomenal advances have taken place in the research and application of UHPC. Recently, the approach is to improve UHPC sustainability by reducing its embodied energy. First of all, this goal can be achieved by reducing Portland cement dosage. In this work, an experimental investigation was carried out to characterize the mechanical behavior and durability of UHPCs prepared by reducing the cement amount by 30% in order to verify the impact of lower cement content and higher water-to-cement ratio on both mechanical performance and durability, if any. Eight different UHPC mixtures were compared, with two different cement dosages (either 1000 or 700 kg) and four different brass-coated steel fibres dosages (0 - 50 - 100 - 150 kg), in terms of 28-day compressive and flexural strengths. Then, the mixtures prepared with the lower cement content were further investigated in terms of abrasion resistance, water absorption, freezing and thawing cycles, and resistance to sulphate attack. Results obtained showed the feasibility of reducing cement dosage without compromising mechanical performance and UHPC's extraordinary durability.

Keywords: abrasion resistance, durability, eco-efficiency, freeze-thawing cycles, steel fibres, sulphate exposure, sustainability, UHPC

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Authors: Moses Joseph

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Language is a veritable tool in the hands of politicians. They use it to shape social realities; create new meanings and ultimately to acquire, exercise and sustain power in the society. Language and politics both share a symbiotic relationship. The former is the medium through which members of the society communicate and cohabitate while the later is used to gain and exercise power in the society. Language therefore is the epicenter of every human activity and politicians explore, deploy and manipulate it to advance their personal interests. This paper examines the ideological use of language in Okediran’s Tenants of the House. The study further shows that language is used as an instrument of political domination and manipulation through the display of emotiveness. The study concludes that politicians do not innocently use language but deliberately employ them to foreground their ideological position.

Keywords: language, ideology, political domination, manipulation

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Authors: E. Neidhardt

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Mobility is not only an aspect of personal freedom, but for many people mobility is also a requirement to be able to satisfy the needs of daily life. They must buy food, get to work, or go to the doctor. Many people are dependent on public transport to satisfy their needs. Especially in rural areas with a low population density this is difficult. In these areas it is often not cost-effective to provide public transport with sufficient coverage and frequency. Therefore, the available public transport is unattractive. As a result, people use their own car, which is not desirable from a sustainable point of view. Children and some elderly people also do not have this option. Sometimes people organize themselves and volunteer transport services are created, which function similarly to the demand-oriented taxis. With a platform for demand-oriented transport, we want to make the available public transport more usable and attractive by linking scheduled transport with voluntary transport services.

Keywords: demand-oriented, HubChain, living lab, public transport

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Authors: Soowon Park, Min-Ji Kim, Jun-Young Lee

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Motivation: The stigma of mental illness has been studied in many disciplines, including social psychology, counseling psychology, sociology, psychiatry, public health care, and related areas, because individuals labeled as ‘mentally ill’ are often deprived of their rights and their life opportunities. To understand the factors that deepen the stigma of mental illness, it is important to understand the influencing factors of the stigma. Problem statement: Depression is a common disorder in adults, but the incidence of help-seeking is low. Researchers have believed that this poor help-seeking behavior is related to the stigma of mental illness, which results from low mental health literacy. However, it is uncertain that increasing mental health literacy decreases mental health stigmatization. Furthermore, even though decreasing stigmatization is important, the stigma of mental illness is still a stable and long-lasting phenomenon. Thus, factors other than knowledge about mental disorders have the power to maintain the stigma. Investigating the influencing factors that facilitate the stigma of psychiatric disease could help lower the social stigmatization. Approach: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a multi-clustering sample. A total of 700 Korean participants (38% male), ranging in age from 18 to 78 (M(SD)age= 48.5(15.7)) answered demographical questions, Korean version of Link’s Perceived Devaluation and Discrimination (PDD) scale for the assessment of social stigmatization against depression, and the Korean version of the WHO-Composite International Diagnostic Interview for the assessment of mental disorders. Multiple-regression was conducted to find the predicting factors of social stigmatization against depression. Ages, sex, years of education, income, living location, and experience of mental illness were used as the predictors. Results: Predictors accounted for 14% of the variance in the stigma of depressive disorders (F(6, 693) = 20.27, p < .001). Among those, only age, years of education, and experience of mental illness significantly predicted social stigmatization against depression. The standardized regression coefficient of age had a negative association with stigmatization (β = -.20, p < .001), but years of education (β = .20, p < .001) and experience of mental illness (β = .08, p < .05) positively predicted depression stigmatization. Conclusions: The present study clearly demonstrates the association between personal factors and depressive disorder stigmatization. Younger age, more education, and self-stigma appeared to increase the stigmatization. Young, highly educated, and mentally ill people tend to reject patients with depressive disorder as friends, teachers, or babysitters; they also tend to think that those patients have lower intelligence and abilities. These results suggest the possibility that people from a high social class, or highly educated people, who have the power to make decisions, help maintain the social stigma against mental illness patients. To increase the awareness that people from high social classes have more stigmatization against depressive disorders will help decrease the biased attitudes against mentally ill patients.

Keywords: depressive disorder stigmatization, age, education, self-stigma

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Authors: Zeinab Zaremohzzabieh, Syasya Firzana Azmi, Haslinda Abdullah, Soh Kim Geok, Aini Azeqa Ma'rof, Hayrol Azril Mohammed Shaffril

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The escalating prevalence of doping in sports, casting a shadow over both high-performance and recreational settings, has emerged as a formidable concern, particularly within the realm of young athletes. Doping, characterized by the surreptitious use of prohibited substances to gain a competitive edge, underscores the pressing need for comprehensive and efficacious preventive measures. This study aims to address a crucial void in current research by unraveling the motivations that drive clean adolescent athletes to steadfastly abstain from performance-enhancing substances. In navigating this intricate landscape, the study adopts a positive psychology perspective, investigating into the conditions and processes that contribute to the holistic well-being of individuals and communities. At the heart of this exploration lies the application of the PERMA model, a comprehensive positive psychology framework encapsulating positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. This model functions as a distinctive lens, dissecting intervention results to offer nuanced insights into the complex dynamics of clean sport behavior. The research is poised to usher in a paradigm shift from conventional anti-doping strategies, predominantly fixated on identifying deficits, towards an innovative approach firmly rooted in positive psychology. The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a positive education intervention program tailored to promote clean sport behavior among Malaysian adolescent athletes. Representing unexplored terrain within the landscape of anti-doping efforts, this initiative endeavors to reshape the focus from deficiencies to strengths. The meticulously crafted pilot study engages thirty adolescent athletes, divided into a control group of 15 and an experimental group of 15. The pilot study serves as the crucible to assess the effectiveness of the prepared intervention package, providing indispensable insights that will meticulously guide the finalization of an all-encompassing intervention program for the main study. The main study adopts a pioneering two-arm randomized control trial methodology, actively involving adolescent athletes from diverse Malaysian high schools. This approach aims to address critical lacunae in anti-doping strategies, specifically calibrated to resonate with the unique context of Malaysian schools. The study, cognizant of the imperative to develop preventive measures harmonizing with the cultural and educational milieu of Malaysian adolescent athletes, aspires to cultivate a culture of clean sport. In conclusion, this research aspires to contribute unprecedented insights into the efficacy of positive education interventions firmly rooted in the PERMA model. By unraveling the intricacies of clean sport behavior, particularly within the context of Malaysian adolescent athletes, the study seeks to introduce transformative preventive methods. The adoption of positive psychology as an avant-garde anti-doping tool represents an innovative and promising approach, bridging a conspicuous gap in scholarly research and offering potential panaceas for the sporting community. As this study unfurls its chapters, it carries the promise not only to enrich our understanding of clean sport behavior but also to pave the way for positive metamorphosis within the realm of adolescent sports in Malaysia.

Keywords: positive education interventions, a pilot study, clean sport behavior, adolescent athletes, Malaysia

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Authors: John G. Vongas, Raghid Al Hajj

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In recent years, there has been a surge in research on empathy across disciplines ranging from management and psychology to philosophy and neuroscience. In organizational behavior, in particular, scholars have become interested in leader empathy given the rise of workplace diversity and the growing perception of leaders as managers of group emotions. It would appear that the current zeitgeist in behavioral and philosophical science is that empathy is a cornerstone of morality and that our world would be better off if only more people – and by extension, more leaders – were empathic. In spite of these claims, however, researchers have used different terminologies to explore empathy, confusing it at times with other related constructs such as emotional intelligence and compassion. Second, extant research that specifies what empathic leaders do and how their behavior affects organizational stakeholders, including themselves, does not devolve from a unifying theoretical framework. These problems plague knowledge development in this important research domain. Therefore, to the authors' best knowledge, this paper provides the first comprehensive review and synthesis of the literature on leader empathy by drawing on disparate yet complementary fields of inquiry. It clarifies empathy from other constructs and presents a theoretical model that elucidates the mechanisms by which a leader’s empathy translates into behaviors that could be either beneficial or harmful to the leaders themselves, as well as to their followers and groups. And third, it specifies the boundary conditions under which a leader’s empathy will become manifest. Finally, it suggests ways in which training could be implemented to improve empathy in practice while also remaining skeptical of its conceptualization as a moral or even effective guide in human affairs.

Keywords: compassion, empathy, leadership, group outcomes

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Authors: M. Khazam, M. Altawil, A. Eljabri

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Fluid properties in states near a vapor-liquid critical region are the most difficult to measure and to predict with EoS models. The principal model difficulty is that near-critical property variations do not follow the same mathematics as at conditions far away from the critical region. Libyan NC98 field in Sirte basin is a typical example of near critical fluid characterized by high initial condensate gas ratio (CGR) greater than 160 bbl/MMscf and maximum liquid drop-out of 25%. The objective of this paper is to model NC98 phase behavior with the proper selection of EoS parameters and also to model reservoir depletion versus gas cycling option using measured PVT data and EoS Models. The outcomes of our study revealed that, for accurate gas and condensate recovery forecast during depletion, the most important PVT data to match are the gas phase Z-factor and C7+ fraction as functions of pressure. Reasonable match, within -3% error, was achieved for ultimate condensate recovery at abandonment pressure of 1500 psia. The smooth transition from gas-condensate to volatile oil was fairly simulated by the tuned PR-EoS. The predicted GOC was approximately at 14,380 ftss. The optimum gas cycling scheme, in order to maximize condensate recovery, should not be performed at pressures less than 5700 psia. The contribution of condensate vaporization for such field is marginal, within 8% to 14%, compared to gas-gas miscible displacement. Therefore, it is always recommended, if gas recycle scheme to be considered for this field, to start it at the early stage of field development.

Keywords: EoS models, gas-condensate, gas cycling, near critical fluid

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Authors: I. Dangeard, S. Meineri, M. Dupré

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large body of research on energy consumption reveals that regular information on energy consumption produces a positive effect on behavior. The present research aims to test this feedback paradigm on waste management. A small-scale experiment on residual household waste was performed in a large french urban area, in partnership with local authorities, as part of the development of larger-scale project. A two-step door-to-door recruitment scheme led to 85 households answering a questionnaire. Among them, 54 accepted to participate in a study on waste (second step). Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the 3 experimental conditions : self-reported feedback on curbside waste, external feedback on waste weight based on information technologies, and no feedback for the control group. An additional control group was added, including households who were not requested to answer the questionnaire. Household residual waste was collected every week, and tags on curbside bins fed a database with waste weight of households. The feedback period lasted 14 weeks (february-may 2014). Quantitative data on waste weight were analysed, including these 14 weeks and the 7 previous weeks. Households were then contacted by phone in order to confirm the quantitative results. Regarding the recruitment questionnaire, results revealed high pro-environmental attitude on the NEP scale, high recycling behavior level and moderate level of source reduction behavior on the adapted 3R scale, but no statistical difference between the 3 experimental groups. Regarding the feedback manipulation paradigm, waste weight reveals important differences between households, but doesn't prove any statistical difference between the experimental conditions. Qualitative phone interviews confirm that recycling is a current practice among participants, whereas source reduction of waste is not, and mainly appears as a producer problem of packaging limitation. We conclude that triggering waste prevention behaviors among recycling households involves long-term feedback and should promote benchmarking, in order to clearly set waste reduction as an objective to be managed through feedback figures.

Keywords: eco-feedback, household waste, waste reduction, experimental research

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Authors: Takahiro Ishizaki, Shutaro Hisada, Oi Lun Li

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Control of surface wettability is very important in various industrial fields. Thus, contact angle hysteresis which is defined as the difference between advancing and receding water contact angles has been paid attention because the surface having low contact angle hysteresis can control wetting behavior of water droplet. Self-assembled monolayer (SAM) formed using organic silane molecules has been used to control surface wettability, in particular, static contact angles, however, the effect of alkyl-chain length in organic silane molecules on the contact angle hysteresis has not yet clarified. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of alkyl-chain length (C1-C18) in organic silane molecules on the contact angle hysteresis. SAMs were formed on Si wafer by thermal CVD method using silane coupling agents having different alkyl-chain length. The static water contact angles increased with an increase in the alkyl-chain length. On the other hand, although the water contact angle hysteresis tended to decrease with an increase in the alkyl-chain length, in case of the alkyl-chain length of more than C16 the contact angle hysteresis increased. This could be due to the decrease in the molecular mobility because of the increase in the molecular packing density in chemisorbed silane molecules.

Keywords: alkyl-chain length, self-assembled monolayer, silane coupling agent, surface wettability

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Authors: Mahdieh Jajroudi

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Developing a pharmacokinetic model for the neuroendocrine tumors therapy agent 177Lu-DOTATATE in nude mice bearing AR42J rat pancreatic tumor to investigate and evaluate the behavior of the complex was the main purpose of this study. The utilization of compartmental analysis permits the mathematical differencing of tissues and organs to become acquainted with the concentration of activity in each fraction of interest. Biodistribution studies are onerous and troublesome to perform in humans, but such data can be obtained facilely in rodents. A physiologically based pharmacokinetic model for scaling up activity concentration in particular organs versus time was developed. The mathematical model exerts physiological parameters including organ volumes, blood flow rates, and vascular permabilities; the compartments (organs) are connected anatomically. This allows the use of scale-up techniques to forecast new complex distribution in humans' each organ. The concentration of the radiopharmaceutical in various organs was measured at different times. The temporal behavior of biodistribution of 177Lu labeled somatostatin analogues was modeled and drawn as function of time. Conclusion: The variation of pharmaceutical concentration in all organs is characterized with summation of six to nine exponential terms and it approximates our experimental data with precision better than 1%.

Keywords: biodistribution modeling, compartmental analysis, 177Lu labeled somatostatin analogues, neuroendocrine tumors

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Authors: sulmaz Mozaffari

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Nostalgia is one of the hot-debated issues in critical psychology which has been translated as the yearning or gloom in Persian. It is defined as the regret of the sweet past and the contrast of the present with the past. The feeling of alienation and being remote from the home, remembering death, the regret of childhood and youth, separation of the beloved, remembering the glorious era of history, desire for the ancient times, and the hope for Utopia are considered as its components. Nazik Al-Malaika, a contemporary poet of Arabic literature, has depicted some shapes and dimensions of sympathy, regret and anguish in her poems. Utilizing a nostalgic approach to the past, this paper has reflected upon love, memories of childhood and youth and hope for Utopia "and also aimed at explaining each one's manifestations through a comparative perspective.

Keywords: Nazik al-malaika, poem, nostalgia, personal memory, collective memory

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Authors: Nour Mohamad Fayad

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This study aims to investigate and explore the peculiarities of the leadership style of NGOs based in Lebanon. This study is supported by empirical testing that considers the case of Embrace and other NGOs performing in Lebanese society. Throughout this study researcher demonstrated leadership characteristics, styles, and competencies and demonstrated the evolvement of leadership in recent years. Moreover, this study sheds light on the different NGO leaders and exhibits the exceptional obstacles, on both personal and professional aspects and applies it to the Lebanese society by collecting primary data from 6 NGOs. The findings indicate that there is a positive correlation between peculiarities of leadership style and the performance of NGOs, but this is not consistent across all NGOs in Lebanese societies.

Keywords: leadership, peculiarities, NGOs, embrace, Lebanon

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Authors: Afif Saleh Abugharsa

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The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is designed for low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPAN) with focus on enabling wireless sensor networks. It aims to give a low data rate, low power consumption, and low cost wireless networking on the device-level communication. The objective of this study is to investigate the performance of IEEE 802.15.4 based networks using simulation tool. In this project the network simulator 2 NS2 was used to several performance measures of wireless sensor networks. Three scenarios were considered, multi hop network with a single coordinator, star topology, and an ad hoc on demand distance vector AODV. Results such as packet delivery ratio, hop delay, and number of collisions are obtained from these scenarios.

Keywords: ZigBee, wireless sensor networks, IEEE 802.15.4, low power, low data rate

Procedia PDF Downloads 410