Search results for: influence political decision making at varying

Authors: Iulia Elena Gîță

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According to the sociological theory of literature, constraints on the creation and share of cultural works can be placed between two extremes: one with a high level of politicization and the other with a high level of commercialization. The overall objective of the present research is to follow the principles of Sociology of Translation to closely map and analyse the publishing activity of Romania concerning China and Chinese literature during four stages of Romanian history between 1948-2018. This paper proposes, thus, an extended approach to literature, to its cultural, political and economic reception. In achieving the proposed objectives, the research expands far beyond the literary text itself, to its macro context, analysing, through quantitative research methods, a statistical database created based on two phases - the first part containing literary and non-fictional works that address and discuss issues related to China; the second part includes literary translations of Chinese literature into Romanian, either by direct translation or by an intermediate language. Throughout this paper we will map not only the number of works, but also the topics approached by writers along the two periods of the political life of Romania.

Keywords: bilateral relations, Chinese literature, intercultural understanding, international relations, socio-cultural reception, socio-political constraints, publishing

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Authors: Zixuan Yang

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This paper presents an analysis of the necessary consideration culture in distributed design through a thorough literature review and case study. The literature review has identified that the need for understanding cultural differences in product design and user evaluations is highlighted by analyzing cross-cultural influences; culture plays a significant role in distributed work, particularly in establishing team cohesion, trust, and credibility early in the project. By applying approaches of Geert Hofstede's dimensions and Fukuyama's trust analysis, a case study of a global design project, i.e., multicultural distributed teamwork solving the problem in terms of reducing the risk of deep vein thrombosis, showcases cultural dynamics, emphasizing trust-building and decision-making. The lessons learned emphasized the importance of cultural awareness, adaptability, and the utilization of scientific theories to enable effective cross-cultural collaborations in global design, providing valuable insights into navigating cultural diversity within design practices.

Keywords: culture, distributed design, global design, Geert Hofstede's dimensions, Fukuyama's trust analysis

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Authors: Mohamed Bin Alhaj, Hexu Liu, Mohammed Sulaiman, Osama Abudayyeh

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An effective facility maintenance management (FMM) system plays a crucial role in improving the quality of services and maintaining the facility in good condition. Current FMM heavily relies on the quality of the data collection function of the FMM systems, at times resulting in inefficient FMM decision-making. The new technology-based crowdsourcing provides great potential to improve the current FMM practices, especially in terms of timeliness and quality of data. This research aims to investigate the feasibility of using new technology-driven crowdsourcing for FMM and highlight its opportunities and challenges. A survey was carried out to understand the human, data, system, geospatial, and automation characteristics of crowdsourcing for an educational campus FMM via social networks. The survey results were analyzed to reveal the challenges and recommendations for the implementation of crowdsourcing for FMM. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by synthesizing the challenges and opportunities of using crowdsourcing for facility maintenance and providing a road map for applying crowdsourcing technology in FMM. In future work, a conceptual framework will be proposed to support data-driven FMM using social networks.

Keywords: crowdsourcing, facility maintenance management, social networks

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Authors: Morenikeji Aliu Balaji

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Gender inequality is seen as persistent discrimination of one group of people based gender, and it manifests itself differently according to race, culture, politics, country and economic situation. Multiple explanations have been offered for gender differences in literacy skill development. Three prominent explanations that precipitated the gender differences are; biological, where the assumption is that differential brain structures and hemispheric activation patterns cause the sexes to be hardwired differently for reading, with girls developing the cognitive skills associated with reading before boys. Secondly, schooling favour girls and ‘girly’ behaviour, and that boys are, as a result, lagging behind on several behavioural, social and academic measures and thirdly, cultural influences, where literacy is defined as a feminine characteristic – propagated by an overrepresentation of female teachers – and that modern culture steers boys towards activities such as sport and computers. Therefore the study investigated the influence of gender inequality on pre – primary school children literacy skills development in Ojo Local Government Area, Lagos State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. 100 pre-primary school teachers were involved in the study. A self-designed instrument was used for data collection titled ‘Influence of Gender Inequality on Literacy Skill Development in Children Questionnaire (IGILSDCQ)’. The instrument was validated and tested for reliability. The reliability index for IGILSDCQ (α = 0.79). Five research questions were answered using descriptive (frequency count, simple percentage, mean and standard deviation). The findings showed that that gender inequality to some extent influence children phonemic awareness (WA=1.76), the extent to which gender inequality influence children awareness of print is high (WA=2.8), gender inequality to some extent influence children vocabulary development (WA = 2.4), the extent to which gender inequality influence children speaking skill development is high (WA = 2.5) and lastly, the extent to which gender inequality influence children comprehension ability is high (WA = 2.5). It was recommended among others that effort by the school administrators is necessary in the provision of reading materials and literacy skill development packages that are both male-oriented and female-oriented.

Keywords: pre-primart, literacy, awareness, phonemic, gender

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Authors: A. S. CohenMiller, Jenifer Lewis, Gwen McEvoy, Kristy Kelly

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This international, interdisciplinary study presents the first stage of a gender mainstreaming project within one university as a microcosm of society in Kazakhstan to make concrete policy recommendations and set up the potential for new research to monitor change over time. Local, regional, and UN representatives have noted the critical need and interest in gender related issues in Kazakhstan. Gender mainstreaming has been noted as a strategy to understand and address gender equality and equity such as within the academy in exploring and examining organizational/management issues, university decision-making and leadership, assessing the overall academic climate, discrimination issues, hiring and promotion, and student recruitment and retention. This presentation provides preliminary findings from the university gender audit, highlighting key elements for moving forward in gender mainstreaming. The full study analyzes findings from the full gender audit including interview with key stakeholders, time-use surveys, participant-observations and interviews with female students, staff and faculty, and reviews of formal organizational policies and practices.

Keywords: academia, equity, Eurasia, gender audit, gender mainstreaming, Kazakhstan, policy, time-use survey

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Authors: Umar Hayat, Shahid Ali, Lala Rukh

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Foreign aid is one of the critical variables that promote economic growth. This paper is an attempt to examine the long-run relationship between foreign aid and economic growth for Pakistan over the period of 1972 to 2021. This study uses Johnson's co-integration technique to investigate the long-run relationship among the variables in the model. For short-run dynamics, we utilized the Error Correction Mechanism (ECM). The results strongly support the conventional view about aid-led growth. The analysis of the impact of aid on growth both at the micro and the macro levels generally gives different results. The result shows that in the short run inference of foreign aid under the nondemocratic form of government is significant negatively, while foreign aid does not affect economic growth in the case of democratic government.

Keywords: foreign aid, economic growth, political regimes, developing economy

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Authors: Yingyi Zhou, Tohru Kawabe

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With the spread of EVs (electric Vehicles), the ride comfort has been gaining a lot of attention. The influence of the lateral acceleration is important for the improvement of ride comfort of EVs as well as the longitudinal acceleration, especially upon turning of the vehicle. Therefore, this paper proposes a practical optimal speed control method to greatly improve the ride comfort in the vehicle turning situation. For consturcting this method, effective criteria that can appropriately evaluate deterioration of ride comfort is derived. The method can reduce the influence of both the longitudinal and the lateral speed changes for providing a confortable ride. From several simulation results, we can see the fact that the method can prevent aggravation of the ride comfort by suppressing the influence of longitudinal speed change in the turning situation. Hence, the effectiveness of the method is recognized.

Keywords: electric vehicle, speed control, ride comfort, optimal control theory, driving support system

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Authors: Mi Ok Kang

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This study explores the factors that motivate urban high school students from racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds to choose teaching as a future career. It draws on in-depth interviews with high school students of color living in an urban downtown located in an intermountain area in the U.S. Using the factors influencing teaching choice (FIT-Choice) model, this study examines the motivations, mobility experiences, and aspirations of participating high school students who self-identified as Latino/a, Tongan, and Chinese. The study identifies influential factors -both challenges and strengthening effects- that high school students of color experience in their career decision making. The study concludes that self-perceptions of teaching abilities, parental support, social connections, job security, and prior work with children during the internship in K-12 classroom motivated them to be a teacher. Limitations such as financial struggles of parents, the low social status of teaching career, and the low salary and benefit packages in the U.S. are among the factors that cause students to waver in or doubt their career choice.

Keywords: career development, diversifying teaching force, FIT-Choice, high school students of color

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Authors: Taylan Ozturk, Osama Maklad

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This study examines the aerodynamic and flow properties of a multi-element airfoil using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) research. This computational analysis aims to optimize slat design concerning lift-drag coefficients and to determine the ideal gap size between the main airfoil and the front flap. It examines the influence of varying angles of attack and the effects of varied Reynolds numbers. A NACA 2412 airfoil, equipped with custom-designed front and rear flaps, was modeled in SolidWorks and simulated in ANSYS Fluent utilizing the k-ω SST turbulence model. This study quantifies lift and drag coefficients, turbulent kinetic energy, and vorticity magnitude across various configurations. The results clearly indicate that the slat-optimized design geometry featuring a 4 mm gap provides the best performance regarding both lift and drag, with maximum efficiency achieved at a 4-degree angle of attack. Furthermore, the results indicate the initiation of stall conditions beyond 20 degrees and demonstrate how an increase in Reynolds numbers influences flow separation and turbulence patterns. In addition, the maximum L/D ratio which is 36.18 achieved. These findings enhance the comprehension of multi-element airfoil behavior, directly impacting aircraft design and operation, particularly in high-lift situations.

Keywords: multi-element airfoil, CFD simulation, aerodynamic characteristics, Reynolds number analysis

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Authors: Jorge Cortés, Alejandra Martínez, Carlos Pérez, Anaid Simón

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The presence of government, news media, and general citizenry in social media allows considering interactions between them as a form of political communication (i.e. the public exchange of contradictory discourses about politics). Twitter’s asymmetrical following model (users can follow, mention or reply to other users that do not follow them) could foster alternative democratic practices and have an impact on Mexican political culture, which has been marked by a lack of direct communication channels between these actors. The research aim is to assess Twitter’s role in political communication practices through the analysis of interaction dynamics between government, news media, and citizens by extracting and visualizing data from Twitter’s API to observe general behavior patterns. The hypothesis is that regardless the fact that Twitter’s features enable direct and horizontal interactions between actors, users repeat traditional dynamics of interaction, without taking full advantage of the possibilities of this medium. Through an interdisciplinary team including Communication Strategies, Information Design, and Interaction Systems, the activity on Twitter generated by the controversy over the presence of Uber in Mexico City was analysed; an issue of public interest, involving aspects such as public opinion, economic interests and a legal dimension. This research includes techniques from social network analysis (SNA), a methodological approach focused on the comprehension of the relationships between actors through the visual representation and measurement of network characteristics. The analysis of the Uber event comprised data extraction, data categorization, corpus construction, corpus visualization and analysis. On the recovery stage TAGS, a Google Sheet template, was used to extract tweets that included the hashtags #UberSeQueda and #UberSeVa, posts containing the string Uber and tweets directed to @uber_mx. Using scripts written in Python, the data was filtered, discarding tweets with no interaction (replies, retweets or mentions) and locations outside of México. Considerations regarding bots and the omission of anecdotal posts were also taken into account. The utility of graphs to observe interactions of political communication in general was confirmed by the analysis of visualizations generated with programs such as Gephi and NodeXL. However, some aspects require improvements to obtain more useful visual representations for this type of research. For example, link¬crossings complicates following the direction of an interaction forcing users to manipulate the graph to see it clearly. It was concluded that some practices prevalent in political communication in Mexico are replicated in Twitter. Media actors tend to group together instead of interact with others. The political system tends to tweet as an advertising strategy rather than to generate dialogue. However, some actors were identified as bridges establishing communication between the three spheres, generating a more democratic exercise and taking advantage of Twitter’s possibilities. Although interactions in Twitter could become an alternative to political communication, this potential depends on the intentions of the participants and to what extent they are aiming for collaborative and direct communications. Further research is needed to get a deeper understanding on the political behavior of Twitter users and the possibilities of SNA for its analysis.

Keywords: interaction, political communication, social network analysis, Twitter

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Authors: Alexander de Tomás, Miquel Sierra, Stefan Pfenninger, Francesco Lombardi, Ines Campos, Cristina Madrid

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Environmental parameters are key in the definition of sustainable energy systems yet excluded from most energy system optimization models. Still, decision-making may be misleading without considering them. Environmental analyses of the energy transition are a key part of industrial ecology but often are performed without any input from the users of the information. This work assesses the systemic impacts of energy transition pathways in Portugal. Using the Calliope energy modeling framework, 250+ optimized energy system pathways are generated. A Delphi study helps to identify the relevant criteria for the stakeholders as regards the environmental assessment, which is performed with ENBIOS, a python package that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA) with a metabolic analysis based on complex relations. Furthermore, this study focuses on how the uncertainty propagates through the model’s consortium. With the aim of doing so, a soft link between the Calliope/ENBIOS cascade and Brightway’s data capabilities is built to perform Monte Carlo simulations. These findings highlight the relevance of including uncertainty analysis as a range of values rather than informing energy transition results with a single value.

Keywords: energy transition, energy modeling, uncertainty, sustainability

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Authors: Abegunde Linda, Adedeji Oluwatayo, Tope-Ajayi Opeyemi

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Maize constitutes a major agrarian production for use by the vast population but despite its economic importance, it has not been produced to meet the economic needs of the country. Achieving optimum yield in maize can meaningfully be supported by land suitability analysis in order to guarantee self-sufficiency for future production optimization. This study examines land suitability for maize production through the analysis of the physic-chemical variations in soil properties over space using a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework. Physic-chemical parameters of importance selected include slope, landuse, and physical and chemical properties of the soil. Landsat imagery was used to categorize the landuse, Shuttle Radar Topographic Mapping (SRTM) generated the slope and soil samples were analyzed for its physical and chemical components. Suitability was categorized into highly, moderately and marginally suitable based on Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) classification using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique of GIS. This result can be used by small scale farmers for efficient decision making in the allocation of land for maize production.

Keywords: AHP, GIS, MCE, suitability, Zea mays

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Authors: Dina Hadad

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Women empowerment in the Arab world remains a central issue in the context of development and human rights. Akin to many societies around the globe, gender equality is yet to be achieved. This research will provide an introduction into the current legal stand of some Arab countries in terms of gender equality and women rights in the context of family law. It will look specifically into the recent family law in Kuwait and why many women consider it a positive step towards affirming their rights and their needs. Depending on comparative material from the area, the research argues that whilst some countries made efforts to promote women’s empowerment as a concept and practice throughout its policies, others have indeed some unique journeys that reflect organic and from within evolutions. Nonetheless, these efforts are yet to reflect a comprehensive structure that addresses women legal and political empowerment let alone social status. A contradiction in the realities of different Arab states is nothing new since the lack of comprehensive rights-based policy making in Arab countries has contributed to the disconnect between economic growth and development challenges.

Keywords: women empowerment, cultural challenges, gender equality, Islamic law, international standards, family law

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Authors: Aathira Peedikaparambil Somasundaran

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The beginning of the 20th century marked the perios when a new generation of Lebanese radicals sowed the seeds for the second phase of Levant literary modernism, situated in the Levant. Beirut, during this era popularly fit every radical writer’s criterion owing to its weakened censorship and political control, despite the absence of a protective womb for the development of literary modernism, caused by the natively prevalent political unsettlement. The third stage of literary modernization, in which scholars used Western-inspired critical techniques to better understand their own cultures, coincides with the time period examined in this paper, which involved the international-inspired critical analysis of native cultural stimulants, which raised questions among Arab freethinking intellectuals. Locals who ventured outside recognised the difference between the West's progress and their own nations' stagnation. The awareness of such ‘gap of success’ aroused an ambition from journalists, authors, and proletarian revolutionaries who had studied in Europe, and finally developed enlightened ideas. Some Middle Eastern authors and artists only adopted current social and political frameworks after discovering western modernity. After learning about the upheavals that were happening in the West, these thinkers aspired to bring about equally broad drastic developments in their own country's social, political, and cultural milieu. These occurrences illustrate the increased power of migration to alter the cultural and literary scene in the Levant. The paper intends to discuss the different effects of migration that contributed to Levant literary modernism. The exploration of these factors as causes begins with addressing the politically influenced activism, that has always been a relevant part of Beirut, and then diving into the psychological effects of migration in the individuals of the society, which might have induced an accommodability to alien thoughts and ideas over time, as a coping mechanism. Nature or environmental stimuli, a common trigger for any creative output, often having the highest influence during travel will be identified and analysed to inspect the extent of its impact on the exchange of ideas that resulted in Levant modernism. The efficiency of both the stimulating component of travel and the diaspora of the indigenous, a by-product of travel in catalysing modernism in the Levant has to be proven in order to understand how migration indirectly affected the transmission and adoption of ideas in Levant literature. The paper will revisit the events revolving around these key players and platforms like Shir, to understand how the Lebanese literature, tied down in poetry drastically mutated under the leadership of Adonis, Yusuf et Khal, and other pioneers of Levant literary modernism. The conclision will identify the triggers that helped authors overcome personal and geographical barriers to unite the West and the Levant, and investigate the extent to which the bi-directional migration prompted a transformation in the local poetry. Consequently, the paper aims to shed light into the unique factor that provoked the shift in the literary scene of Twentieth century in the Middle East.

Keywords: literature, modernism, Middle East, levant, Beirut

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Authors: Ali Musbah Mohamed Elwahishi

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Democracy is demand for the majority of people in the whole world, Specifically in the regions that are still outside the democratic life such as Libya and other Arab countries. Although democracy has spread across the world through three waves of democratization, Libya is still outside the democratic process, even recently its regime has changed. The challenges of democracy in Libya are not new, they represent accumulations over time that impeded to achieve this goal. This paper concludes that the absence of democracy in Libya because of set of factors that include: colonial legacy, oil wealth, the lack of institutions, the lack of political parties, tribal factor and recently the spread of the armed groups. These factors prevented Libya to be democratic state whether during King Idris’, Qaddafi’s or even after Qaddafi rule.

Keywords: the failure of democracy, political transition, the lack of institutions, Libya, Arab countries

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Authors: Abdul Wahab Rahimi

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This research examines the role of discursive strategies in the politics of self-censorship in Afghanistan, where political pressure, press freedom, and independent media work together, and language plays a vital role in implementing these strategies. Critical Discourse Analysis was conducted to describe the connection between language usage and the exercise of power by analyzing news stories related to women’s rights. This research focuses on 11 months of chronologically collected data from two mainstream television channels in Afghanistan: Tolo News and Ariana News. The findings show that Tolo News sustains and justifies juxtaposition and political critics’ discursive strategies to address women’s rights issues, criticize government policies, and deal with political pressure. At the same time, Ariana News follows the factual narrative strategy, practices self-censorship, and skips or partially focuses on the objective reporting of sensitive issues. The research concludes that the domestic media in Afghanistan follows the media policy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by covering sensitive issues and marginalizing women's rights issues in the media discourse.

Keywords: discursive strategies, Taliban, TV Channel, news stories, self-censorship, women's rights.

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Authors: Nicholas Marinus Batt, Angus Radford, Khaled Saraya

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Pulmonary Embolus Severity Index (PESI) score is a well-validated decision-making score grading mortality rates (MR) in patients with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) into 5 classes. Thirty and 90 days MR in class I and II are lower allowing the treatment of these patients as outpatients. In a London District General Hospital (DGH) with mixed ethnicity and high disease burden, we looked at MR at 1, 3, and 7 days of all PESI score classes. Our pilot study of 112 patients showed MR of 0% in class I, II, and III. The current study includes positive Computed Tomographic Scans (CT scans) for PE over the following three years (total of 555). MR was calculated for all PESI score classes at 1, 3 & 7 days. Thirty days MR was additionally calculated to validate the study. Our initial results so far are in line with our pilot studies. Further subgroup analysis accounting for the local co-morbidities and disease burden and its impact on the MR will be undertaken.

Keywords: Pulmonary Embolism (PE), Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) score, mortality rate (MR), CT pulmonary artery

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Authors: Tao Peng

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This paper presents a holistic model of political economy based on Daoism – the foundational philosophy of classical Chinese epistemology. Daoism is both comprehensive and subtle in its manifestations and applications in all aspects of nature and society. Based on Daoist creation theory of the universe, life theory and five element functioning theory, a holistic model in economics with minimal assumptions and independent of ideology are constructed. Under this framework, different schools of economics, such as neo-liberal, Marxism, and Austrian school, are explored and shed new light on. Economic and financial predictions can be realized in applications to Qi Men Dun Jia. This framework can provide guidelines and inspirations to economic modelling, economic policies formulation and strategy development and guide society towards a more sustainable future.

Keywords: daoism, economics, holistic, philosophy

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Authors: Betty Makena, Tsegaye Tadesse, Mark Svoboda

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Global warming has intensified the frequency and intensity of extreme climate disasters and led to unpredictable weather conditions. Consequently, rapid shifts between drought and floods, known as Drought-Flood Abrupt Alteration (DFAA), have become increasingly common. DFAA results in superimposed impacts of drought and floods within a short period, exacerbating the effects of the floods or drought event. Current disaster management plans often overlook DFAA events, as they primarily focus on either floods or drought. Therefore, effectively identifying DFAA events is crucial for developing effective mitigation strategies. This study aims to identify historical DFAA events in Kenya using the Long Cycle Drought-Flood Abrupt Alteration Index (LDFAI). The research will analyze the spatial distribution, temporal variation, and intensity of DFAA events from 1990 to 2023, as well as their socio-economic impacts. Understanding these events is important to develop more effective strategies to address the impacts of DFAA events. Findings from this study will inform decision making to develop coping strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of DFAA in Kenya.

Keywords: abrupt, alteration, drought, floods

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Authors: Bonee Jaye Besana Bagaipo

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The goal of this study was to assess the status of gender division of labor among indigenous peoples in the Municipality of Nabunturan and coordinate the results to the Tribal Council for an appropriate blueprint in reaching Mansaka, Mandaya, and Aeta respectively. This is a qualitative type of research where the researcher utilized three methods of data gathering namely key informants’ interview, focus group discussions and survey questionnaire. Exceptional characteristics of each tribe like marriage practices, religious beliefs and sources of livelihood were presented as merely profiling. Results revealed that in productive role, respondents perceived that the statements presented are highly masculine task. In reproductive role, respondents perceived the statements presented are a common role task. In household and community services respondents perceived the statements presented are a common role task. In community management and political activities, respondents perceived the statements presented are a highly masculine and common role.

Keywords: gender and development, indigenous people, public administration, policy making

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Authors: Stefanie Kasparek

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The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is probably the most recognized international security organization. It is also profoundly misunderstood and undervalued in its effort to promote peace and security. With the rising involvement of non-state actors and the way states fight wars, international governance has become increasingly complex. However, the formal UNSC agenda has long remained static, reflecting states' unwillingness to entertain more conflicts. Nevertheless, resolutions remain the scholarly measure of states' interests and policies, neglecting the significant share of issues the Council entertains informally. This project builds on a rational institutionalism framework. It provides a systematic analysis of how and under what conditions states use informal governance instead of, or in combination with, formal rules at the agenda-setting stage of the policy process. Data for this project comes from elite interviews and a newly created dataset on governance choices. The results show that counter existing arguments, weaker states successfully circumvent formal institutional roadblocks and use informal governance mechanisms to pursue vital interests, thereby countering institutional restrictions and power asymmetries present informal governance settings.

Keywords: agenda-setting, decision-making, international governance, UNSC

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Authors: Dragana Calic

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The openness, availability and the sheer volume of big data have provided, what some regard as, an invaluable and rich dataset. Researchers, businesses, advertising agencies, medical institutions, to name only a few, collect, share, and analyze this data to enable their processes and decision making. However, there are important ethical considerations associated with the use of big data. The rapidly evolving nature of online technologies has overtaken the many legislative, privacy, and ethical frameworks and principles that exist. For example, should we obtain consent to use people’s online data, and under what circumstances can privacy considerations be overridden? Current guidance on how to appropriately and ethically handle big data is inconsistent. Consequently, this paper focuses on two quite distinct but related ethical considerations that are at the core of the use of big data for research purposes. They include empowering the producers of data and empowering researchers who want to study big data. The first consideration focuses on informed consent which is at the core of empowering producers of data. In this paper, we discuss some of the complexities associated with informed consent and consider studies of producers’ perceptions to inform research ethics guidelines and practice. The second consideration focuses on the researcher. Similarly, we explore studies that focus on researchers’ perceptions and experiences.

Keywords: big data, ethics, producers’ perceptions, researchers’ perceptions

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Authors: Ayman M. Mansour

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In this paper, we propose an intelligent system that is used for monitoring the health conditions of Patients. Monitoring the health condition of Patients is a complex problem that involves different medical units and requires continuous monitoring especially in rural areas because of inadequate number of available specialized physicians. The proposed system will Improve patient care and drive costs down comparing to the existing system in Jordan. The proposed system will be the start point to Faster and improve the communication between different units in the health system in Jordan. Connecting patients and their physicians beyond hospital doors regarding their geographical area is an important issue in developing the health system in Jordan. The propose system will provide an intelligent system that will generate initial diagnosing to the patient case. This will assist and advice clinicians at the point of care. The decision is based on demographic data and laboratory test results of patient data. Using such system with the ability of making medical decisions, the quality of medical care in Jordan and specifically in Tafial is expected to be improved. This will provide more accurate, effective, and reliable diagnoses and treatments especially if the physicians have insufficient knowledge.

Keywords: GSM, SMS, patient, monitoring system, fuzzy logic, multi-agent system

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Authors: Shihab-Uz-Zaman Shah, Sanjeeb Roy, Habiba Akter

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Keeping the high impact of the Ready-Made Garments (RMG) on the country’s economic growth in mind, this research paves a way for the implementation of Industry 4.0 in the garments industry of Bangladesh. At present, Industry 4.0 is a common buzzword representing the adoption of digital technologies in the production process to transform the existing industries into smart factories and create a great change in the global value chain. The RMG industry is the largest industrial sector of Bangladesh which provides 12.26% to its National GDP (Gross Domestic Product). The work starts with identifying possible enablers of Industry 4.0. To evaluate the enablers, a Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) procedure named Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used. A questionnaire was developed as a part of a survey for collecting and analyzing expert opinions from relevant academicians and industrialists. The responses were eventually used as the input for the FAHP which helped to assign weight matrices to the enablers. This weight matrix indicated the level of importance of these enablers. The full paper will discuss the way of a successful evaluation of the enablers and implementation of Industry 4.0 by using these enablers.

Keywords: enablers, fuzzy AHP, industry 4.0, RMG sector

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Authors: V. K. Stalin, M. Kirithika, K. Shanmugam, K. Tharini

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Nanotechnology has been widely used in many applications such as medical, electronics, robotics and also in geotechnical engineering area through stabilization of bore holes, grouting etc. In this paper, an attempt is made for understanding the influence of nano copper slag (1%, 2% & 3%) on the index, compaction and UCC strength properties of natural soil (CH type) with and without lime stabilization for immediate and 7 days curing period. Results indicated that upto 1% of Nano copper slag, there is an increment in UC strength of virgin soil and lime stabilised soil. Beyond 1% nano copper slag, there is a steep reduction in UC strength and increase of plasticity both in lime stabilised soil and virgin soil. The effect of lime is found to show more influence on large surface area of nano copper slag in natural soil. For both immediate and curing effect, with 1% of Nano copper slag, the maximum unconfined compressive strength was 38% and 106% higher than that of the virgin soil strength.

Keywords: lime, nano copper slag, SEM, XRD, stabilisation

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Authors: M. Foysul Alam

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Land diluvion is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. According to Bangladesh land administration manual, land gained by diluvion and alluvion are considered as Khas (state) lands. Distributing khas lands to the poorest landless people was suggested as a way of improving the livelihood by mobilizing their economic activity and improving their social status in Bangladesh. The impact of this initiative, which started in 1980 as a state policy, is perhaps one of the least experimentally documented ones in the country. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the economic and social status of some landless farmers focusing on determining whether the distribution of khas lands provide part of the explanation for possible improvement of their livelihood during this period of almost four decades. If not, the secondary objective of this study was to identify the issues and challenges of this policy, whether in strategic planning or implementation efforts. Both subjectively observable and objectively measurable data were collected from 150 households from 30 villages of 6 districts worse suffering from landlessness. A well-organized questionnaire, including 10 open ended question, were used to collect specific data and experiences of the landless farmers. Special attention was given to those who left peasantry becoming involved in other economic activities. The study found that Khas lands have very nominal or even zero influence on landless farmers due to 1. Lack of Khas land inventory 2. Lack of availability of information to the farmers 3. Complexity in application procedure for demanding Khas land and 4. Political nexus of local influential farmers makes it nearly impossible for those farmers who actually deserve it. It also found that most of the lucky farmers who eventually got a piece of Khas land had links with the local elites of their community. The research concludes that it is too early to decide how good the Khas land is for the marginalized landless farmers in Bangladesh, with actually a few numbers of them given the possession of one. This document provides crucial recommendations for overcoming the prevailing challenges.

Keywords: Khas land, land distribution, marginalized farmers, rural livelihood

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Authors: Mohammad Y. Badiee, Saeed Golestani, Mir Saman Pishvaee

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In recent years consumers and governments have been pushing companies to design their activities in such a way as to reduce negative environmental impacts by producing renewable product or threat free disposal policy more and more. It is therefore important to focus more accurate to the optimization of various aspect of total supply chain. Modeling a supply chain can be a challenging process due to the fact that there are a large number of factors that need to be considered in the model. The use of multi-objective optimization can lead to overcome those problems since more information is used when designing the model. Uncertainty is inevitable in real world. Considering uncertainty on parameters in addition to use multi-objectives are ways to give more flexibility to the decision making process since the process can take into account much more constraints and requirements. In this paper we demonstrate a stochastic scenario based robust model to cope with uncertainty in a closed-loop multi-objective supply chain. By applying the proposed model in a real world case, the power of proposed model in handling data uncertainty is shown.

Keywords: supply chain management, closed-loop supply chain, multi-objective optimization, goal programming, uncertainty, robust optimization

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Authors: Rehan Siddiqui, Brendan Quine

Abstract:

The Radiance Enhancement (RE) and integrated absorption technique is applied to develop a synthetic model to determine the enhancement in radiance due to cloud scene and Shortwave upwelling Radiances (SHupR) by O2, H2O, CO2 and CH4. This new model is used to estimate the magnitude variation for RE and SHupR over spectral range of 900 nm to 1700 nm by varying surface altitude, mixing ratios and surface reflectivity. In this work, we employ satellite real observation of space orbiting Argus 1000 especially for O2, H2O, CO2 and CH4 together with synthetic model by using line by line GENSPECT radiative transfer model. All the radiative transfer simulations have been performed by varying over a different range of percentages of water vapor contents and carbon dioxide with the fixed concentration oxygen and methane. We calculate and compare both the synthetic and real measured observed data set of different week per pass of Argus flight. Results are found to be comparable for both approaches, after allowing for the differences with the real and synthetic technique. The methodology based on RE and SHupR of the space spectral data can be promising for the instant and reliable classification of the cloud scenes.

Keywords: radiance enhancement, radiative transfer, shortwave upwelling radiative flux, cloud reflectivity, greenhouse gases

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Authors: Ashneel Ajay Singh, Kazumi Sakuramoto, Naoki Suzuki, Kalla Alok, Nath Paras

Abstract:

Bluefin (Thunnus orientalis) tuna is one of the most economically valuable tuna species in the world. In recent years the stock has been observed to decline. It is suspected that the stock-recruitment relationship and population structure is influenced by environmental and climatic variables. This study was aimed at investigating the influence of environmental and climatic conditions on the trajectory of the different life stages of the North Pacific bluefin tuna. Exploratory analysis was performed for the North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) on the time series of the bluefin tuna cohorts (age-0, 1, 2,…,9, 10+). General Additive Modeling (GAM) was used to reconstruct the recruitment (R) trajectory. The spatial movement of the SST was also monitored from 1953 to 2012 in the distribution area of the bluefin tuna. Exploratory analysis showed significance influence of the North Pacific Sea Surface temperature (SST) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) on the time series of the age-0 group. Other age group (1, 2,…,9, 10+) time series did not exhibit any significant correlations. PDO showed most significant relationship in the months of October to December. Although the stock-recruitment relationship is of biological significance, the recruits (age-0) showed poor correlation with the Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB). Indeed the most significant model incorporated the SSB, SST and PDO. The results show that the stock-recruitment relationship of the North Pacific bluefin tuna is multi-dimensional and cannot be adequately explained by the SSB alone. SST and PDO forcing of the population structure is of significant importance and needs to be accounted for when making harvesting plans for bluefin tuna in the North Pacific.

Keywords: pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis, cohorts, recruitment, spawning stock biomass, sea surface temperature, pacific decadal oscillation, general additive model

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Authors: Narsimhulu Sanke, D. N. Reddy

Abstract:

The paper is to discuss about the influence of the temperature in the advanced biomass gasifier for gasification, when tested four different biomass fuels individually in the gasification laboratory of Centre for Energy Technology (CET). The gasifier is developed in CET to test any kind of biomass fuel for gasification without changing the gasifier. The gasifier can be used for batch operations and observed and found that there were no operational problems.

Keywords: biomass fuels, temperature, advanced downdraft gasifier, tar, renewable energy sources

Procedia PDF Downloads 494