Search results for: core mental issues

Authors: Mohamed Naser Zainol, P. P. Angeline Song

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Over the years, the profile of end-stage renal patients placed under The National Kidney Foundation Singapore (NKFS) dialysis program has evolved, with a gradual incline in the number of patients with behavior-related issues. With these challenging profiles, social workers and counsellors are often expected to oversee behavior management, through referrals from its partnering colleagues. Due to the segregation of tasks usually found in many hospital-based multi-disciplinary settings, social workers’ and counsellors’ interventions are often seen as an endpoint, limiting other stakeholders’ involvement that could otherwise be potentially crucial in managing such patients. While patients’ contact in local hospitals often leads to eventual discharge, NKFS patients are mostly long term. It is interesting to note that these patients are regularly seen by a team of professionals that includes doctors, nurses, dietitians, exercise specialists in NKFS. The dynamism of relationships presents an opportunity for any of these professionals to take ownership of their potentials in leading interventions that can be helpful to patients. As such, it is important to have a framework that incorporates the strength of these professionals and also channels empowerment across the multi-disciplinary team in working towards wholistic patient care. This paper would like to suggest a new framework for NKFS’s multi-disciplinary team, where the group synergy and dynamics are used to encourage ownership and promote empowerment. The social worker and counsellor use group work skills and his/her knowledge of its members’ strengths, to generate constructive solutions that are centered towards patient’s growth. Using key ideas from Karl’s Tomm Interpersonal Communications, the Communication Management of Meaning and Motivational Interviewing, the social worker and counsellor through a series of guided meeting with other colleagues, facilitates the transmission of understanding, responsibility sharing and tapping on team resources for patient care. As a result, the patient can experience personal and concerted approach and begins to flow in a direction that is helpful for him. Using seven case studies of identified patients with behavioral issues, the social worker and counsellor apply this framework for a period of six months. Patient’s overall improvement through interventions as a result of this framework are recorded using the AB single case design, with baseline measured three months before referral. Interviews with patients and their families, as well as other colleagues that are not part of the multi-disciplinary team are solicited at mid and end points to gather their experiences about patient’s progress as a by-product of this framework. Expert interviews will be conducted on each member of the multi-disciplinary team to study their observations and experience in using this new framework. Hence, this exploratory framework hopes to identify the inherent usefulness in managing patients with behavior related issues. Moreover, it would provide indicators in improving aspects of the framework when applied to a larger population.

Keywords: behavior management, end-stage renal failure, satellite dialysis, multi-disciplinary team

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Authors: Avani Maniar, Shivani Mehta

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Population aging is one of the most challenging issues of the twenty-first century, facing both developed and developing countries worldwide. In the developed world, there has already been a substantial amount of research on aging and work to help understand the capacity and potential of older people. They attract ever ones attention. Their existence in human society gives rise to variety of responses, reactions and apprehensions, because it connotes on greater part, to some kind of compulsion or willingness that prompt elderly to decide to work after retirement. Work due to social attention and assurance for security both economical and social. In this age, elderly aspire for psychological security with due attention. But the fact remains that despite age related limitations good number of persons in their age of sixty and beyond were hunting for work that would support them and get them some kind of support and in it turns helps them to remain physically and mentally active. Based on the existing diversities in the ageing process, it may be stated that there is a need to pay greater attention to the increasing awareness on the ageing issues and its socio-economic effects and to promote the development of policies and programmes for dealing with an ageing society. Addressing the needs, wants, and well-being of elderly people is essential for maintaining a healthy productive workforce in an aging society. This paper will draw on the results of the study about reasons of elderly working post retirement, problems faced by them and about the future of retirement to ask how widespread negative attitudes and stereotypes among employers are and whether these attitudes influence behavior towards older employees. The aim of research is not only to point out certain stereotypes concerning the elderly labour force, but also to stress that unless preconditions for overcoming these stereotypes are created and employment opportunities are given to this segment of the labour force, full employment as an ultimate goal of global economic policy cannot be achieved.

Keywords: employers, India, inequality, problems, reasons of working, silver workers

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Authors: Vishal Pareek, Shubham Gupta, Sushil Chandra Jain

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With increasing high-speed computation demand the power consumption, heat dissipation and chip size issues are posing challenges for logic design with conventional technologies. Recovery of bit loss and bit errors is other issues that require reversibility and fault tolerance in the computation. The reversible computing is emerging as an alternative to conventional technologies to overcome the above problems and helpful in a diverse area such as low-power design, nanotechnology, quantum computing. Bit loss issue can be solved through unique input-output mapping which require reversibility and bit error issue require the capability of fault tolerance in design. In order to incorporate reversibility a number of combinational reversible logic based circuits have been developed. However, very few sequential reversible circuits have been reported in the literature. To make the circuit fault tolerant, a number of fault model and test approaches have been proposed for reversible logic. In this paper, we have attempted to incorporate fault tolerance in sequential reversible building blocks such as D flip-flop, T flip-flop, JK flip-flop, R-S flip-flop, Master-Slave D flip-flop, and double edge triggered D flip-flop by making them parity preserving. The importance of this proposed work lies in the fact that it provides the design of reversible sequential circuits completely testable for any stuck-at fault and single bit fault. In our opinion our design of reversible building blocks is superior to existing designs in term of quantum cost, hardware complexity, constant input, garbage output, number of gates and design of online testable D flip-flop have been proposed for the first time. We hope our work can be extended for building complex reversible sequential circuits.

Keywords: parity preserving gate, quantum computing, fault tolerance, flip-flop, sequential reversible logic

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Authors: Samaneh Sadat Fattahi Massoom, Hossein Salimi Bajestani

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The study examines loneliness and depression in students who regularly care for themselves after school (latchkey students) in Mashhad and compares them with parent supervised students using a causal-comparative research method. The 270 participants, aged 7 -13, were selected using convenience and cluster random-assignment sampling. Independent t-test results showed significant differences between loneliness (-4.32, p ≤ 0.05) and depression (-3.02, p ≤0.05) among latchkey and non-latchkey students. Using the Pearson correlation test, significant correlation between depression and loneliness among latchkey students was also discovered (r=0.59, p ≤ 0.05). However, regarding non latchkey students, no significant difference between loneliness and depression was observed (r= 0.02. p ≥ 0.05). Multiple regression results also showed that depression variance can be determined by gender (22%) and loneliness (34%). The findings of this study, specifically the significant difference between latchkey and non-latchkey children regarding feelings of loneliness and depression, carries clear implications for parents. It can be concluded that mothers who spend most of their time working out of the house and devoid their children of their presence in the home may cause some form of mental distress like loneliness and depression. Moreover, gender differences affect the degree of these psychological disorders.

Keywords: loneliness, depression, self-care students, latchkey and non-latchkey students, gender

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Authors: Sourav Sarkar, Manashjit Gogoi

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In the evolving landscape of cancer diagnostics, optical biosensing has emerged as a promising tool due to its sensitivity and specificity. This study explores the potential of CdS/ZnS core-shell quantum dots (QDs) capped with 3-Mercaptopropionic acid (3-MPA), which aids in the linking chemistry of QDs to various cancer antibodies. The QDs, with their unique optical and electronic properties, have been integrated into the biosensor design. Their high quantum yield and size-dependent emission spectra have been exploited to improve the sensor’s detection capabilities. The study presents the design of this QD-enhanced optical biosensor. The use of these QDs can also aid multiplexed detection, enabling simultaneous monitoring of different cancer biomarkers. This innovative approach holds significant potential for advancing cancer diagnostics, contributing to timely and accurate detection. Future work will focus on optimizing the biosensor design for clinical applications and exploring the potential of QDs in other biosensing applications. This study underscores the potential of integrating nanotechnology and biosensing for cancer research, paving the way for next-generation diagnostic tools. It is a step forward in our quest for achieving precision oncology.

Keywords: quantum dots, biosensing, cancer, device

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Authors: Aniekan James Akpan, Inemesit Akpan Umoren, Uduak Iwok

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From prehistoric and primitive cultures, education was seen as a process of culture transmission by way of guiding children into becoming good members of their local communities. Even in modern cultures, education is seen as a systematic discipline aimed at cultivating genuine values to improve oneself and society. Without education, the chances of realizing the desired vision are marred as it is believed that nations that invest much in education are able to reap the desired benefits technologically, economically, socially, politically, and otherwise. In this sense, the moulding of character is considered the primary purpose of education, and until the audience of mass media through its various vehicles is seen as tools for improving the overall development of society. It is believed that a media-friendly person is likely to perform better than someone who is less friendly. This work, therefore, examines the role media play in educational development. As highlighted by the study, a summary of the functions of media shows that they widen horizon by acting as a liberating force, breaking distance, bonds, and transforming a traditional society into a modern one. With the use of technological development theory, agenda-setting theory as well as uses and gratification theory and multiple intelligence theory, the work identifies different ways in which mass media help in educational development and draws attention to the audience’s perception of media functions in terms of educational development. With a survey method and a population of 6,903,321 people, the work sampled 220 respondents using purposive technique drawn from rural communities in the South-South region of Nigeria. The work concludes that mass media are potent vehicles for teaching and learning and therefore recommends that government should provide basic infrastructures to the rural communities to aid full utilization of media potentials in educational development and equally urge media owners and practitioners to as a matter of urgency increase coverage time on issues bordering on education as it is done for political and other issues.

Keywords: educational, development, media usage, perception

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Authors: Adawati Suhaili, Kamisah Osman, Mohd Effendi, Ewan Mohd Matore

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The global education reform has prompted Malaysia to transform the education system in Malaysia through the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) 2013-2025. This transformation is aimed to achieve the top one-third rank in international assessment. The low achievement of student scientific literacy in TIMMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study ) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) has caused concern to the Ministry Of Education (MOE) despite various reform efforts. Therefore, an alternative action by enhancing the role of the Head of Science Panels (HoSPs) as a key change agent in catalyzing the improvement of student performance should be considered. Highlights of previous studies have shown that subject leadership is able to enhance teacher teaching quality in order to increase student learning. To lead the Science department and guide Science teachers more effectively, HoSPs need to strengthen their leadership skills. However, the issue of weaknesses in the leadership competencies of HoSPs in Malaysia has caused them to lack confidence and ability in leading the Science Department. The main objective of this study is to explore the factors that contribute to the problems faced by HoSPs at Sarawak in their leadership roles. This study used a qualitative design framework and using a semi-structured interview method for data collection. There were six informants involved in the interview consisting of lecturers, Senior Administrative Assistant Teacher and HoSPs. The findings of the study had been identified four main factors that contribute to problems in the leadership competencies of HoSPs in Sarawak, namely leadership practices, leadership structure, academic subjects and school change. The results are significant to the MOE in strengthening the leadership competencies of HoSPs in a more focus for improving the achievement of scientific literacy of students in Malaysia. This study can help improve the Hosps' leadership competencies in Malaysia.

Keywords: issues, problems, Malaysia education blueprint, leadership competencies, head of science panels

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Authors: Doaa Abbas Zaher

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For the past two decades demand for knowledge has been increasing. Management of society’s knowledge has far reaching effects to economic growth through increased capacity to complete viable activities. Organizations use information technology to effect organizational change. This is a challenge for the less developed nations whose capacity to integrate knowledge in core functions is limited. This creates organizational problems as there is global competition amongst organizations. Cross-cultural perceptions influence difference knowledge Management. This study provides a cross-cultural analysis on the influence in knowledge culture in Japan and Saudi Arabia to effect change in organizations. Since different countries adopt different knowledge management strategies, this dictates the state of organizational development through enriched organizational culture. The research uses a mixed approach design to collect data from primary and secondary sources. Primary source will use the questionnaires while secondary sources uses case analysis from books, articles, reports, and journals. The study will take a period of three years to come up with a complete paper.

Keywords: knowledge management, organizational culture, information, society knowledge

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Authors: Elham Davoodi, Kylie King, Laura Jobson

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Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders. Self-silencing theory adopts a socio-cultural lens to examine the development and maintenance of depression. Self-silencing can be a vulnerability factor in depression, and personality vulnerabilities (e.g., perfectionism) and moral emotions (e.g., guilt) are strongly related to self-silencing and depression. Yet, the relationships between all four variables among different cultural groups are not clear. We aimed to address this gap by examining whether perfectionism and depression are related indirectly through self-silencing and guilt and whether cultural group moderates these associations. Participants (N=288) from either European Australian or Iranian Australian cultural backgrounds completed an online survey assessing self-silencing, guilt, perfectionism, and depression. First, we found an indirect relationship between perfectionism and depression through self-silencing. Second, using a serial mediation model, we found an indirect association between perfectionism and depression through self-silencing and guilt. There was no evidence that cultural groups moderated these indirect relationships. Our findings leave an important question for future longitudinal studies to answer; that is, whether the association between self-silencing and depression is oversimplified and whether moral emotions in this relationship have been overlooked.

Keywords: perfectionism, depression, self-silencing, culture, guilt

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Authors: A. Lashkari, H. Khalafi, H. Khazeminejad, S. Khakshourniya

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In this paper, a numerical model is presented. The model is used to analyze a steady state thermo-hydraulic and reactivity insertion transient in TRR reference cores respectively. The model predictions are compared with the experiments and PARET code results. The model uses the piecewise constant and lumped parameter methods for the coupled point kinetics and thermal-hydraulics modules respectively. The advantages of the piecewise constant method are simplicity, efficiency and accuracy. A main criterion on the applicability range of this model is that the exit coolant temperature remains below the saturation temperature, i.e. no bulk boiling occurs in the core. The calculation values of power and coolant temperature, in steady state and positive reactivity insertion scenario, are in good agreement with the experiment values. However, the model is a useful tool for the transient analysis of most research reactor encountered in practice. The main objective of this work is using simple calculation methods and benchmarking them with experimental data. This model can be used for training proposes.

Keywords: thermal-hydraulic, research reactor, reactivity insertion, numerical modeling

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Authors: Hyunseo Choi, Jaewan Hong, Seil Lee, Yang Mo Koo

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Non-oriented (NO) electrical steel is one of the most important soft magnetic materials for rotating machines. Si has usually been added to electrical steels to reduce eddy current loss by increasing the electrical resistivity. Si content more than 3.5 wt% causes cracks during cold rolling due to increase of brittleness. Al also increases the electrical resistivity of the materials as much as Si. In addition, cold workability of Fe-Al is better than Fe-Si, so that Al can be added up to 6.0 wt%. However, the effect of Al contents on magnetic properties of electrical steels has not been studied in detail. Magnetic domains of {100} grains in electrical steels, ranging from 1.85 to 6.54 wt% Al, were observed by magneto-optic Kerr microscopy. Furthermore, the correlation of magnetic domains with magnetic properties was investigated. As Al contents increased, the magnetic domain size of {100} grains decreased due to lowered domain wall energy. Reorganization of magnetic domain structure became more complex as domain size decreased. Therefore, the addition of Al to electrical steel caused hysteresis loss to increase. Anomalous loss decreased and saturated after 4.68% Al.

Keywords: electrical steel, magnetic domain structure, Al addition, core loss, rearrangement of domains

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Authors: Kun Qi, Yuman Zhou, Jianxin He

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A facile fabrication strategy via electrospinning and followed by in situ polymerization to fabricate a highly stretchable and conductive Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/Polyurethane (PEDOT/PU) nanofibrous membrane is reported. PU nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning and then PEDOT was coated on the plasma modified PU nanofiber surface via in-situ polymerization to form flexible PEDOT/PU composite nanofibers with conductivity. The results show PEDOT is successfully synthesized on the surface of PU nanofiber and PEDOT/PU composite nanofibers possess skin-core structure. Furthermore, the experiments indicate the optimal technological parameters of the polymerization process are as follow: The concentration of EDOT monomers is 50 mmol/L, the polymerization time is 24 h and the temperature is 25℃. The PEDOT/PU nanofibers exhibit excellent electrical conductivity ( 27.4 S/cm). In addition, flexible sensor made from conductive PEDOT/PU nanofibers shows highly sensitive response towards tensile strain and also can be used to detect finger motion. The results demonstrate promising application of the as-obtained nanofibrous membrane in flexible wearable electronic fields.

Keywords: electrospinning, polyurethane, PEDOT, conductive nanofiber, flexible senor

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Authors: Shoeb Ahmed Adeel, Vivek Paul, K. Prajwal, Michael Fenelon

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Techniques have been used to tether and stabilize a multi-rotor MAV but carrying out the same process to a fixed wing MAV is a novel method which can be utilized in order to reduce damage occurring to the fixed wing MAVs while conducting flight test trials and PID tuning. A few sensors and on board controller is required to carry out this experiment in horizontal and vertical plane of the vehicle. Here we will be discussing issues such as sensitivity of the air vehicle, endurance and external load of the string acting on the vehicle.

Keywords: MAV, PID tuning, tethered flight, UAV

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Authors: Usha Sivasankaran, Seetha Raman

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Experimental work on Double skin Concrete Filled tubes (DSCFT) are a variation of CFT (Concrete- filled steel tubular) with a hollow core formed by two concentric steel tubes in – filled with concrete. Six Specimens with three different volume fractions of steel fibres are cast and tested. Experiments on circular steel tubes in – filled with steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) and normal concrete have been performed to investigate the contribution of steel fibres to the load bearing capacity of Short Composite Columns. The main Variable considered in the test study is the percentage of steel fibres added to the in –filled concrete. All the specimens were tested under axial compression until failure state realisation. This project presents the percentage Variation in the compression strengths of the 3 types of Composite members taken under Study. The results show that 1.5% SFRC in filled steel columns exhibit enhanced ultimate load carrying capacity.

Keywords: composite columns, optimization of steel, double skin, DSCFT

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Authors: Austin Oduor Otieno

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There is an ingrained belief that the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes enable them to perform better. While this has been found to be truth, it also raises ethical and health issues. This paper analyzes the health hazards associated with performance enhancing drugs. It seeks to achieve this through the analysis of different academic journals as well as publications on the relationship between doping in sports and health. It concludes that there are inherent health hazards associated with the use of performance-enhancing drugs as they affect the physical and psychological health and wellbeing of a user (athlete).

Keywords: doping, health hazards, athletes, drugs

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Authors: Hossam Abdelrahman, Sama Rostom, Reem Yassein, Yara Mohamed, Salma Salah, Nour Awny

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In today’s environment, people are becoming increasingly interested in their appearance. However, they are afraid of their unknown appearance after a plastic surgery or treatment. Accidents, burns and genetic problems such as bowing of body parts of people have a negative impact on their mental health with their appearance and this makes them feel uncomfortable and underestimated. The approach presents a revolutionary deep learning-based image inpainting method that analyses the various picture structures and corrects damaged images. In this study, A model is proposed based on the in-painting of medical images with Stable Diffusion Inpainting method. Reconstructing missing and damaged sections of an image is known as image inpainting is a key progress facilitated by deep neural networks. The system uses the input of the user of an image to indicate a problem, the system will then modify the image and output the fixed image, facilitating for the patient to see the final result.

Keywords: generative adversarial network, large mask inpainting, stable diffusion inpainting, plastic surgery

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Authors: Guillaume Bélanger, Jean-Philippe Fontaine, Clémence Hauduc

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There is an undeniable thirst from organic chemists and from the pharmaceutical industry to access complex alkaloids with short syntheses. While medicinal chemists are interested in the fascinating wide range of biological properties of alkaloids, synthetic chemists are rather interested in finding new routes to access these challenging natural products of often low availability from nature. To synthesize complex polycyclic cores of natural products, reaction cascades or sequences performed one-pot offer a neat advantage over classical methods for their rapid increase in molecular complexity in a single operation. In counterpart, reaction cascades need to be run on substrates bearing all the required functional groups necessary for the key cyclizations. Chemoselectivity is thus a major issue associated with such a strategy, in addition to diastereocontrol and regiocontrol for the overall transformation. In the pursuit of synthetic efficiency, our research group developed an innovative one-pot transformation of linear substrates into bi- and tricyclic adducts applied to the construction of Aspidospermatan-type alkaloids. The latter is a rich class of indole alkaloids bearing a unique bridged azatricyclic core. Despite many efforts toward the synthesis of members of this family, efficient and versatile synthetic routes are still coveted. Indeed, very short, non-racemic approaches are rather scarce: for example, in the cases of aspidospermidine and aspidospermine, syntheses are all fifteen steps and over. We envisaged a unified approach to access several members of the Aspidospermatan alkaloids family. The key sequence features a highly chemoselective formamide activation that triggers a Vilsmeier-Haack cyclization, followed by an azomethine ylide generation and intramolecular cycloaddition. Despite the high density and variety of functional groups on the substrates (electron-rich and electron-poor alkenes, nitrile, amide, ester, enol ether), the sequence generated three new carbon-carbon bonds and three rings in a single operation with good yield and high chemoselectivity. A detailed study of amide, nucleophile, and dipolarophile variations to finally get to the successful combination required for the key transformation will be presented. To complete the indoline fragment of the natural products, we developed an original approach. Indeed, all reported routes to Aspidospermatan alkaloids introduce the indoline or indole early in the synthesis. In our work, the indoline needs to be installed on the azatricyclic core after the key cyclization sequence. As a result, typical Fischer indolization is not suited since this reaction is known to fail on such substrates. We thus envisaged a unique photocatalyzed decarboxylative radical cyclization. The development of this reaction as well as the scope and limitations of the methodology, will also be presented. The original Vilsmeier-Haack and azomethine ylide cyclization sequence as well as the new photocatalyzed decarboxylative radical cyclization will undoubtedly open access to new routes toward polycyclic indole alkaloids and derivatives of pharmaceutical interest in general.

Keywords: Aspidospermatan alkaloids, azomethine ylide cycloaddition, decarboxylative radical cyclization, indole and indoline synthesis, one-pot sequential cyclizations, photocatalysis, Vilsmeier-Haack Cyclization

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Authors: Selin Tosun

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The improvements in technology have started to transform the way we live, work, play, and commute in our cities. The emerging smart city understanding has been paving the way for more efficient, more useful, and more profitable cities. Smart sensors, smart lighting, smart waste, water and electricity management, smart transportation and communication systems are introduced to cities at a rapid pace. In today's world, innovation is often correlated with start-up companies and technological pioneers seeking broader economic objectives such as production and competitiveness. The government's position is primarily that of an enabler, with creativity mostly coming from the private sector. The paper argues that to achieve sustainable development, the ways in which smart and sustainable city approaches are being applied to cities need to be redefined. The research aims to address common discussions in the discourse of smart and sustainable cities criticizing the priority of lifestyle sterilization over human-centered sustainable interventions and social innovation strategies. The dichotomy between the fact that smart cities are mostly motivated by the competitive global market and the fact that the delocalization is, in fact, their biggest problem in the way of becoming authentic, sustainable cities is the main challenge that we face today. In other words, the key actors in smart cities have different and somewhat conflicting interests and demands. By reviewing the roles of the public and private actors in smart city making, the paper aspires to reconceptualize the understanding of “smartness” in achieving sustainable development in which the “smartness” is understood as a multi-layered complex phenomenon that can be channeled through different dynamics. The case cities around the world are explored and compared in terms of their technological innovations, governance and policy innovations, public-private stakeholder relationships, and the understanding of the public realm. The study aims to understand the current trends and general dynamics in the field, key issues that are being addressed, the scale that is preferred to reflect upon and the projects that are designed for the particular issues.

Keywords: smart city, sustainable development, technological innovation, social innovation

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Authors: Aisha Liaquat Ali, Ghulam Sarwar Gachal, Muhammad Yusuf Sheikh

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The parrot (Psittacula krameri borealis) commonly known as ‘Tota’ belongs to the order ‘Psittaciformes’ and family ‘Psittacidea’. Its range inhabits tropical to subtropical regions. The parrot (Psittacula krameri borealis) has been categorized as least concern species. The core aim of the present study is to investigate the nesting of parrot (Psittacula krameri borealis); site observation was done a different interval from various adjoining areas of District Mirpurkhas from June 2017 to May 2018. During the study period, altogether 15 nests were observed, number of nests were high in June’s month (33.3%), July (13.3%), August (20.0 %), March (13.3%), April (13.3%) while the lowest number of nest was observed in September’s month (6.6%) and the nest was absent from October to February. It investigates that the number of nests was high June’s month when temperature range between '20 °C' and '45 °C'.

Keywords: District Mirpurkhas Sindh Pakistan, nesting, parrot (Psittacula krameri), presence

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Authors: Seyed Hossein Alavi, Farshad Ghazalian, Soghra Jamshidi

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The present study was done with the purpose of considering mental health and general purpose of describing and comparing depression level of athlete and non-athlete male students educational year of 2012 Research method in this study in proportion to the selective title, descriptive method is causative – comparative. Research samples were selected randomly from B.A students of different fields including 500 students. Average mean of research samples was between 20 to 25 years. Data collection tool is questionnaire of depression measurement of Aroun Beck (B.D.I) that analyzes and measures 21 aspects of depression in 6 ranges. Operation related to analysis of statistical data to extraction of results was done by SPSS software. To extraction of research obtained by comparison of depression level mean, show that the hypothesis of the research (H_1) based on the existence of the significance scientific difference was supported and showed that there’s a significance difference between depression level of athlete male students in comparison with depression level of non-athlete male students. Thus, depression level of athlete male students was lower in comparison with depression level of non-athlete male students.

Keywords: depression, athlete students, non-athlete students

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Authors: I. Martins, A. Martins

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The European Union supports social and civil competencies as being a core element to develop sustainability of organizations, people and regions. These competencies are fundamental for the well-being of the community because they include interpersonal, intrapersonal as well as their civil, active and democratic participation in organizations. The combination of these competencies reveals the organizational socio-emotional maturity and allows relevant levels of performance. It also allows the development of various capitals, namely, human, structural, relational and social, with direct influence on performance. But along this path, the emotional aspect has not been valued as a capital, given that contemporary society is based on knowledge capital and is flooded with information viewed as a capital. The present study, based on the importance of these socio-emotional capitals, aims to show that the competencies of cooperation, interpersonal understanding, empathy, kindness, ability to listen, and tolerance, to mention a few, are strategic in consolidating knowledge within organizations. This implies that the humanizing processes, both inside and outside the organizations, are revitalized. The question is how to go about doing this and its implementation; as well as, where to begin and which guidelines to take on. These are the foci that guide the present study, bearing in mind the directions of the knowledge economy.

Keywords: civil competencies, humanizing, performance, social competencies

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Authors: Valentine Seymour

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Environmental volunteering organisations use questionnaires to explore the relationship between environmental volunteers and their health. To the author’s best knowledge, no one has explored volunteers’ health perception, which could be considered when designing a health impact measurement tool used to increase effective communication. This paper examines environmental volunteers' perceptions of health, knowledge which can be used to design a health impact measurement tool. This study uses focus group interviews, content analysis, and a general inductive approach to explore the health perceptions of volunteers who engage in environmental volunteering activities from the perspective of UK charity The Conservation Volunteers. Findings showed that volunteer groups presented were relatively similar in how they defined the term health, with their overall conceptual model closely resembling that of the World Health Organization 1948 definition. This suggests that future health impact measurement tools in the environmental volunteering sector could base their design around the World Health Organization’s definition.

Keywords: health perception, impact measurement, mental models, tool development

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Authors: Khaleel Sami Hamdan, Dong-Eok Kim, Sang-Ki Moon

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An appropriate model to predict the size of the droplets resulting from the break-up with the structures will help in a better understanding and modeling of the two-phase flow calculations in the simulation of a reactor core loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). A droplet behavior impacting on a hot surface above the Leidenfrost temperature was investigated. Droplets of known size and velocity were impacted to an inclined plate of hot temperature, and the behavior of the droplets was observed by a high-speed camera. It was found that for droplets of Weber number higher than a certain value, the higher the Weber number of the droplet the smaller the secondary droplets. The COBRA-TF model over-predicted the measured secondary droplet sizes obtained by the present experiment. A simple model for the secondary droplet size was proposed using the mass conservation equation. The maximum spreading diameter of the droplets was also compared to previous correlations and a fairly good agreement was found. A better prediction of the heat transfer in the case of LOCA can be obtained with the presented model.

Keywords: break-up, droplet, impact, inclined hot plate, Leidenfrost temperature, LOCA

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Authors: Xiao Yihong, Yu Kexin, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

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With the accelerating process of urbanization, the problem of urban road congestion is becoming more and more serious. Intelligent transportation system combining distributed and artificial intelligence has become a research hotspot. As the core development direction of the intelligent transportation system, Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) integrates advanced information technology and communication methods and realizes the integration of humans, vehicle, roadside infrastructure, and other elements through the multi-agent distributed system. By analyzing the system architecture and technical characteristics of C-ITS, the report proposes a distributed multi-agent C-ITS. The system consists of Roadside Sub-system, Vehicle Sub-system, and Personal Sub-system. At the same time, we explore the scalability of the C-ITS and put forward incorporating local rewards in the centralized training decentralized execution paradigm, hoping to add a scalable value decomposition method. In addition, we also suggest introducing blockchain to improve the safety of the traffic information transmission process. The system is expected to improve vehicle capacity and traffic safety.

Keywords: distributed system, artificial intelligence, multi-agent, cooperative intelligent transportation system

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Authors: Fabricio Costa Silva, Samuel Xavier de Souza

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A Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver is responsible to determine position, velocity and timing information by using satellite information. To get this information's are necessary to combine an incoming and a locally generated signal. The procedure called acquisition need to found two information, the frequency and phase of the incoming signal. This is very time consuming, so there are several techniques to reduces the computational complexity, but each of then put projects issues in conflict. I this papers we present a method that can reduce the computational complexity by reducing the search space and paralleling the search.

Keywords: GPS, acquisition, low complexity, parallelism

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Authors: Xu Xiao China, Xu Lei China

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After the 1990s, the concept of urban sustainable development has been increasing attention in urban planning and urban design. High carbon city, not a sustainable city construction model, has become an important problem which restricts the sustainable development of the city. Therefore, low-carbon city construction is the urgent need to solve the problem, and China is one of the core areas of low-carbon city construction in the world. The research work of low-carbon cities were participated by the Chinese government and academic institutes on theory and practice since 2007, and nowadays it comes to a practice stage with six low-carbon pilot provinces and 36 low-carbon pilot cities identified. To achieve the low-carbon target, developing low-carbon energy, adopting non-pollution technique, constructing green buildings and adopting ecolife-style are suggest by the government. Meanwhile, besides a new standard system and a new eco-environmental status evaluation method, the government also established the Chinese urban development institute including the Low-Carbon City Group. Finally, we want to transform the modern industrial civilization into an ecological civilization and realize sustainable urban development.

Keywords: low-carbon city, China, development practice, system construction, urban sustainability

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Authors: Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed

Abstract:

Universal and equitable access to safe and inexpensive water is one of the core goals of UN Sustainable Development (Goal-6). Rainwater harvesting and drinkable water scarcity are also prominent themes in the current literature. However, the lack of readily available drinking water sources is a serious roadblock in achieving this major goal in developing countries, especially in Bangladesh. In this study, we aimed to explore how water collecting activities in Bangladesh's coastal region are influenced by participants’ selected socio-demographic characteristics. We gathered information using a structured questionnaire from 154 people who were chosen at random from two of Bangladesh's most susceptible subdistricts situated in the country's southwest coast. Our results show that majority of the respondents think water fetching is a job for the woman as like their other day-day to household works and it’s not a man's duty. Interestingly, we found that person's age, family structure, monthly income and religion all play important roles in how they see and behave water-gathering techniques. Moreover, the local taboo on women and men's roles in water-gathering is also evident in the studied areas.

Keywords: water fetching, socio-demographic characteristic, coastal region, Bangladesh, SDG

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Authors: Tuyuan Cheng

Abstract:

As we age, many things become more difficult. Among the abilities are the linguistic and cognitive ones. Competing theories have shown that these two functions could diminish together or that one is selectively affected by the other. In other words, some proposes aging affects sentence production in the same way it affects sentence comprehension and other cognitive functions, while some argues it does not.To address this question, the current investigation is conducted into the critical aspect of sentences as well as cognitive abilities – the syntactic complexity and the number of perspective shifts being contained in the elicited production. Healthy non-pathological aging is often characterized by a cognitive and neural decline in a number of cognitive abilities. Although the language is assumed to be of the more stable domain, a variety of findings in the cognitive aging literature would suggest otherwise. Older adults often show deficits in language production and multiple aspects of comprehension. Nevertheless, while some age differences likely reflect cognitive decline, others might reflect changes in communicative goals, and some even display cognitive advantages. In the domain of language processing, research efforts have been made in tests that probed a variety of communicative abilities. In general, there exists a distinction: Comprehension seems to be selectively unaffected, while production does not. The current study raises a novel question and investigates whether aging affects the production of relative clauses (RCs) under the cognitive factor of perspective shifts. Based on Perspective Hypothesis (MacWhinney, 2000, 2005), our cognitive processes build upon a fundamental system of perspective-taking, and language provides a series of cues to facilitate the construction and shifting of perspectives. These cues include a wide variety of constructions, including RCs structures. In this regard, linguistic complexity can be determined by the number of perspective shifts, and the processing difficulties of RCs can be interpreted within the theory of perspective shifting. Two experiments were conducted to study language production under controlled conditions. In Experiment 1, older healthy participants were tested on standard measures of cognitive aging, including MMSE (Mini-Mental State Examination), ToMI-2 (a simplified Theory of Mind Inventory-2), and a perspective-shifting comprehension task programmed with E-Prime. The results were analyzed to examine if/how they are correlated with aging people’s subsequent production data. In Experiment 2, the production profile of differing RCs, SRC vs. ORC, were collected with healthy aging participants who perform a picture elicitation task. Variable containing 0, 1, or 2 perspective shifts were juxtaposed respectively to the pictures and counterbalanced presented for elicitation. In parallel, a controlled group of young adults were recruited to examine the linguistic and cognitive abilities in question. The results lead us to the discussion whetheraging affects RCs production in a manner determined by its semantic structure or the number of perspective shifts it contains or the status of participants’ mental understanding. The major findingsare: (1) Elders’ production on Chinese RCtypes did not display intrinsic difficulty asymmetry. (2) RC types (the linguistic structural features) and the cognitiveperspective shifts jointly play important roles in the elders’ RCproduction. (3) The production of RC may defy the aging in the case offlexibly preserved cognitive ability.

Keywords: cognition aging, perspective hypothesis, perspective shift, relative clauses, sentence complexity

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Authors: Moshreka Aditi Huq

Abstract:

This study shows how a progressive portion of civil intellectuals in Bangladesh contributed as the solidarity activist entities in a movement of tea workers that became the symbol of their unique moral struggle. Their passive yet sharp way of resistance, with the integration of mass tea workers of a tea estate, got demonstrated against certain private companies and government officials who approached to establish a special economic zone inside the tea garden without offering any compensation and rehabilitation for poor tea workers. Due to massive protests and rebellion, the authorized entrepreneurs had to step back and called off the project immediately. The extraordinary features of this movement generated itself from the deep core social need of indigenous tea workers who are still imprisoned in the colonial cage. Following an anthropological and ethnographic perspective, this study adopted the main three techniques of intensive interview, focus group discussion, and laborious observation, to extract empirical data. The intensive interviews were undertaken informally using a mostly conversational approach. Focus group discussions were piloted among various representative groups where observations prevailed as part of the regular documentation process. These were conducted among civil intellectual entities, tea workers, tea estate authorities, civil service authorities, and business officials to obtain a holistic view of the situation. The fieldwork was executed in capital Dhaka city, along with northern areas like Chandpur-Begumkhan Tea Estate of Chunarughat Upazilla and Habiganj city of Habiganj District of Bangladesh. Correspondingly, secondary data were accessed through books, scholarly papers, archives, newspapers, reports, leaflets, posters, writing blog, and electronic pages of social media. The study results find that: (1) civil intellectuals opposed state-sponsored business impositions by producing counter-discourse and struggled against state hegemony through the phases of the movement; (2) instead of having the active physical resistance, civil intellectuals’ strength was preferably in passive form which was portrayed through their intellectual labor; (3) the combined movement of tea workers and civil intellectuals reflected on social security of ethnic worker communities that contrasts state’s pseudo-development motives which ultimately supports offensive and oppressive neoliberal growths of economy; (4) civil intellectuals are revealed as having certain functional limitations in the process of movement organization as well as resource mobilization; (5) in specific contexts, the genuine need of protest by indigenous subaltern can overshadow intellectual elitism and helps to raise the voices of ‘subjugated knowledge’. This study is quite likely to represent two sets of apparent protagonist entities in the discussion of social injustice and oppressive development intervention. On the one, hand it may help us to find the basic functional characteristics of civil intellectuals in Bangladesh when they are in a passive mode of resistance in social movement issues. On the other hand, it represents the community ownership and inherent protest tendencies of indigenous workers when they feel threatened and insecure. The study seems to have the potential to understand the conditions of ‘subjugated knowledge’ of subalterns. Furthermore, being the memory and narratives, these ‘activism mechanisms’ of social entities broadens the path to understand ‘power’ and ‘resistance’ in more fascinating ways.

Keywords: civil intellectuals, resistance, subjugated knowledge, indigenous

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Authors: Tikhanporn Punluekdej, Saowapa Phaithayawat

Abstract:

The objectives of this research are: 1) to discover the mechanism in the restoration process of the old district, and 2) to study the people participation in the community with related units. This research utilizes qualitative research method together with the tools used in the study of historical and anthropological disciplines. The research revealed that the restoration process of the old district started with the needs of the local people in the community. These people are considered as a young generation in the community. The leading group of the community played a vital role in the restoration process by igniting the whole idea and followed by the help from those who have lived in the area of more than fifty years. The restoration process is the genuine desire of the local people without the intervention of the local politics. The core group would coordinate with the related units in which there were, for instance, the academic institutions in order to find out the most dominant historical features of the community including its settlement. The Crown Property Bureau, as the sole-owner of the land, joined the restoration in the physical development dimension. The restoration was possible due to the cooperation between local people and related units, under the designated plans, budget, and social activities.

Keywords: restoration, urban area, old district, people participation

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