Search results for: build back better (BBB)

Authors: Mohammed Agbali, Claudia Trillo, Yusuf Arayici, Terrence Fernando

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The wide-spread adoption of the Smart City concept has introduced a new era of computing paradigm with opportunities for city administrators and stakeholders in various sectors to re-think the concept of urbanization and development of healthy cities. With the world population rapidly becoming urban-centric especially amongst the emerging economies, social innovation will assist greatly in deploying emerging technologies to address the development challenges in core sectors of the future cities. In this context, sustainable health-care delivery and improved quality of life of the people is considered at the heart of the healthy city agenda. This paper examines the Boston innovation landscape from the perspective of smart services and innovation ecosystem for sustainable development, especially in transportation and healthcare. It investigates the policy implementation process of the Healthy City agenda and eHealth economy innovation based on the experience of Massachusetts’s City of Boston initiatives. For this purpose, three emerging areas are emphasized, namely the eHealth concept, the innovation hubs, and the emerging technologies that drive innovation. This was carried out through empirical analysis on results of public sector and industry-wide interviews/survey about Boston’s current initiatives and the enabling environment. The paper highlights few potential research directions for service integration and social innovation for deploying emerging technologies in the healthy city agenda. The study therefore suggests the need to prioritize social innovation as an overarching strategy to build sustainable Smart Cities in order to avoid technology lock-in. Finally, it concludes that the Boston example of innovation economy is unique in view of the existing platforms for innovation and proper understanding of its dynamics, which is imperative in building smart and healthy cities where quality of life of the citizenry can be improved.

Keywords: computing paradigm, emerging technologies, equitable healthcare, healthy cities, open data, smart city, social innovation

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Authors: Mhenga Agneta, Li Zhaomin, Zhang Chao

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When velocity is high enough, gas can entrain fluid and carry to the surface, but as time passes by, velocity drops to a critical point where fluids will start to hold up in the tubing and cause liquid loading which prevents gas production and may lead to the death of the well. Foam injection is widely used as one of the methods to unload liquid. Since wells have different characteristics, it is not guaranteed that foam can be applied in all of them and bring successful results. This research presents a technology to optimize the efficiency of foam to unload liquid by air compression. Two methods are used to explain optimization; (i) mathematical formulas are used to solve and explain the myth of how density and critical velocity could be minimized when air is compressed into foaming agents, then the relationship between flow rates and pressure increase which would boost up the bottom hole pressure and increase the velocity to lift liquid to the surface. (ii) Experiments to test foam carryover capacity and stability as a function of time and surfactant concentration whereby three surfactants anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), nonionic Triton 100 and cationic hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTAB) were probed. The best foaming agents were injected to lift liquid loaded in a created vertical well model of 2.5 cm diameter and 390 cm high steel tubing covered by a transparent glass casing of 5 cm diameter and 450 cm high. The results show that, after injecting foaming agents, liquid unloading was successful by 75%; however, the efficiency of foaming agents to unload liquid increased by 10% with an addition of compressed air at a ratio of 1:1. Measured values and calculated values were compared and brought about ± 3% difference which is a good number. The successful application of the technology indicates that engineers and stakeholders could bring water flooded gas wells back to production with optimized results by firstly paying attention to the type of surfactants (foaming agents) used, concentration of surfactants, flow rates of the injected surfactants then compressing air to the foaming agents at a proper ratio.

Keywords: air compression, foaming agents, gas well, liquid loading

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Authors: Sung-Won Seo, Jang-Young Choi

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The rare earth magnets used in synchronous generators offer many advantages, including high efficiency, greatly reduced the size, and weight. The permanent magnet linear synchronous generator (PMLSG) allows for direct drive without the need for a mechanical device. Therefore, the PMLSG is well suited to translational applications, such as wave energy converters and free piston energy converters. This manuscript compares the effects of different magnetization patterns on the characteristics of double-sided PMLSGs in slotless stator structures. The Halbach array has a higher flux density in air-gap than the Vertical array, and the advantages of its performance and efficiency are widely known. To verify the advantage of Halbach array, we apply a finite element method (FEM) and analytical method. In general, a FEM and an analytical method are used in the electromagnetic analysis for determining model characteristics, and the FEM is preferable to magnetic field analysis. However, the FEM is often slow and inflexible. On the other hand, the analytical method requires little time and produces accurate analysis of the magnetic field. Therefore, the flux density in air-gap and the Back-EMF can be obtained by FEM. In addition, the results from the analytical method correspond well with the FEM results. The model of the Halbach array reveals less copper loss than the model of the Vertical array, because of the Halbach array’s high output power density. The model of the Vertical array is lower core loss than the model of Halbach array, because of the lower flux density in air-gap. Therefore, the current density in the Vertical model is higher for identical power output. The completed manuscript will include the magnetic field characteristics and structural features of both models, comparing various results, and specific comparative analysis will be presented for the determination of the best model for application in a wave energy converting system.

Keywords: wave energy converter, permanent magnet linear synchronous generator, finite element method, analytical method

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Authors: Mahfouz Saeed

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Cu₂(ZnSn)(S)₄ (CTZS) offers potential advantages over CuInGaSe₂ (CIGS) as solar thin film because to its higher band gap. Preparing such photovoltaic materials by electrochemical techniques is particularly attractive due to the lower processing cost and the high throughput of such techniques. Several recent publications report CTZS electroplating; however, the electrochemical process still facing serious challenges such as a sulfur atomic ration which is about 50% of the total alloy. We introduce in this work an improved electrolyte composition which enables the direct electrodeposition of CTZS from a single bath. The electrolyte is significantly more dilute in comparison to common baths described in the literature. The bath composition we introduce is: 0.0032 M CuSO₄, 0.0021 M ZnSO₄, 0.0303 M SnCl₂, 0.0038 M Na₂S₂O₃, and 0.3 mM Na₂S₂O3. PHydrion is applied to buffer the electrolyte to pH=2, and 0.7 M LiCl is applied as supporting electrolyte. Electrochemical process was carried at a rotating disk electrode which provides quantitative characterization of the flow (room temperature). Comprehensive electrochemical behavior study at different electrode rotation rates are provided. The effects of agitation on atomic composition of the deposit and its adhesion to the molybdenum back contact are discussed. The post treatment annealing was conducted under sulfur atmosphere with no need for metals addition from the gas phase during annealing. The potential which produced the desired atomic ratio of CTZS at -0.82 V/NHE. Smooth deposit, with uniform composition across the sample surface and depth was obtained at 500 rpm rotation speed. Final sulfur atomic ratio was adjusted to 50.2% in order to have the desired atomic ration. The final composition was investigated using Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy technique (EDS). XRD technique used to analyze CTZS crystallography and thickness. Complete and functional CTZS PV devices were fabricated by depositing all the required layers in the correct order and the desired optical properties. Acknowledgments: Case Western Reserve University for the technical help and for using their instruments.

Keywords: photovoltaic, CTZS, thin film, electrochemical

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Authors: M.J. Seddighi, Moradchelleh, M. Keyvan

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The ultimate goal in building a city is to provide pleasant, comfortable and nurturing environment as a context of public life. City environment establishes strong connection with people and their surrounding habitant, acting as relevance in social interactions between citizens itself. Urban environment and appropriate municipal facilities are the only way for proper communication between city and citizens and also citizens themselves.There is a need for complement elements between buildings and constructions to settling city life through which the move, comfort, reactions and anxiety will adjust and reflect the spirit to the city. In the surging development of society, urban’ spaces are encountered evolution, sometimes causing the symbols to fade and waste, and as a result, leading to destroy belongs among humans and their physical liquidate. Houses and living spaces exhibit materialistic reflection of life style. In the other words, way of life makes the symbolic essence of living spaces. In addition, it is of sociocultural factor of lifestyle, consisting the concepts and culture, morality, worldview, and national character. Culture is responsible for some crucial meaningful needs which can be wide because they depend on various causes such as perception and interpretation of believes, philosophy of life, interaction with neighbors and protection against climate and enemies. The bi-lateral relationship between human and nature is the main factor that needs to be properly addressed. It is because of the fact that the approach which is taken against landscape and nature has a pertinent influence on creation and shaping the structure of a house. The first response of human in tackling the environment is to build a “shelter” and place as dwelling. This has been a crucial factor in all time periods. In the proposed study, dwelling in Khorasgan’ Stream, as an area located in one of the important historical city of Iran, has been studied. Khorasgan’ Stream is the basic constituent elements of the present architectural form of Isfahan. The influence of Islamic spiritual culture and neighborhood with the historical elements on the dwelling of the selected location, subsequently on other regions of the town are presented.

Keywords: dwelling, neighborhood, historical, Islamic, architectural elements

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Authors: Nivatha Elangovan, Lakshman Neelakantan, Murugaiyan Amirthalingam

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Magnesium and its alloys are widely used for various lightweight engineering and biomedical applications as they render high strength to low weight ratio and excellent corrosion resistance. These alloys possess good bio-compatibility and similar mechanical properties to natural bone. However, manufacturing magnesium alloy components by conventional formative and subtractive methods is challenging due to their poor castability, oxidation potential, and machinability. Therefore, efforts are made to produce complex-design containing magnesium alloy components by additive manufacturing (AM). Arc-wire directed energy deposition (AW-DED), also known as wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), is more attractive to produce large volume components with increased productivity than any other AM technique. In this research work, efforts were made to optimise the deposition parameters to build thick-walled (about 10 mm) AZ31 magnesium alloy components by a gas metal arc (GMA) based AW-DED process. By using controlled dip short-circuiting metal transfer in a GMA process, depositions were carried out without defects and spatter formation. Current and voltage waveforms were suitably modified to achieve stable metal transfer. Moreover, the droplet transfer behaviour was analysed using high-speed image analysis and correlated with arc energy. Optical and scanning electron microscopy analyses were carried out to correlate the influence of deposition parameters with the microstructural evolution during deposition. The investigation reveals that by carefully controlling the current-voltage waveform and droplet transfer behaviour, it is possible to stabilise equiaxed grain microstructures in the deposited AZ31 components. The printed component exhibited an improved mechanical property as equiaxed grains improve the ductility and enhance the toughness. The equiaxed grains in the component improved the corrosion-resistant behaviour of other conventionally manufactured components.

Keywords: arc wire directed energy deposition, AZ31 magnesium alloy, equiaxed grain, corrosion

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Authors: Atiya Khan

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Recent research on the condition of school education in India has reaffirmed the importance of quality teacher professional development, especially in light of the rapid changes in teaching methods, learning theories, curriculum, and major shifts in information and technology that education systems are experiencing around the world. However, the quality of programs of teacher professional development in India is often uneven, in some cases non-existing. The educational authorities in India have long recognized this and have developed a range of programs to assist in-service teacher education. But, these programs have been mostly inadequate at improving the quality of teachers in India. Policy literature and reports indicate that the unevenness of these programs and more generally the lack of quality teacher professional development in India are due to factors such as a large number of teachers, budgetary constraints, top-down decision making, teacher overload, lack of infrastructure, and little or no follow-up. The disparity between the government stated goals for quality teacher professional development in India and its inability to meet the learning needs of teachers suggests that new interventions are needed. The realization that globalization has brought about an increase in the social, cultural, political and economic interconnectedness between countries has also given rise to transnational opportunities for education systems, such as India’s, aiming to build their capacity to support teacher professional development. Moreover, new developments in communication technologies seem to present a plausible means of achieving high-quality professional development for teachers through the creation of social learning spaces, such as transnational learning networks. This case study investigates the potential of one such transnational learning network to support the quality of teacher professional development in India, namely the Australia-Asia BRIDGE School Partnerships Project. It explores the participation of some fifteen teachers and their principals from BRIDGE participating schools in Delhi region of India; focusing on their professional development expectations from the BRIDGE program and account for their experiences in the program, in order to determine the program’s potential for the professional development of teachers in this study.

Keywords: case study, Australia-Asia BRIDGE Project, teacher professional development, transnational learning networks

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Authors: M. A. Ashour

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As it is known Egypt is one of the countries having oldest sugarcane industry, which goes back to the year 710 AD. Cane plantations are the main agricultural product in five governorates in Upper Egypt (El-Menia, Sohag, Qena, Luxor, and Aswan), producing not less than 16 million tons a year. Eight factories (Abou-korkas, Gena, Nagaa-Hamadi, Deshna, Kous, Armant, Edfuo, and Komombo), located in such upper Egypt governorates generates huge amount of wastes during the manufacturing stage, the so called bagasse which is the fibrous, and cellulosic materials remaining after the era of the sugarcane and the juice extraction, presents about 30% of such wastes. The amount of bagasse generated yearly through the manufacturing stage of the above mentioned 8 factories is approximately about 2.8 million tons, getting red safely of such huge amount, presents a serious environmental problem. Storage of that material openly in the so hot climate in upper Egypt, may cause its self-ignition under air temperature reaches 50 degrees centigrade in summer, due to the remained residual content of sugar. At the same time preparing places for safely storage for such amount is very expensive with respect to the valueless of it. So the best way for getting rid of bagasse is converting it into an added value environmentally friendly material, especially till now the utilization of it is so limited. Since oil pollution became a serious concern, the issue of environmental cleaning arises. With the structure of sugarcane bagasse, which contains fiber and high content of carbon, it can be an adsorbent to adsorb the oil contamination from the water. The present study is a trail to introduce a new material for the purification of water systems to score two goals at once, the first is getting rid of that harmful waste safely, the second is converting it to a commercial valuable material for cleaning, and purifying the water from oil spills, and petroleum pollution. Introduced the new material proved very good performance, and higher efficiency than other similar materials available in the local market, in both closed and open systems. The introduced modified material can absorb 10 times its weight of oil, while don't absorb any water.

Keywords: environment, water resources, agricultural wastes, oil pollution control, sugarcane

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Authors: Mohd Fadzly Yahya, Matthew Teo Yong Chang

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Globally, the increasing life expectancy of human beings has brought more issues with non-communicable diseases, especially work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMDs). WMSD also is one of the leading causes of health-related absence from work restricted work time in Malaysia. WMDs are cumulative disorders, resulting from repeated exposure to high or low-intensity loads over a long period. Evidence from a previous study showed that office workers in government and private sectors were showing high WRMDs prevalence in Malaysia. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of MSDs among Malaysian office workers in Klang Valley and to identify the association between MSDs pain and working experience among office workers. This is a cross-sectional study focusing on officer workers in the Klang Valley area. The questionnaires consisted of the subject’s demographics, Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire, and The Numeric Pain Rating Scale were distributed online via google forms to all consenting participants. The data were analyzed for descriptive analysis, parametric test, and student T-test using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 27. From a total of 244 participants, 95 (38.9%) were male and 149 (61.1%) were female. 57.8% of the total samples were government staff while private-sector workers were 42.2%. The highest MSDs prevalence was neck pain during the last 12 months which contributed to 69.3% (n=169) of total participants, which is male 38.5% (n=65) and female 61.5% (n=104). Our study revealed that female office workers have a higher prevalence of WMDs and there is a significant difference in elbow pain, wrist, and hands pain, and lower back pain across four different working experience groups. Office workers in this study were highly exposed to MSDs due to poor ergonomics implementation at the workplace. It is crucial to advocate preventative measures to employers such as workplace ergonomics and changes to work practices to reduce the incidence of MSDs cases in office settings.

Keywords: musculoskeletal disorders, pain, prevalence rate, office workers, risks

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Authors: Tyler T. Procko, Steve Collins

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New features in .NET (6 and above) permit streamlined access to information residing in JSON-capable relational databases, such as SQL Server (2016 and above). Traditional methods of data access now comparatively involve unnecessary steps which compromise system performance. This work posits that the established ORM (Object Relational Mapping) based methods of data access in applications and APIs result in common issues, e.g., object-relational impedance mismatch. Recent developments in C# and .NET Core combined with a framework of modern SQL Server coding conventions have allowed better technical solutions to the problem. As an amelioration, this work details the language features and coding conventions which enable this streamlined approach, resulting in an open-source .NET library implementation called Codeless Data Access (CODA). Canonical approaches rely on ad-hoc mapping code to perform type conversions between the client and back-end database; with CODA, no mapping code is needed, as JSON is freely mapped to SQL and vice versa. CODA streamlines API data access by improving on three aspects of immediate concern to web developers, database engineers and cybersecurity professionals: Simplicity, Speed and Security. Simplicity is engendered by cutting out the “middleman” steps, effectively making API data access a whitebox, whereas traditional methods are blackbox. Speed is improved because of the fewer translational steps taken, and security is improved as attack surfaces are minimized. An empirical evaluation of the speed of the CODA approach in comparison to ORM approaches ] is provided and demonstrates that the CODA approach is significantly faster. CODA presents substantial benefits for API developer workflows by simplifying data access, resulting in better speed and security and allowing developers to focus on productive development rather than being mired in data access code. Future considerations include a generalization of the CODA method and extension outside of the .NET ecosystem to other programming languages.

Keywords: API data access, database, JSON, .NET core, SQL server

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Authors: Davide D’Aria, Paolo Falcone, Luigi Maggi, Aldo Cero, Giovanni Amoroso

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The paper presents a methodology for real-time structural health monitoring and geophysical applications. The key elements of the system are a high performance MIMO RADAR sensor, an optical camera and a dedicated set of software algorithms encompassing interferometry, tomography and photogrammetry. The MIMO Radar sensor proposed in this work, provides an extremely high sensitivity to displacements making the system able to react to tiny deformations (up to tens of microns) with a time scale which spans from milliseconds to hours. The MIMO feature of the system makes the system capable of providing a set of two-dimensional images of the observed scene, each mapped on the azimuth-range directions with noticeably resolution in both the dimensions and with an outstanding repetition rate. The back-scattered energy, which is distributed in the 3D space, is projected on a 2D plane, where each pixel has as coordinates the Line-Of-Sight distance and the cross-range azimuthal angle. At the same time, the high performing processing unit allows to sense the observed scene with remarkable refresh periods (up to milliseconds), thus opening the way for combined static and dynamic structural health monitoring. Thanks to the smart TX/RX antenna array layout, the MIMO data can be processed through a tomographic approach to reconstruct the three-dimensional map of the observed scene. This 3D point cloud is then accurately mapped on a 2D digital optical image through photogrammetric techniques, allowing for easy and straightforward interpretations of the measurements. Once the three-dimensional image is reconstructed, a 'repeat-pass' interferometric approach is exploited to provide the user of the system with high frequency three-dimensional motion/vibration estimation of each point of the reconstructed image. At this stage, the methodology leverages consolidated atmospheric correction algorithms to provide reliable displacement and vibration measurements.

Keywords: interferometry, MIMO RADAR, SAR, tomography

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Authors: Sohail Bawani, Kausar S. Khan, Rozina Karmaliani, Shehnaz Mir

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Action research (AR) is one of the types of health systems research (HSR), and participatory action research (PAR) is known for being effective in health systems strengthening (HSS). The current literature on PAR for HSS cites numerous examples and case studies that led to improve health services; build child health information system; increase knowledge and awareness of people about health problems, and identify pathways for institutional and policy change by engaging people in research. But examples of marginalized communities being agents of change in health governance are not common in health systems research (HSR). This approach to PAR is at the heart of Paolo Freire’s Social Transformation Theory and Critical Consciousness building, which was used to design a community-based PAR study in the Northern/mountainous areas of Pakistan. The purpose of the study was to understand the place and role of marginalized communities in strengthening existing health governance structure (health facility and village health committees and health boards) by taking marginalized communities as partners. Community meetings were carried out to identify who is living at the social, political, cultural and economic margins in 40 different villages. Participatory reflection and analysis (PRA) tools were used during the meeting to facilitate identification. Focus group discussions were conducted with marginalized groups using PRA tools and family ethnographies with marginalized families identified through group discussions. Findings of the study revealed that for the marginalized health systems constitute more than just delivery of health services, but it also embraces social determinants that surround systems and its governance. The paper argues that from Frerian perspective people’s participation should not only be limited to knowledge generation. People must be seen active users of the knowledge that they generate for achieving better health outcomes that they want to achieve in the time to come. PAR provides a pathway to the marginalized in playing a role in health governance. The study dissemination planned shall engage the marginalized in a dialogue with service providers so that together a role for the marginalized can be outlined.

Keywords: participatory action research, health systems, marginalized, health services

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Authors: Mpho Mokoatle, Darlington Mapiye, James Mashiyane, Stephanie Muller, Gciniwe Dlamini

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Great advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have resulted in availability of huge amounts of sequencing data in public and private repositories, enabling a holistic understanding of complex biological phenomena. Sequence data are used for a wide range of applications such as gene annotations, expression studies, personalized treatment and precision medicine. However, this rapid growth in sequence data poses a great challenge which calls for novel data processing and analytic methods, as well as huge computing resources. In this work, a machine and statistical learning approach for DNA sequence classification based on $k$-mer representation of sequence data is proposed. The approach is tested using whole genome sequences of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates to (i) reduce the size of genomic sequence data, (ii) identify an optimum size of k-mers and utilize it to build classification models, (iii) predict the phenotype from whole genome sequence data of a given bacterial isolate, and (iv) demonstrate computing challenges associated with the analysis of whole genome sequence data in producing interpretable and explainable insights. The classification models were trained on 104 whole genome sequences of MTB isoloates. Cluster analysis showed that k-mers maybe used to discriminate phenotypes and the discrimination becomes more concise as the size of k-mers increase. The best performing classification model had a k-mer size of 10 (longest k-mer) an accuracy, recall, precision, specificity, and Matthews Correlation coeffient of 72.0%, 80.5%, 80.5%, 63.6%, and 0.4 respectively. This study provides a comprehensive approach for resampling whole genome sequencing data, objectively selecting a k-mer size, and performing classification for phenotype prediction. The analysis also highlights the importance of increasing the k-mer size to produce more biological explainable results, which brings to the fore the interplay that exists amongst accuracy, computing resources and explainability of classification results. However, the analysis provides a new way to elucidate genetic information from genomic data, and identify phenotype relationships which are important especially in explaining complex biological mechanisms.

Keywords: AWD-LSTM, bootstrapping, k-mers, next generation sequencing

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Authors: Darlington Mapiye, Mpho Mokoatle, James Mashiyane, Stephanie Muller, Gciniwe Dlamini

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Great advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have resulted in availability of huge amounts of sequencing data in public and private repositories, enabling a holistic understanding of complex biological phenomena. Sequence data are used for a wide range of applications such as gene annotations, expression studies, personalized treatment and precision medicine. However, this rapid growth in sequence data poses a great challenge which calls for novel data processing and analytic methods, as well as huge computing resources. In this work, a machine and statistical learning approach for DNA sequence classification based on k-mer representation of sequence data is proposed. The approach is tested using whole genome sequences of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) isolates to (i) reduce the size of genomic sequence data, (ii) identify an optimum size of k-mers and utilize it to build classification models, (iii) predict the phenotype from whole genome sequence data of a given bacterial isolate, and (iv) demonstrate computing challenges associated with the analysis of whole genome sequence data in producing interpretable and explainable insights. The classification models were trained on 104 whole genome sequences of MTB isoloates. Cluster analysis showed that k-mers maybe used to discriminate phenotypes and the discrimination becomes more concise as the size of k-mers increase. The best performing classification model had a k-mer size of 10 (longest k-mer) an accuracy, recall, precision, specificity, and Matthews Correlation coeffient of 72.0 %, 80.5 %, 80.5 %, 63.6 %, and 0.4 respectively. This study provides a comprehensive approach for resampling whole genome sequencing data, objectively selecting a k-mer size, and performing classification for phenotype prediction. The analysis also highlights the importance of increasing the k-mer size to produce more biological explainable results, which brings to the fore the interplay that exists amongst accuracy, computing resources and explainability of classification results. However, the analysis provides a new way to elucidate genetic information from genomic data, and identify phenotype relationships which are important especially in explaining complex biological mechanisms

Keywords: AWD-LSTM, bootstrapping, k-mers, next generation sequencing

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Authors: Tarek Duzan, Walid Esayed

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Fluid flow in porous media is attributed fundamentally to parameters that are controlled by depositional and post-depositional environments. After deposition, digenetic events can act negatively on the reservoir and reduce the effective porosity, thereby making the rock less permeable. Therefore, exploiting hydrocarbons from such resources requires partially altering the rock properties to improve the long-term production rate and enhance the recovery efficiency. In this study, we try to address, firstly, the phenomena of permeability reduction in tight sandstone reservoirs and illustrate the implemented procedures to investigate the problem roots; finally, benchmark the candidate solutions at the field scale and recommend the mitigation strategy for the field development plan. During the study, two investigations have been considered: subsurface analysis using ( PLT ) and Laboratory tests for four candidate wells of the interested reservoir. Based on the above investigations, it was obvious that the Production logging tool (PLT) has shown areas of contribution in the reservoir, which is considered very limited, considering the total reservoir thickness. Also, Alcohol treatment was the first choice to go with for the AA9 well. The well productivity has been relatively restored but not to its initial productivity. Furthermore, Alcohol treatment in the lab was effective and restored permeability in some plugs by 98%, but operationally, the challenge would be the ability to distribute enough alcohol in a wellbore to attain the sweep Efficiency obtained within a laboratory core plug. However, the Second solution, which is based on fracking wells, has shown excellent results, especially for those wells that suffered a high drop in oil production. It is suggested to frac and pack the wells that are already damaged in the Waha field to mitigate the damage and restore productivity back as much as possible. In addition, Critical fluid velocity and its effect on fine sand migration in the reservoir have to be well studied on core samples, and therefore, suitable pressure drawdown will be applied in the reservoir to limit fine sand migration.

Keywords: alcohol treatment, post-depositional environments, permeability, tight sandstone

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Authors: Abd El Rahman Mohamed

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Canopic jars made by the ancient Egyptians from different materials were used to preserve the viscera during the mummification process. The canopic jar studied here dates back to the Late Period (712-332 BC). It is found in the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Giza, Egypt. This jar was carved from limestone and covered with a monkey head lid with painted eyes and ears with red pigment and surrounded with black pigment. The jar contains bandages of textile containing mummy viscera with resin and black resin blocks. The canopic jars were made using the sculpting tools that were used by the ancient Egyptians, such as metal chisels (made of copper) and hammers and emptying the mass of the jar from the inside using a tool invented by the ancient Egyptians, which called the emptying drill. This study also aims to use analytical techniques to identify the components of the jar, its contents, pigments, and previous restoration materials and to understand its deterioration aspects. Visual assessment, isolation and identification of fungi, optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were used in our study. The jar showed different signs of deterioration, such as dust, dirt, stains, scratches, classifications, missing parts, and breaks; previous conservation materials include using iron wire, completion mortar and an adhesive for assembly. The results revealed that the jar was carved from Dolomite Limestone, red Hematite pigment, Mastic resin, and Linen textile bandages. The previous adhesive was Animal Glue and used Gypsum for the previous completion. The most dominant Microbial infection on the jar was found in the fungi of (Penicillium waksmanii), (Nigrospora sphaerica), (Actinomycetes sp) and (Spore-Forming Gram-Positive Bacilli). Conservation procedures have been applied with high accuracy to conserve the jar, including mechanical and chemical cleaning, re-assembling, completion and consolidation.

Keywords: Canopic jar, Consolidation, Mummification, Resin, Viscera.

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Authors: Marine Reymond, Michael Descostes, Marie Muguet, Clemence Besancon, Martine Leermakers, Catherine Beaucaire, Sophie Billon, Patricia Patrier

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²²⁶Ra is one of the radionuclides resulting from the disintegration of ²³⁸U. Due to its half-life (1600 y) and its high specific activity (3.7 x 1010 Bq/g), ²²⁶Ra is found at the ultra-trace level in the natural environment (usually below 1 Bq/L, i.e. 10-13 mol/L). Because of its decay in ²²²Rn, a radioactive gas with a shorter half-life (3.8 days) which is difficult to control and dangerous for humans when inhaled, ²²⁶Ra is subject to a dedicated monitoring in surface waters especially in the context of uranium mining. In natural waters, radionuclides occur in dissolved, colloidal or particular forms. Due to the size of colloids, generally ranging between 1 nm and 1 µm and their high specific surface areas, the colloidal fraction could be involved in the transport of trace elements, including radionuclides in the environment. The colloidal fraction is not always easy to determine and few existing studies focus on ²²⁶Ra. In the present study, a complete multidisciplinary approach is proposed to assess the colloidal transport of ²²⁶Ra. It includes water sampling by conventional filtration (0.2µm) and the innovative Diffusive Gradient in Thin Films technique to measure the dissolved fraction (<10nm), from which the colloidal fraction could be estimated. Suspended matter in these waters were also sampled and characterized mineralogically by X-Ray Diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. All of these data, which were acquired on a rehabilitated former uranium mine, allowed to build a geochemical model using the geochemical calculation code PhreeqC to describe, as accurately as possible, the colloidal transport of ²²⁶Ra. Colloidal transport of ²²⁶Ra was found, for some of the sampling points, to account for up to 95% of the total ²²⁶Ra measured in water. Mineralogical characterization and associated geochemical modelling highlight the role of barite, a barium sulfate mineral well known to trap ²²⁶Ra into its structure. Barite was shown to be responsible for the colloidal ²²⁶Ra fraction despite the presence of kaolinite and ferrihydrite, which are also known to retain ²²⁶Ra by sorption.

Keywords: colloids, mining context, radium, transport

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Authors: Inna R. Edara, Haw-Lin Wu

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Positive psychology investigates human strengths and virtues and promotes well-being. Relying on this assumption, positive interventions have been continuously designed to build pleasure and happiness, joy and contentment, engagement and meaning, hope and optimism, satisfaction and gratitude, spirituality, and various other positive measures of well-being. In line with this model of positive psychology and interventions, this study investigated certain measures of well-being in a group of 45 students enrolled in an 18-week positive psychology course and simultaneously engaged in service-oriented interventions that they chose for themselves based on the course content and individual interests. Students’ well-being was measured at the beginning and end of the course. The well-being indicators included positive automatic thoughts, optimism and hope, satisfaction with life, and spirituality. A paired-samples t-test conducted to evaluate the impact of class content and service-oriented interventions on students’ scores of well-being indicators indicated statistically significant increase from pre-class to post-class scores. There were also significant gender differences in post-course well-being scores, with females having higher levels of well-being than males. A two-way between groups analysis of variance indicated a significant interaction effect of age by gender on the post-course well-being scores, with females in the age group of 56-65 having the highest scores of well-being in comparison to the males in the same age group. Regression analyses indicated that positive automatic thought significantly predicted hope and satisfaction with life in the pre-course analysis. In the post-course regression analysis, spiritual transcendence made a significant contribution to optimism, and positive automatic thought made a significant contribution to both hope and satisfaction with life. Finally, a significant test between pre-course and post-course regression coefficients indicated that the regression coefficients at pre-course were significantly different from post-course coefficients, suggesting that the positive psychology course and the interventions were helpful in raising the levels of well-being. The overall results suggest a substantial increase in the participants’ well-being scores after engaging in the positive-oriented interventions, implying a need for designing more positive interventions in education to promote well-being.  

Keywords: hope, optimism, positive automatic thoughts, satisfaction with life, spirituality, well-being

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Authors: Shende Suraj Balu, A. B. Deoghare, K. M. Pandey

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The human middle ear (ME) is a delicate and vital organ. It has a complex structure that performs various functions such as receiving sound pressure and producing vibrations of eardrum and propagating it to inner ear. It consists of Tympanic Membrane (TM), three auditory ossicles, various ligament structures and muscles. Incidents such as traumata, infections, ossification of ossicular structures and other pathologies may damage the ME organs. The conditions can be surgically treated by employing prosthesis. However, the suitability of the prosthesis needs to be examined in advance prior to the surgery. Few decades ago, this issue was addressed and analyzed by developing an equivalent representation either in the form of spring mass system, electrical system using R-L-C circuit or developing an approximated CAD model. But, nowadays a three-dimensional ME model can be constructed using micro X-Ray Computed Tomography (μCT) scan data. Moreover, the concern about patient specific integrity pertaining to the disease can be examined well in advance. The current research work emphasizes to develop the ME model from the stacks of μCT images which are used as input file to MIMICS Research 19.0 (Materialise Interactive Medical Image Control System) software. A stack of CT images is converted into geometrical surface model to build accurate morphology of ME. The work is further extended to understand the dynamic behaviour of Harmonic response of the stapes footplate and umbo for different sound pressure levels applied at lateral side of eardrum using finite element approach. The pathological condition Cholesteatoma of ME is investigated to obtain peak to peak displacement of stapes footplate and umbo. Apart from this condition, other pathologies, mainly, changes in the stiffness of stapedial ligament, TM thickness and ossicular chain separation and fixation are also explored. The developed model of ME for pathologies is validated by comparing the results available in the literatures and also with the results of a normal ME to calculate the percentage loss in hearing capability.

Keywords: computed tomography (μCT), human middle ear (ME), harmonic response, pathologies, tympanic membrane (TM)

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Authors: Yexin Qu

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Izafe is a construction typically found in Iranian languages, which is attested already in Old Avestan and Old Persian. The narrow sense of izafe can be described as the linear structure of [NP pt Modifier] with pt as an uninflectable particle or clitic. The history of the Iranian izafe has the following stages: Stage I: Verbless nominal relative clauses, Stage II: Verbless nominal relative clauses with Case Attraction; and Stage III: Narrow sense izafe. Previous works suggest that embedded relative clauses and correlatives in other Indo-European languages might be relevant for the source of the izafe-construction. Stage I, as the precursor of narrow sense izafe, or so-called “prezafe” is not found in branches other than Iranian. Comparable cases have been demonstrated in Vedic, Greek, and some rare cases in Latin. This suggests “prezafe” may date back very early in Indo-European. Izafe-like structures are not attested in branches such as Balto-Slavic and Germanic, but Balto-Slavic definite adjectives and Germanic weak adjectives can be compared to the verbless nominal relative clauses and analyzed as developments of verbless relative clauses parallel to izafe in Indo-Iranian, as are called “parizafe” in this paper. In this paper, the verbless RC is compared with Germanic weak adjectives. The Germanic languages used n-stem derivation to form determined derivatives, which are semantically equivalent to the appositive RC and eventually became weak adjectives. To be more precise, starting from an adjective “X”, the Germanic weak adjective structure is formed as [det X-n], literally “the X”, with the meaning “the X one”, which can be shown to be semantically equivalent to “the one which is X”. In this paper, Stage I suggest that, syntactically, the Germanic verbless relative clauses went through CP to DP relabeling like Iranian, based on the following observations: (1) Germanic relative pronouns (e.g., Gothic saei, Old English se) and determiners (e.g., Gothic sa, Old English se) are both from the *so/to pronominal roots; (2) the semantic equivalence of Germanic weak adjectives and the izafe structure. This may suggest that Germanic may also have had “Prezafe” Stages I and II. In conclusion: “Prezafe” in Stage I may have been a phenomenon of the proto-language, Stage II was the result of independent parallel developments and then each branch had its own strategy.

Keywords: izafe, relative clause, Germanic, Indo-European

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Authors: Louk Aourelien Andrianos, Edward Dommen, Athena Peralta

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Greed, as epitomized by overconsumption of natural resources, is at the root of ecological destruction and unsustainability of modern societies. Presently economies rely on unrestricted structural greed which fuels unlimited economic growth, overconsumption, and individualistic competitive behavior. Structural greed undermines the life support system on earth and threatens ecological integrity, social justice and peace. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has developed a program on ecological and economic justice (EEJ) with the aim to promote an economy of life where the economy is embedded in society and society in ecology. This paper aims at analyzing and assessing the economy of life (EcoLife) by offering an empirical tool to measure and monitor the root causes and effects of unsustainability resulting from human greed on global, national, institutional and individual levels. This holistic approach is based on the integrity of ecology and economy in a society founded on justice. The paper will discuss critical questions such as ‘what is an economy of life’ and ‘how to measure and control it from the effect of greed’. A model called GLIMS, which stands for Greed Lines and Indices Measurement System is used to clarify the concept of greed and help measuring the economy of life index by fuzzy logic reasoning. The inputs of the model are from statistical indicators of natural resources consumption, financial realities, economic performance, social welfare and ethical and political facts. The outputs are concrete measures of three primary indices of ecological, economic and socio-political greed (ECOL-GI, ECON-GI, SOCI-GI) and one overall multidimensional economy of life index (EcoLife-I). EcoLife measurement aims to build awareness of an economy life and to address the effects of greed in systemic and structural aspects. It is a tool for ethical diagnosis and policy making.

Keywords: greed line, sustainability indicators, fuzzy logic, eco-justice, World Council of Churches (WCC)

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Authors: Ma. Roxanne Fernandez, Josie Athens, Balsalobre-Fernandez, Masayoshi Kubo, Kim Hébert-Losier

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Objectives: The calf raise test (CRT) is used in rehabilitation and sports medicine to evaluate calf muscle function. For testing, individuals stand on one leg and go up on their toes and back down to volitional fatigue. The newly developed Calf Raise application (CRapp) for iOS uses computer-vision algorithms enabling objective measurement of CRT outcomes. We aimed to validate the CRapp by examining its concurrent validity and agreement levels against laboratory-based equipment and establishing its intra- and inter-rater reliability. Methods: CRT outcomes (i.e., repetitions, positive work, total height, peak height, fatigue index, and peak power) were assessed in thirteen healthy individuals (6 males, 7 females) on three occasions and both legs using the CRapp, 3D motion capture, and force plate technologies simultaneously. Data were extracted from two markers: one placed immediately below the lateral malleolus and another on the heel. Concurrent validity and agreement measures were determined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC₃,ₖ), typical errors expressed as coefficient of variations (CV), and Bland-Altman methods to assess biases and precision. Reliability was assessed using ICC3,1 and CV values. Results: Validity of CRapp outcomes was good to excellent across measures for both markers (mean ICC ≥0.878), with precision plots showing good agreement and precision. CV ranged from 0% (repetitions) to 33.3% (fatigue index) and were, on average better for the lateral malleolus marker. Additionally, inter- and intra-rater reliability were excellent (mean ICC ≥0.949, CV ≤5.6%). Conclusion: These results confirm the CRapp is valid and reliable within and between users for measuring CRT outcomes in healthy adults. The CRapp provides a tool to objectivise CRT outcomes in research and practice, aligning with recent advances in mobile technologies and their increased use in healthcare.

Keywords: calf raise test, mobile application, validity, reliability

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Authors: Mao Huasong, Tang Siqi, Cheng Yu

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The cognition and practice of Chinese landscapes have distinct uniqueness. The intergenerational inheritance of urban and rural landscapes is a common objective fact which has created a unique type of heritage in China - scenic heritage. The current generalization of the concept of scenic heritage has affected the lack of innovation in corresponding protection practices. Therefore, clarifying the concepts and connotations of scenery and scenic heritage, clarifying the protection objects of scenic heritage and the methods and approaches in intergenerational inheritance can provide theoretical support for the practice of Chinese scenic heritage and contribute Chinese wisdom to the transformation of world heritage sites. Taking ancient Shaoxing, which has a long time span and rich descriptions of scenic types and quantities, as the research object and using local chronicles as the basic research material, based on text analysis, word frequency analysis, case statistics, and historical, geographical spatial annotation methods, this study traces back to ancient scenic practices and conducts in-depth descriptions in both text and space. it have constructed a scenic heritage identification method based on the basic connotation characteristics and morphological representation characteristics of natural and cultural correlations, combined with the intergenerational and representative characteristics of scenic heritage; Summarized the bidirectional integration of "scenic spots" and "form scenic spots", "outstanding people" and "local spirits" in the formation process of scenic heritage; In inheritance, guided by Confucian values of education; In communication, the cultural interpretation constructed by scenery and the way of landscape life are used to strengthen the intergenerational inheritance of natural, artificial material elements, and intangible spirits. As a unique type of heritage in China, scenic heritage should improve its standards, values, and connotations in current protection practices and actively absorb historical experience.

Keywords: scenic heritage, heritage protection, cultural landscape, shaoxing, chinese landscape

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Authors: E. Erdogan, M. Ulusoy

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In terms of tourism, the concept of sustainability can be defined as preserving and developing natural, historical, cultural, social, and aesthetic values and enabling their permanency. Sustainable tourism aims to preserve natural, historical, cultural, and social resources, also by supporting economic progress protecting economic development and environmental values that emerge as a consequence of tourism activities. Cultural tourism feeds on sustainable cultural treasures inherently and is the most effective touristic activity. Traditional configurations and structural characteristics play an important role in generating cultural tourism in a region. Sustainable cultural tourism is related to trips upon people who embark with the aim of visiting culturally rich regions, learning about and observing fast-disappearing lifestyles and collecting cultural values as memories. With its huge tourism potential, Karadağ is the most significant cultural asset of the Karaman province, possessing unique riches in terms of cultural world history. Host to one of the most important Byzantine cities in Anatolia, Karadağ is like an open-air museum with its unparalleled architectural structures. There is a village named Madenşehir in the plain at the outskirts of Karadağ, near to which are located the “Thousand and One Churches” ruins. The 80-household house is located near the ruins in an area that been declared a 1st degree historic preservation district. stones gathered from local churches were used in the construction of these households. A ministry has assigned a new residential site near the boundaries of the 2nd degree preservation district, and the decision has been made to move the occupants to this area. The most important issue here is to enable locals’ sociocultural and socioeconomic sustainability. It is also important to build these structures in a manner compatible with the historical visual look, ecological system and environmental awareness. Therefore this new site will be planned as touristic area in terms of sustainable cultural tourism and in these new plans, shall fulfill functions oriented toward both tourists and locals. It is very important that this change be sustainable and also support cultural tourism.

Keywords: cultural tourism, new village settlement, socio cultural sustainability, “thousand and one churches” site

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Authors: Vusala Amirbayova Yusif

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As we know the formation of new composer’s schools is determined not with the national belonging, but firstly with the development of the national spirit and eternal traditions. The formation of ancient musical traditions with the classical European genre and forms stand in the center of music art with Azerbaijani written tradition. Though this duty is actual for the neighboring eastern countries (for example, Iran, Turkey, Arabian countries, India), it has not been realized in the same level in real creative practice. It is necessary to mention that, the symphonic mughams formed from the joining of Eastern mugham-magam and classical music forms of Western symphony have been greeted with amazement and it was valuable practice in national composer’s art. It is true that, the new examples of the genre were formed in the next years (S.Alasgarov, T.Bakikhanov and etc.) and F.Amirov came back to the genre of symphonic mugham as he created Gulustani-Bayati-Shiraz”in,-1970. New tendency has begun to show itself in the development of national symphonic genre. The new attitude for mugham traditions showed itself in symphonic creative work of A.Malikov, A.Alizada, M.Guliyev,V.Adigozalov. The voice of mugham mentality has entered the depth of the Azerbaijan symphony, has determined the meditation spirit, dramatist process and content. This movement has formed the new notion of “mugham mphonism” with new meaning by our musicologists. In the modern musical science, in addition to traditional methods and procedures, the formation of new theories and approaches caused to the further increase of scientific interest towards the problem of artistic content in the art of composition. The initiative has been made to have overall look on this important subject as an example of the creativity of FikratAmirov (1922-1984)and JovdatHaciyev(1917-2000), the great composers of Azerbaijan and to analyze his some symphonic works from this point of view in the current report. In this connection, main provisions of the new theoretical concept that were comprehensively annotated in the article of Russian musicologist V. Kholopova named "Special and non-special musical content" were used.

Keywords: content, composer, music, mugham symphony

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Authors: Blessings Masuku

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Background: Considering that Africa is urbanizing faster than any other region globally, managing cities in the global South has become the centerpiece for the New Urban Agenda (i.e., a shared vision of how we rethink, rebuild, and manage our cities for a better and more sustainable future). This study is centered on governance and planning of urban informality practices with particular reference to the relationship between the state, informal actors (e.g., informal traders and informal dwellers), and other city stakeholders who are public space users (commuters, businesses, and environmental activists), and how informal actors organize themselves to lobby the state and claim for their rights in the city, and how they navigate their everyday livelihood strategies. Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine and interrogate contemporary approaches, policy and regulatory frameworks to urban spatial planning and management of informality in one of South Africa’s busiest and major cities, Johannesburg. Setting: The study uses the metropolitan region of the city of Johannesburg, South Africa to understand how this contemporary industrial city manages urban informality practices, including the use of public space, land zoning and street life, and paying a closer look at what progress has been made and gaps in their inclusive urban policy frameworks. Methods: This study utilized a qualitative approach that includes surveys (open-ended questions), archival research (i., e policy and other key document reviews), and key interviews mainly with city officials, and informality actors. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the data collected. Contribution: This study contributes to large urban informality scholarship in the global South cities by exploring how major cities particularly in Africa regulate and manage informality patterns and practices in their quest to build “utopian” smart cities. This study also brings a different perspective on the hacking ways used by the informal actors to resist harsh regulations and remain invisible in the city, which is something that previous literature has barely delved in-depth.

Keywords: inclusive planning and governance, infrastructure systems, livelihood strategies urban informality, urban space

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Authors: K. Hariohm, V. Prakash, J. Saravana Kumar

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Introduction and Rationale: Increased scope of Physiotherapy (PT) practice also has contributed to research in the field of PT. It is essential to determine the production and quality of the clinical trials from India since, it may reflect the scientific growth of the profession. These trends can be taken as a baseline to measure our performance and also can be used as a guideline for the future trials. Objective: To quantify and analyze qualitatively the RCT’s from India from the period 2000-2013’ May, and classify data for the information process. Methods: Studies were searched in the Medline database using the key terms “India”, “Indian”, “Physiotherapy”. Clinical trials only with PT authors were included. Trials out of scope of PT practice and on animals were excluded. Retrieved valid articles were analyzed for published year, type of participants, area of study, PEDro score, outcome measure domains of impairment, activity, participation; ‘a priori’ sample size calculation, region, and explanation of the intervention. Result: 45 valid articles were retrieved from the year 2000-2013’ May. The majority of articles were done on symptomatic participants (81%). The frequencies of conditions repeated more were low back pain (n-7) and diabetes (n-4). PEDro score with mode 5 and upper limit of 8 and lower limit 4 was found. 97.2% of studies measure the outcome at the impairment level, 34% in activity level, and 27.8% in participation level. 29.7% of studies did ‘a priori’ sample size calculation. Correlation of year trend and PEDro score found to be not significant (p>.05). Individual PEDro item analysis showed, randomization (100%), concealment (33%) baseline (76%), blinding-subject, therapist, assessor (9.1%, 0%, 10%), follow-up (89%) ITT (15%), statistics between groups (100%), measures of variance (88 %). Conclusion: The trend shows an upward slope in terms of RCTs published from India which is a good indicator. The qualitative analysis showed some gaps in the clinical trial design, which can be expected to be, fulfilled by the future researchers.

Keywords: RCT, PEDro, physical therapy, rehabilitation

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Authors: Addin Osman, Anwar Ali Yahya, Mohammed Basit Kamal

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Datasets or collections are becoming important assets by themselves and now they can be accepted as a primary intellectual output of a research. The quality and usage of the datasets depend mainly on the context under which they have been collected, processed, analyzed, validated, and interpreted. This paper aims to present a collection of program educational objectives mapped to student’s outcomes collected from self-study reports prepared by 32 engineering programs accredited by ABET. The manual mapping (classification) of this data is a notoriously tedious, time consuming process. In addition, it requires experts in the area, which are mostly not available. It has been shown the operational settings under which the collection has been produced. The collection has been cleansed, preprocessed, some features have been selected and preliminary exploratory data analysis has been performed so as to illustrate the properties and usefulness of the collection. At the end, the collection has been benchmarked using nine of the most widely used supervised multiclass classification techniques (Binary Relevance, Label Powerset, Classifier Chains, Pruned Sets, Random k-label sets, Ensemble of Classifier Chains, Ensemble of Pruned Sets, Multi-Label k-Nearest Neighbors and Back-Propagation Multi-Label Learning). The techniques have been compared to each other using five well-known measurements (Accuracy, Hamming Loss, Micro-F, Macro-F, and Macro-F). The Ensemble of Classifier Chains and Ensemble of Pruned Sets have achieved encouraging performance compared to other experimented multi-label classification methods. The Classifier Chains method has shown the worst performance. To recap, the benchmark has achieved promising results by utilizing preliminary exploratory data analysis performed on the collection, proposing new trends for research and providing a baseline for future studies.

Keywords: ABET, accreditation, benchmark collection, machine learning, program educational objectives, student outcomes, supervised multi-class classification, text mining

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Authors: Natsuko D'Aprile

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The construction of Nation-States is a historical process that produces a type of national identity and culture that States nowadays mobilise for global outreach. National culture, as a set of norms and values influencing individuals’ actions and decisions, produces a type of policy making of various strategies that impact how a Nation is promoted overseas. The 1990s were marked by a resurgence of the debates on national identity. This period is believed to have paved the way for nationalism and witnessed increased attention to analytical approaches to identity. Public diplomacy is a concrete example of how national culture is mobilised to project a favourable image of a Nation abroad, especially in the narratives on national identity mobilised by diplomatic actors. Public diplomacy is understood as providing tools for States to build and project strategic narratives that represent events and identities in an attempt to influence domestic and foreign audiences, be they domestic or foreign. France and Japan received little attention on the matter. This research hence aims to investigate how France and Japan have mobilised narratives on national identity since the 1990s in the context of their public diplomacy. To understand how identities are framed, qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis has been performed on a corpus of various speeches held by French and Japanese political actors in which they present their diplomacy goals, as well as official documents provided by both Ministries of Foreign Affairs. This analysis showed that the French discourse integrates a narrative on France’s universal vocation, relying on the expression of a Nation whose model is worldly applicable and has the legitimacy to influence international decisions. The Japanese discourse does not concretely emphasise Japanese or Asian values, except for some narratives integrating Confucian and Shintō values. It rather revolves around the need for Japan to ensure its citizens’ security and prosperity, hence the need for the Government to contribute to peace in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

Keywords: comparative politics, culture, discourse analysis, narratives, public diplomacy

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Authors: Moshe Wasserblat, Jonathan Mamou, Oren Pereg

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Natural Language Processing (NLP) has made a major leap in the last few years, in practical integration into medical solutions; for example, extracting clinical concepts from medical texts such as medical condition, medication, treatment, and symptoms. However, training and deploying those models in real environments still demands a large amount of annotated data and NLP/Machine Learning (ML) expertise, which makes this process costly and time-consuming. We present a practical and efficient method for clinical concept extraction that does not require costly labeled data nor ML expertise. The method includes three steps: Step 1- the user injects a large in-domain text corpus (e.g., PubMed). Then, the system builds a contextual model containing vector representations of concepts in the corpus, in an unsupervised manner (e.g., Phrase2Vec). Step 2- the user provides a seed set of terms representing a specific medical concept (e.g., for the concept of the symptoms, the user may provide: ‘dry mouth,’ ‘itchy skin,’ and ‘blurred vision’). Then, the system matches the seed set against the contextual model and extracts the most semantically similar terms (e.g., additional symptoms). The result is a complete set of terms related to the medical concept. Step 3 –in production, there is a need to extract medical concepts from the unseen medical text. The system extracts key-phrases from the new text, then matches them against the complete set of terms from step 2, and the most semantically similar will be annotated with the same medical concept category. As an example, the seed symptom concepts would result in the following annotation: “The patient complaints on fatigue [symptom], dry skin [symptom], and Weight loss [symptom], which can be an early sign for Diabetes.” Our evaluations show promising results for extracting concepts from medical corpora. The method allows medical analysts to easily and efficiently build taxonomies (in step 2) representing their domain-specific concepts, and automatically annotate a large number of texts (in step 3) for classification/summarization of medical reports.

Keywords: clinical concepts, concept expansion, medical records annotation, medical records summarization

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