Search results for: community control

Authors: Sintayehu W. Dejene, Ignas M. A. Heitkönig, Herbert H. T. Prins, Zewdu K. Tessema, Willem F. de Boer

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Current theories on diversity-disease relationships describe host species diversity and species identity as important factors influencing disease risk, either diluting or amplifying disease prevalence in a community. Whereas the simple term ‘diversity’ embodies a set of animal community characteristics, it is not clear how different measures of species diversity are correlated with disease risk. We, therefore, tested the effects of species richness, Pielou’s evenness and Shannon’s diversity on bTB risk in cattle in the Afar Region and Awash National Park between November 2013 and April 2015. We also analysed the identity effect of a particular species and the effect of host habitat use overlap on bTB risk. We used the comparative intradermal tuberculin test to assess the number of bTB infected cattle. Our results suggested a dilution effect through species evenness. We found that the identity effect of greater kudu - a maintenance host – confounded the dilution effect of species diversity on bTB risk. bTB infection was positively correlated with habitat use overlap between greater kudu and cattle. Different diversity indices have to be considered together for assessing diversity-disease relationships, for understanding the underlying causal mechanisms. We posit that unpacking diversity metrics is also relevant for formulating control strategies to manage cattle in ecosystems characterized by seasonally limited resources and intense wildlife-livestock interactions.

Keywords: evenness, diversity, greater kudu, identity effect, maintenance hosts, multi-host disease ecology, habitat use overlap

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Authors: Najade Sheriff, Malaz Elsaddig, Kevin Jones

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Background: Death in the first month of life accounts for an increasing proportion of under-five mortality. Advancement to reduce this number is being made across the globe; however, progress is slowest in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives: The study aims to identify differences between neonatal deaths of inpatient babies born in a hospital facility in rural Uganda to those of neonates admitted from the community and to explore whether they can be used to risk stratify neonatal admissions. Results: A retrospective chart review was conducted on records for neonates admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) Kitovu Hospital from 1st July 2016 to 21st July 2017. A total of 442 babies were admitted and the overall neonatal mortality was 24.8% (40% inpatient, 37% community, 23% hospital referrals). 40% of deaths occurred within 24 hours of admission and the majority were male (63%). 43% of babies were hypothermic upon admission, a significantly greater proportion of which were inpatient babies born in labour ward (P=0.0025). Intrapartum related death accounted for ½ of all inpatient babies whereas complications of prematurity were the predominant cause of death in the community group (37%). Severe infection does not seem like a significant factor of mortality for inpatients (2%) as it does for community admissions (29%). Furthermore, with 52.5% of community admissions weighing < 1500g, very low birth weight (VLBW) may be a significant risk factor for community neonatal death. Conclusion: The neonatal mortality rate in this study is high, and the leading causes of death are all largely preventable. A high rate of inpatient birth asphyxiation indicates the need for good quality facility-based perinatal care as well as a greater focus on the management of hypothermia, such as Kangaroo care. Moreover, a reduction in preterm deliveries is necessary to reduce associated comorbidities, and monitoring for signs of infection is especially important for community admissions.

Keywords: community, mortality, newborn, Uganda

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Authors: Elaine Yee Sing Wong, Jonine Jancey, Andy H. Lee, Anthony P. James

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Singapore has a rapidly aging population, where the majority of older women aged 50 years and above, are physically inactive and have unhealthy dietary habits, placing them at ‘high risk’ of non-communicable diseases. Given the multiplicity of less than optimal dietary habits and high levels of physical inactivity among Singaporean women, it is imperative to develop appropriate lifestyle interventions at recreational centres to enhance both their physical and nutritional knowledge, as well as provide them with the opportunity to develop skills to support behaviour change. To the best of our knowledge, this proposed study is the first physical activity and nutrition cluster randomised controlled trial conducted in Singapore for older women. Findings from this study may provide insights and recommendations for policy makers and key stakeholders to create new healthy living, recreational centres with supportive environments. This 6-month community-based cluster randomised controlled trial will involve the implementation and evaluation of physical activity and nutrition program for community dwelling Singaporean women, who currently attend recreational centres to promote social leisure activities in their local neighbourhood. The intervention will include dietary education and counselling sessions, physical activity classes, and telephone contact by certified fitness instructors and qualified nutritionists. Social Cognitive Theory with Motivational Interviewing will inform the development of strategies to support health behaviour change. Sixty recreational centres located in Singapore will be randomly selected from five major geographical districts and randomly allocated to the intervention (n=30) or control (n=30) cluster. A sample of 600 (intervention n=300; control n=300) women aged 50 years and above will then be recruited from these recreational centres. The control clusters will only undergo pre and post data collection and will not receive the intervention. It is hypothesised that by the end of the intervention, the intervention group participants (n = 300) compared to the control group (n = 300), will show significant improvements in the following variables: lipid profile, body mass index, physical activity and dietary behaviour, anthropometry, mental and physical health. Data collection will be examined and compared via the Statistical Package for the Social Science version 23. Descriptive and summary statistics will be used to quantify participants’ characteristics and outcome variables. Multi-variable mixed regression analyses will be used to confirm the effects of the proposed health intervention, taking into account the repeated measures and the clustering of the observations. The research protocol was approved by the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number: HRE2016-0366). The study has been registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (12617001022358).

Keywords: community based, healthy aging, intervention, nutrition, older women, physical activity

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Authors: Vaikunthan Rajaratnam

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Maintaining continuous professional development among clinicians has been a challenge. Hand surgery is a unique speciality with the coming together of orthopaedics, plastics and trauma surgeons. The requirements for a team-based approach to care with the inclusion of other experts such as occupational, physiotherapist and orthotic and prosthetist provide the impetus for the creation of communities of practice. This study analysed the community of practice in hand surgery that was created through a social networking website for professionals. The main objectives were to discover the usefulness of this community of practice created in the platform of the group function of LinkedIn. The second objective was to determine the usability of this platform for the purposes of continuing professional development among members of this community of practice. The methodology used was one of mixed methods which included a quantitative analysis on the usefulness of the social network website as a community of practice, using the analytics provided by the LinkedIn platform. Further qualitative analysis was performed on the various postings that were generated by the community of practice within the social network website. This was augmented by a respondent driven survey conducted online to assess the usefulness of the platform for continuous professional development. A total of 31 respondents were involved in this study. This study has shown that it is possible to create an engaging and interactive community of practice among hand surgeons using the group function of this professional social networking website LinkedIn. Over three years the group has grown significantly with members from multiple regions and has produced engaging and interactive conversations online. From the results of the respondents’ survey, it can be concluded that there was satisfaction of the functionality and that it was an excellent platform for discussions and collaboration in the community of practice with a 69 % of satisfaction. Case-based discussions were the most useful functions of the community of practice. This platform usability was graded as excellent using the validated usability tool. This study has shown that the social networking site LinkedIn’s group function can be easily used as a community of practice effectively and provides convenience to professionals and has made an impact on their practice and better care for patients. It has also shown that this platform was easy to use and has a high level of usability for the average healthcare professional. This platform provided the improved connectivity among professionals involved in hand surgery care which allowed for the community to grow and with proper support and contribution of relevant material by members allowed for a safe environment for the exchange of knowledge and sharing of experience that is the foundation of a community practice.

Keywords: community of practice, online community, hand surgery, lifelong learning, LinkedIn, social media, continuing professional development

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Authors: Samipraj Mishra

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Despite the successful implementation of community forestry program, a number of pros and cons have been raised on Terai community forestry in the case of lowland locally called Terai region of Nepal, which is climatically belongs to tropical humid and possessed high quality forests in terms of ecology and economy. The study aims to investigate the local pricing strategy of forest products and its impacts on equitable forest benefit sharing, collection of community fund and carrying out livelihood improvement activities. The study was carried out on six community forests revealed that local people have substantially benefited from the community forests. However, being the region is heterogeneous by socio-economic conditions and forest resources have higher economical potential, the decision of low pricing strategy made by the local people have created inequality problems while sharing the forest benefits, and poorly contributed to community fund collection and consequently carrying out limited activities of livelihood improvement. The paper argued that the decision of low pricing strategy of forest products is counter-productive to promote the equitable benefit sharing in the areas of heterogeneous socio-economic conditions with high value forests. The low pricing strategy has been increasing accessibility of better off households at higher rate than poor; as such households always have higher affording capacity. It is also defective to increase the community fund and carry out activities of livelihood improvement effectively. The study concluded that unilateral decentralized forest policy and decision-making autonomy to the local people seems questionable unless their decision-making capacities are enriched sufficiently. Therefore, it is recommended that empowerment of decision-making capacity of local people and their respective institutions together with policy and program formulation are prerequisite for efficient and equitable community forest management and its long-term sustainability.

Keywords: community forest, livelihood, socio-economy, pricing system, Nepal

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Authors: Prompassorn Chunhabunyatip

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The objectives of this research were to study the factors affecting the participation of local people and the obstacles and recommendations towards local people’s participation in illuminated boat procession culture. The study looked at both qualitative, and quantitative data were collected by in-depth interview and analyzed by the descriptive approach. The 296 samplings were a local community who participated in constructing the illuminated boat in each community for 14 communities. The results of this study showed that the factor that encourages local people’s participation in illuminated both procession is the awareness of an importance of cultural uniqueness in the local. The problems and obstacles to the participation in illuminated boat procession include the resources for constructing illuminated both such as bamboos are run out of and price increasing, lack of proper cooperation between local people and government officers and conflict in interests between in local government office. So, the result of this study recommended that the government officers should be taken into account about community participation in the illuminated boat procession culture because without local people, the uniqueness culture of Nakhon Phanom Province would not exist and they would not reach the sustainable tourism goal.

Keywords: illuminated both culture, community participation, sustainable tourism management, Nakhon Phanom province

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Authors: Esabelle Lo Yan Yam, Pheak Chhoun, Sovannary Tuot, Emily Lancsar, Siyan Yi

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Persons living with HIV (PLHIV) need lifelong antiretroviral treatment (ART) to keep their viral load suppressed to an undetectable level, maintain a healthy immune system, and reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to others. However, many factors affect PLHIV's adherence to ART, including access to antiretrovirals (ARV), stigma, lack of social support, and the burden of seeking lifelong care. Community-based care has been shown to be instrumental in the experience of PLHIV in many countries, including Cambodia. In this study based in Cambodia, a community-based ART delivery (CAD) intervention involving community action workers (CAWs) who are PLHIVs was introduced. These workers collect pre-packaged ARVs from the ART clinics and dispense them to PLHIVs in the communities. The quasi-experimental study involved approximately 2000 stable PLHIV in the intervention arm and another 2000 PLHIV in the control arm (receiving usual care). A cost-effectiveness analysis is currently conducted to complement the clinical effectiveness of the CAD intervention on the care continuum and treatment outcomes for stable PLHIV, as well as the operational effectiveness in increasing the efficiency of the ART clinics and the health system. The analysis will consider health system and societal perspectives based on primary outcomes, including retention in care, viral load suppression, and adherence to ART. Additionally, a consultation with the National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology, and STD under the Cambodia Ministry of Health will be done to discuss the conduct of a budget impact analysis that can quantify the financial impact on the government's budget when adopting the CAD intervention at the provincial and national levels. The budget impact analysis will take into consideration various scaling-up scenarios for the interventions in the country. The research will assess the cost-effectiveness of the CAD intervention to support national stakeholders in Cambodia to make an informed decision on the adoption and scaling up of the intervention in Cambodia. The results are currently being analyzed and will be available at the time of the conference.

Keywords: Cambodia, community intervention, economic evaluation, global health, HIV/AIDs, implementation research

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Authors: Hong Lu, Wei Fan, Yongquan Zhang, Junbo Zhang

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A cross coupling sliding synchronization control strategy is proposed for the dual-driving feed system. This technology will minimize the position error oscillation and achieve the precise synchronization performance in the high speed and high precision drive system, especially some high speed and high precision machine. Moreover, a cross coupling compensation matrix is provided to offset the mismatched disturbance and the disturbance observer is established to eliminate the chattering phenomenon. Performance comparisons of proposed dual-driving cross coupling sliding mode control (CCSMC), normal cross coupling control （CCC） strategy with PID control, and electronic virtual main shaft control (EVMSC) strategy with SMC control are investigated by simulation and a dual-driving control system; the results show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Keywords: cross coupling matrix, dual motors, synchronization control, sliding mode control

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Authors: A. A. Omonori, K. T. Alade, A. F. Lawal

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This research was conducted to identify the causes of project abandonment in Nigeria and the effect it has on the host community. The aim of the research was to identify the causes and effects of project failure and abandonment. Project abandonment is a major course of concern in the country as different projects fail and are abandoned at various levels. These projects do not fulfill the purpose for which they were initiated. This is the absolute definition of failure and hence the selection of the Ajaokuta Steel Project as an interesting case study and a typical example of project failure and abandonment. This has been done by conducting field study through the administration of questionnaires. This study was carried out on the Ajaokuta Steel Project to investigate the causes of the abandonment of the project and the effects it has had on the people of Ajaokuta community. Qualitative method of data analysis was used to analyze the findings through frequency tables and ranking. This study brought to light the major factors that led to the abandonment of the Ajaokuta Steel Project. The effects the abandonment of the project has had on the immediate community were identified and recommendations made to prevent the menace of Project abandonment.

Keywords: abandonment, case-study, Nigeria, project

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Authors: Yusuke Kuramitsu, Tomoaki Hashimoto, Hirokazu Tahara

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The control problem of underactuated spacecrafts has attracted a considerable amount of interest. The control method for a spacecraft equipped with less than three control torques is useful when one of the three control torques had failed. On the other hand, the quantized control of systems is one of the important research topics in recent years. The random dither quantization method that transforms a given continuous signal to a discrete signal by adding artificial random noise to the continuous signal before quantization has also attracted a considerable amount of interest. The objective of this study is to develop the control method based on random dither quantization method for stabilizing the rotational motion of a rigid spacecraft with two control inputs. In this paper, the effectiveness of random dither quantization control method for the stabilization of rotational motion of spacecrafts with two torque inputs is verified by numerical simulations.

Keywords: spacecraft control, quantized control, nonlinear control, random dither method

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Authors: Sarojini Imran, Riza Firmansyah, Aula Ramadhan, Chudamul Furqon, Achfriyatama Oktariflandi

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This article delves into the participatory approach in formulating a master plan for the development of pioneer village tourism in Cibubuan, Sumedang. We explore the process of participatory mapping that involves the active participation of the local community in planning and envisioning the future of village tourism. This research considers the positive impact that arises when the community takes an active role in designing a master plan that benefits the local economy while preserving culture and the environment. The results of this research reveal that the participatory approach can create a more accurate and community-responsive mapping that aligns with the aspirations of the people in Cibubuan Village. It also provides a deep insight into how community-developed mapping can guide the development of sustainable tourism. By offering a deeper understanding of the participatory role in village tourism development planning, this article provides essential insights for stakeholders and researchers in this field. We hope this article will inspire more communities to adopt a participatory approach in planning the future of their village tourism.

Keywords: participatory masterplan, pioneer village tourism, sustainable tourism, community engagement, Cibubuan Village

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Authors: Bereket Amare Mulu

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Ethiopia is one of the countries that consists of a huge variety of botanical resources as compared to the world. The agroclimatic is suitable for a variety of plants to grow effectively throughout the year. Sources of food plants are basic items for people in the world. Production of food items is a prior activity and needs more resources and attention to produce a huge amount of production. The local food is rich in nutrition and healthful foods. The local food is fresh and not exposed to infections easily. The community can easily get the food items in their surroundings. The local food sources are not expensive when it is compared to the other proceed food items, and it is affordable to the community purchasing power. The food is very tasty and palatable capacity by the whole community categories. The basic problems in Ethiopia are the community experiences some of the common food source items. On the contrary, inefficient food production, low economic growth, and climate variability affected food production. This leads to serious food shortages and acute health problems. The objective of the study is to identify local food sources and analyze the advantage and benefits of local food sources. Casava is one of the root crop plants in Ethiopia and easily adapts to any type of agroecology in every place in the country. 50 community members have been identified to prepare casava in different forms of food items. They have prepared in the forms of Bread, Injera, Porridge, Boiled casava, fried chips Casava, and Cocktails. The prepared food items have been exposed to the community as a food festival to eat and taste how much interesting Even though there is a cultural barrier to eating the food items, the community had the food and tasted it the food. The result showed that community awareness is still not addressed the benefits of local food sources yet. The local food has high nutritional value and healthful foods. The local food sources are fresh and easily produced in every place of the country.

Keywords: bread, cassava, injera, nutrition

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Authors: Denise F. Brown

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This proposal provides an explanation of the content for a Special Topics Course to be offered Spring of 2022. The course will be titled, Creative means to address mental health in the African American Community: Arts, Advocacy, and Awareness. Research shows that African Americans are less likely to seek treatment for mental illnesses. The stigma around mental illness influences negative ideas about having psychological problems within the African American community. Assessments of how African Americans perceive mental illness will also be provided. Current research suggests that understanding mental health is just as important as understanding mental illness. The distinguishment between mental illness and mental health provides a way to not negatively point out mental illness but to better understand that psychological and emotional well-being can be achieved whether a mental illness is present or not. The course will consist of defining mental health and mental illness and then what it means to utilize creative means to become a mental health advocate within the African American community.

Keywords: arts, advocacy, black mental health, mental illness

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Authors: Noel Chellan

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Energy is the life-blood of development. All human societies have been and still are dependent on energy – some societies more than others. With regard to energy in South Africa, previous policies of the apartheid regime neglected the energy needs of poor black communities in general – and rural communities in particular. Since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994 – whilst millions of South African households have received electricity from the national electricity grid, there are still many rural communities that are still experiencing challenges in relation to both electricity deprivation as well as provision. This paper looks at the energy-mix of the Mnweni rural community in South Africa and argues that understanding energy is key to understanding the nature and forms of development of any community or country, for that matter. The paper engages with the energy trends in the rural community of Mnweni from the days of apartheid until 2021. It also looks at agricultural practises from an energy perspective. Such an energy perspective will enable one to assess the pace and scale of development in rural Mnweni.

Keywords: rural, energy, development, apartheid

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Authors: Hamed Sarbazy, Zohre Gholipour Haftkhani, Ali Safari, Pejman Hosseiniun

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Scientific and industrial progress in the past two decades has resulted in energy distribution systems based on power electronics, as an enabling technology in various industries and building management systems can be considered. Grading and standardization module power electronics systems and its use in a distributed control system, a strategy for overcoming the limitations of using this system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate strategies for scheduling and control structure of standard modules is a power electronic systems. This paper introduces the classical control methods and disadvantages of these methods will be discussed, The hierarchical control as a mechanism for distributed control structure of the classification module explains. The different levels of control and communication between these levels are fully introduced. Also continue to standardize software distribution system control structure is discussed. Finally, as an example, the control structure will be presented in a DC distribution system.

Keywords: application management, hardware management, power electronics, building blocks

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Authors: Kamal Prasad Acharya

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The related literature suggests that teaching and learning science at the basic level community schools in Nepal is based on book recitation. Consequently, the achievement levels and the understanding of basic science concepts is much below the policy expectations. In this context, this study intended to gain perception in the implementation practices of school gardens ‘One Garden One School’ for science learning and to meet the target of sustainable development goals that connects community wisdom regarding school gardening activities (SGAs) for science learning. This Participatory Action Research (PAR) study was done at the action school located in Province 3, Chitwan of Federal Nepal, supported under the NORHED/Rupantaran project. The purpose of the study was to connect the community wisdom related to gardening activities as contextual scaffolds for science learning. For this, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were applied to collect data which were analyzed using a thematic analysis. Basic level students, science teachers, and parents reported having wonderful experiences such as active and meaningful engagement in school gardening activities for science learning as well as science teachers’ motivation in activity-based science learning. Overall, teachers, students, and parents reported that the school gardening activities have been found to have had positive effects on students’ science learning as they develop basic scientific concepts by connecting community wisdom as a contextual scaffold. It is recommended that the establishment of a school garden is important for science learning in community schools throughout Nepal.

Keywords: contextual scaffold, community wisdom, science and health learning, school garden

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Authors: M. Caramihai, Irina Severin

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This paper deals with the design of an intelligent control structure for a bioprocess of Hansenula polymorpha yeast cultivation. The objective of the process control is to produce biomass in a desired physiological state. The work demonstrates that the designed Hybrid Control Techniques (HCT) are able to recognize specific evolution bioprocess trajectories using neural networks trained specifically for this purpose, in order to estimate the model parameters and to adjust the overall bioprocess evolution through an expert system and a fuzzy structure. The design of the control algorithm as well as its tuning through realistic simulations is presented. Taking into consideration the synergism of different paradigms like fuzzy logic, neural network, and symbolic artificial intelligence (AI), in this paper we present a real and fulfilled intelligent control architecture with application in bioprocess control.

Keywords: bioprocess, intelligent control, neural nets, fuzzy structure, hybrid techniques

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Authors: Mengying Du, Xiang Chen

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‘villages-in-city’ is the unique product of rapid urbanization in China which embodies the contradiction between historical context and urbanization. This article mainly analyzes the corresponding strategy to the common problems such as urban texture, historical context, community structure, and industry pattern during the regeneration of ‘villages-in-city’ of Luojiazhuang. Taking government investment, community demands, the trend of urban renewal and transformation models of the ‘villages-in-city’ into consideration, the author propose a mechanism to balance those factors, and to achieve mutual confirmation with the instance of Luojiazhuang.

Keywords: community demands, historical context, villages-in-city, urbanization

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Authors: Pornsiri Kaewpradit, Chalisa Pourneaw

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Temperature control improvement of a membrane reactor with exothermic and reversible esterification reaction is studied in this work. It is well known that a batch membrane reactor requires different control strategies from a continuous one due to the fact that it is operated dynamically. Due to the effect of the operating temperature, the suitable control scheme has to be designed based reliable predictive model to achieve a desired objective. In the study, the optimization framework has been preliminary formulated in order to determine an optimal temperature trajectory for maximizing a desired product. In model predictive control scheme, a set of predictive models have been initially developed corresponding to the possible operating points of the system. The multiple predictive control moves have been further calculated on-line using the developed models corresponding to current operating point. It is obviously seen in the simulation results that the temperature control has been improved compared to the performance obtained by the conventional predictive controller. Further robustness tests have also been investigated in this study.

Keywords: model predictive control, batch reactor, temperature control, membrane reactor

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Authors: Feras Darwish Elhajji, Alberto Berardi, Manal Ayyash, Iman Basheti

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The concept of the use of probiotics for humans now has been known for decades however, their intake by the Jordanian population seems to be less common when compared to population in the developed countries. Community pharmacy is the main supplier of probiotics, however, after conducting an extensive literature review, not any published research article could be found talking about the role, knowledge, and practice of the pharmacists in the area of probiotics. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the level of knowledge about probiotics and their dispensing practice in community pharmacies in Jordan. Community pharmacy staff (pharmacists and technicians) in Amman and north of Jordan were randomly selected to complete an anonymous questionnaire that had been pre-tested and validated. Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee. The questionnaire included the following sections: demographics, knowledge and perceptions about probiotics, and role of the pharmacist Pharmacists and technicians were visited and interviewed in 281 community pharmacies. Asking about probiotics, 90.4% of them said that they know what probiotics are, although only 29.5% agreed that pharmacy staff in Jordan have good knowledge about probiotics, and 88.3% agreed that pharmacy staff in Jordan need more training and knowledge about probiotics. Variables that were significantly related to knowledge about probiotics were being a pharmacist (ρ= 0.012), area of the community pharmacy (ρ= 0.019), and female staff (ρ= 0.031) after conducting logistic regression statistical analysis. More than two-thirds of the participants thought that probiotics are classified as dietary supplements by Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA). Of those who knew probiotics, the majority of them – 76.8% and 91.7% – agreed that probiotics are effective and safe, respectively. Believing in efficacy of the probiotics was significantly associated with answering their use to be with or after antibiotic administration and to increase normal flora gut population (ρ= 0.007). Efficacy was also significantly associated with recommending probiotics to consumers by the pharmacist (ρ< 0.001) and by the doctor (ρ= 0.041). At the same time, the concept of safety was mainly associated with their use for flatulence and gases (ρ= 0.048). Level of knowledge about probiotics and their uses, efficacy and safety amongst community pharmacy staff in Jordan is found to be good. However, this level can be raised in the future, especially knowledge about uses of probiotics.

Keywords: community pharmacy, Jordan, prebiotics, probiotics

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Authors: Metrek Almetrek, Naser Alqahtani, Eisa Ghazwani, Mona Asiri, Mohammed Alqahtani, Magboolah Balobaid

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Background: Advocacy of potential for community coalitions to positively address social determinants of health and quality of life, little is known about the views of stakeholders involved in such efforts. This study sought to assess the provinces leaders’ perspectives about social determinants related to the Health Neighborhood Initiative (HNI), a new county effort to support community coalitions. Method and Subjects: We used a descriptive, qualitative study using personal interviews in 2022. We conducted it in the community coalition's “main cities committees” set across service planning areas that serve vulnerable groups located in the seven registered healthy cities to WHO (Abha, Tareeb, Muhayel, Balqarn, Alharajah, Alamwah, and Bisha). We conducted key informant interviews with 76 governmental, profit, non-profit, and community leaders to understand their perspectives about the HNI. As part of a larger project, this study focused on leaders’ views about social determinants of health related to the HNI. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. An inductive approach to coding was used, with text segments grouped by social determinant categories. Results: Provinces leaders described multiple social determinants of health and quality of life that were relevant to the HNI community coalitions: housing and safety, community violence, economic stability, city services coordination and employment and education. Leaders discussed how social determinants were interconnected with each other and the need for efforts to address multiple social determinants simultaneously to effectively improve health and quality of life. Conclusions: Community coalitions have an opportunity to address multiple social determinants of health and quality of life to meet the social needs of vulnerable groups. Future research should examine how community coalitions, like those in the HNI, can actively engage with community members to identify needs and then deliver evidence-based care.

Keywords: social determinants, health and quality of life, vulnerable groups, qualitative research

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Authors: Ruedee Niyomrath

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This research aimed at surveying the local red clay raw material sources in Samut Songkram province, Thailand to test the physical and chemical properties of the local red clay, including to find the approach to develop the local red clay properties for ceramic production. The findings of this research would be brought to apply in the ceramic production industry of the country all at the upstream level which was the community in the raw material source, at the mid water level which was the ceramic producer and at the downstream level which was the distributor and the consumer as well as the community producer who would apply them to their identity and need of the community business.

Keywords: chemical properties of red clay, physical properties of red clay, ceramic production, red clay product

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Authors: Marek Długosz, Paweł Skruch

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One of purposes of home automation systems is to provide appropriate comfort to the users by suitable air temperature control and stabilization inside the rooms. The control of temperature level is not a simple task and the basic difficulty results from the fact that accurate parameters of the object of control, that is a building, remain unknown. Whereas the structure of the model is known, the identification of model parameters is a difficult task. In this paper, a control algorithm allowing the present temperature to be reached inside the building within the specified time without the need to know accurate parameters of the building itself is presented.

Keywords: control, home automation system, wireless networking, automation engineering

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Authors: Alexandra Monteiro, K. Bousson, Fernando J. O. Moreira, Ricardo Reis

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Fixed-wing flying vehicles are usually controlled by means of control surfaces such as elevators, ailerons, and rudders. The failure of these systems may lead to severe or even fatal crashes. These failures resulted in increased popularity for research activities on propulsion control in the last decades. The present work deals with a hybrid control architecture in which the propulsion-controlled vehicle maintains its traditional control surfaces, addressing the issue of robust lateral-directional dynamics control. The challenges stem from the parameter uncertainties in the stability and control derivatives and some unknown terms in the flight dynamics model. Two approaches are implemented and tested: linear quadratic regulation with robustness characteristics and H∞ control. The problem is centered on roll-yaw controller design with full state-feedback, which is able to deal with a standalone propulsion control mode as well as a hybrid mode combining both propulsion control and conventional control surface concepts while maintaining the original flight maneuverability characteristics. The results for both controllers emphasized very good control performances; however, the H∞ controller showed higher stabilization rates and robustness albeit with a slightly higher control magnitude than using the linear quadratic regulator.

Keywords: robust propulsion control, h-infinity control, lateral-directional flight dynamics, parameter uncertainties

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Authors: Bessaad Taieb, Benbouali Abderrahmen

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Fuzzy controllers are a powerful tool for controlling complex processes. However, its robustness capacity remains moderately limited because it loses its property for large ranges of parametric variations. In this paper, the proposed control method is designed, based on a fuzzy adaptive controller used as a remedy for this problem. For increase the robustness of the vector control and to maintain the performance of the five-phase asynchronous machine despite the presence of disturbances (variation of rotor resistance, rotor inertia variations, sudden variations in the load etc.), by applying the method of behaviour model control (BMC). The results of simulation show that the fuzzy adaptive control provides best performance and has a more robustness as the fuzzy (FLC) and as a conventional (PI) controller.

Keywords: fuzzy adaptive control, behaviour model control, vector control, five-phase asynchronous machine

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Authors: Mohan Bikram Thapa

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Despite the successful implementation of community forestry program, a number of pros and cons have been raised on Terai community forestry in the case of lowland locally called Terai region of Nepal, which climatically belongs to tropical humid and possessed high-quality forests in terms of ecology and economy. The study aims to investigate the local pricing strategy of forest products and its impacts on equitable forest benefits sharing, the collection of community fund and carrying out livelihood improvement activities. The study was carried out on six community forests revealed that local people have substantially benefited from the community forests. However, being the region is heterogeneous by socio-economic conditions and forest resources have higher economic potential, the decision of low pricing strategy made by the local people have created inequality problems while sharing the forest benefits, and poorly contributed to community fund collection and consequently carrying out limited activities of livelihood improvement. The paper argued that the decision of low pricing strategy of forest products is counterproductive to promote the equitable benefit-sharing in the areas of heterogeneous socio-economic conditions with high-value forests. The low pricing strategy has been increasing accessibility of better off households at a higher rate than poor, as such households always have the higher affording capacity. It is also defective to increase the community fund and carry out activities of livelihood improvement effectively. The study concluded that unilateral decentralized forest policy and decision-making autonomy to the local people seems questionable unless their decision-making capacities are enriched sufficiently. Therefore, it is recommended that empowerments of decision-making capacity of local people and their respective institutions together with policy and program formulation are prerequisite for efficient and equitable community forest management and its long-term sustainability.

Keywords: benefit sharing, community forest, livelihood, pricing mechanism, Nepal

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Authors: Nanadcha Sinjindawong

Abstract:

This article discusses the design process of a community mall called Castle of The Mall-dern. The concept behind this mall is to combine elements of a medieval castle with modern architecture. The author aims to create a building that fits into the surroundings while also providing users with the vibes of the ancient era. The total area used for the mall is 4,000 square meters, with three floors. The first floor is 1,500 square meters, the second floor is 1,750 square meters, and the third floor is 750 square meters. Research Aim: The aim of this research is to design a community mall that sells ancient clothes and accessories, and to combine sustainable architectural design with the ideas of ancient architecture in an urban area with convenient transportation. Methodology: The research utilizes qualitative research methods in architectural design. The process begins with calculating the given area and dividing it into different zones. The author then sketches and draws the plan of each floor, adding the necessary rooms based on the floor areas mentioned earlier. The program "SketchUp" is used to create an online 3D model of the community mall, and a physical model is built for presentation purposes on A1 paper, explaining all the details. Findings: The result of this research is a community mall with various amenities. The first floor includes retail shops, clothing stores, a food center, and a service zone. Additionally, there is an indoor garden with a fountain and a tree for relaxation. The second and third floors feature a void in the middle, with a few stores, cafes, restaurants, and studios on the second floor. The third floor is home to the administration and security control room, as well as a community gathering area designed as a public library with a café inside. Theoretical Importance: This research contributes to the field of sustainable architectural design by combining ancient architectural ideas with modern elements. It showcases the potential for creating buildings that blend historical aesthetics with contemporary functionality. Data Collection and Analysis Procedures: The data for this research is collected through a combination of area calculation, sketching, and building a 3D model. The analysis involves evaluating the design based on the allocated area, zoning, and functional requirements for a community mall. Question Addressed: The research addresses the question of how to design a community mall with a theme of ancient Medieval and Victorian eras. It explores how to combine sustainable architectural design principles with historical aesthetics to create a functional and visually appealing space. Conclusion: In conclusion, this research successfully designs a community mall called “Castle of The Mall-dern” that incorporates elements of Medieval and Victorian architecture. The building encompasses various zones, including retail shops, restaurants, community gathering areas, and service zones. It also features an interior garden and a public library within the mall. The research contributes to the field of sustainable architectural design by showcasing the potential for combining ancient architectural ideas with modern elements in an urban setting.

Keywords: 3D model, community mall, modern architecture, medieval architecture

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Authors: Nikita Mahajani

Abstract:

The Bene Israel is the oldest Jewish community on the subcontinent, and their shipwreck off the coast of Navgaon (a coastal settlement south of Alibaug), in which only seven men and women survived, anticipated the first millennia of their residence in the Konkan. The community was cut off from mainstream Judaism for decades as a result of its poverty. Almost all of the Bene Israel people in the northern Konkan region have relocated to Israel. The few who remained have settled down in Mumbai and Thane. Despite this, they have left a rich cultural legacy, as seen by their houses, cemeteries and synagogues. Even though the population has reduced owing to outside migration, much of this built legacy has survived. This paper attempts to examine the Jewish architectural heritage in Raigad with an aim to recreate their cultural, social and economic history. Oral histories by interviews of the Bene Israel community from Revdanda helped gain information about naming customs, migrations, professions, religious customs and funeral practices. The findings of this research reveal that most synagogues in Raigad district are shut due to a lack of Bene Israelis coming for prayers. The cemeteries are in a dilapidated condition. The little-known Bene Israeli community of Raigad is a seamless blend of Maharashtrian and Jew culture and feels more homely in India.

Keywords: Konkan, Alibag, Revdanda, Pen, Bene Israeli, Indian jews, synagogue, cemetry

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Authors: Waepa Wanhussen

Abstract:

The Ministry of Public Health has established policies accelerating health promotion to prevent public health problems in five border provinces of Thailand. One of these policies employs the religion to guide the community development and solve health issues consistent with the lifestyle and culture of those people. This policy is an important strategy to solve the problems due to the unrest and conflicts in the southern border provinces. This participatory action research aimed to develop mosques as healthy religion places in Narathiwat Province. In the development, the participatory action, consisting of 5 stages, was conducted from October 2012 - May 2013. Stage I: Conducting a survey for problems and needs for developing healthy religion places by employing community participation. Stage II: Analyzing problems and situations at a workshop containing informal interviews and group conversations with 200 participants (health providers at district level, Imams (the Muslim leaders), and community leaders). Stage III: Planning for developing healthy religion places by health providers, Imams, community leaders. Stage IV: Implementing the plan according to the conditions of problems and needs of the community in order to develop healthy religion places. Stage V: Evaluating the implementation by using the instrument, a criteria of being healthy religion place, for collecting data. Data were analyzed by using percentage. It was found that out of 630 mosques 575 (90.12%) passed the criteria of being a healthy religion place. Among these mosques, 190 mosques (30.15%) were in good and very good level, in which, after the implementation, the number of being good and very good healthy mosques increased by 22.58%. The researcher suggested that the developing sustainably healthy religion places require the participation of residences in the community and agencies such as local government, the Islamic Council of Narathiwat Province, and Council of Culture of Narathiwat Province. The healthy religion places can be used to strengthen and sustain health promotion and disease prevention in the community as health learning centers.

Keywords: healthy religion places, development of community participation, nursing informatics, health

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Authors: Sai-Kit Choi

Abstract:

While traditional social services heavily depended on Government funding and support, there were always time lag, and resources mismatch with the fast growing and changing social needs. This study aims at investigating the effectiveness of implementing Circular Economy concept in a social service setting with comparison to Government Policy in response to social needs in 3 areas: response time, suitability, and community participation. To investigate the effectiveness of implementing Circular Economy concept in a social service setting, a real service model, a community resources sharing platform, was set up and statistics of the first 6 months’ operation data were used as comparison with traditional social services. Literature review was conducted as a reference basis of traditional social services under Government Policy. Case studies were conducted to provide the qualitative perspectives of the innovative approach. The results suggest that the Circular Economy model showed extraordinarily high level of community participation. In addition, it could utilize community resources in response precisely to the burning social needs. On the other hand, the available resources were unstable when comparing to those services supported by Government funding. The research team concluded that Circular Economy has high potential in applications in social service, especially in certain areas, such as resources sharing platform. Notwithstanding, it should be aware of the stability of resources when the services targeted to support some crucial needs.

Keywords: circular economy, social innovation, community participation, sharing economy, social response

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