Search results for: coverage index

Authors: Shamil Mardi Al Islam, Zaima Ahmed

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The aim of this article is to explore whether certain macroeconomic variables such as industrial index, inflation, broad money, exchange rate and deposit rate as a proxy for interest rate are interlinked with Dhaka stock price index (DSEX index) precisely after the introduction of new index by Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) since January 2013. Bangladesh stock market has experienced rapid growth since its inception. It might not be a very well-developed capital market as compared to its neighboring counterparts but has been a strong avenue for investment and resource mobilization. The data set considered consists of monthly observations, for a period of four years from January 2013 to June 2018. Findings from cointegration analysis suggest that DSEX and macroeconomic variables have a significant long-run relationship. VAR decomposition based on VAR estimated indicates that money supply explains a significant portion of variation of stock index whereas, inflation is found to have the least impact. Impact of industrial index is found to have a low impact compared to the exchange rate and deposit rate. Policies should there aim to increase industrial production in order to enhance stock market performance. Further reasonable money supply should be ensured by authorities to stimulate stock market performance.

Keywords: deposit rate, DSEX, industrial index, VAR

Procedia PDF Downloads 127

Authors: Myoung-Jin Kim, Yeong-Seop Ahn, Hyun-Jee Yang, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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This paper proposes the new cooperative communication scheme for the wireless communication system. When the receiver is located in the edge of coverage, the signal from the transmitter is distorted by the inter-cell interference (ICI) and power reduction by distance. In order to improve communication performance, the proposed scheme adds the relay. By using the relay, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and relay at the same time. Therefore, the new cooperative communication scheme obtains diversity gain and is improved by the relay.

Keywords: cooperative communication, diversity gain, OFDM, MIMO

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Authors: Hamid Rostami Jaz, Kamran Ameri Siahooei

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Up to now different methods have been used to forecast the index returns and the index rate. Artificial intelligence and artificial neural networks have been one of the methods of index returns forecasting. This study attempts to carry out a comparative study on the performance of different Radial Base Neural Network and Feed-Forward Perceptron Neural Network to forecast investment returns on the index. To achieve this goal, the return on investment in Tehran Stock Exchange index is evaluated and the performance of Radial Base Neural Network and Feed-Forward Perceptron Neural Network are compared. Neural networks performance test is applied based on the least square error in two approaches of in-sample and out-of-sample. The research results show the superiority of the radial base neural network in the in-sample approach and the superiority of perceptron neural network in the out-of-sample approach.

Keywords: exchange index, forecasting, perceptron neural network, Tehran stock exchange

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Authors: İsmail İnce

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The aim of this study is to determine index and mechanical properties of pyroclastic rock in a practical way by means of electrical resistivity method. For this purpose, electrical resistivity, uniaxial compressive strength, point load strength, P-wave velocity, density and porosity values of 10 different pyroclastic rocks were measured in the laboratory. A simple regression analysis was made among the index-mechanical properties of the samples compatible with electrical resistivity values. A strong exponentially relation was found between index-mechanical properties and electrical resistivity values. The electrical resistivity method can be used to assess the engineering properties of the rock from which it is difficult to obtain regular shaped samples as a non-destructive method.

Keywords: electrical resistivity, index-mechanical properties, pyroclastic rocks, regression analysis

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Authors: Aneta Nitsch-Osuch, Katarzyna Zycinska, Ewa Gyrczuk, Agnieszka Topczewska-Cabanek, Kazimierz Wardyn

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Introduction: Influenza is an important clinical and epidemiological problem and should be considered as a possible nosocomial infection. The aim of the study was to determine the influenza vaccine coverage rates among Polish nurses and to find out drivers and barriers for influenza vaccination among this group of health care workers (HCWs). Material and methods: The self- fulfilled survey with 26 questions about the knowledge, perception, and influenza coverage rates was distributed among 461 nurses. Results: Only 15% of nurses were vaccinated against influenza in the consecutive seasons. The majority (75%) of the regularly vaccinated nurses were ambulatory careworkers. The difference between the number of vaccinated hospitals and ambulatory care nurses was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The main motivating factors for an influenza vaccination were: a fear of the illness and its complications (97%) and a free of charge vaccine available at the workplace (87%). Ambulatory care nurses more often declared that they were vaccinated mainly to protect themselves while hospital care nurses more often declared the will to protect their patients, these differences in the perception and attitudes to an influenza vaccination among hospital and ambulatory care nurses were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The main barriers for an influenza vaccination among the nursing staff were: a lack of reimbursement of the vaccine (95%), a lack of insufficient knowledge about the effectiveness, and safety of the influenza vaccine (54%). The ambulatory care nurses more often found influenza vaccination as the ethical duty compared to hospital care nurses (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The influenza vaccine coverage rates among the Polish nurses are low and must be improved in the future. More educational activities dedicated to HCWs may result in the increased awareness of influenza vaccination benefits for both medical professionals and patients.

Keywords: influenza, vaccination, nurses, ambulatory careworkers

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Authors: Xiaobo Liu, Rakesh Mishra, Yun Zhang

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Continuous monitoring of forest canopy height with large coverage is essential for obtaining forest carbon stocks and emissions, quantifying biomass estimation, analyzing vegetation coverage, and determining biodiversity. LiDAR can be used to collect accurate woody vegetation structure such as canopy height. However, LiDAR’s coverage is usually limited because of its high cost and limited maneuverability, which constrains its use for dynamic and large area forest canopy monitoring. On the other hand, optical satellite images, like Sentinel-2, have the ability to cover large forest areas with a high repeat rate, but they do not have height information. Hence, exploring the solution of integrating LiDAR data and Sentinel-2 images to enlarge the coverage of forest canopy height prediction and increase the prediction repeat rate has been an active research topic in the environmental remote sensing community. In this study, we explore the potential of training a Random Forest Regression (RFR) model and a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model, respectively, to develop two predictive models for predicting and validating the forest canopy height of the Acadia Forest in New Brunswick, Canada, with a 10m ground sampling distance (GSD), for the year 2018 and 2021. Two 10m airborne LiDAR-derived canopy height models, one for 2018 and one for 2021, are used as ground truth to train and validate the RFR and CNN predictive models. To evaluate the prediction performance of the trained RFR and CNN models, two new predicted canopy height maps (CHMs), one for 2018 and one for 2021, are generated using the trained RFR and CNN models and 10m Sentinel-2 images of 2018 and 2021, respectively. The two 10m predicted CHMs from Sentinel-2 images are then compared with the two 10m airborne LiDAR-derived canopy height models for accuracy assessment. The validation results show that the mean absolute error (MAE) for year 2018 of the RFR model is 2.93m, CNN model is 1.71m; while the MAE for year 2021 of the RFR model is 3.35m, and the CNN model is 3.78m. These demonstrate the feasibility of using the RFR and CNN models developed in this research for predicting large-coverage forest canopy height at 10m spatial resolution and a high revisit rate.

Keywords: remote sensing, forest canopy height, LiDAR, Sentinel-2, artificial intelligence, random forest regression, convolutional neural network

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Authors: Christos Karolemeas, Avgi Vassi, Georgia Christodoulopoulou

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Although the past decades, planning a cycle network became an inseparable part of all transportation plans, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the way planning is made, in order to create safe and direct cycling networks that gather the parameters that positively influence one's decision to cycle. The aim of this article is to study, evaluate and visualize the bikeability of cities. This term is often used as the 'the ability of a person to bike' but this study, however, adopts the term in the sense of bikeability as 'the ability of the urban landscape to be biked'. The methodology used included assessing cities' accessibility by cycling, based on international literature and corresponding walkability methods and the creation of a 'bikeability index'. Initially, a literature review was made to identify the factors that positively affect the use of bicycle infrastructure. Those factors were used in order to create the spatial index and quantitatively compare the city network. Finally, the bikeability index was applied in two case studies: two Greek municipalities that, although, they have similarities in terms of land uses, population density and traffic congestion, they are totally different in terms of geomorphology. The factors suggested by international literature were (a) safety, (b) directness, (c) comfort and (d) the quality of the urban environment. Those factors were quantified through the following parameters: slope, junction density, traffic density, traffic speed, natural environment, built environment, activities coverage, centrality and accessibility to public transport stations. Each road section was graded for the above-mentioned parameters, and the overall grade shows the level of bicycle accessibility (low, medium, high). Each parameter, as well as the overall accessibility levels, were analyzed and visualized through Geographic Information Systems. This paper presents the bikeability index, its' results, the problems that have arisen and the conclusions from its' implementation through Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats analysis. The purpose of this index is to make it easy for researchers, practitioners, politicians, and stakeholders to quantify, visualize and understand which parts of the urban fabric are suitable for cycling.

Keywords: accessibility, cycling, green spaces, spatial data, urban environment

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Authors: Yingjie Zhang, Ming Li, Ying Zhang, Jing Zhang, Zuolei Hu

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In the actual start-up process of DC motors, the DC drive system often faces a conflict between energy consumption and acceleration performance. To resolve the conflict, this paper proposes a comprehensive performance index that energy consumption index is added on the basis of classical control performance index in the DC motor starting process. Taking the comprehensive performance index as the cost function, particle swarm optimization algorithm is designed to optimize the comprehensive performance. Then it conducts simulations on the optimization of the comprehensive performance of the DC motor on condition that the weight coefficient of the energy consumption index should be properly designed. The simulation results show that as the weight of energy consumption increased, the energy efficiency was significantly improved at the expense of a slight sacrifice of fastness indicators with the comprehensive performance index method. The energy efficiency was increased from 63.18% to 68.48% and the response time reduced from 0.2875s to 0.1736s simultaneously compared with traditional proportion integrals differential controller in energy saving.

Keywords: comprehensive performance index, energy consumption, acceleration performance, particle swarm optimal control

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Authors: Pedro Gómez-del-Hoyo, Jose-Luis Bárcena-Humanes, Nerea del-Rey-Maestre, María-Pilar Jarabo-Amores, David Mata-Moya

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A study of achievable coverages using passive radar systems in terrestrial traffic monitoring applications is presented. The study includes the estimation of the bistatic radar cross section of different commercial vehicle models that provide challenging low values which make detection really difficult. A semi-urban scenario is selected to evaluate the impact of excess propagation losses generated by an irregular relief. A bistatic passive radar exploiting UHF frequencies radiated by digital video broadcasting transmitters is assumed. A general method of coverage estimation using electromagnetic simulators in combination with estimated car average bistatic radar cross section is applied. In order to reduce the computational cost, hybrid solution is implemented, assuming free space for the target-receiver path but estimating the excess propagation losses for the transmitter-target one.

Keywords: bistatic radar cross section, passive radar, propagation losses, radar coverage

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Authors: Zhanfeng Ma, Zhiping Xiong, Hu Yin, Zhengwei She, Aditya P. Gurajada, Tianlun Chen, Ying Li

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Many RDBMS vendors use B-tree index to achieve high performance for point queries and range queries, and some of them also employ hash index to further enhance the performance as hash table is more efficient for point queries. However, there are extra overheads to maintain a separate hash index, for example, hash mapping for all data records must always be maintained, which results in more memory space consumption; locking, logging and other mechanisms are needed to guarantee ACID, which affects the concurrency and scalability of the system. To relieve the overheads, Hash Cached B-tree (HCB) index is proposed in this paper, which consists of a standard disk-based B-tree index and an additional in-memory lock-free hash table. Initially, only the B-tree index is constructed for all data records, the hash table is built on the fly based on runtime workload, only data records accessed by point queries are indexed using hash table, this helps reduce the memory footprint. Changes to hash table are done using compare-and-swap (CAS) without performing locking and logging, this helps improve the concurrency and avoid contention. The hash table is also optimized to be cache conscious. HCB index is implemented in SAP ASE database, compared with the standard B-tree index, early experiments and customer adoptions show significant performance improvement. This paper provides an overview of the design of HCB index and reports the experimental results.

Keywords: B-tree, compare-and-swap, lock-free hash table, point queries, range queries, SAP ASE database

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Authors: Enikő Bene

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Our sowing date experiment took place in the Demonstration Garden of Institution of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Center of University of Debrecen, in 2012-2014. The thesis contains data of test year 2014. Our purpose, besides several other examinations, was to observe how sowing date influences leaf area index and activity of photosynthesis of maize hybrids, and how those factors affect fruiting. In the experiment we monitored the change of the leaf area index and the photosynthesis of hybrids with four different growing seasons. The results obtained confirm that not only the environmental and agricultural factors in the growing season have effect on the yield, but also other factors like the leaf area index and the photosynthesis are determinative parameters, and all those factors together, modifying effects of each other, develop average yields

Keywords: sowing date, hybrid, leaf area index, photosynthetic capacity

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Authors: C. Silvestros, K. Mellou, T. Georgakopoulou, A. Koustenis, E. Kokkinou, C. Botsi, A. Terzidis

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'PHILOS – Emergency health response to refugee crisis' is a programme of the Greek Ministry of Health, implemented by the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (HCDCP) funded by the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of EU’s DG Migration and Home Affairs. One of the main objectives of the program is the immunization coverage of the target – population to assure the prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases. The program foresees vaccination needs assessment of children hosted at camps at the mainland and implementation of interventions to cover the vaccination gaps in co-operation with the Ministry of Health. The National Immunization Advisory Committee in Greece recommended that MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella), PCV (Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) and HEXA (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b) vaccines should be performed in priority. Recording was completed at 24 camps (May - June 2017); 3381 children (0-18 years) were recorded. The median number of children hosted at each camp was 95 (range: 5-553). For 68% of the children, the WHO vaccination booklet was available. 44%, 48.5% and 61% of the children were vaccinated with at least one dose of PCV, HEXA, and MMR, respectively. The proportion of vaccinated children for the three vaccines mentioned above is significantly lower for the remaining doses; PCV (second dose 8%, third dose 1.3%), HEXA (second dose 13%, third dose 2.7%, forth dose 0.1%) and MMR (second dose 23%). None of the 37 (10 from Afghanistan, 3 from Bangladesh, 23 from Pakistan, 1 from Syria) recorded unaccompanied children did not have a WHO vaccination booklet and were considered unvaccinated. There is no differentiation in vaccination coverage among different ethnicities. Massive catch up vaccination was performed at 4 camps, and 671 vaccinations were performed (245 PCV, 307 HEXA, and 119 MMR). Similar interventions are planned for all camps of the country. Recording reveled gaps in vaccination coverage of the population, mainly because of the mobility of the population, the influx of refugees- which is still ongoing- and new births. Mass vaccination campaigns are considered vital in order to increase vaccination coverage, and continuous efforts are needed in order all children living at the camps to have full access to the National Childhood Immunization Program.

Keywords: vaccine preventable, refugee–migrants camps, vaccination coverage, PCV, MMR, HEXA

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Authors: Natalia M. Acevedo, Luis M. Jimenez, Erick Lambis

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Imperfections in the capital market are used to argue the relevance of the corporate risk management function. With corporate hedge, the value of the company is increased by reducing the volatility of the expected cash flow and making it possible to face a lower bankruptcy costs and financial difficulties, without sacrificing tax advantages for debt financing. With the propose to avoid exchange rate troubles over cash flows of Colombian exporting firms, this dissertation uses financial options, over exchange rate between Peso and Dollar, for realizing a financial hedge. In this study, a strategy of hedge is designed for an exporting company in Colombia with the objective of preventing fluctuations because, if the exchange rate down, the number of Colombian pesos that obtains the company by exports, is less than agreed. The exchange rate of Colombia is measured by the TRM (Representative Market Rate), representing the number of Colombian pesos for an American dollar. First, the TMR is modelled through the Geometric Brownian Motion, with this, the project price is simulated using Montecarlo simulations and finding the mean of TRM for three, six and twelve months. For financial hedging, currency options were used. The 6-month projection was covered with financial options on European-type currency with a strike price of $ 2,780.47 for each month; this value corresponds to the last value of the historical TRM. In the compensation of the options in each month, the price paid for the premium, calculated with the Black-Scholes method for currency options, was considered. Finally, with the modeling of prices and the Monte Carlo simulation, the effect of the exchange hedging with options on the exporting company was determined, this by means of the unit price estimate to which the dollars in the scenario without coverage were changed and scenario with coverage. After using the scenarios: is determinate that the TRM will have a bull trend and the exporting firm will be affected positively because they will get more pesos for each dollar. The results show that the financial options manage to reduce the exchange risk. The expected value with coverage is approximate to the expected value without coverage, but the 5% percentile with coverage is greater than without coverage. The foregoing indicates that in the worst scenarios the exporting companies will obtain better prices for the sale of the currencies if they cover.

Keywords: currency hedging, futures, geometric Brownian motion, options

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Authors: Dongjoo Kim, Chang-Sik Son, Won-Seok Kang

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Adequate sleep affects various parts of one’s overall physical and mental life. As one of the methods in determining the appropriate amount of sleep, this research presents a heart rate based sleep quality index. In order to evaluate sleep quality using the heart rate, sleep data from 280 subjects taken over one month are used. Their sleep data are categorized by a three-part heart rate range. After categorizing, some features are extracted, and the statistical significances are verified for these features. The results show that some features of this sleep quality index model have statistical significance. Thus, this heart rate based sleep quality index may be a useful discriminator of sleep.

Keywords: sleep, sleep quality, heart rate, statistical analysis

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Authors: Mario Zgela

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Application of Benford’s Law is very rarely covered in the field of stock market analysis, especially in percentage change of stock market indices. Deutscher Aktien IndeX (DAX) is very important stock market index of Frankfurt Deutsche Börse which serves as underlying basis for large number of financial instruments. It is calculated for selected 30 German blue chips stocks. In this paper, Benford's Law first digit test is applied on 10 year DAX daily percentage changes in order to check compliance. Deviations of 10 year DAX percentage changes set as well as distortions of certain subsets from Benford's Law distribution are detected. It is possible that deviations are the outcome of speculations; and psychological influence should not be eliminated.

Keywords: Benford's Law, DAX, index percentage changes, stock market

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Authors: Shahzad Ali

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This article expounds the coverage of Pak-US relations in the context of Osama Bin Laden killing in four selected leading newspapers of UK and the US viz The Telegraph, The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post during the specific time period of three months, i.e., April-June, 2011. The study is scrutinized on the basis of Operation Neptune Spear. The research study is theoretically linked with the propaganda model of Herman and Chomsky and the Shoemaker and Reeve‘s theory of content effect, specifically the impact of foreign policy as a driving instrument influencing the nature and treatment of the coverage of Pak-US relations. The relations between Pakistan and USA are of great importance in the context of Bin Laden. The Pak-US relations were less aggravated and hostile in pre OBL period but post OBL period worsened these relations. It is also interesting to mention that the policies of these newspapers were dependent on the foreign policy of their countries. It was explored that the news coverage was found favorable as and when the relations Pakistan and the US or UK were cordial and smooth. And it turned into negative and unfavorable when the relations were in strain and deteriorating and endorsed various studies that the Western mainstream media tried to be more nationalistic in projecting official stance while covering foreign coverage instead of adhering to universal cannon of journalism, i.e., objectivity, fairness, and neutrality, etc. Overall 219 news items of these four selected newspapers regarding Pak-US relations in the context of pre and post OBL’s killing operation were undertaken for analysis. The ratio of negative slants was found higher as compared to the positive and neutral slants. Besides, the ratio of news items with unfavorable frames was found higher in post OBL operation in comparison of pre-era of the coverage related to Pak-US relations in the leading British and American newspapers.

Keywords: Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, USA, UK, relations, Guardian, Washington Post, Telegraph, New York Times, Operation Neptune Spear

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Authors: Claudeline D. Cellan

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Development is multifaceted, and efforts to hasten growth in all these facets have been gaining traction in recent years. Thus, producing a composite index that is reflective of these multidimensional impacts captures the interests of policymakers. The problem lies in going through a mixture of theoretical, methodological and empirical decisions and complexities which, when done carelessly, can lead to inconsistent and unreliable results. This study looks into index computation from a different and less complex perspective. Borrowing the idea of archetypes or ‘pure types’, archetypal analysis looks for points in the convex hull of the multivariate data set that captures as much information in the data as possible. The archetypes or 'pure types' are estimated such that they are convex combinations of all the observations, which in turn are convex combinations of the archetypes. This ensures that the archetypes are realistically observable, therefore achievable. In the sense of composite indices, we look for the best among these archetypes and use this as a benchmark for index computation. Its straightforward and simplistic approach does away with aggregation and substitutability problems which are commonly encountered in index computation. As an example of the application of archetypal analysis in index construction, the country data for the Human Development Index (HDI 2017) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is used. The goal of this exercise is not to replicate the result of the UNDP-computed HDI, but to illustrate the usability of archetypal analysis in index construction. Here best is defined in the context of life, education and gross national income sub-indices. Results show that the HDI from the archetypal analysis has a linear relationship with the UNDP-computed HDI.

Keywords: archetypes, composite index, convex combination, development

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Authors: Shokofeh Ebrtahimi

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Let G be the chemical graph of a molecule. The matrix D = [dij ] is called the detour matrix of G, if dij is the length of longest path between atoms i and j. The sum of all entries above the main diagonal of D is called the detour index of G.Chemical graph theory is the topology branch of mathematical chemistry which applies graph theory to mathematical modelling of chemical phenomena.[1] The pioneers of the chemical graph theory are Alexandru Balaban, Ante Graovac, Ivan Gutman, Haruo Hosoya, Milan Randić and Nenad TrinajstićLet G be the chemical graph of a molecule. The matrix D = [dij ] is called the detour matrix of G, if dij is the length of longest path between atoms i and j. The sum of all entries above the main diagonal of D is called the detour index of G. In this paper, a new program for computing the detour index of molecular graphs of nanotubes by heptagons is determineded. Some Conjectures about detour index of Molecular graphs of nanotubes is included.

Keywords: chemical graph, detour matrix, Detour index, carbon nanotube

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Authors: Mohammad Ranjbar, Mohammad Bazyar, Blake Angell, Thomas Lung, Yibeltal Assefa

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Background: Current health insurance programs in Iran suffer from low enrolment and are not sufficient to attain the country to universal health coverage (UHC). We hypothesize that improving the enrollment rate and moving towards a more sustainable UHC can be achieved by improving the benefits package and providing new incentives. The objective of this study is to assess public preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for social health insurance (SHI) in Iran. Methods: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in 2021, using a self-administered questionnaire on 500 participants to estimate WTP and determine individual preferences for the SHI in Yazd, Iran. Respondents were presented with an eight-choice set and asked to select their preferred one. In each choice set, scenarios were described by eight attributes with varying levels. The conditional logit regression model was used to analyze the participants' preferences. Willingness to pay for each attribute was also calculated. Results: Most included attributes were significant predictors of the choice of a health insurance package. The maximum coverage of hospitalization costs in the private sector, ancillary services such as glasses, canes, etc., as well as coverage for hospitalization costs in the public sector and drug costs, were the most important determining factors for this choice. Coverage of preventive dental care did not significantly influence respondent choices. Estimating WTP showed that individuals are willing to pay more for higher financial protection, particularly against private sector costs; the WTP to increase the coverage of hospitalization costs in the private sector from 50% to 90% is estimated at 362,068 IR, Rials per month. Conclusion: This study identifies the key factors that the population value with regard to health insurance and the tradeoffs they are willing to make between them. Hospitalization, drugs, and ancillary services were the most important determining factors for their choice. The data suggest that additional resources coming into the Iranian health system might best be prioritized to cover hospitalization and drug costs and those associated with ancillary services.

Keywords: social health insurance, preferences, discrete choice experiment, willingness to pay

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Authors: Ahmad Fauzi Makarim, Okkie Puspitorini, Hani'ah Mahmudah, Nur Adi Siswandari, Ari Wijayanti

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As a maritime country, Indonesia needs a solution in maritime connectivity which can assist the maritime communication system which including communication from harbor to the ship or ship to ship. The needs of many application services for maritime communication, whether for safety reasons until voyage service to help the process of voyage activity needs connection with a high bandwith. To support the government efforts in handling that kind of problem, a research is conducted in maritime communication issue by applying the new developed technology in Indonesia, namely IEEE 802.11. In this research, 3 outdoor WiFi devices are used in which have a frequency of 5.8 GHz. Maritime of Tanjung Perak harbor in Surabaya until Karang Jamuang Island are used as the location of the research with defining permission of ship node spreading by Navigation District Class 1. That maritime area formed by state 1 and state 2 areas which are the narrow area with average wave height of 0.7 meter based on the data from BMKG S urabaya. After that, wave height used as one of the parameters which are used in analyzing characteristic of signal propagation at sea surface, so it can be determined on the coverage area of transmitter system. In this research has been used three samples of outdoor wifi, there is the coverage of device A can be determined about 2256 meter, device B 4000 meter, and device C 1174 meter. Then to analyze of network connectivity for the ship to ship is used AODV routing algorithm system based on the value of the power transmit was smallest of all nodes within the transmitter coverage.

Keywords: maritime of Indonesia, maritime communications, outdoor wifi, coverage, AODV

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Authors: T. Al-Alawi, N. Shorbaji, E. Rashaidi, M.Alidrisi

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Purpose/Objective(s): The main purpose of this study is to analyze the planning of SBRT treatments for localized prostate cancer with 6FFF and 10FFF energies to see if there is a dosimetric difference between the two energies and how we can increase the plan efficiency and reduce its complexity. Also, to introduce a planning method in our department to treat prostate cancer by utilizing high energy photons without increasing patient toxicity and fulfilled all dosimetric constraints for OAR (an organ at risk). Then toevaluate the target 95% coverage PTV95, V5%, V2%, V1%, low dose volume for OAR (V1Gy, V2Gy, V5Gy), monitor unit (beam-on time), and estimate the values of homogeneity index HI, conformity index CI a Gradient index GI for each treatment plan.Materials/Methods: Two treatment plans were generated for15 patients with localized prostate cancer retrospectively using the CT planning image acquired for radiotherapy purposes. Each plan contains two/three complete arcs with two/three different collimator angle sets. The maximum dose rate available is 1400MU/min for the energy 6FFF and 2400MU/min for 10FFF. So in case, we need to avoid changing the gantry speed during the rotation, we tend to use the third arc in the plan with 6FFF to accommodate the high dose per fraction. The clinical target volume (CTV) consists of the entire prostate for organ-confined disease. The planning target volume (PTV) involves a margin of 5 mm. A 3-mm margin is favored posteriorly. Organs at risk identified and contoured include the rectum, bladder, penile bulb, femoral heads, and small bowel. The prescription dose is to deliver 35Gyin five fractions to the PTV and apply constraints for organ at risk (OAR) derived from those reported in references. Results: In terms of CI=0.99, HI=0.7, and GI= 4.1, it was observed that they are all thesame for both energies 6FFF and 10FFF with no differences, but the total delivered MUs are much less for the 10FFF plans (2907 for 6FFF vs.2468 for 10FFF) and the total delivery time is 124Sc for 6FFF vs. 61Sc for 10FFF beams. There were no dosimetric differences between 6FFF and 10FFF in terms of PTV coverage and mean doses; the mean doses for the bladder, rectum, femoral heads, penile bulb, and small bowel were collected, and they were in favor of the 10FFF. Also, we got lower V1Gy, V2Gy, and V5Gy doses for all OAR with 10FFF plans. Integral dosesID in (Gy. L) were recorded for all OAR, and they were lower with the 10FFF plans. Conclusion: High energy 10FFF has lower treatment time and lower delivered MUs; also, 10FFF showed lower integral and meant doses to organs at risk. In this study, we suggest usinga 10FFF beam for SBRTprostate treatment, which has the advantage of lowering the treatment time and that lead to lessplan complexity with respect to 6FFF beams.

Keywords: FFF beam, SBRT prostate, VMAT, prostate cancer

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Authors: Helen Frialde-Dupale

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Critical thinking Index (CTI) of 150 third year college students from five State Colleges and Universities (SUCs) in Region I were determined. Only students with Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 2.0 from four general classification of degree courses, namely: Education, Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Agriculture were included. Specific problem No.1 dealt with the profile variables, namely: age, sex, degree course, monthly family income, number of siblings, high school graduated from, grade point average, personality type, highest educational attainment of parents, and occupation of parents. Problem No. 2 determined the critical thinking index among the respondents. Problem No. 3 investigated whether or not there are significant differences in the critical thinking index among the respondents across the profile variables. While problem No.4 determined whether or not there are significant relationship between the critical thinking index and selected profile variables, namely: age, monthly family income, number of siblings, and grade point average of the respondents. Finally, on problem No. 5, the critical thinking instrument which obtained the lowest rates, were used as basis for outlining an intervention program for enhancing critical thinking index (CTI) of students. The following null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance: there are no significant differences in the critical thinking index of the third college students across the profile variables; there are no significant relationships between the critical thinking index of the respondents and selected variables, namely: age, monthly family income, number of siblings, and grade point average.

Keywords: attitude as critical thinker, critical thinking applied, critical thinking index, self-perception as critical thinker

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Authors: Hayam Qayyum

Abstract:

Print and Broadcast media are considered to be the most powerful social change agents and effective medium that can revolutionize the deter society into the civilized, responsible, composed society. Beside all major roles, imperative role of media is to highlight the human rights’ violation issues in order to provide awareness and to prevent society from the social evils and injustice. So, by pointing out the odds, media can lessen the magnitude of happenings within the society. For centuries, the “Silent Crime” i.e. Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is gulping down the developing countries. This study will explore that how the appropriate Print and Broadcast media coverage can eliminate Child Sexual Abuse from the society. The immense challenge faced by the journalists today; is the accurate and ethical reporting and appropriate coverage to disclose the facts and deliver right message on the right time to lessen the social evils in the developing countries, by not harming the prestige of the victim. In case of CSA most of the victims and their families are not in favour to expose their children to media due to family norms and respect in the society. Media should focus on in depth information of CSA and use this coverage is to draw attention of the concern authorities to look into the matter for reforms and reviews in the system. Moreover, media as a change agent can bring such issue into the knowledge of the international community to make collective efforts with the affected country to eliminate the ‘Silent Crime’ from the society. The model country selected for this research paper is South Africa. The purpose of this research is not only to examine the existing reporting patterns and content of print and broadcast media coverage of South Africa but also aims to create awareness to eliminate Child Sexual abuse and indirectly to improve the condition of stake holders to overcome this social evil. The literature review method is used to formulate this paper. Trends of media content on CSA will be identified that how much amount and nature of information made available to the public through the media General view of media coverage on child sexual abuse in developing countries like India and Pakistan will also be focused. This research will be limited to the role of print and broadcast media coverage to eliminate child sexual abuse in South Africa. In developing countries, CSA issue needs to be addressed on immediate basis. The study will explore the CSA content of the most influential broadcast and print media outlets of South Africa. Broadcast media will be comprised of TV channels and print media will be comprised of influential newspapers. South Africa is selected as a model for this research paper.

Keywords: child sexual abuse, developing countries, print and broadcast media, South Africa

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Authors: Rania Kassir, Christophe Dos Santos, Halim Abboud, Olivier Godefroy

Abstract:

The ability to communicate in at least two different languages is shared by a growing number of humans. Recently, many researchers have been studying the elderly bilingual population around the world in neuroscience, and yet, until today there’s no accurate nor universal measure or methodology used to examine bilingualism across these studies which constitute a real challenge for results generalization. This study contributes to the quest of a multidimensional bilingualism index and language proficiency literature by investigating a new bilingualism index from a reliable subjective questionnaire the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q), multi-linguistic tests, and a diverse bilingual population all featured in one analysis and one index. One hundred Lebanese subjects aged between 55 and 92 years old divided into three different bilingualism subgroups (Arabic prominent, balanced, and French prominent) were recruited and underwent the LEAP-Q with a set of linguistic and cognitive tests. The analysis of the collected data led to the creation of a robust bilingualism index from speaking and oral understanding scores that underline specifically bilingualism subtype according to cutoffs scored. The practice implications of this index, particularly its use within bilingual populations, are addressed in the conclusion of this work.

Keywords: bilingualism, language dominance, bilingualism index, balanced bilingualism, Arabic first language, Lebanese, Arabic-French bilingualism

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Authors: Nusret Mesut Sahin

Abstract:

Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, and editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, was assassinated in Istanbul on January 19th, 2007 by a nationalist extremist, Ogun Samast. Dink had been voicing the atrocities against the Armenians between 1915 and 1922 during the Ottoman rule, and his comments on the issue appeared in the Turkish media many times before his assassination. Despite intensive media coverage of his assassination, there is not enough research analyzing how national and international media presented Dink’s assassination. In this research, a content analysis of national and international news articles (N= 139) is conducted to identify whether there is a significant difference in national and international media’s coverage of the assassination. The content of the newspaper articles is categorized and coded according to the topics covered. The findings of this research suggested that Dink’s assassination wounded Turkey’s image as a democratic country. It has also been found that the Turkish media focused on security forces and their responsibility in Dink’s assassination, whereas international media focused more on the Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, freedom of expression, and atrocities against the Armenians during the Ottoman rule.

Keywords: Hrant Dink, Armenian, journalist, assassination

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Authors: Hoda Zolfagharnejad, Behnam Kamkar, Omid Abdi

Abstract:

Crop coefficient (Kc) is an important factor contributing to estimation of evapotranspiration, and is also used to determine the irrigation schedule. This study investigated and determined the monthly Kc of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using five vegetation indices (VIs): Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Difference Vegetation Index (DVI), Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Infrared Percentage Vegetation Index (IPVI), and Ratio Vegetation Index (RVI) of four basins in Golestan province, Iran. 14 Landsat-8 images according to crop growth stage were used to estimate monthly Kc of wheat. VIs were calculated based on infrared and near infrared bands of Landsat 8 images using Geographical Information System (GIS) software. The best VIs were chosen after establishing a regression relationship among these VIs with FAO Kc and Kc that was modified for the study area by the previous research based on R² and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The result showed that local modified SAVI with R²= 0.767 and RMSE= 0.174 was the best index to produce monthly wheat Kc maps.

Keywords: crop coefficient, remote sensing, vegetation indices, wheat

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Authors: Ashagrie Getnet Flattie

Abstract:

Line-of-sight (LOS) information, data rates, good quality, and flexible network service are limited by the fact that, for the duration of any given connection, they experience severe variation in signal strength due to fading and path loss. Wireless system faces major challenges in achieving wide coverage and capacity without affecting the system performance and to access data everywhere, all the time. In this paper, the cell coverage and edge rate of different Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) schemes in 20 MHz Long Term Evolution (LTE) system under Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) platform are investigated. After some background on the enormous potential of UAV, MIMO, and LTE in wireless links, the paper highlights the presented system model which attempts to realize the various benefits of MIMO being incorporated into UAV platform. The performances of the three MIMO LTE schemes are compared with the performance of 4x4 MIMO LTE in UAV scheme carried out to evaluate the improvement in cell radius, BER, and data throughput of the system in different morphology. The results show that significant performance gains such as bit error rate (BER), data rate, and coverage can be achieved by using the presented scenario.

Keywords: LTE, MIMO, path loss, UAV

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Authors: Amol Lanke, Hadi Hoseinie, Behzad Ghodrati

Abstract:

OEE has been used in many industries as measure of performance. However due to limitations of original OEE, it has been modified by various researchers. OEE for mining application is special version of classic equation, carries these limitation over. In this paper it has been aimed to modify the OEE for mining application by introducing the weights to the elements of it and termed as Mine Production index (MPi). As a special application of new index MPi shovel has been developed by team of experts and researchers for evaluating the shovel effectiveness. Based on analysis, utilization followed by performance and availability were ranked in this order. To check the applicability of this index, a case study was done on four electrical and one hydraulic shovel in a Swedish mine. The results shows that MPishovelcan properly evaluate production effectiveness of shovels and determine effectiveness values in optimistic view compared to OEE. MPi with calculation not only give the effectiveness but also can predict which elements should be focused for improving the productivity.

Keywords: mining, overall equipment efficiency (OEE), mine production index, shovels

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Authors: Tripatjot S. Panag, J. S. Dhillon

Abstract:

The lifetime of a wireless sensor network can be effectively increased by using scheduling operations. Once the sensors are randomly deployed, the task at hand is to find the largest number of disjoint sets of sensors such that every sensor set provides complete coverage of the target area. At any instant, only one of these disjoint sets is switched on, while all other are switched off. This paper proposes a heuristic search method to find the maximum number of disjoint sets that completely cover the region. A population of randomly initialized members is made to explore the solution space. A set of heuristics has been applied to guide the members to a possible solution in their neighborhood. The heuristics escalate the convergence of the algorithm. The best solution explored by the population is recorded and is continuously updated. The proposed algorithm has been tested for applications which require sensing of multiple target points, referred to as point coverage applications. Results show that the proposed algorithm outclasses the existing algorithms. It always finds the optimum solution, and that too by making fewer number of fitness function evaluations than the existing approaches.

Keywords: coverage, disjoint sets, heuristic, lifetime, scheduling, Wireless sensor networks, WSN

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Authors: Luisa Peirano

Abstract:

What began as a middle-class insurgent political movement whose slogan was 'Words divide us. Action unites us!' ultimately mutated into an underground terrorist group that staged a series of armed robberies, kidnappings and even executions in the 1960s and early 1970s. One of the most memorable was the kidnapping of the British ambassador, Sir Geoffrey Jackson, in January 1971, who was held captive for eight months. The episode, which triggered a massive government response and resulted in the capture of the Tupamaros leaders, continued to have political repercussions decades later when Tupamaros leaders emerged from prison to re-enter mainstream Uruguayan politics. The kidnapping and its aftermath attracted intense media coverage in Uruguay and Britain, coverage that affected public opinion profoundly. The treatment by the Uruguayan and British medias’ diverged, however. Uruguayan newspapers focused on political issues, mirrored the positions of various political parties, and showed the larger context of social, cultural and political forces that rocked Latin America in the 1960s and early 1970s. By contrast, the British press limited its attention mainly to the human drama. On the 30th anniversary of Sir Geoffrey Jackson's death, this study compares over one hundred major newspaper articles and suggests some reasons for the differences between Uruguayan and British media treatment in terms of the volume, content, and perspective as well in the effect on readers. The differences have persisted and continue to matter in present day coverage of terrorism and its victims.

Keywords: British Ambassador, Churchill Archives Centre, Sir Geoffrey Jackson, political kidnapping, Latin America in the 1960's, Tupamaro guerrillas, Uruguay

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