Search results for: work overload

Authors: Lawan Ja’afar Tahir

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This research work centered on the problem of free Arms flow around the Nigeria and Chad Border. The whole of the northeastern Nigerian region has been devastated by the crisis of insecurity facilitated by more than a decade of insurgency. One of the major issues of concern to security experts and personnel in the country is how the insurgents are getting access to weapons, which gave them more strength to fight the war for this long period, which has become so difficult to overcome. Among the possible avenues that continue to strengthen the enemies is the easy access to the arms flow from the neighboring countries, especially the Republic of Chad, which borders Nigeria to the east, where Boko Haram gained firm roots. This paper, therefore, looked at the nature of the waterway of the Nigeria/Chad Border, which has become a source of strength to the insurgents as the flow of weapons is one of the cheapest things on the Border. The availability of such arms flow has also led to the People abandoning their lands and economic and commercial activities, especially those settlements between the Border of these two countries. For more than eight years now, they have suspended their livelihood activities, roads were blocked and chances of survival in the rural areas were minimal due to the frequent attacks carried out by the insurgents. However, this research looks at the causes of the arms flow along the Border of these neighboring countries, the extent of damage done as a result of the availability of the weapons, and how far the Nigerian government has gone in curtailing the menace of the flow of dangerous weapons into the country. The research looked at the ways arm dealers are conniving with settlers along the border as well as the various ways they followed to reach their target. The work provided suggestion as to how the fragile Border should be managed with the view to reduce the influx of arms without control, which, according to this research, is the central factor that continues to unleash and give terror groups the opportunity to destroy people for more than a decade.

Keywords: border, insecurity, weapons, management

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Authors: Jorge Duarte de Sá

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The project presented in this investigation is part of the multidisciplinary field of Architecture and explores an experience in media architecture, integrated in Arts, Science and Technology. The objective of this work is to create a visual experience comprehending Architecture, Media and Art. It is intended to specifically explore the sacred spaces that are losing social, cultural or religious dynamics and insert new Media technologies to create a new generate momentum, testing tools, techniques and methods of implementation. Given an architectural project methodology, it seems essential that 'the location' should be the starting point for the development of this technological apparatus: the church of Santa Clara in Santarém, Portugal emerged as an experimental space for apparatus, presenting itself as both temple and museum. We also aim to address the concept of rehabilitation through media technologies, directed at interventions that may have an impact on energizing spaces. The idea is emphasized on the rehabilitation of spaces that, one way or another, may gain new dynamics after a media intervention. Thus, we intend to affect the play with a sensitive and spiritual character which endemically, sacred spaces have, by exploring a sensitive aspect of the subject and drawing up new ideas for meditation and spiritual reflection. The work is designed primarily as a visual experience that encompasses the space, the object and the subject. It is a media project supported by a dual structure with two transparent screens operating in a holographic screen which will be projecting two images that complement the translucent overlay film, thus making the merger of two projections. The digitally created content reacts to the presence of observers through infrared cameras, placed strategically. The object revives the memory of the altarpiece as an architectural surface, promoting the expansion of messages through the media technologies.

Keywords: architecture, media, sacred, technology

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Authors: Chen Jun

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Antonia Susan Byatt’s Possession: A Romance has been misread as a postmodern pastiche novel since its publication because there are epics, epigraphs, lyrics, fairy tales, epistles, and even critical articles swollen in this work. The word ‘pastiche’ suggests messy, disorganized, and chaotic, which buries its artistic excellence while overlooking its subtitle, A Romance. The center of romance is the quest that the hero sets forth to conquer the adversity, hardship, and danger to accomplish a task to prove his identity or social worth. This paper argues that Byatt’s Possession is not a postmodern pastiche novel but rather a postmodern romance in which the characters in the academic world set forth their quest into the Victorian literary past that is nostalgically identified by Byatt as the Golden Age of English literature. In doing so, these five following issues are addressed: first, the origin of the protagonist Roland, and consequently, the nature of his quest; second, the central image of the dragon created by the fictional Victorian poet Henry Ash; third, Melusine as an image of female serpent created by the fictional Victorian poet Christabel LaMotte; fourth, the images of the two ladies; last, the image of water that links the dragon and the serpent. In Possession, the past is reinvented not as an unfortunate fall but as a Golden Age presented in the imaginative academic adventure. The dragon, a stereotypical symbol of evil, becomes the symbol of life in Byatt’s work, which parallels with the image of the mythical phoenix that can resurrect from its own ash. At the same time, the phoenix symbolizes Byatt’s efforts to revive the Victorian poetic art that is supposed to be dead in the post-capitalism society when the novel is the dominating literary genre and poetry becomes the minority. The fictional Victorian poet Ash is in fact Byatt’s own poetic mask through which she breathes life into the lost poetic artistry in the postmodern era.

Keywords: Byatt, possession, postmodern romance, literary past

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Authors: Emanuela Zilli, Suana Tikvina, Davide Bonaldo, Monica Varotto, Scilla Rizzardi, Barbara Ruzzante, Raffaele Napolitano, Stefano Bevilacqua, Antonella Ruffatto

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A healthy workplace increases productivity, creativity and decreases absenteeism and turnover. It also contributes to creating a more secure work environment with fewer risks of violence. In the past 3 years, the healthcare system has suffered the psychological, economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the healthcare staff reductions determine high levels of work-related stress that are often unsustainable. The Hospital of Cittadella (in the province of Padua) has 400 beds and serves a territory of 300,000 inhabitants. The hospital itself counts 1.250 healthcare employees (healthcare professionals). This year, the Medical Board of Directors has requested additional staff; however, the economic situation of Italy can not sustain additional hires. At the same time, we have initiated projects that aim to increase well-being, decrease stress and encourage activities that promote self-care. One of the projects that the hospital has organized is the psychomotor practice. It is held by therapists and trainers who operate according to the traditional method. According to the literature, the psychomotor practice is specifically intended for the staff operating in the Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Department and Pneumology Ward. The project consisted of one session of 45 minutes a week for 3 months. This method brings focus to controlled breathing, posture, muscle work and movement that help manage stress and fatigue, creating a more mindful and sustainable lifestyle. In addition, a Qigong course was held every two weeks for 5 months. It is an ancient Chinese practice designed to optimize the energy within the body, reducing stress levels and increasing general well-being. Finally, Tibetan singing crystal bowls sessions, held by a music therapist, consisted of monthly guided meditation sessions using the sounds of the crystal bowls. Sound therapy uses the vibrations created from the crystal bowls to balance the vibrations within the body to promote relaxation. In conclusion, well-being and organizational performance are closely related to each other. It is crucial for any organization to encourage and maintain better physical and mental health of the healthcare staff as it directly affects productivity and, consequently, user satisfaction of the services provided.

Keywords: health promotion, healthcare workers management, Weel being and organizational performance, Psychomotor practice

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Authors: Ashley DelCorno

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GEM Anscombe’s 1958 essay Modern Moral Philosophy and the tradition of virtue ethics that followed has given rise to the restoration (or, more plainly, the resurrection) of Aristotle as something of an authority figure. Alisdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum are proponents, for example, not just of Aristotle’s relevancy but also of his apparent implicit authority. That said, it’s not clear that the schema imagined by virtue ethicists accurately describes moral life or that it does not inadvertently work to impoverish genuine decision-making. If the label ‘virtue’ is categorically denied to some groups (while arbitrarily afforded to others), it can only turn on itself, thus rendering ridiculous its own premise. Likewise, as an inescapable feature of virtue ethics, Aristotelean binaries like ‘virtue/vice’ and ‘voluntary/involuntary’ offer up false dichotomies that may seriously compromise an agent’s ability to conceptualize choices that are truly free and rooted in meaningful criteria. Here, this topic is analyzed through a feminist lens predicated on the known paradoxes of patriarchy. The work of feminist theorists Jacqui Alexander, Katharine Angel, Simone de Beauvoir, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Imani Perry, and Amia Srinivasan serves as important guideposts, and the argument here is built from a key tenet of black feminist thought regarding scarcity and possibility. Above all, it’s clear that though the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics presents itself as recovering the place of agency in ethics, its premises possess crippling limitations toward the achievement of this goal. These include, most notably, virtue ethics’ binding analysis of history, as well as its axiomatic attachment to obligatory clauses, problematic reading-in of Aristotle and arbitrary commitment to predetermined and competitively patriarchal ideas of what counts as a virtue.

Keywords: feminist history, the limits of utopic imagination, curatorial creation, truth, virtue, freedom

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Authors: Mauro Iannazzone, Carmine D'Agostino

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Off-shore wind turbines are currently considered as a reliable source of renewable energy Worldwide and especially in the UK. Most of the operational off-shore wind turbines located in shallow waters (i.e. < 30 m) are supported on monopiles. Monopiles are open-ended steel tubes with diameter ranging between 4 to 6 m. It is expected that future off-shore wind farms will be located in water depths as high as 70 m. Therefore, alternative foundation arrangements are needed. Foundations for off-shore structures normally consist of open-ended piles driven into the soil by means of impact hammers. During pile installation, the soil inside the pile may be mobilized by the increasing shear strength such as to prevent more soil from entering the pile. This phenomenon is known as soil plugging, and represents an important issue as it may change significantly the driving resistance of open-ended piles. In fact, if the plugging formation is unexpected, the installation may require more powerful and more expensive hammers. Engineers need to estimate whether the driven pile will be installed in a plugged or unplugged mode. As a consequence, a prediction of the degree of soil plugging is required in order to correctly predict the drivability of the pile. This work presents a brief review of the state-of-the-art of pile driving and approaches used to predict formation of soil plugs. In addition, a novel analytical approach is proposed, which is based on the vertical equilibrium of a plugged pile. Differently from previous studies, this research takes into account the enhancement of the stress within the soil plug. Finally, the work presents and discusses a series of experimental tests, which are carried out on small-scale models piles to validate the analytical solution.

Keywords: off-shore wind turbines, pile installation, soil plugging, wind energy

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Authors: Nikolaos Katsoulas, Sofia Faliagka, George Kountrias, Eleni Dimitriou, Eleftheria Pechlivani

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The challenges to feed the world in 2050 are becoming more and more apparent. This calls for producing more with fewer inputs (most of them under scarcity), higher resource efficiency, minimum or zero effect on the environment, and higher sustainability. Therefore, increasing the circularity of production systems is highly significant for their sustainability. Protected horticulture offers opportunities for maximum resource efficiency across various levels within and between farms and at the regional level), high-quality production, and contributes significantly to the nutrition security as part of the world food production. In greenhouses, closed soilless cultivation systems give the opportunity to increase the water and nutrient use efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of the cultivation system by the reuse of the drained water and nutrients. However, due to the low quality of the water used in the Mediterranean countries, a completely closed system is not feasible. Partial discharge of the drainage nutrient solution when the levels of electrical conductivity (EC) or of the toxic ions in the system are reached is still a necessity. Thus, in the frame of the circular economy concept, this work presents the utilisation of the drainage solution of soilless cultivation systems for microalgae and biofertilisers production. The system includes a greenhouse equipped with a soilless cultivation system, a drainage solution collection tank, a closed bioreactor for microalgae production, and a biocatalysis tank. The bioreactor tested in the frame of this work includes two closed tube loops of a capacity of 1000 L each where, after the initial inoculation, the microalgae is developed using as a growth medium the drainage solution collected from the greenhouse crops. The bioreactor includes light and temperature control while pH is still manually regulated. As soon as the microalgae culture reaches a certain density level, 20% of the culture is harvested, and the culture system is refiled by a drainage nutrient solution. The microalgae produced goes through a biocatalysis process, which leads to the production of a rich aminoacids (and nitrogen) biofertiliser. The produced biofertiliser is then used for the fertilisation of greenhouse crops. The complete production cycle along with the effects of the biofertiliser produced on crop growth and yield are presented and discussed in this manuscript. Acknowledgment: This work was carried out under the PestNu project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Green Deal grant agreement No. 101037128 — PestNu.

Keywords: soilless, water use efficiency, nutrients use efficiency, biostimulant

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Authors: N. D. Iswarya, M. A. Maluk Mohamed, N. Vijaya

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Grid is infrastructure that allows the deployment of distributed data in large size from multiple locations to reach a common goal. Scheduling data intensive applications becomes challenging as the size of data sets are very huge in size. Only two solutions exist in order to tackle this challenging issue. First, computation which requires huge data sets to be processed can be transferred to the data site. Second, the required data sets can be transferred to the computation site. In the former scenario, the computation cannot be transferred since the servers are storage/data servers with little or no computational capability. Hence, the second scenario can be considered for further exploration. During scheduling, transferring huge data sets from one site to another site requires more network bandwidth. In order to mitigate this issue, this work focuses on incorporating cognitive science in scheduling. Cognitive Science is the study of human brain and its related activities. Current researches are mainly focused on to incorporate cognitive science in various computational modeling techniques. In this work, the problem solving approach of human brain is studied and incorporated during the data intensive scheduling in grid environments. Here, a cognitive engine is designed and deployed in various grid sites. The intelligent agents present in CE will help in analyzing the request and creating the knowledge base. Depending upon the link capacity, decision will be taken whether to transfer data sets or to partition the data sets. Prediction of next request is made by the agents to serve the requesting site with data sets in advance. This will reduce the data availability time and data transfer time. Replica catalog and Meta data catalog created by the agents assist in decision making process.

Keywords: data grid, grid workflow scheduling, cognitive artificial intelligence

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Authors: M. Fatmi, T. Chihi, M. A. Ghebouli, B. Ghebouli

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This work presents the experimental results of the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), hardness measurements (Hv) and XRD analysis, for order to investigate the kinetics of precipitation phenomena in Al-7%wt. Mg alloy. In the XRD and DSC curves indicates the formation of the intermediate precipitation of β-(Al3Mg2) phase respectively. The activation energies associated with the processes have been determined according to the three models proposed by Kissinger, Ozawa, and Boswell. Consequently, the nucleation mechanism of the precipitates can be explained. These phases are confirmed by XRD analysis.

Keywords: discontinuous precipitation, hardening, Al–Mg alloys, mechanical and mechatronics engineering

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Authors: Agnieszka Dubiel, Artur Grabowski, Tomasz Przerywacz, Mateusz Roganowicz, Patrycja Zioty

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Food waste is one of the most significant challenges humanity is facing nowadays. Every year, reports from global organizations show the scale of the phenomenon, although society's awareness is still insufficient. One-third of the food produced in the world is wasted at various points in the food supply chain. Wastes are present from the delivery through the food preparation and distribution to the end of the sale and consumption. The first step in understanding and resisting the phenomenon is a thorough analysis of the everyday behaviors of humanity. This concept is understood as finding the correlation between the type of food and the reason for throwing it out and wasting it. Those actions were identified as a critical step in the start of work to develop technology to prevent food waste. In this paper, the problem mentioned above was analyzed by focusing on the inhabitants of Central Europe, especially Poland, aged 20-30. This paper provides an insight into collecting data through dedicated software and an organized database. The proposed database contains information on the amount, type, and reasons for wasting food in households. A literature review supported the work to answer research questions, compare the situation in Poland with the problem analyzed in other countries, and find research gaps. The proposed article examines the cause of food waste and its quantity in detail. This review complements previous reviews by emphasizing social and economic innovation in Poland's food waste management. The paper recommends a course of action for future research on food waste management and prevention related to the handling and disposal of food, emphasizing households, i.e., the last link in the supply chain.

Keywords: food waste, food waste reduction, consumer food waste, human-food interaction

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Authors: Parashram Jakappa Patil

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India is the global leader in world cashew business and cashew-nut industry is one of the important food processing industries in world. However India is the largest producer, processor, exporter and importer eschew in the world. India is providing cashew to the rest of the world. India is meeting world demand of cashew. India has a tremendous potential of cashew production and export to other countries. Every year India earns more than 2000 cores rupees through cashew trade. Cashew industry is one of the important small scale industries in the country which is playing significant role in rural development. It is generating more than 400000 jobs at remote area and 95% cashew worker are women, it is giving income to poor cashew farmers, majority cashew processing units are small and cottage, it is helping to stop migration from young farmers for employment opportunities, it is motivation rural entrepreneurship development and it is also helping to environment protection etc. Hence India cashew business is very important agribusiness in India which has potential make inclusive development. World Bank and IMF recognized cashew-nut industry is one the important tool for poverty eradication at global level. It shows important of cashew business and its strong existence in India. In spite of such huge potential cashew processing industry is facing different problems such as lack of infrastructure ability, lack of supply of raw cashew, lack of availability of finance, collection of raw cashew, unavailability of warehouse, marketing of cashew kernels, lack of technical knowledge and especially processing technology and packaging of finished products. This industry has great prospects such as scope for more cashew cultivation and cashew production, employment generation, formation of cashew processing units, alcohols production from cashew apple, shield oil production, rural development, poverty elimination, development of social and economic backward class and environment protection etc. This industry has domestic as well as foreign market; India has tremendous potential in this regard. The cashew is a poor men’s crop but rich men’s food. The cashew is a source of income and livelihood for poor farmers. Cashew-nut industry may play very important role in the development of hilly region. The objectives of this paper are to identify problems of cashew processing and use of processing technology, problems of cashew kernel packaging, evolving of cashew processing technology over the year and its impact on final product and impact of good processing by adopting appropriate technology packaging on international trade of cashew-nut. The most important problem of cashew processing industry is that is processing and packaging. Bad processing reduce the quality of cashew kernel at large extent especially broken of cashew kernel which has very less price in market compare to whole cashew kernel and not eligible for export. On the other hand if there is no good packaging of cashew kernel will get moisture which destroy test of it. International trade of cashew-nut is depend of two things one is cashew processing and other is packaging. This study has strong relevance because cashew-nut industry is the labour oriented, where processing technology is not playing important role because 95% processing work is manual. Hence processing work was depending on physical performance of worker which makes presence of large workforce inevitable. There are many cashew processing units closed because they are not getting sufficient work force. However due to advancement in technology slowly this picture is changing and processing work get improve. Therefore it is interesting to explore all the aspects in context of cashew processing and packaging of cashew business.

Keywords: cashew, processing technology, packaging, international trade, change

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Authors: Vandenbroucke Karel, Georges Annabel, Schuurman Dimitri

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In the past years, bundling of transport flows, whether or not implemented in an intermodal process, has popped up as a promising concept in the logistics sector. Bundling of transport flows is a process where two or more shippers decide to synergize their shipped goods over a common transport lane. Promoted by the European Commission, several programs have been set up and have shown their benefits. Bundling promises both shippers and logistics service providers economic, societal and ecological benefits. By bundling transport flows and thus reducing truck (or other carrier) capacity, the problems of driver shortage, increased fuel prices, mileage charges and restricted hours of service on the road are solved. In theory, the advantages of bundled transport exceed the drawbacks, however, in practice adoption among shippers remains low. In fact, bundling is mentioned as a disruptive process in the rather traditional logistics sector. In this context, a Belgian company asked iMinds Living Labs to set up a Living Lab research project with the goal to investigate how the uptake of bundling transport flows can be accelerated and to check whether an online data sharing platform can overcome the adoption barriers. The Living Lab research was conducted in 2016 and combined quantitative and qualitative end-user and market research. Concretely, extensive desk research was conducted and combined with insights from expert interviews with four consultants active in the Belgian logistics sector and in-depth interviews with logistics professionals working for shippers (N=10) and LSP’s (N=3). In the article, we present findings which show that there are several factors slowing down the uptake of bundling transport flows. Shippers are hesitant to change how they currently work and they are hesitant to work together with other shippers. Moreover, several practical challenges impede shippers to work together. We also present some opportunities that can accelerate the adoption of bundling of transport flows. First, it seems that there is not enough support coming from governmental and commercial organizations. Secondly, there is the chicken and the egg problem: too few interested parties will lead to no or very few matching lanes. Shippers are therefore reluctant to partake in these projects because the benefits have not yet been proven. Thirdly, the incentive is not big enough for shippers. Road transport organized by the shipper individually is still seen as the easiest and cheapest solution. A solution for the abovementioned challenges might be found in the online data sharing platform of the Belgian company. The added value of this platform is showing shippers possible matching lanes, without the shippers having to invest time in negotiating and networking with other shippers and running the risk of not finding a match. The interviewed shippers and experts indicated that the online data sharing platform is a very promising concept which could accelerate the uptake of bundling of transport flows.

Keywords: adoption barriers, bundling of transport, shippers, transport optimization

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Authors: Karla Hrbackova, Anna Petr Safrankova, Jakub Hladik

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Machiavellianism as social phenomenon reveals certain methods of communication that man puts in contact with other people in both personal and working life (and work with clients). Especially at the helping-profession students is honesty, openness or low motivation for personal benefit important part of the profession. The aim of a study is to expose intercultural differences influence of Machiavellianism between Czech and Slovak university students and to determine whether these differences manifest themselves differently among students focusing on management and social profession (by helping degrees). The research involved 1120 university students from the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The measurement of Machiavellianism used a test Mach IV. The test contained 20 statements divided into four central dimensions of Machiavellianism: flattery, deception and falsehood, immorality and cynicism. We found out, that Czech and Slovak's student expressed a similar attitude toward Machiavellianism as a means of manipulation in the interpersonal relationship, but this is not true in all dimensions. Czech and Slovak's students perceive differently flattery, deception and falsehood and cynicism too. In addition to specific features of cultural conditionality, we found out differences depending on the helping profession. Students focusing on managerial occupation (lower level of helping) tend towards greater acceptance of the use flattery as a means of communication than students specializing in the social profession (high-grade assisting). If they are an intercultural and interdisciplinary influences combined and effect on the perception of Machiavellianism together, then their significant importance for the perception of flattery and cynicism. The result will help us to reveal certain specific traits that students apply communication and with whom we can continue to work during their training.

Keywords: use of manipulative strategies, Machiavellianism, helping-profession students, professional training of students

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Authors: Gurukiran Veerapur, Nytik Birudavolu, Seetharam U. N., Chandravva Hebbi, R. Praneeth Reddy

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This work presents a robust approach for the recognition of characters in Telugu and Kannada, two South Indian scripts with structural similarities in characters. To recognize the characters exhaustive datasets are required, but there are only a few publicly available datasets. As a result, we decided to create a dataset for one language (source language),train the model with it, and then test it with the target language.Telugu is the target language in this work, whereas Kannada is the source language. The suggested method makes use of Canny edge features to increase character identification accuracy on pictures with noise and different lighting. A dataset of 45,150 images containing printed Kannada characters was created. The Nudi software was used to automatically generate printed Kannada characters with different writing styles and variations. Manual labelling was employed to ensure the accuracy of the character labels. The deep learning models like CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and Visual Attention neural network (VAN) are used to experiment with the dataset. A Visual Attention neural network (VAN) architecture was adopted, incorporating additional channels for Canny edge features as the results obtained were good with this approach. The model's accuracy on the combined Telugu and Kannada test dataset was an outstanding 97.3%. Performance was better with Canny edge characteristics applied than with a model that solely used the original grayscale images. The accuracy of the model was found to be 80.11% for Telugu characters and 98.01% for Kannada words when it was tested with these languages. This model, which makes use of cutting-edge machine learning techniques, shows excellent accuracy when identifying and categorizing characters from these scripts.

Keywords: base characters, modifiers, guninthalu, aksharas, vattakshara, VAN

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Authors: Anita K. Kovacs, Peter Hegyes, Zsolt Bozso, Gabor Toth

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Fluorination has been used extensively by the pharmaceutical industry as a strategy to improve the pharmacokinetics of drugs due to its effectiveness in increasing the potency of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Multiple-fluorinated indole-ring-containing tryptophan derivatives have the potential of having better antimicrobial activity than the widely used mono-fluorinated indole-ring containing tryptophan derivatives, but they are not available commercially. Therefore, our goal is to synthesize multiple-fluorinated indole-ring containing tryptophan derivatives to incorporate them into AMPs to enhance their antimicrobial activity. During our work, we are trying several methods (classical organic synthesis, enzymic synthesis, and solid phase peptide synthesis) for the synthesis of the said compounds, with mixed results. With classical organic synthesis (four different routes), we did not get the desired results. The reaction of serin with substituted indole in the presence of acetic anhydride led to racemic tryptophane; with the reaction of protected serin with indole in the presence of nickel complex was unsuccessful; the reaction of serin containing protected dipeptide with disuccinimidyl carbonate we achieved a tryptophane containing dipeptide, its chiral purity is being examined; the reaction of alcohol with substituted indole in the presence of copper complex was successful, but it was only a test reaction, we could not reproduce the same result with serine. The undergoing tryptophan-synthase method has shown some potential, but our work has not been finished yet. The successful synthesis of the desired multiple-fluorinated indole-ring-containing tryptophan will be followed by solid phase peptide synthesis in order to incorporate it into AMPs to enhance their antimicrobial activity. The successful completion of these phases will mean the possibility of manufacturing new, effective AMPs.

Keywords: halogenation, fluorination, tryptophan, enhancement of antimicrobial activity

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Authors: Sharmistha Chanda, Anindita Chaudhuri

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This exploratory study highlights the psychological aspects of women's empowerment to find the importance of the psychological dimension of empowerment, such as; meaning, competence, self-determination, impact, and assumption, especially in the weaker marginalized section of women. A large proportion of rural, suburban, and urban poor survive by working in unorganized sectors of metropolitan cities. Relative Poverty and lack of employment in rural areas and small towns drive many people to the metropolitan city for work and livelihood. Women working in that field remain unrecognized as people of low socio-economic status. They are usually willing to do domestic work as daily wage workers, single wage earners, street vendors, family businesses like agricultural activities, domestic workers, and self-employed. Usually, these women accept such jobs because they do not have such an opportunity as they lack the basic level of education that is required for better-paid jobs. The unorganized sector, on the other hand, has no such clear-cut employer-employee relationships and lacks most forms of social protection. Having no fixed employer, these workers are casual, contractual, migrant, home-based, own-account workers who attempt to earn a living from whatever meager assets and skills they possess. Women have become more empowered both financially and individually through small-scale business ownership or entrepreneurship development and in household-based work. In-depth interviews have been done with 10 participants in order to understand their living styles, habits, self-identity, and empowerment in their society in order to evaluate the key challenges that they may face following by qualitative research approach. Transcription has been done from the collected data. The three-layer coding technique guides the data analysis process, encompassing – open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Women’s Entrepreneurship is one of the foremost concerns as the Government, and non-government institutions are readily serving this domain with the primary objectives of promoting self-employment opportunities in general and empowering women in specific. Thus, despite hardship and unrecognition unorganized sector provides a huge array of opportunities for rural and sub-urban poor to earn. Also, the upper section of society tends to depend on this working force. This study gave an idea about the well-being, and meaning in life, life satisfaction on the basis of their lived experience.

Keywords: marginalized women, psychological empowerment, relative poverty, and unorganized sector.

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Authors: Domingos Viegas, Miguel Almeida, Carmen Rocha, Ilda Novo, Yolanda Luna

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Forest fires along the more than 1200km of the Spanish-Portuguese border are more and more frequent, currently achieving around 2000 fire events per year. Some of these events develop to large international wildfire requiring concerted operations based on shared information between the two countries. The fire event of Valencia de Alcantara (2003) causing several fatalities and more than 13000ha burnt, is a reference example of these international events. Currently, Portugal and Spain have a specific cross-border cooperation protocol on wildfires response for a strip of about 30km (15 km for each side). It is recognized by public authorities the successfulness of this collaboration however it is also assumed that this cooperation should include more functionalities such as the development of a common risk information system for transboundary fire events. Since Portuguese and Spanish authorities use different approaches to determine the fire risk indexes inputs and different methodologies to assess the fire risk, sometimes the conjoint firefighting operations are jeopardized since the information is not harmonized and the understanding of the situation by the civil protection agents from both countries is not unique. Thus, a methodology aiming the harmonization of the fire risk calculation and perception by Portuguese and Spanish Civil protection authorities is hereby presented. The final results are presented as well. The fire risk index used in this work is the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), which is based on meteorological data. The FWI is limited on its application as it does not take into account other important factors with great effect on the fire appearance and development. The combination of these factors is very complex since, besides the meteorology, it addresses several parameters of different topics, namely: sociology, topography, vegetation and soil cover. Therefore, the meaning of FWI values is different from region to region, according the specific characteristics of each region. In this work, a methodology for FWI calibration based on the number of fire occurrences and on the burnt area in the transboundary regions of Portugal and Spain, in order to assess the fire risk based on calibrated FWI values, is proposed. As previously mentioned, the cooperative firefighting operations require a common perception of the information shared. Therefore, a common classification of the fire risk for the fire events occurred in the transboundary strip is proposed with the objective of harmonizing this type of information. This work is integrated in the ECHO project SpitFire - Spanish-Portuguese Meteorological Information System for Transboundary Operations in Forest Fires, which aims the development of a web platform for the sharing of information and supporting decision tools to be used in international fire events involving Portugal and Spain.

Keywords: data harmonization, FWI, international collaboration, transboundary wildfires

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Authors: Daniel Panario, Daniel Santana de Freitas, Brett Stevens

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Almost Perfect Nonlinear (APN) permutations with optimal resistance against differential cryptanalysis can be found in several domains. The permutation used in the standard for symmetric cryptography (the AES), for example, is based on a special kind of inversion in GF(28). Although very close to APN (2-uniform), this permutation still contains one number 4 in its differential spectrum, which means that, rigorously, it must be classified as 4-uniform. This fact motivates the search for fully APN permutations in other domains of definition. The extremely high complexity associated to this kind of problem precludes an exhaustive search for an APN permutation with 256 elements to be performed without the support of a suitable mathematical structure. On the other hand, in principle, there is nothing to indicate which mathematically structured domains can effectively help the search, and it is necessary to test several domains. In this work, the search for APN permutations in rings ℤ2×ℤ2k is investigated. After a full, exhaustive search with k=2 and k=3, all possible APN permutations in those rings were recorded, together with their differential profiles. Some very promising heuristics in these cases were collected so that, when used as a basis to prune backtracking for the same search in ℤ2×ℤ8 (search space with size 16! ≅244), just a few tenths of a second were enough to produce an APN permutation in a single CPU. Those heuristics were empirically extrapolated so that they could be applied to a backtracking search for APNs over ℤ2×ℤ16 (search space with size 32! ≅2117). The best permutations found in this search were further refined through Simulated Annealing, with a definition of neighbors suitable to this domain. The best result produced with this scheme was a 3-uniform permutation over ℤ2×ℤ16 with only 24 values equal to 3 in the differential spectrum (all the other 968 values were less than or equal 2, as it should be the case for an APN permutation). Although far from being fully APN, this result is technically better than a 4-uniform permutation and demanded only a few seconds in a single CPU. This is a strong indication that the use of mathematically structured domains, like the rings described in this work, together with heuristics based on smaller cases, can lead to dramatic cuts in the computational resources involved in the complexity of the search for APN permutations in extremely large domains.

Keywords: APN permutations, heuristic searches, symmetric cryptography, S-box design

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Authors: T. Kuchukhidze, N. Jalagonia, T. Archuadze, G. Bokuchava

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The growing scientific-technological progress in modern civilization causes actuality of producing construction materials which can successfully work in conditions of high temperature, radiation, pressure, speed, and chemically aggressive environment. Such extreme conditions can withstand very few types of materials and among them, ceramic materials are in the first place. Corundum ceramics is the most useful material for creation of constructive nodes and products of various purposes for its low cost, easy accessibility to raw materials and good combination of physical-chemical properties. However, ceramic composite materials have one disadvantage; they are less plastics and have lower toughness. In order to increase the plasticity, the ceramics are reinforced by various dopants, that reduces the growth of the cracks. It is shown, that adding of even small amount of carbon fibers and carbon nanotubes (CNT) as reinforcing material significantly improves mechanical properties of the products, keeping at the same time advantages of alundum ceramics. Graphene in composite material acts in the same way as inorganic dopants (MgO, ZrO2, SiC and others) and performs the role of aluminum oxide inhibitor, as it creates shell, that gives possibility to reduce sintering temperature and at the same time it acts as damper, because scattering of a shock wave takes place on carbon structures. Application of different structural modification of carbon (graphene, nanotube and others) as reinforced material, gives possibility to create multi-purpose highly requested composite materials based on alundum ceramics. In the present work offers simplified technology for obtaining of aluminum oxide ceramics, reinforced with carbon nanostructures, during which chemical modification with doping carbon nanostructures will be implemented in the process of synthesis of final powdery composite – Alumina. In charge doping carbon nanostructures connected to matrix substance with C-O-Al bonds, that provide their homogeneous spatial distribution. In ceramic obtained as a result of consolidation of such powders carbon fragments equally distributed in the entire matrix of aluminum oxide, that cause increase of bending strength and crack-resistance. The proposed way to prepare the charge simplifies the technological process, decreases energy consumption, synthesis duration and therefore requires less financial expenses. In the implementation of this work, modern instrumental methods were used: electronic and optical microscopy, X-ray structural and granulometric analysis, UV, IR, and Raman spectroscopy.

Keywords: ceramic materials, α-Al₂O₃, carbon nanostructures, composites, characterization, hot-pressing

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Authors: David Cobham

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In higher education, a great degree of importance is placed on the internationalization of the student experience. This is seen as a valuable contributor to elements such as building confidence, broadening knowledge, creating networks and connections, and enhancing employability for current students who will become the next generation of managers in technology and business. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all areas of people’s lives. The limitations of travel coupled with the fears and concerns generated by the health risks have dramatically reduced the opportunity for students to engage with this agenda. Institutions of higher education have been required to rethink fundamental aspects of their business model from recruitment and enrolment through learning approaches, assessment methods, and the pathway to employment. This paper presents a case study which focuses on student mobility and how the physical experience of being in another country, either to study, to work, to volunteer or to gain cultural and social enhancement, has of necessity been replaced by alternative approaches. It considers trans-national education as an alternative to physical study overseas, virtual mobility and internships as an alternative to international work experience, and adopting collaborative online projects as an alternative to in-person encounters. The paper concludes that although these elements have been adopted to address the current situation, the lessons learned and the feedback gained suggests that they have contributed successfully in new and sometimes unexpected ways and that they will persist beyond the present to become part of the 'new normal' for the future. That being the case, senior leaders of institutions of higher education will be required to revisit their international plans and to rewrite their international strategies to take account of and build upon these changes.

Keywords: higher education management, internationalization, transnational education, virtual mobility

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Authors: Fedili Benamar, Beloulou Mohamed Lamine, Ouahes Hassane, Ghattas Samir

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Background and aims: While in Western countries, unilateral spinal anesthesia has been widely practiced for a long time, it remains little known in the local anesthesia community, and has not been the object of many studies. However, it is a simple, practical and effective technique. Our objective was to evaluate this practice in emergency anesthesia management in frail patients and to compare it with conventional spinal anesthesia. Methods: This is a prospective, observational, comparative study between hypobaric unilateral and conventional spinal anaesthesia for hip fracture surgery carried out in the operating room of the university military hospital of Staoueli. The work was spread over of 12-month period from 2019 to 2020. The parameters analyzed were hemodynamic variations, vasopressor use, block efficiency, postoperative adverse events, and postoperative morphine consumption. Results: -75 cases (mean age 72±14 years) -Group1= 41 patients (54.6%) divided into (ASA1=14.6% ASA2=60.98% ASA3=24.39%) single shoot spinal anaesthesia -Group2= 34 patients (45.3%) divided into (ASA1=2.9%, ASA2=26.4% ASA3=61.7%, ASA4=8.8%) unilateral hypobaric spinal anesthesia. -Hemodynamic variations were more severe in group 1 (51% hypotension) compared to 30% in group 2 RR=1.69 and odds ratio=2.4 -these variations were more marked in the ASA3 subgroup (group 1=70% hypotension versus group 2=30%) with an RR=2.33 and an odds ratio=5.44 -39% of group 1 required vasoactive drugs (15mg +/- 11) versus 32% of group 2 (8mg+/- 6.49) - no difference in the use of morphine in post-op. Conclusions: Within the limits of the population studied, this work demonstrates the clinical value of unilateral spinal anesthesia in ortho-trauma surgery in the frail patient.

Keywords: spinal anaesthesia, vasopressor, morphine, hypobaric unilateral spinal anesthesia, ropivacaine, hip surgery, eldery, hemodynamic

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Authors: Jiro Takagi

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Approximately 90 percent of the casualties in the near-fault-type Kobe earthquake in 1995 resulted from the collapse of wooden houses, although a limited number of collapses of this type of building were reported in the more recent off-shore-type Tohoku Earthquake in 2011 (excluding direct damage by the Tsunami). Kumamoto earthquake in 2016 also revealed the vulnerability of old wooden houses in Japan. There are approximately 24.5 million wooden houses in Japan and roughly 40 percent of them are considered to have the inadequate seismic-resisting capacity. Therefore, seismic strengthening of these wooden houses is an urgent task. However, it has not been quickly done for various reasons, including cost and inconvenience during the reinforcing work. Residents typically spend their money on improvements that more directly affect their daily housing environment (such as interior renovation, equipment renewal, and placement of thermal insulation) rather than on strengthening against extremely rare events such as large earthquakes. Considering this tendency of residents, a new approach to developing a seismic strengthening method for wooden houses is needed. The seismic reinforcement method developed in this research uses folded galvanized thin steel plates as both shear walls and the new exterior architectural finish. The existing finish is not removed. Because galvanized steel plates are aesthetic and durable, they are commonly used in modern Japanese buildings on roofs and walls. Residents could feel a physical change through the reinforcement, covering existing exterior walls with steel plates. Also, this exterior reinforcement can be installed with only outdoor work, thereby reducing inconvenience for residents since they would not be required to move out temporarily during construction. The Durability of the exterior is enhanced, and the reinforcing work can be done efficiently since perfect water protection is not required for the new finish. In this method, the entire exterior surface would function as shear walls and thus the pull-out force induced by seismic lateral load would be significantly reduced as compared with a typical reinforcement scheme of adding braces in selected frames. Consequently, reinforcing details of anchors to the foundations would be less difficult. In order to attach the exterior galvanized thin steel plates to the houses, new wooden beams are placed next to the existing beams. In this research, steel connections between the existing and new beams are developed, which contain a gap for the existing finish between the two beams. The thin steel plates are screwed to the new beams and the connecting vertical members. The seismic-resisting performance of the shear walls with thin steel plates is experimentally verified both for the frames and connections. It is confirmed that the performance is high enough for bracing general wooden houses.

Keywords: experiment, seismic reinforcement, thin steel plates, wooden houses

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Authors: S. A. Alotaibi, M. A. Al-Ajmi

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This work introduces a new concept for controlling the mechanical vibrations via variable stiffness coil spring. The concept relies on fitting a screw though the spring to change the number of active spring coils. A prototype has been built and tested with promising results toward an innovation in the field of vibration control.

Keywords: variable stiffness, coil spring, vibration control, computer science

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Authors: D. Sarkar, M. Pal, A. K. Sarkar

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Asphaltic concrete for pavement construction in India are produced by using crushed stone, gravels etc. as aggregate. In north-Eastern region of India, there is a scarcity o f stone aggregate. Therefore the road engineers are always in search of an optional material as aggregate which can replace the regularly used material. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the utilization of substandard or marginal aggregates in flexible pavement construction. The investigation was undertaken to evaluate the effects of using lower quality aggregates such as over burnt brick aggregate on the preparation of asphalt concrete for flexible pavements. The scope of this work included a review of available literature and existing data, a laboratory evaluation organized to determine the effects of marginal aggregates and potential techniques to upgrade these substandard materials, and a laboratory evaluation of these upgraded marginal aggregate asphalt mixtures. Over burnt brick aggregates are water susceptible and can leads to moisture damage. Moisture damage is the progressive loss of functionality of the material owing to loss of the adhesion bond between the asphalt binder and the aggregate surface. Hence, zycosoil as an anti striping additive were evaluated in this study. This study summarizes the results of the laboratory evaluation carried out to investigate the properties of asphalt concrete prepared with zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Marshall specimen were prepared with stone aggregate, zycosoil modified stone aggregate, over burnt brick aggregate and zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Results show that addition of zycosoil with stone aggregate increased stability by 6% and addition of zycosoil with over burnt brick aggregate increased stability by 30%.

Keywords: asphalt concrete, over burnt brick aggregate, marshall stability, zycosoil

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Authors: Pablo De Macedo Silveira Vallejos

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This article aims to observe autobiographical and visual narrative practices among users on Instagram. In this way, the work proposes to reflect on how image resources are used to develop edited representations of the self in that social network. The research aims to explore the uses of editing and the degrees of fictionalization present on Instagram.

Keywords: autobiography, visual narratives, representation, fiction, social media

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Authors: Sugandhi, Parteek Kumar, Sanmeet Kaur

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Sign Language (SL) is used by deaf and other people who cannot speak but can hear or have a problem with spoken languages due to some disability. It is a visual gesture language that makes use of either one hand or both hands, arms, face, body to convey meanings and thoughts. SL automation system is an effective way which provides an interface to communicate with normal people using a computer. In this paper, an avatar based dictionary has been proposed for text to Indian Sign Language (ISL) generation system. This research work will also depict a literature review on SL corpus available for various SL s over the years. For ISL generation system, a written form of SL is required and there are certain techniques available for writing the SL. The system uses Hamburg sign language Notation System (HamNoSys) and Signing Gesture Mark-up Language (SiGML) for ISL generation. It is developed in PHP using Web Graphics Library (WebGL) technology for 3D avatar animation. A multilingual ISL dictionary is developed using HamNoSys for both English and Hindi Language. This dictionary will be used as a database to associate signs with words or phrases of a spoken language. It provides an interface for admin panel to manage the dictionary, i.e., modification, addition, or deletion of a word. Through this interface, HamNoSys can be developed and stored in a database and these notations can be converted into its corresponding SiGML file manually. The system takes natural language input sentence in English and Hindi language and generate 3D sign animation using an avatar. SL generation systems have potential applications in many domains such as healthcare sector, media, educational institutes, commercial sectors, transportation services etc. This research work will help the researchers to understand various techniques used for writing SL and generation of Sign Language systems.

Keywords: avatar, dictionary, HamNoSys, hearing impaired, Indian sign language (ISL), sign language

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Authors: Ahmad I. Ayesh

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This work reports on the fabrication of tin nanoclusters by sputtering and inert-gas condensation inside an ultra-high vacuum compatible system. This technique allows to fine tune the size and yield of nanoclusters by controlling the nanocluster source parameters. The produced nanoclusters are deposited on SiO2/Si substrate with pre-formed electrical electrodes to produce a nanocluster device. Those devices can be potentially used for gas sensor applications.

Keywords: tin, nanoclusters, inert-gas condensation, nanotechnology

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Authors: S.I.Mukhin, S. Seidov, A. Mukherjee

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The Dicke model is a key tool for the description of correlated states of quantum atomic systems, excited by resonant photon absorption and subsequently emitting spontaneous coherent radiation in the superradiant state. The Dicke Hamiltonian (DH) is successfully used for the description of the dynamics of the Josephson Junction (JJ) array in a resonant cavity under applied current. In this work, we have investigated a generalized model, which is described by DH with a frustrating interaction term. This frustrating interaction term is explicitly the infinite coordinated interaction between all the spin half in the system. In this work, we consider an array of N superconducting islands, each divided into two sub-islands by a Josephson Junction, taken in a charged qubit / Cooper Pair Box (CPB) condition. The array is placed inside the resonant cavity. One important aspect of the problem lies in the dynamical nature of the physical observables involved in the system, such as condensed electric field and dipole moment. It is important to understand how these quantities behave with time to define the quantum phase of the system. The Dicke model without frustrating term is solved to find the dynamical solutions of the physical observables in analytic form. We have used Heisenberg’s dynamical equations for the operators and on applying newly developed Rotating Holstein Primakoff (HP) transformation and DH we have arrived at the four coupled nonlinear dynamical differential equations for the momentum and spin component operators. It is possible to solve the system analytically using two-time scales. The analytical solutions are expressed in terms of Jacobi's elliptic functions for the metastable ‘bound luminosity’ dynamic state with the periodic coherent beating of the dipoles that connect the two double degenerate dipolar ordered phases discovered previously. In this work, we have proceeded the analysis with the extended DH with a frustrating interaction term. Inclusion of the frustrating term involves complexity in the system of differential equations and it gets difficult to solve analytically. We have solved semi-classical dynamic equations using the perturbation technique for small values of Josephson energy EJ. Because the Hamiltonian contains parity symmetry, thus phase transition can be found if this symmetry is broken. Introducing spontaneous symmetry breaking term in the DH, we have derived the solutions which show the occurrence of finite condensate, showing quantum phase transition. Our obtained result matches with the existing results in this scientific field.

Keywords: Dicke Model, nonlinear dynamics, perturbation theory, superconductivity

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, A. Lamadrid Álvarez, A. Pastrana Palma, H. F. Valencia Pérez, M. Vivanco Vargas

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This work proposes a Cooperation-Competitive (Coopetitive) approach that allows coordinated work among the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) and government funds from National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) or some other international organizations. To work on an overall knowledge transfer strategy with e-learning over the Cloud, where experts in junior high and high school education, working in multidisciplinary teams, perform analysis, evaluation, design, production, validation and knowledge transfer at large scale using a Cloud Computing platform. Allowing teachers and students to have all the information required to ensure a homologated nationally knowledge of topics such as mathematics, statistics, chemistry, history, ethics, civism, etc. This work will start with a pilot test in Spanish and initially in two regional dialects Otomí and Náhuatl. Otomí has more than 285,000 speaking indigenes in Queretaro and Mexico´s central region. Náhuatl is number one indigenous dialect spoken in Mexico with more than 1,550,000 indigenes. The phase one of the project takes into account negotiations with indigenous tribes from different regions, and the Information and Communication technologies to deliver the knowledge to the indigenous schools in their native dialect. The methodology includes the following main milestones: Identification of the indigenous areas where Otomí and Náhuatl are the spoken dialects, research with the SEP the location of actual indigenous schools, analysis and inventory or current schools conditions, negotiation with tribe chiefs, analysis of the technological communication requirements to reach the indigenous communities, identification and inventory of local teachers technology knowledge, selection of a pilot topic, analysis of actual student competence with traditional education system, identification of local translators, design of the e-learning platform, design of the multimedia resources and storage strategy for “Cloud Computing”, translation of the topic to both dialects, Indigenous teachers training, pilot test, course release, project follow up, analysis of student requirements for the new technological platform, definition of a new and improved proposal with greater reach in topics and regions. Importance of phase one of the project is multiple, it includes the proposal of a working technological scheme, focusing in the cultural impact in Mexico so that indigenous tribes can improve their knowledge about new forms of crop improvement, home storage technologies, proven home remedies for common diseases, ways of preparing foods containing major nutrients, disclose strengths and weaknesses of each region, communicating through cloud computing platforms offering regional products and opening communication spaces for inter-indigenous cultural exchange.

Keywords: Mexicans indigenous tribes, education, knowledge transfer, cloud computing, otomi, Náhuatl, language

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Authors: Pia Moschall, Kathrin Sackmann

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Considering a purchasing volume of around two trillion Euros per year, which equals about 14% of the European Union’s gross domestic product, European public authorities have significant market power. Making use of this market power by prioritizing the procurement of green products and services offers a great potential to contribute to the Green New Deal. The market demand that is created by Green Public Procurement (GPP) sets incentives for European producers to design and develop Green Products and Eco-Innovations. However, most procurement still does not consider environmental criteria. The goal of the work is to encourage the adaptation of GPP in the European Union. To this end, the drivers for the adaptation were investigated over different case studies. The paper analyzes good-practice cases from European authorities from 2010 to 2020 that were provided by the European Commission. This analysis was guided by Philipp Mayring’s method of qualitative content analysis, whereby the inductively formed categories led to the identification of nine major drivers. The most important ones are ‘use of official guidelines and standards, ‘political support and requirements as well as ‘market research and involvement.’ Further, the paper discusses mutual dependencies between several drivers and how to exploit them. A supporting infrastructure was identified as a crucial factor for the successful adaption of green public procurement. In the next step, the work aims to examine on which administrative level the single drivers can be implemented most effectively. Practical implications of this research are recommendations on how to create a supporting structure on a municipal, federal and national level, including training for the responsible staff, support tools, as well as guidelines and standards for involved stakeholders.

Keywords: content analysis, green public procurement, public authorities, sustainable procurement

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