Search results for: generalized confidence interval

Authors: Mengestie Mulugeta Belay, Serebe Abay Gebrie, Biruk Lambbiso Wamisho, Amare Worku

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Background: Low back pain (LBP) related to nursing profession, is a very common public health problem throughout the world. Various risk factors have been implicated in the etiology and LBP is assumed to be of multi-factorial origin as individual, work-related and psychosocial factors can contribute to its development. Objectives: To determine the prevalence and to identify risk factors of LBP among nurses working in Addis Ababa City Public Hospitals, Ethiopia, in the year 2015. Settings: Addis Ababa University, Black-Lion (‘Tikur Anbessa’) Hospital-BLH, is the country’s highest tertiary level referral and teaching Hospital. The three departments in connection with this study: Radiology, Pathology and Orthopedics, run undergraduate and residency programs and receive referred patients from all over the country. Methods: A cross-sectional study with internal comparison was conducted throughout the period October-December, 2015. Sample was chosen by simple random sampling technique by taken the lists of nurses from human resource departments as a sampling frame. A well-structured, pre-tested and self-administered questionnaire was used to collect quantifiable information. The questionnaire included socio-demographic, back pain features, consequences of back pain, work-related and psychosocial factors. The collected data was entered into EpiInfo version 3.5.4 and was analyzed by SPSS. A probability level of 0.05 or less and 95% confidence level was used to indicate statistical significance. Ethical clearance was obtained from all respected administrative bodies, Hospitals and study participants. Results: The study included 395 nurses and gave a response rate of 91.9%. The mean age was 30.6 (±8.4) years. Majority of the respondents were female (285, 72.2%). Nearly half of the participants (n=181, 45.8% (95% CI (40.8%- 50.6%))) were complained low back pain. There was statistical significant association between low back pain and working shift, physical activities at work; sleep disturbance and felt little pleasure by doing things. Conclusion: A high prevalence of low back pain was found among nurses working in Addis Ababa Public Hospitals. Recognition and preventive measures like providing resting periods should be taken to reduce the risk of low back pain in nurses working in Public hospitals.

Keywords: low back pain, risk factors, nurses, public hospitals

Procedia PDF Downloads 275

Authors: Fouzia Brihmat

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Economic planning models, which are used to build microgrids and distributed energy resources, are the current norm for expressing such confidence (DER). These models often decide both short-term DER dispatch and long-term DER investments. This research investigates the most cost-effective hybrid (photovoltaic-diesel) renewable energy system (HRES) based on Total Net Present Cost (TNPC) in an Algerian Saharan area, which has a high potential for solar irradiation and has a production capacity of 1GW/h. Lead-acid batteries have been around much longer and are easier to understand, but have limited storage capacity. Lithium-ion batteries last longer, are lighter, but generally more expensive. By combining the advantages of each chemistry, we produce cost-effective high-capacity battery banks that operate solely on AC coupling. The financial implications of this research describe the corrosion process that occurs at the interface between the active material and grid material of the positive plate of a lead-acid battery. The best cost study for the HRES is completed with the assistance of the HOMER Pro MATLAB Link. Additionally, during the course of the project's 20 years, the system is simulated for each time step. In this model, which takes into consideration decline in solar efficiency, changes in battery storage levels over time, and rises in fuel prices above the rate of inflation. The trade-off is that the model is more accurate, but it took longer to compute. As a consequence, the model is more precise, but the computation takes longer. We initially utilized the Optimizer to run the model without MultiYear in order to discover the best system architecture. The optimal system for the single-year scenario is the Danvest generator, which has 760 kW, 200 kWh of the necessary quantity of lead-acid storage, and a somewhat lower COE of $0.309/kWh. Different scenarios that account for fluctuations in the gasified biomass generator's production of electricity have been simulated, and various strategies to guarantee the balance between generation and consumption have been investigated. The technological optimization of the same system has been finished and is being reviewed in a recent paper study.

Keywords: battery, corrosion, diesel, economic planning optimization, hybrid energy system, lead-acid battery, multi-year planning, microgrid, price forecast, PV, total net present cost

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Authors: Yu-Chen Wei

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The relationship between organizational human capital and organizational effectiveness have been a common topic of interest to organization researchers. Much of this research has concluded that higher human capital can predict greater organizational outcomes. Whereas human capital research has traditionally focused on organizations, the current study turns to the team level human capital. In addition, there are no known empirical studies assessing the effect of human capital divergence on team performance. Team human capital refers to the sum of knowledge, ability, and experience embedded in team members. Team human capital divergence is defined as the variation of human capital within a team. This study is among the first to assess the role of human capital divergence as a moderator of the effect of team human capital on team performance. From the traditional perspective, team human capital represents the collective ability to solve problems and reducing operational risk of all team members. Hence, the higher team human capital, the higher the team performance. This study further employs social learning theory to explain the relationship between team human capital and team performance. According to this theory, the individuals will look for progress by way of learning from teammates in their teams. They expect to have upper human capital, in turn, to achieve high productivity, obtain great rewards and career success eventually. Therefore, the individual can have more chances to improve his or her capability by learning from peers of the team if the team members have higher average human capital. As a consequence, all team members can develop a quick and effective learning path in their work environment, and in turn enhance their knowledge, skill, and experience, leads to higher team performance. This is the first argument of this study. Furthermore, the current study argues that human capital divergence is negative to a team development. For the individuals with lower human capital in the team, they always feel the pressure from their outstanding colleagues. Under the pressure, they cannot give full play to their own jobs and lose more and more confidence. For the smart guys in the team, they are reluctant to be colleagues with the teammates who are not as intelligent as them. Besides, they may have lower motivation to move forward because they are prominent enough compared with their teammates. Therefore, human capital divergence will moderate the relationship between team human capital and team performance. These two arguments were tested in 510 team-seasons drawn from major league baseball (1998–2014). Results demonstrate that there is a positive relationship between team human capital and team performance which is consistent with previous research. In addition, the variation of human capital within a team weakens the above relationships. That is to say, an individual working with teammates who are comparable to them can produce better performance than working with people who are either too smart or too stupid to them.

Keywords: human capital divergence, team human capital, team performance, team level research

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Authors: Ramin Mehdiabadi, Neda Menbari, Mohammad Nazir Menbari

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As a pressing public health concern, breast cancer stands as the predominant oncological diagnosis and principal cause of cancer-related mortality among women globally, accounting for 11.7% of new cancer incidences and 6.9% of cancer-related deaths. The annual figures indicate that approximately 230,480 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States alone, with 39,520 succumbing to the disease. While developed economies have reported a deceleration in both incidence and mortality rates across various forms of cancer, including breast cancer, emerging and low-income economies manifest a contrary escalation, largely attributable to lifestyle-mediated risk factors such as tobacco usage, physical inactivity, and high caloric intake. Breast cancer is distinctly characterized by molecular heterogeneity, manifesting in specific subtypes delineated by biomarkers—Estrogen Receptors (ER), Progesterone Receptors (PR), and Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2). These subtypes, comprising Luminal A, Luminal B, HER2-enriched, triple-negative/basal-like, and normal-like, necessitate nuanced, subtype-specific therapeutic regimens, thereby challenging the applicability of generalized treatment protocols. Within this molecular complexity, the transcription factor Forkhead Box M1 (FoxM1) has garnered attention as a significant driver of cellular proliferation, tumorigenesis, metastatic progression, and treatment resistance in a spectrum of human malignancies, including breast cancer. Concurrently, microRNAs (miRs), specifically miR-216b-5p, have been identified as post-transcriptional gene expression regulators and potential tumor suppressors. The overarching objective of this academic investigation is to explicate the multifaceted interrelationship between FoxM1 and miR-216b-5p across the disparate molecular subtypes of breast cancer. Employing a methodologically rigorous, interdisciplinary research design that incorporates cutting-edge molecular biology techniques, sophisticated bioinformatics analytics, and exhaustive meta-analyses of extant clinical data, this scholarly endeavor aims to unveil novel biomarker-specific therapeutic pathways. By doing so, this research is positioned to make a seminal contribution to the advancement of personalized, efficacious, and minimally toxic treatment paradigms, thus profoundly impacting the global efforts to ameliorate the burden of breast cancer.

Keywords: breast cancer, fox m1, microRNAs, mir-216b-5p, gene expression

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Authors: Balogun R. Ayodeji, Adefisan E. Adesanya, Adeyewa Z. Debo, E. C. Okogbue

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The need to investigate diurnal weather circles in West Africa is coined in the fact that complex interactions often results from diurnal weather patterns. This study investigates diurnal circles of wind, rainfall and convective properties using six (6) hour interval data from the ERA-Interim and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM). The seven distinct zones, used in this work and classified as rainforest (west-coast, dry, Nigeria-Cameroon), Savannah (Nigeria, and Central Africa and South Sudan (CASS)), Sudano-Sahel, and Sahel, were clearly indicated by the rainfall pattern in each zones. Results showed that the land‐ocean warming contrast was more strongly sensitive to seasonal cycle and has been very weak during March-May (MAM) but clearly spelt out during June-September (JJAS). Dipoles of wind convergence/divergence and wet/dry precipitation, between CASS and Nigeria Savannah zones, were identified in morning and evening hours of MAM, whereas distinct night and day anomaly, in the same location of CASS, were found to be consistent during the JJAS season. Diurnal variation of convective properties showed that stratiform precipitation, due to the extremely low occurrence of flashcount climatology, was dominant during morning hours for both MAM and JJAS than other periods of the day. On the other hand, diurnal variation of the system sizes showed that small system sizes were most dominant during the day time periods for both MAM and JJAS, whereas larger system sizes were frequent during the evening, night, and morning hours. The locations of flashcount and system sizes agreed with earlier results that morning and day-time hours were dominated by stratiform precipitation and small system sizes respectively. Most results clearly showed that the eastern locations of Sudano and Sahel were consistently dry because rainfall and precipitation features were predominantly few. System sizes greater than or equal to 800 km² were found in the western axis of the Sudano and Sahel zones, whereas the eastern axis, particularly in the Sahel zone, had minimal occurrences of small/large system sizes. From the results of locations of extreme systems, flashcount greater than 275 in one single system was never observed during the morning (6Z) diurnal, whereas, the evening (18Z) diurnal had the most frequent cases (at least 8) of flashcount exceeding 275 in one single system. Results presented had shown the importance of diurnal variation in understanding precipitation, flashcount, system sizes patterns at diurnal scales, and understanding land-ocean contrast, precipitation, and wind field anomaly at diurnal scales.

Keywords: convective properties, diurnal circle, flashcount, system sizes

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Authors: Ekeh Greg

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Learning has been part of human existence from time immemorial. The aim of every learning is to know the truth. In education, it is desirable that true knowledge is imparted and imbibed. For this to be achieved, there is need for honesty, in this context, academic honesty among students, especially in e-learning. This is an ethical issue since honesty bothers on human conduct. However, research findings have shown that academic honesty has remained a big challenge to online learners, especially among the university students. This is worrisome since the university education is the final education system and a gateway to life in the wider society after schooling. If they are practicing honesty in their academic life, it is likely that they will practice honesty in the in the society, thereby bringing positive contributions to the society wherever they find themselves. With this in mind, the significance of this study becomes obvious. On grounds of this significance, this paper focuses on strategies that are adjudged certain to enhance the practice of honesty in e-learning so as to enable learners to be well equipped to contribute to the society through honest ways. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the efforts of instilling the consciousness and practice of honesty in the minds and hearts of learners. This will, in turn, promote effective teaching and learning, academic high standard, competence and self-confidence in university education. Philosophical methods of conceptual analysis, clarification, description and prescription are adopted for the study. Philosophical perspective is chosen so as to ground the paper on the basis of rationality rather than emotional sentiments and biases emanating from cultural, religious and ethnic differences and orientations. Such sentiments and biases can becloud objective reasoning and sound judgment. A review of related literature is also carried out. The findings show that academic honesty in e-learning is a cherished value, but it is bedeviled by some challenges, such as care-free attitude on the part of students and absence of monitoring. The findings also show that despite the challenges facing academic honesty, strategies such as self-discipline, determination, hard work, imbibing ethical and philosophical principles, among others, can certainly enhance the practice of honesty in e-learning among university students. The paper, therefore, concludes that these constitute strategies for enhancing academic honesty among students. Consequently, it is suggested that instructors, school counsellors and other stakeholders should endeavour to see that students are helped to imbibe these strategies and put them into practice. Students themselves are enjoined to cherish honesty in their academic pursuit and avoid short-cuts. Short-cuts can only lead to mediocrity and incompetence on the part of the learners, which may have long adverse consequences, both on themselves and others.

Keywords: academic, ethical, philosophical, strategies

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Authors: Saman Ahani, Aboozar Dehghan, Roham Vali, Hamid Salehian, Amin Ebrahimi

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Pulsed-wave (PW) doppler ultrasonography is a non-invasive, relatively accurate imaging technique that can measure blood speed. The imaging could be obtained via the common carotid artery, as one of the main vessels supplying the blood of vital organs. In horses, factors such as susceptibility to depression of the cardiovascular system and their large muscular mass have rendered them vulnerable to changes in blood speed. One of the most important factors causing blood velocity changes is the administration of anesthetic drugs, including Ketamine and Acepromazine. Thus, in this study, the Pulsed-wave doppler technique was performed to assess the highest blood velocity in the common carotid artery following administration of Ketamine and Acepromazine. Six male and six female healthy Kurdish horses weighing 351 ± 46 kg (mean ± SD) and aged 9.2 ± 1.7 years (mean ± SD) were housed under animal welfare guidelines. After fasting for six hours, the normal blood flow velocity in the common carotid artery was measured using a Pulsed-wave doppler ultrasonography machine (BK Medical, Denmark), and a high-frequency linear transducer (12 MHz) without applying any sedative drugs as a control group. The same procedure was repeated after each individual received the following medications: 1.1, 2.2 mg/kg Ketamine (Pfizer, USA), and 0.5, 1 mg/kg Acepromizine (RACEHORSE MEDS, Ukraine), with an interval of 21 days between the administration of each dose and/or drug. The ultrasonographic study was done five (T5) and fifteen (T15) minutes after injecting each dose intravenously. Lastly, the statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software version 22 for Windows and a P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Five minutes after administration of Ketamine (1.1, 2.2 mg/kg) in both male and female horses, the blood velocity decreased to 38.44, 34.53 cm/s in males, and 39.06, 34.10 cm/s in females in comparison to the control group (39.59 and 40.39 cm/s in males and females respectively) while administration of 0.5 mg/kg Acepromazine led to a significant rise (73.15 and 55.80 cm/s in males and females respectively) (p<0.05). It means that the most drastic change in blood velocity, regardless of gender, refers to the latter dose/drug. In both medications and both genders, the increase in doses led to a decrease in blood velocity compared to the lower dose of the same drug. In all experiments in this study, the blood velocity approached its normal value at T15. In another study comparing the blood velocity changes affected by Ketamine and Acepromazine through femoral arteries, the most drastic changes were attributed to Ketamine; however, in this experiment, the maximum blood velocity was observed following administration of Acepromazine via the common carotid artery. Therefore, further experiments using the same medications are suggested using Pulsed-wave doppler measuring the blood velocity changes in both femoral and common carotid arteries simultaneously.

Keywords: Acepromazine, common carotid artery, horse, ketamine, pulsed-wave doppler ultrasonography

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Authors: S. Somerset, D. J. Hoare

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Participation in sport is linked to better mental and physical health in children and adults. Studies have shown children who participate in sports benefit from improved social skills, self-confidence, communication skills and a better quality of life. Children who participate in sports from a young age are also more likely to continue to have active lifestyles during adulthood. This is an important consideration with a nation where physical activity levels are declining and the incidences of obesity are rising. Getting children active and keeping them active can provide long term health benefits to the individual but also a potential reduction in health costs in the future. This systematic review aims to identify the barriers to participation in sport for children aged up to 18 years and encompasses both qualitative and quantitative studies. The bibliographic databases, EMBASE, Medline, CINAHL and SportDiscus were searched. Additional hand searches were carried out on review articles found in the searches to identify any studies that may have been missed. Studies involving children up to 18 years without additional needs focusing on barriers to participation in sport were included. Randomised control trials, policy guidelines, studies with sport as an intervention, studies focusing on the female athlete triad, tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, pre exercise testing, and cardiovascular disease were excluded. Abstract review, full paper review and quality appraisal were conducted by two researchers. A consensus meeting took place to resolve any differences at the abstract, full text and data extraction / quality appraisal stages. The CASP qualitative studies appraisal tool and the CASP cohort studies tool (excluding question 3 and 4 which refer to interventions) were used for quality appraisal in this review. The review identified several salient barriers to participation in sport for children. These barriers ranged from the uniform worn during school physical education lessons to the weather during participation in sport. The most commonly identified barriers in the review include parental support, time allocation, location of the activity and the cost of the activity. Therefore, it would be beneficial for a greater provision to be made within the school environment for children to participate sport. This can reduce the cost and time commitment required from parents to encourage participation. This would help to increase activity levels of children, which ultimately can only be a good thing.

Keywords: barrier, children, participation, sport

Procedia PDF Downloads 335

Authors: Michelle Blewitt, Scott P. Wilson, Heidi Tait, Juniper Riordan

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Rubber crumb is a physical and chemical pollutant of concern for the environment and human health, warranting immediate investigations into its pathways to the environment and potential impacts. This emerging microplastic is created by shredding end-of-life tyres into ‘rubber crumb’ particles between 1-5mm used on synthetic turf fields and soft-fall playgrounds as a solution to intensifying tyre waste worldwide. Despite having known toxic and carcinogenic properties, studies into the transportation pathways and movement patterns of rubber crumbs from these surfaces remain in their infancy. To address this deficit, AUSMAP, the Australian Microplastic Assessment Project, in partnership with the Tangaroa Blue Foundation, conducted a study to quantify crumb loss from soft-fall surfaces. To our best knowledge, this is the first of its kind, with funding for the audits being provided by the Australian Government’s Reef Trust. Sampling occurred at 12 soft-fall playgrounds within the Great Barrier Reef Catchment Area on Australia’s North-East coast, in close proximity to the United Nations World Heritage Listed Reef. Samples were collected over a 12-month period using randomized sediment cores at 0, 2 and 4 meters away from the playground edge along a 20-meter transect. This approach facilitated two objectives pertaining to particle movement: to establish that crumb loss is occurring and that it decreases with distance from the soft-fall surface. Rubber crumb abundance was expressed as a total value and used to determine an expected average of rubber crumb loss per m2. An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the differences in crumb abundance at each interval from the playground. Site characteristics, including surrounding sediment type, playground age, degree of ultra-violet exposure and amount of foot traffic, were additionally recorded for the comparison. Preliminary findings indicate that crumb is being lost at considerable rates from soft-fall playgrounds in the region, emphasizing an urgent need to further examine it as a potential source of aquatic pollution, soil contamination and threat to individuals who regularly utilize these surfaces. Additional implications for the future of rubber crumbs as a fit-for-purpose recycling initiative will be discussed with regard to industry, governments and the economic burden of surface maintenance and/ or replacement.

Keywords: microplastics, toxic rubber crumb, litter pathways, marine environment

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Authors: Ginpreet Kaur, Mohammad Yasir Usmani, Mohammed Kamil Khan

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Diabetes mellitus is a disease with a high global burden and results in significant morbidity and mortality. In India, the number of people suffering with diabetes is expected to rise from 19 to 57 million in 2025. At present, interest in herbal remedies is growing to reduce the side effects associated with conventional dosage form like oral hypoglycemic agents and insulin for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Our aim was to investigate the antidiabetic activities of combinatorial extract of N. sativa & C. cassia in Streptozotocin induced type-I Diabetic Rats. Thus, the present study was undertaken to screen postprandial glucose excursion potential through α- glucosidase inhibitory activity (In Vitro) and effect of combinatorial extract of N. sativa & C. cassia in Streptozotocin induced type-I Diabetic Rats (In Vivo). In addition changes in body weight, plasma glucose, lipid profile and kidney profile were also determined. The IC50 values for both extract and Acarbose was calculated by extrapolation method. Combinatorial extract of N. sativa & C. cassia at different dosages (100 and 200 mg/kg orally) and Metformin (50 mg/kg orally) as the standard drug was administered for 28 days and then biochemical estimation, body weights and OGTT (Oral glucose tolerance test) were determined. Histopathological studies were also performed on kidney and pancreatic tissue. In In-Vitro the combinatorial extract shows much more inhibiting effect than the individual extracts. The results reveals that combinatorial extract of N. sativa & C. cassia has shown significant decrease in plasma glucose (p<0.0001), total cholesterol and LDL levels when compared with the STZ group The decreasing level of BUN and creatinine revealed the protection of N. sativa & C. cassia extracts against nephropathy associated with diabetes. Combination of N. sativa & C. cassia significantly improved glucose tolerance to exogenously administered glucose (2 g/kg) after 60, 90 and 120 min interval on OGTT in high dose streptozotocin induced diabetic rats compared with the untreated control group. Histopathological studies shown that treatment with N. sativa & C. cassia extract alone and in combination restored pancreatic tissue integrity and was able to regenerate the STZ damaged pancreatic β cells. Thus, the present study reveals that combination of N. sativa & C. cassia extract has significant α- glucosidase inhibitory activity and thus has great potential as a new source for diabetes treatment.

Keywords: lipid levels, OGTT, diabetes, herbs, glucosidase

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Authors: Catherine Peyrols Wu

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Intercultural interactions are becoming increasingly common in organizations and life. These interactions are often the stage of miscommunication and conflict. In management research, these problems are commonly attributed to cultural differences in values and interactional norms. As a result, the notion that intercultural competence can minimize these challenges is widely accepted. Cultural differences, however, are not the only source of a challenge during intercultural interactions. The need to rely on a lingua franca – or common language between people who have different mother tongues – is another important one. In theory, a lingua franca can improve communication and ease coordination. In practice however, disparities in people’s ability and confidence to communicate in the language can exacerbate tensions and generate inefficiencies. In this study, we draw on power theory to develop a model of disparities in language competence and conflict in a multicultural work context. Specifically, we hypothesized that differences in language competence between interaction partners would be positively related to conflict such that people would report greater conflict with partners who have more dissimilar levels of language competence and lesser conflict with partners with more similar levels of language competence. Furthermore, we proposed that cultural intelligence (CQ) an intercultural competence that denotes an individual’s capability to be effective in intercultural situations, would weaken the relationship between disparities in language competence and conflict such that people would report less conflict with partners who have more dissimilar levels of language competence when the interaction partner has high CQ and more conflict when the partner has low CQ. We tested this model with a sample of 135 undergraduate students working in multicultural teams for 13 weeks. We used a round-robin design to examine conflict in 646 dyads nested within 21 teams. Results of analyses using social relations modeling provided support for our hypotheses. Specifically, we found that in intercultural dyads with large disparities in language competence, partners with the lowest level of language competence would report higher levels of interpersonal conflict. However, this relationship disappeared when the partner with higher language competence was also high in CQ. These findings suggest that communication in a lingua franca can be a source of conflict in intercultural collaboration when partners differ in their level of language competence and that CQ can alleviate these effects during collaboration with partners who have relatively lower levels of language competence. Theoretically, this study underscores the benefits of CQ as a complement to language competence for intercultural effectiveness. Practically, these results further attest to the benefits of investing resources to develop language competence and CQ in employees engaged in multicultural work.

Keywords: cultural intelligence, intercultural interactions, language competence, multicultural teamwork

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Authors: Zunaira Zaman, David Bohannon

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This study explores the application of machine learning (ML) for detecting security vulnerabilities in source code. The research aims to assist organizations with large application portfolios and limited security testing capabilities in prioritizing security activities. ML-based approaches offer benefits such as increased confidence scores, false positives and negatives tuning, and automated feedback. The initial approach using natural language processing techniques to extract features achieved 86% accuracy during the training phase but suffered from overfitting and performed poorly on unseen datasets during testing. To address these issues, the study proposes using the abstract syntax tree (AST) for Java and C++ codebases to capture code semantics and structure and generate path-context representations for each function. The Code2Vec model architecture is used to learn distributed representations of source code snippets for training a machine-learning classifier for vulnerability prediction. The study evaluates the performance of the proposed methodology using two datasets and compares the results with existing approaches. The Devign dataset yielded 60% accuracy in predicting vulnerable code snippets and helped resist overfitting, while the Juliet Test Suite predicted specific vulnerabilities such as OS-Command Injection, Cryptographic, and Cross-Site Scripting vulnerabilities. The Code2Vec model achieved 75% accuracy and a 98% recall rate in predicting OS-Command Injection vulnerabilities. The study concludes that even partial AST representations of source code can be useful for vulnerability prediction. The approach has the potential for automated intelligent analysis of source code, including vulnerability prediction on unseen source code. State-of-the-art models using natural language processing techniques and CNN models with ensemble modelling techniques did not generalize well on unseen data and faced overfitting issues. However, predicting vulnerabilities in source code using machine learning poses challenges such as high dimensionality and complexity of source code, imbalanced datasets, and identifying specific types of vulnerabilities. Future work will address these challenges and expand the scope of the research.

Keywords: code embeddings, neural networks, natural language processing, OS command injection, software security, code properties

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Authors: Nur Azha Putra Abdul Azim, Denise Cheong, S. Nivedita

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Currently, there are no nuclear power reactors among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states (AMS) but there are seven operational nuclear research reactors, and Indonesia is about to construct the region’s first experimental power reactor by the end of the decade. If successful, the experimental power reactor will lay the foundation for the country’s and region’s first nuclear power plant. Despite projecting confidence during the period of nuclear power renaissance in the region in the last decade, none of the AMS has committed to a political decision on the use of nuclear energy and this is largely due to the Fukushima nuclear power accident in 2011. Of the ten AMS, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia have demonstrated the most progress in developing nuclear energy based on the nuclear power infrastructure development assessments made by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Of these three states, Vietnam came closest to building its first nuclear power plant but decided to delay construction further due to safety and security concerns. Meanwhile, Vietnam along with Indonesia and Malaysia continue with their nuclear power infrastructure development and the remaining SEA states, with the exception of Brunei and Singapore, continue to build their expertise and capacity for nuclear power energy. At the current rate of progress, Indonesia is expected to make a national decision on the use of nuclear power by 2023 while Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand have included the use of nuclear power in their mid to long-term power development plans. Vietnam remains open to nuclear power but has not placed a timeline. The medium to short-term power development projection in the region suggests that the use of nuclear energy in the region is a matter of 'when' rather than 'if'. In lieu of the prospects for nuclear energy in Southeast Asia (SEA), this presentation will review the literature on ASEAN radiological emergency and preparedness response (EPR) plans and examine ASEAN’s disaster management and emergency framework. Through a combination of institutional mapping and stakeholder analysis methods, which we examine in the context of the international EPR, and nuclear safety and security regimes, we will identify the issues and challenges in developing a regional radiological EPR framework in the SEA. We will conclude with the observation that ASEAN faces serious structural, institutional and governance challenges due to the AMS inherent political structures and history of interstate conflicts, and propose that ASEAN should either enlarge the existing scope of its disaster management and response framework or that its radiological EPR framework should exist as a separate entity.

Keywords: nuclear power, nuclear accident, ASEAN, Southeast Asia

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Authors: Chunhua Liao, Jinfei Wang, Bo Shan, Yang Song, Yongjun He, Taifeng Dong

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Winter wheat is one of the main crops in Canada. Forecasting of within-field variability of yield in winter wheat at the early stages is essential for precision farming. However, the crop yield modelling based on high spatial resolution satellite data is generally affected by the lack of continuous satellite observations, resulting in reducing the generalization ability of the models and increasing the difficulty of crop yield forecasting at the early stages. In this study, the correlations between Sentinel-2 data (vegetation indices and reflectance) and yield data collected by combine harvester were investigated and a generalized multivariate linear regression (MLR) model was built and tested with data acquired in different years. It was found that the four-band reflectance (blue, green, red, near-infrared) performed better than their vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI, WDRVI and OSAVI) in wheat yield prediction. The optimum phenological stage for wheat yield prediction with highest accuracy was at the growing stages from the end of the flowering to the beginning of the filling stage. The best MLR model was therefore built to predict wheat yield before harvest using Sentinel-2 data acquired at the end of the flowering stage. Further, to improve the ability of the yield prediction at the early stages, three simple unsupervised domain adaptation (DA) methods were adopted to transform the reflectance data at the early stages to the optimum phenological stage. The winter wheat yield prediction using multiple vegetation indices showed higher accuracy than using single vegetation index. The optimum stage for winter wheat yield forecasting varied with different fields when using vegetation indices, while it was consistent when using multispectral reflectance and the optimum stage for winter wheat yield prediction was at the end of flowering stage. The average testing RMSE of the MLR model at the end of the flowering stage was 604.48 kg/ha. Near the booting stage, the average testing RMSE of yield prediction using the best MLR was reduced to 799.18 kg/ha when applying the mean matching domain adaptation approach to transform the data to the target domain (at the end of the flowering) compared to that using the original data based on the models developed at the booting stage directly (“MLR at the early stage”) (RMSE =1140.64 kg/ha). This study demonstrated that the simple mean matching (MM) performed better than other DA methods and it was found that “DA then MLR at the optimum stage” performed better than “MLR directly at the early stages” for winter wheat yield forecasting at the early stages. The results indicated that the DA had a great potential in near real-time crop yield forecasting at the early stages. This study indicated that the simple domain adaptation methods had a great potential in crop yield prediction at the early stages using remote sensing data.

Keywords: wheat yield prediction, domain adaptation, Sentinel-2, within-field scale

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Authors: A. Bayat, R. Bello-Mendoza, D. G. Wareham

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Two major categories of green waste are fruit and vegetable (FV) waste and garden and yard (GY) waste. Although, anaerobic digestions (AD) is able to manage FV waste; there is less confidence in the conditions for AD to handle GY wastes (grass, leaves, trees and bush trimmings); mainly because GY contains lignin and other recalcitrant organics. GY in the dry state (TS ≥ 15 %) can be digested at mesophilic temperatures; however, little methane data has been reported under thermophilic conditions, where conceivably better methane yields could be achieved. In addition, it is suspected that at lower solids concentrations, the methane yield could be increased. As such, the aim of this research is to find the temperature and solids concentration conditions that produce the most methane; under two different temperature regimes (mesophilic, thermophilic) and three solids states (i.e. 'dry', 'semi-dry' and 'wet'). Twenty liters of GY waste was collected from a public park located in the northern district in Tehran. The clippings consisted of freshly cut grass as well as dry branches and leaves. The GY waste was chopped before being fed into a mechanical blender that reduced it to a paste-like consistency. An initial TS concentration of approximately 38 % was achieved. Four hundred mL of anaerobic inoculum (average total solids (TS) concentration of 2.03 ± 0.131 % of which 73.4% were volatile solid (VS), soluble chemical oxygen demand (sCOD) of 4.59 ± 0.3 g/L) was mixed with the GY waste substrate paste (along with distilled water) to achieve a TS content of approximately 20 %. For comparative purposes, approximately 20 liters of FV waste was ground in the same manner as the GY waste. Since FV waste has a much higher natural water content than GY, it was dewatered to obtain a starting TS concentration in the dry solid-state range (TS ≥ 15 %). Three samples were dewatered to an average starting TS concentration of 32.71 %. The inoculum was added (along with distilled water) to dilute the initial FV TS concentrations down to semi-dry conditions (10-15 %) and wet conditions (below 10 %). Twelve 1-L batch bioreactors were loaded simultaneously with either GY or FV waste at TS solid concentrations ranging from 3.85 ± 1.22 % to 20.11 ± 1.23 %. The reactors were sealed and were operated for 30 days while being immersed in water baths to maintain a constant temperature of 37 ± 0.5 °C (mesophilic) or 55 ± 0.5 °C (thermophilic). A maximum methane yield of 115.42 (L methane/ kg VS added) was obtained for the GY thermophilic-wet AD combination. Methane yield was enhanced by 240 % compared to the GY waste mesophilic-dry condition. The results confirm that high temperature regimes and small solids concentrations are conditions that enhance methane yield from GY waste. A similar trend was observed for the anaerobic digestion of FV waste. Furthermore, a maximum value of VS (53 %) and sCOD (84 %) reduction was achieved during the AD of GY waste under the thermophilic-wet condition.

Keywords: anaerobic digestion, thermophilic, mesophilic, total solids concentration

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Authors: Bi Xiao Fang, Tan Bao Zhen

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Soft skills, core competencies, and generic competencies are exchangeable terminologies often used to represent a similar concept. In the Singapore context, such skills are currently being referred to as Critical Core Skills (CCS). In 2019, SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) reviewed the Generic Skills and Competencies (GSC) framework that was first introduced in 2016, culminating in the development of the Critical Core Skills (CCS) framework comprising 16 soft skills classified into three clusters. The CCS framework is part of the Skills Framework, and whose stated purpose is to create a common skills language for individuals, employers and training providers. It is also developed with the objectives of building deep skills for a lean workforce, enhance business competitiveness and support employment and employability. This further helps to facilitate skills recognition and support the design of training programs for skills and career development. According to SSG, every job role requires a set of technical skills and a set of Critical Core Skills to perform well at work, whereby technical skills refer to skills required to perform key tasks of the job. There has been an increasing emphasis on soft skills for the future of work. A recent study involving approximately 80 organizations across 28 sectors in Singapore revealed that more enterprises are beginning to recognize that soft skills support their employees’ performance and business competitiveness. Though CCS is of high importance for the development of the workforce’s employability, there is little attention paid to the CCS use and profiling across occupations. A better understanding of how CCS is distributed across the economy will thus significantly enhance SSG’s career guidance services as well as training providers’ services to graduates and workers and guide organizations in their hiring for soft skills. This CCS profiling study sought to understand how CCS is demanded in different occupations. To achieve its research objectives, this study adopted a quantitative method to measure CCS use across different occupations in the Singaporean workforce. Based on the CCS framework developed by SSG, the research team adopted a formative approach to developing the CCS profiling tool to measure the importance of and self-efficacy in the use of CCS among the Singaporean workforce. Drawing on the survey results from 2500 participants, this study managed to profile them into seven occupation groups based on the different patterns of importance and confidence levels of the use of CCS. Each occupation group is labeled according to the most salient and demanded CCS. In the meantime, the CCS in each occupation group, which may need some further strengthening, were also identified. The profiling of CCS use has significant implications for different stakeholders, e.g., employers could leverage the profiling results to hire the staff with the soft skills demanded by the job.

Keywords: employability, skills profiling, skills measurement, soft skills

Procedia PDF Downloads 70

Authors: Marita Heyns

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Job insecurity is a distressing phenomenon which has far reaching consequences for both employees and their organizations. Previously, much attention has been given to the link between job insecurity and individual level performance outcomes, while less is known about how subjectively perceived job insecurity might transfer beyond the individual level to affect performance of the organization on an aggregated level. Research focusing on how employees’ fear of job loss might affect the organization’s ability to respond proactively to volatility and drastic change through applying its capabilities of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring, appears to be practically non-existent. Equally little is known about the potential underlying mechanisms through which job insecurity might affect the dynamic capabilities of an organization. This study examines how job insecurity might affect dynamic organizational capability through trust as an underling process. More specifically, it considered the simultaneous roles of trust at an impersonal (organizational) level as well as trust at an interpersonal level (in leaders and co-workers) as potential underlying mechanisms through which job insecurity might affect the organization’s dynamic capability to respond to opportunities and imminent, drastic change. A quantitative research approach and a stratified random sampling technique enabled the collection of data among 314 managers at four different plant sites of a large South African steel manufacturing organization undergoing dramatic changes. To assess the study hypotheses, the following statistical procedures were employed: Structural equation modelling was performed in Mplus to evaluate the measurement and structural models. The Chi-square values test for absolute fit as well as alternative fit indexes such as the Comparative Fit Index and the Tucker-Lewis Index, the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation and the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual were used as indicators of model fit. Composite reliabilities were calculated to evaluate the reliability of the factors. Finally, interaction effects were tested by using PROCESS and the construction of two-sided 95% confidence intervals. The findings indicate that job insecurity had a lower-than-expected detrimental effect on evaluations of the organization’s dynamic capability through the conducive buffering effects of trust in the organization and in its leaders respectively. In contrast, trust in colleagues did not seem to have any noticeable facilitative effect. The study proposes that both job insecurity and dynamic capability can be managed more effectively by also paying attention to factors that could promote trust in the organization and its leaders; some practical recommendations are given in this regard.

Keywords: dynamic organizational capability, impersonal trust, interpersonal trust, job insecurity

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Authors: Zavkiddin Mirtoshev, Mirabbos Mirkamalov

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We have analyzed the time series of full disk integrated soft X-ray (SXR) and hard X-ray (HXR) emission from the solar corona during 2004 January 1 to 2009 December 31, covering the descending phase of solar cycle 23. We employed the daily X-ray index (DXI) derived from X-ray observations from the Solar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS) mission in four different energy bands: 4-5.5; 5.5-7.5 keV (SXR) and 15-20; 20-25 keV (HXR). The application of Lomb-Scargle periodogram technique to the DXI time series observed by the Silicium detector in the energy bands reveals several short and intermediate periodicities of the X-ray corona. The DXI explicitly show the periods of 13.6 days, 26.7 days, 128.5 days, 151 days, 180 days, 220 days, 270 days, 1.24 year and 1.54 year periods in SXR as well as in HXR energy bands. Although all periods are above 70% confidence level in all energy bands, they show strong power in HXR emission in comparison to SXR emission. These periods are distinctly clear in three bands but somehow not unambiguously clear in 5.5-7.5 keV band. This might be due to the presence of Ferrum and Ferrum/Niccolum line features, which frequently vary with small scale flares like micro-flares. The regular 27-day rotation and 13.5 day period of sunspots from the invisible side of the Sun are found stronger in HXR band relative to SXR band. However, flare activity Rieger periods (150 and 180 days) and near Rieger period 220 days are very strong in HXR emission which is very much expected. On the other hand, our current study reveals strong 270 day periodicity in SXR emission which may be connected with tachocline, similar to a fundamental rotation period of the Sun. The 1.24 year and 1.54 year periodicities, represented from the present research work, are well observable in both SXR as well as in HXR channels. These long-term periodicities must also have connection with tachocline and should be regarded as a consequence of variation in rotational modulation over long time scales. The 1.24 year and 1.54 year periods are also found great importance and significance in the life formation and it evolution on the Earth, and therefore they also have great astro-biological importance. We gratefully acknowledge support by the Indian Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP, the Centre is affiliated to the United Nations), Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) at Ahmedabad, India. This work has done under the supervision of Prof. Rajmal Jain and paper consist materials of pilot project and research part of the M. Tech program which was made during Space and Atmospheric Science Course.

Keywords: corona, flares, solar activity, X-ray emission

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Authors: Inka Maria Vilhelmiina Hiltunen

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The crisis of liberal democracy has been recognized from many sites of political literature; scholars of Marxist critical political economy and deliberative democracy, as well as critics of neoliberalism, have become concerned about how either the rise of populism and authoritarianism, institutional decline or the overarching economic rationality erode political democratic citizenship in favor of economic technocracy or conservative protectionism. However, even if these bodies of literature recognize the generalized crisis that haunts Western democracies, dialogue between them has been very limited. That said, drawing from contemporary Marxist perspectives, this article aims at bridging the gap between the criticism of neoliberalism and theories of deliberative democracy. The first section starts by outlining what is meant by neoliberalism, liberal democracy, and the crisis of liberal democracy. The next section explores how contemporary capitalism acts upon society and transforms it. It introduces Jurgen Habermas’ thesis of the ‘colonization of the lifeworld’, Wendy Brown’s analysis of neoliberal rationality and Étienne Balibar’s concepts of ‘absolute capitalism’ and ‘total subsumption,’ that the essay aims at connecting in the last section. The third section is concerned with the deliberative democratic theory and practice. The section highlights the qualitative socio-political impacts of deliberation, as predicted by theorists and shown by empirical studies. The last section draws from contemporary Marxist perspectives to examine the question if deliberative democratic theories and practices can resolve the crisis of liberal democracy in the current financially driven era of neoliberal capitalism. By asking this question, the essay aims to consider what is required to reverse the current global trend of rising inequality. If liberal democracy has declined towards commodified and reactionary forms of politics and if ‘market rationality’ has shaped social agency to the extent that politicians and the public struggle to imagine ‘any alternatives’, the most urgent political task is to bring to life a new political imagination based on democratic ideals of equality, inclusivity, reciprocity, and solidarity, that thereby enables the revision of the transnational institutional design. This part focuses on the hegemonic role of finance and money. The essay concludes by stating that the implementation of substantive global democracy must start from the dissolution of the hegemony of finance, centered on U.S., and from the remaking of the conditions of socioeconomic reproduction world-wide. However, given the still present overarching neoliberal status quo, the essay is skeptical of the ideological feasibility of this remaking.

Keywords: deliberative democracy, criticism of neoliberalism, marxist political economy, crisis of liberal democracy

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Authors: V. Stejskal, K. Lundova, R. Sebesta, T. Vanina, S. Roje

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Pure strain of Arctic char (AC) Salvelinus alpinus and hybrid (HB) Salvelinus alpinus vs. Salvelinus fontinalis Mitchill belong to fish, which with great potential for culture in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). Aquaculture of these fish currently use flow-through systems (FTS), especially in Nordic countries such as Iceland (biggest producer), Norway, Sweden, and Canada. Four different water saturation regimes included normoxia (NOR), permanent hyperoxia (HYP), intermittent hyperoxia (HYP ± ) and regimes where one day of normoxia was followed by one day of hyperoxia (HYP1/1) were tested during 63 days of experiment in both species in two parallel experiments. Fish were reared in two identical RAS system consisted of 24 plastic round tanks (300 L each), drum filter, biological filter with moving beads and submerged biofilter. The temperature was maintained using flow-through cooler during at level of 13.6 ± 0.8 °C. Different water saturation regimes were achieved by mixing of pure oxygen (O₂) with water in three (one for each hyperoxic regime) mixing tower equipped with flowmeter for regulation of gas inflow. The water in groups HYP, HYP1/1 and HYP± was enriched with oxygen up to saturation of 120-130%. In HYP group was this level kept during whole day. In HYP ± group was hyperoxia kept for daylight phase (08:00-20:00) only and during night time was applied normoxia in this group. The oxygen saturation of 80-90% in NOR group was created using intensive aeration in header tank. The fish were fed with commercial feed to slight excess at 2 h intervals within the light phase of the day. Water quality parameters like pH, temperature and level of oxygen was monitoring three times (7 am, 10 am and 6 pm) per day using handy multimeter. Ammonium, nitrite and nitrate were measured in two day interval using spectrophotometry. Initial body weight (BW) was 40.9 ± 8.7 g and 70.6 ± 14.8 in AC and HB group, respectively. Final survival of AC ranged from 96.3 ± 4.6 (HYP) to 100 ± 0.0% in all other groups without significant differences among these groups. Similarly very high survival was reached in trial with HB with levels from 99.2 ± 1.3 (HYP, HYP1/1 and NOR) to 100 ± 0.0% (HYP ± ). HB fish showed best growth performance in NOR group reached final body weight (BW) 180.4 ± 2.3 g. Fish growth under different hyperoxic regimes was significantly reduced and final BW was 164.4 ± 7.6, 162.1 ± 12.2 and 151.7 ± 6.8 g in groups HY1/1, HYP ± and HYP, respectively. AC showed different preference for hyperoxic regimes as there were no significant difference in BW among NOR, HY1/1 and HYP± group with final values of 72.3 ± 11.3, 68.3 ± 8.4 and 77.1 ± 6.1g. Significantly reduced growth (BW 61.8 ± 6.8 g) was observed in HYP group. It is evident from present study that there are differences between pure bred Arctic char and hybrid in relation to hyperoxic regimes. The study was supported by projects 'CENAKVA' (No. CZ.1.05/2.1.00/01.0024), 'CENAKVA II' (No. LO1205 under the NPU I program), NAZV (QJ1510077) and GAJU (No. 060/2016/Z).

Keywords: recirculating aquaculture systems, Salmonidae, hyperoxia, abiotic factors

Procedia PDF Downloads 152

Authors: Eze Chinwe Catherine, Orji Nkiru Marykate, Anyaegbunam L. C., Igbodika M.C.

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Uterine Leiomyomata (ULs) are the most frequently occurring pelvic and gynaecologic tumors in premenopausal women, occurring globally with a prevalence of 21.4%. UL represents a major public health problem in African women; therefore, this study aimed to reveal public health impact and risk factors associated with uterine leiomyomata among women in Imo state. A convenience sample of 2965 women was studied for gynaecological cases from October 2020 to March 2021 at the selected clinics of study. Eligible women were recruited to participate in a non interventional descriptive cross-sectional study. Data on socio demographic and gynaecological characteristics, BMI, parity, age, age at menarche, knowledge, attitudes, and perception were collected using a structured questionnaire, guided interviews, anthropometrics, and haematological tests. These were analyzed using SPSS Version 23. Associations between continuous variables were analysed appropriately and tested at 95% confidence level and standard error of 5%. A total of 652(22.0%) were diagnosed having uterine Leiomyomata (UL), and the overall prevalence of UF at clinics/Diagnostic centre in Imo State was 22%. A total of 652 women (46.1%) responded. More than half of the women had a parity of zero (1623: 54.8%), 664 (22.4%) had a parity of 1-2, and 491 (16.6%) had a parity of 3-4. Majority (68.6%) indicated that they experience an irregular menstrual cycle, and a similar proportion (67%) number experience pelvic pain. Age was found as a significant associating factor of uterine fibroids in this study (p=0.046, χ2= 6.158), lowest among the women between 16 to 25 years old and highest among the women between 36 – 45 years of age. The rate of UF was found to be 62.1% on the studied women menarche age of 11 years old or less while it was approximately 18% among the women whose age at menarche were at least 14 years old. Education ((p=0.003, χ²= 13.826), residency (p=0.066, χ²= 3.372). BMI (p= 0.000, χ²=102.36) were significantly associated with the risk of UL. Some of the Clinical presentation includes anaemia, abdominal pelvic mass, and infertility. The poor positive perception was obtained on the general perception (16.7%) as well as on treatment seeking behavior (28%). The study concluded that UL had a significant impact on health related quality of life on respondents due to its relatively high prevalence and their probable impact on patient’s quality of life.UL was especially prevalent in women aged between 36 to 45 years, nulliparous women, and women of higher BMI. Community enlightenment to enhance knowledge, attitude, and perception on fibroids and risk factors necessary to ensure early diagnosis and presentation, including patient centered treatment option.

Keywords: fibroids, prevalence, risk factors, body mass index, menarche, anaemia, KAP

Procedia PDF Downloads 135

Authors: Shinji Kajiwara

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The basic ability of a vehicle is the ability to “run”, “turn” and “stop”. The safeness and comfort during a drive on various road surfaces and speed depends on the performance of these basic abilities of the vehicle. Stability and maneuverability of a vehicle is vital in automotive engineering. Stability of a vehicle is the ability of the vehicle to revert back to a stable state during a drive when faced with crosswind and irregular road conditions. Maneuverability of a vehicle is the ability of the vehicle to change direction during a drive swiftly based on the steering of the driver. The stability and maneuverability of a vehicle can also be defined as the driving stability of the vehicle. Since fossil fueled vehicle is the main type of transportation today, the environmental factor in automotive engineering is also vital. By improving the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, the overall carbon emission will be reduced thus reducing the effect of global warming and greenhouse gas on the Earth. Another main focus of the automotive engineering is the safety performance of the vehicle especially with the worrying increase of vehicle collision every day. With better safety performance on a vehicle, every driver will be more confidence driving every day. Next, let us focus on the “turn” ability of a vehicle. By improving this particular ability of the vehicle, the cornering limit of the vehicle can be improved thus increasing the stability and maneuverability factor. In order to improve the cornering limit of the vehicle, a study to find the balance between the steering systems, the stability of the vehicle, higher lateral acceleration and the cornering limit detection must be conducted. The aim of this research is to study and develop a new suspension system that that will boost the lateral acceleration of the vehicle and ultimately improving the cornering limit of the vehicle. This research will also study environmental factor and the stability factor of the new suspension system. The double wishbone suspension system is widely used in four-wheel vehicle especially for high cornering performance sports car and racing car. The double wishbone designs allow the engineer to carefully control the motion of the wheel by controlling such parameters as camber angle, caster angle, toe pattern, roll center height, scrub radius, scuff and more. The development of the new suspension system will focus on the ability of the new suspension system to optimize the camber control and to improve the camber limit during a cornering motion. The research will be carried out using the CAE analysis tool. Using this analysis tool we will develop a JSAE Formula Machine equipped with the double wishbone system and also the new suspension system and conduct simulation and conduct studies on performance of both suspension systems.

Keywords: automobile, camber thrust, cornering force, suspension

Procedia PDF Downloads 298

Authors: Zeynep Genel

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The concept of reputation in corporate development comes to the fore as one of the most frequently discussed topics in recent years. Many organizations, which make worldwide investments, make effort in order to adapt themselves to the topics within the scope of this concept and to promote the name of the organization through the values that might become prominent. The stakeholder groups are considered as the most important actors determining the reputation. Even, the effect of stakeholders is not evaluated as a direct factor; it is signed as indirect effects of their perception are a very strong on ultimate reputation. It is foreseen that the parallelism between the projected reputation and the perceived c reputation, which is established as a result of communication experiences perceived by the stakeholders, has an important effect on achieving these objectives. In assessing the efficiency of these efforts, the opinions of stakeholders are widely utilized. In other words, the projected reputation, in which the positive and/or negative reflections of corporate communication play effective role, is measured through how the stakeholders perceptively position the organization. From this perspective, it is thought that the interaction and cooperation of corporate communication professionals with different stakeholder groups during the reputation positioning efforts play significant role in achieving the targeted reputation or in sustainability of this value. The governmental stakeholders having intense communication with mass stakeholder groups are within the most effective stakeholder groups of organization. The most important reason of this is that the organizations, regarding which the governmental stakeholders have positive perception, inspire more confidence to the mass stakeholders. At this point, the organizations carrying out joint projects with governmental stakeholders in parallel with sustainable communication approach come to the fore as the organizations having strong reputation, whereas the reputation of organizations, which fall behind in this regard or which cannot establish the efficiency from this aspect, is thought to be perceived as weak. Similarly, the social responsibility campaigns, in which the governmental stakeholders are involved and which play efficient role in strengthening the reputation, are thought to draw more attention. From this perspective, the role and effect of governmental stakeholders on the reputation positioning is discussed in this study. In parallel with this objective, it is aimed to reveal perspectives of seven governmental stakeholders towards the cooperation in reputation positioning. The sample group representing the governmental stakeholders is examined under the lights of results obtained from in-depth interviews with the executives of different ministries. It is asserted that this study, which aims to express the importance of stakeholder participation in corporate reputation positioning especially in Turkey and the effective role of governmental stakeholders in strong reputation, might provide a new perspective on measuring the corporate reputation, as well as establishing an important source to contribute to the studies in both academic and practical domains.

Keywords: collaborative communications, reputation management, stakeholder engagement, ultimate reputation

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Authors: Santhani M. Selveindran

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Background: Natural disasters are traumatic global events that are becoming increasing more common, with significant psychosocial impact on survivors. This impact results not only in psychosocial distress but, for many, can lead to psychosocial disorders and chronic psychopathology. While there are currently available interventions that seek to prevent and treat these psychosocial sequelae, their effectiveness is uncertain. The evidence-base is emerging with more primary studies evaluating the effectiveness of various psychosocial interventions for survivors of natural disasters, which remains to be synthesized. Aim of Review: To identify, critically appraise and synthesize the current evidence-base on the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in preventing or treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and/or Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in adults and children who are survivors of natural disasters. Methods: A protocol was developed as a guide to carry out this review. A systematic search was conducted in eight international electronic databases, three grey literature databases, one dissertation and thesis repository, websites of six humanitarian and non-governmental organizations renowned for their work on natural disasters, as well as bibliographic and citation searching for eligible articles. Papers meeting the specific inclusion criteria underwent quality assessment using the Downs and Black checklist. Data were extracted from the included papers and analysed by way of narrative synthesis. Results: Database and website searching returned 3777 papers where 31 met the criteria for inclusion. Additional 2 papers were obtained through bibliographic and citation searching. Methodological quality of most papers was fair. Twenty-five studies evaluated psychological interventions, five, social interventions whereas three studies evaluated ‘mixed’ psychological and social interventions. All studies, irrespective of methodological quality, reported post-intervention reductions in symptom scores for PTSD, depression and/or anxiety and where assessed, reduced diagnosis of PTSD and MDD, and produced improvements in self-efficacy and quality of life. Statistically significant results were seen in 27 studies. However, three studies demonstrated that the evaluated interventions may not have been very beneficial. Conclusions: The overall positive results suggest that any psychosocial interventions are favourable and should be delivered to all natural disaster survivors, irrespective of age, country, and phase of disaster. Yet, heterogeneity and methodological shortcomings of the current evidence-base makes it difficult to draw definite conclusions needed to formulate categorical guidance or frameworks. Further, rigorously conducted research is needed in this area, although the feasibility of such, given the context and nature of the problem, is also recognized.

Keywords: psychosocial interventions, natural disasters, survivors, effectiveness

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Authors: Jason Blair, Adeboye Adebayo, Mohamed Saad, Jeannette M. Byrne, Fabien A. Basset

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Running economy is a key physiological parameter of an individual’s running efficacy and a valid tool for predicting performance outcomes. Of the many factors known to influence running economy (RE), footwear certainly plays a role owing to its characteristics that vary substantially from model to model. Although minimalist footwear is believed to enhance RE and thereby endurance performance, conclusive research reports are scarce. Indeed, debates remain as to which footwear characteristics most alter RE. The purposes of this study were, therefore, two-fold: (a) to determine whether wearing minimalist shoes results in better RE compared to shod and to identify relationships with kinematic and muscle activation patterns; (b) to determine whether changes in RE with minimalist shoes are still evident following a fatiguing bout of exercise. Well-trained male distance runners (n=10; 29.0 ± 7.5 yrs; 71.0 ± 4.8 kg; 176.3 ± 6.5 cm) partook first in a maximal O₂ uptake determination test (VO₂ₘₐₓ = 61.6 ± 7.3 ml min⁻¹ kg⁻¹) 7 days prior to the experimental sessions. Second, in a fully randomized fashion, an RE test consisting of three 8-min treadmill runs in shod and minimalist footwear were performed prior to and following exercise induced fatigue (EIF). The minimalist and shod conditions were tested with a minimum of 7-day wash-out period between conditions. The RE bouts, interspaced by 2-min rest periods, were run at 2.79, 3.33, and 3.89 m s⁻¹ with a 1% grade. EIF consisted of 7 times 1000 m at 94-97% VO₂ₘₐₓ interspaced with 3-min recovery. Cardiorespiratory, electromyography (EMG), kinematics, rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and blood lactate were measured throughout the experimental sessions. A significant main speed effect on RE (p=0.001) and stride frequency (SF) (p=0.001) was observed. The pairwise comparisons showed that running at 2.79 m s⁻¹ was less economic compared to 3.33, and 3.89 m s⁻¹ (3.56 ± 0.38, 3.41 ± 0.45, 3.40 ± 0.45 ml O₂ kg⁻¹ km⁻¹; respectively) and that SF increased as a function of speed (79 ± 5, 82 ± 5, 84 ± 5 strides min⁻¹). Further, EMG analyses revealed that root mean square EMG significantly increased as a function of speed for all muscles (Biceps femoris, Gluteus maximus, Gastrocnemius, Tibialis anterior, Vastus lateralis). During EIF, the statistical analysis revealed a significant main effect of time on lactate production (from 2.7 ± 5.7 to 11.2 ± 6.2 mmol L⁻¹), RPE scores (from 7.6 ± 4.0 to 18.4 ± 2.7) and peak HR (from 171 ± 30 to 181 ± 20 bpm), expect for the recovery period. Surprisingly, a significant main footwear effect was observed on running speed during intervals (p=0.041). Participants ran faster with minimalist shoes compared to shod (3:24 ± 0:44 min [95%CI: 3:14-3:34] vs. 3:30 ± 0:47 min [95%CI: 3:19-3:41]). Although EIF altered lactate production and RPE scores, no other effect was noticeable on RE, EMG, and SF pre- and post-EIF, except for the expected speed effect. The significant footwear effect on running speed during EIF was unforeseen but could be due to shoe mass and/or heel-toe-drop differences. We also cannot discard the effect of speed on foot-strike pattern and therefore, running performance.

Keywords: exercise-induced fatigue, interval training, minimalist footwear, running economy

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Authors: Herlin Vallejo, Jhon Osorio

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Quality is a concept that has gained importance in different scenarios over time, especially in the area of health. The nursing staff is one of the actors that contributes most to the care process and the satisfaction of the users in the evaluation of quality. However, until now, there are few tools to measure the quality of care in specialized performance scenarios. Patients receiving ambulatory cancer treatments can face various problems, which can increase their level of distress, so improving the quality of outpatient care for cancer patients should be a priority for oncology nursing. The experience of the patient in relation to the care in these services has been little investigated. The purpose of this study was to understand the perception that patients have about quality care in outpatient chemotherapy services. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive study was carried out in 9 patients older than 18 years, diagnosed with cancer, who were treated at the Institute of Cancerology, in outpatient chemotherapy rooms, with a minimum of three months of treatment with curative intention and which had given your informed consent. The total of participants was determined by the theoretical saturation, and the selection of these was for convenience. Unstructured interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed. The analysis of the information was done under the technique of content analysis. Three categories emerged that reflect the perception that patients have regarding quality care: patient-centered care, care with love and effects of care. Patients highlighted situations that show that care is centered on them, incorporating elements of patient-centered care from the institutional, infrastructure, qualities of care and what for them, in contrast, means inappropriate care. Care with love as a perception of quality care means for patients that the nursing staff must have certain qualities, perceive caring with love as a family affair, limits on care with love and the nurse-patient relationship. Quality care has effects on both the patient and the nursing staff. One of the most relevant effects was the confidence that the patient develops towards the nurse, besides to transform the unreal images about cancer treatment with chemotherapy. On the other hand, care with quality generates a commitment to self-care and is a facilitator in the transit of oncological disease and chemotherapeutic treatment, but from the perception of a healing transit. It is concluded that care with quality from the perception of patients, is a construction that goes beyond the structural issues and is related to an institutional culture of quality that is reflected in the attitude of the nursing staff and in the acts of Care that have positive effects on the experience of chemotherapy and disease. With the results, it contributes to better understand how quality care is built from the perception of patients and to open a range of possibilities for the future development of an individualized instrument that allows evaluating the quality of care from the perception of patients with cancer.

Keywords: nursing care, oncology service hospital, quality management, qualitative studies

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: Tathagatha Khan, Smruti Sourava Mohapatra

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Median openings are provided in raised median of multilane roads to facilitate U-turn movement. The U-turn movement is a highly complex and risky maneuver because U-turning vehicle (minor stream) makes 180° turns at median openings and merge with the approaching through traffic (major stream). A U-turning vehicle requires a suitable gap in the major stream to merge, and during this process, the possibility of merging conflict develops. Therefore, these median openings are potential hot spot of conflict and posses concern pertaining to safety. The traffic at the median openings could be managed efficiently with enhanced safety when the capacity of a traffic facility has been estimated correctly. The capacity of U-turns at median openings is estimated by Harder’s formula, which requires three basic parameters namely critical gap, follow up time and conflict flow rate. The estimation of conflicting flow rate under mixed traffic condition is very much complicated due to absence of lane discipline and discourteous behavior of the drivers. The understanding of placement of major stream vehicles at median opening is very much important for the estimation of conflicting traffic faced by U-turning movement. The placement data of major stream vehicles at different section in 4-lane and 6-lane divided multilane roads were collected. All the test sections were free from the effect of intersection, bus stop, parked vehicles, curvature, pedestrian movements or any other side friction. For the purpose of analysis, all the vehicles were divided into 6 categories such as motorized 2W, autorickshaw (3-W), small car, big car, light commercial vehicle, and heavy vehicle. For the collection of placement data of major stream vehicles, the entire road width was divided into sections of 25 cm each and these were numbered seriatim from the pavement edge (curbside) to the end of the road. The placement major stream vehicle crossing the reference line was recorded by video graphic technique on various weekdays. The collected data for individual category of vehicles at all the test sections were converted into a frequency table with a class interval of 25 cm each and the placement frequency curve. Separate distribution fittings were tried for 4- lane and 6-lane divided roads. The variation of major stream traffic volume on the placement characteristics of major stream vehicles has also been explored. The findings of this study will be helpful to determine the conflict volume at the median openings. So, the present work holds significance in traffic planning, operation and design to alleviate the bottleneck, prospect of collision and delay at median opening in general and at median opening in developing countries in particular.

Keywords: median opening, U-turn, conflicting traffic, placement, mixed traffic

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Authors: Michelann Parr

Abstract:

Family-school-community engagement enhances family-school-community well-being, collective confidence, and school climate. While it is often referred to as a positive thing in the literature for families, schools, and communities, it does not come without its struggles. While there are numerous things families, schools, and communities do each and every day to enhance engagement, it is often difficult to find our way to true belonging and engagement. Working our way surface level barriers is easy; we can provide childcare, transportation, resources, and refreshments. We can even change the environment so that families will feel welcome, valued, and respected. But there are often mindsets and perpsectives buried deep below the surface, most often grounded in societal, familial, and political norms, expectations, pressures, and narratives. This work requires ongoing energy, commitment, and engagement of all stakeholders, including families, schools, and communities. Each and every day, we need to take a reflective and introspective stance at what is said and done and how it supports the overall goal of family-school-community engagement. And whatever we must occur within a paradigm of care in additional to one of critical thinking and social justice. Families, and those working with families, must not simply accept all that is given, but should instead ask these types of questions: a) How, and by whom, are the current philosophies and practices of family-school engagement interrogated? b) How might digging below surface level meanings support understanding of what is being said and done? c) How can we move toward meaningful and authentic engagement that balances knowledge and power between family, school, district, community (local and global), and government? This type of work requires conscious attention and intentional decision-making at all levels bringing us one step closer to authentic and meaningful partnerships. Strategies useful to building a growth mindset include: a) interrogating and exploring consistencies and inconsistencies by looking at what is done and what is not done through multiple perspectives; b) recognizing that enhancing family-engagement and changing mindsets take place at the micro-level (e.g., family and school), but also require active engagement and awareness at the macro-level (e.g., community agencies, district school boards, government); c) taking action as an advocate or activist. Negative narratives about families, schools, and communities should not be maintained, but instead critical and courageous conversations in and out of school should be initiated and sustained; and d) maintaining consistency, simplicity, and steady progress. All involved in engagement need to be aware of the struggles, but keep them in check with the many successes. Change may not be observed on a day-to-day basis or even immediately, but stepping back and looking from the outside in, might change the view. Working toward a growth mindset will produce better results than a fixed mindset, and this takes time.

Keywords: family engagment, family-school-community engagement, parent engagement, parent involvment

Procedia PDF Downloads 163

Authors: Joanna Grzybowska, Magdalena Igras, Mariusz Ziółko

Abstract:

Association rule learning is an approach for discovering interesting relationships in large databases. The analysis of relations, invisible at first glance, is a source of new knowledge which can be subsequently used for prediction. We used this data mining technique (which is an automatic and objective method) to learn about interesting affects associations in a corpus of emergency phone calls. We also made an attempt to match revealed rules with their possible situational context. The corpus was collected and subjectively annotated by two researchers. Each of 3306 recordings contains information on emotion: (1) type (sadness, weariness, anxiety, surprise, stress, anger, frustration, calm, relief, compassion, contentment, amusement, joy) (2) valence (negative, neutral, or positive) (3) intensity (low, typical, alternating, high). Also, additional information, that is a clue to speaker’s emotional state, was annotated: speech rate (slow, normal, fast), characteristic vocabulary (filled pauses, repeated words) and conversation style (normal, chaotic). Exponentially many rules can be extracted from a set of items (an item is a previously annotated single information). To generate the rules in the form of an implication X → Y (where X and Y are frequent k-itemsets) the Apriori algorithm was used - it avoids performing needless computations. Then, two basic measures (Support and Confidence) and several additional symmetric and asymmetric objective measures (e.g. Laplace, Conviction, Interest Factor, Cosine, correlation coefficient) were calculated for each rule. Each applied interestingness measure revealed different rules - we selected some top rules for each measure. Owing to the specificity of the corpus (emergency situations), most of the strong rules contain only negative emotions. There are though strong rules including neutral or even positive emotions. Three examples of the strongest rules are: {sadness} → {anxiety}; {sadness, weariness, stress, frustration} → {anger}; {compassion} → {sadness}. Association rule learning revealed the strongest configurations of affects (as well as configurations of affects with affect-related information) in our emergency phone calls corpus. The acquired knowledge can be used for prediction to fulfill the emotional profile of a new caller. Furthermore, a rule-related possible context analysis may be a clue to the situation a caller is in.

Keywords: data mining, emergency phone calls, emotional profiles, rules

Procedia PDF Downloads 390

Authors: Roya Vakili, Lekaa Elhajjmoussa, Barzin Omidi-Shal, Kim Blake

Abstract:

Objective: The purpose of this case report is to highlight the successful treatment of a patient with Coloboma, Heart defect, Atresia choanae, Retarded growth and development, Genital hypoplasia, Ear anomalies/deafness, (CHARGE syndrome) using a vagal nerve stimulator (VNS). Background: This is the first documented case report, to the authors' best knowledge, for a patient with CHARGE syndrome, epilepsy, autism, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) that was successfully treated with an implanted VNS therapeutic device. Methodology: The study is a case report. Results: This is the case of a 24-year-old female patient with CHARGE syndrome (non-random association of anomalies Coloboma, Heart defect, Atresia choanae, Retarded growth and development, Genital hypoplasia, Ear anomalies/deafness) and several other comorbidities including refractory epilepsy, Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) and POTS who had significant improvement of her symptoms after VNS implantation. She was a VNS candidate given her longstanding history of drug-resistant epilepsy and current disposition secondary to CHARGE syndrome. Prior to VNS implantation, she experienced three generalized seizures a year and daily POTS-related symptoms. She was having frequent lightheadedness and syncope spells due to a rapid heart rate and low blood pressure. The VNS device was set to detect a rapid heart rate and send appropriate stimulation anytime the heart rate exceeded 20% of the patient’s normal baseline. The VNS device demonstrated frequent elevated heart rates and concurrent VNS release every 8 minutes in addition to the programmed events. Following VNS installation, the patient became more active, alert, and communicative and was able to verbally communicate with words she was unable to say prior. Her GI symptoms also improved, as she was able to tolerate food better orally in addition to her G and J tube, likely another result of the vagal nerve stimulation. Additionally, the patient’s seizures and POTS-related cardiac events appeared to be well controlled. She had prolonged electroencephalogram (EEG) testing, showing no significant change in epileptiform activity. Improvements in the patient’s disposition are believed to be secondary to parasympathetic stimulation, adequate heart rate control, and GI stimulation, in addition to behavioral changes and other benefits via her implanted VNS. Conclusion: VNS showed promising results in improving the patient's quality of life and managing her diverse symptoms, including dysautonomia, POTs, gastrointestinal mobility, cognitive functioning as well seizure control.

Keywords: autism, POTs, CHARGE, VNS

Procedia PDF Downloads 54