Search results for: multi objective linear programming problem

Authors: Lei Zhang, Jean-Michel Ghidaglia, Anela Kumbaro

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This work focuses on numerical simulation of two-phase flows based on the bi-fluid six-equation model widely used in many industrial areas, such as nuclear power plant safety analysis. A pressure-based numerical method is adopted in our studies due to the fact that in two-phase flows, it is common to have a large range of Mach numbers because of the mixture of liquid and gas, and density-based solvers experience stiffness problems as well as a loss of accuracy when approaching the low Mach number limit. This work extends the semi-implicit pressure solver in the nuclear component CUPID code, where the governing equations are solved on unstructured grids with co-located variables to accommodate complicated geometries. A conservative version of the solver is developed in order to capture exactly the shock in one-phase flows, and is extended to two-phase situations. An inter-facial pressure term is added to the bi-fluid model to make the system hyperbolic and to establish a well-posed mathematical problem that will allow us to obtain convergent solutions with refined meshes. The ability of the numerical method to treat phase appearance and disappearance as well as the behavior of the scheme at low Mach numbers will be demonstrated through several numerical results. Finally, inter-facial mass and heat transfer models are included to deal with situations when mass and energy transfer between phases is important, and associated industrial numerical benchmarks with tabulated EOS (equations of state) for fluids are performed.

Keywords: two-phase flows, numerical simulation, bi-fluid model, unstructured grids, phase appearance and disappearance

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Authors: Yan Li, Qingxiang Meng, Bo Zhou, Zhenming Zhou

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The objective of this study was to compare the effects of ensiled mulberry leaves (EML), and sun-dried mulberry fruit pomace (SMFP) on fecal bacterial communities in Simmental crossbred finishing steers fed the following 3 diets: a standard TMR diet, standard diet containing EML and standard diet containing SMFP, and the diets had similar protein and energy levels. Bacterial communities in the fecal content were analyzed using Illumina Miseq sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene amplification. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to detect the selected bacterial species in the feces. Most of the sequences were assigned to phyla Firmicutes (56.67%) and Bacteroidetes(35.90%), followed by Proteobacteria(1.86%), Verrucomicrobia(1.80%) and Tenericutes(1.37%). And the predominant genera included the 5-7N15 (5.91%), CF231 (2.49%), Oscillospira (2.33%), Paludibacter (1.23%) and Akkermansia(1.11%). As for the treatments, no significant differences were observed in Firmicutes (p = 0.28), Bacteroidetes (p = 0.63), Proteobacteria (p = 0.46), Verrucomicrobia (p = 0.17) and Tenericutes (p = 0.75). On the genus level, classified genera with high abundance (more than 0.1%) mainly came from two phyla: Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. Also no differences were observed in most genera level, 5-7N15 (p = 0.21), CF231 (p = 0.62), Oscillospira (p = 0.9), Paludibacter (p = 0.33) and Akkermansia (p = 0.37), except that rc4-4 were lower in the CON and SMFP groups compared to the EML animals (p = 0.02). Additionally, there were no differences in richness estimate and diversity indices (p > 0.16), and treatments had no significant effect on most selected bacterial species in the fecal (p > 0.06), except that Ruminococcus albus were higher in the EML group (p < 0.01) and Streptococcus bovis were lower in the CON group (p < 0.01). In conclusion, diets supplemented with EML and SMFP have little influence on fecal bacterial community composition in finishing steers.

Keywords: fecal bacteria community composition, sequencing, ensiled mulberry leaves (EML), sun-dried mulberry fruit pomace (SMFP)

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Authors: Gichun Cha, Changgil Lee, Seunghee Park

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The objective of the study is to construct the shape management method contributing to the safety of the large structure. In Korea, the research of the shape management is lack because of the new attempted technology. Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) is used for measurements of large structures. TLS provides an efficient way to actively acquire accurate the point clouds of object surfaces or environments. The point clouds provide a basis for rapid modeling in the industrial automation, architecture, construction or maintenance of the civil infrastructures. TLS produce a huge amount of point clouds. Registration, Extraction and Visualization of data require the processing of a massive amount of scan data. The octree can be applied to the shape management of the large structure because the scan data is reduced in the size but, the data attributes are maintained. The octree space partitioning generates the voxel of 3D space, and the voxel is recursively subdivided into eight sub-voxels. The point cloud of scan data was converted to voxel and sampled. The experimental site is located at Sungkyunkwan University. The scanned structure is the steel-frame bridge. The used TLS is Leica ScanStation C10/C5. The scan data was condensed 92%, and the octree model was constructed with 2 millimeter in resolution. This study presents octree space partitioning for handling the point clouds. The basis is created by shape management of the large structures such as double-deck tunnel, building and bridge. The research will be expected to improve the efficiency of structural health monitoring and maintenance. "This work is financially supported by 'U-City Master and Doctor Course Grant Program' and the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (NRF- 2015R1D1A1A01059291)."

Keywords: 3D scan data, octree space partitioning, shape management, structural health monitoring, terrestrial laser scanning

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Authors: Salma H. Abu Hafsa, A. Mendonca, B. Brehm-Stecher, A. A. Hassan, S. A. Ibrahim

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Enterococci are important inhabitants of the animal intestine and are widely used in probiotic products. A probiotic strain is expected to possess several desirable properties in order to exert beneficial effects. Therefore, the objective of this study was to isolate and characterize strains of Enterococcus sp. from chicken cecal and fecal samples to determine potential probiotic properties. Enterococci were isolated from thirty one chicken cecal and fecal samples collected from a local farm. In vitro studies were performed to assess antibacterial activity (using agar well diffusion and cell free supernatant broth technique against Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis), susceptibility to antibiotics (amoxycillin, cotrimoxazole, chloramphenicol, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, and nalidixic acid), survival in acidic conditions, resistance to bile salts, and their survival during simulated gastric juice conditions at pH 2.5. Isolates were identified using biochemical and molecular assays (API 50 CHL, and API ZYM kits followed by 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis). Two strains were identified, of which, Enteroccocus faecium was capable of inhibiting the growth of S. enteritidis and was susceptible to a wide range of antibiotics. In addition, the isolated strain exhibited significant resistance under highly acidic conditions (pH=2.5) for 8 hours and survived well in bile salt at 0.2% for 24 hours and showing ability to survive in the presence of simulated gastric juice at pH 2.5. Based on these results, the E. faecium isolate fulfills some of the criteria to be considered as a probiotic strain and therefore, could be used as a feed additive with good potential for controlling S. enteritidis in chickens. However, in vivo studies are needed to determine the safety of the strain.

Keywords: acid tolerance, antimicrobial activity, Enterococcus faecium, probiotic

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Authors: Wipada Prasansaph

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The aim of this research is twofold: to develop a local literature (simplified English translation version) reading booklet for Thai primary school children (the fourth graders) and to encourage the love of reading in English by reading local literature. An excerpt from Thai literature namely Phra-apaimani, the reading requirement for Primary 4 was selected to be translated into English in simplified language with cartoon pictures to illustrate the key happenings of the story. After the first draft of the booklet development, the samples of the booklets were distributed to 3 educator experts to call for validity and comments on 1) the appropriateness of the English language, 2) the organization of the booklet, 3) the comprehension of the story, and 4) the relevance to the core curriculum of Basic Education of Thailand (B.E.2551). The IOC (Index of Item – Objective Congruence) was 0.9 indicated that the material is applicable (with some comments and suggestions). After the first amendment, the booklets were distributed to 30 fourth graders (in 3 schools – 10 in each school), 10 English teachers of Primary 4, and 10 educational supervisors for English subjects (in primary level) to call for comments on 1) the comprehension of the story 2) the organization of the booklet, and 3) the encouragement for the love of reading in English. The English reading booklet on Phra-apaimani for Thai primary children, the IOC questionnaire (with the open-ended questions) for the educator experts, and the rating scales for the students, the teachers, and the educational supervisors were used as the instruments of the research. The findings revealed that most students rated ‘positive’ level for the comprehension of the story, while the teachers and the educational supervisors rated ‘highly positive’. The 3 groups rated ‘highly positive’ for both the organization of the booklet and for the encouragement for the love of reading in English. It is recommended that there should be more production of English reading texts for children, especially the texts that children already have some background knowledge. Moreover, illustration is the most crucial part for the children’s reading texts.

Keywords: English language, reading skill, primary children, Thai literature

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Authors: Chung Danbi, Linton Oliver, Whang Yoon-Jae

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Supermodularity, or complementarity, is a popular concept in economics which can characterize many objective functions such as utility, social welfare, and production functions. Further, supermodular dominance captures a preference for greater interdependence among inputs of those functions, and it can be applied to examine which input set would produce higher expected utility, social welfare, or production. Therefore, we propose and justify a consistent testing for a useful implication of supermodular dominance. We also conduct Monte Carlo simulations to explore the finite sample performance of our test, with critical values obtained from the recentered bootstrap method, with and without the selective recentering, and the subsampling method. Under various parameter settings, we confirmed that our test has reasonably good size and power performance. Finally, we apply our test to compare the geographic and distant knowledge spillover in terms of their effects on social welfare using the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) patent data. We expect localized citing to supermodularly dominate distant citing if the geographic knowledge spillover engenders greater social welfare than distant knowledge spillover. Taking subgroups based on firm and patent characteristics, we found that there is industry-wise and patent subclass-wise difference in the pattern of supermodular dominance between localized and distant citing. We also compare the results from analyzing different time periods to see if the development of Internet and communication technology has changed the pattern of the dominance. In addition, to appropriately deal with the sparse nature of the data, we apply high-dimensional methods to efficiently select relevant data.

Keywords: supermodularity, supermodular dominance, stochastic dominance, Monte Carlo simulation, bootstrap, subsampling

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Authors: Ram Sharan Mehta, Gayanandra Malla, Anita Gurung, Anu Aryal, Divya Labh, Hricha Neupane

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Objectives: Lack of resuscitation skills of nurses and doctors in basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) has been identified as a contributing factor to poor outcomes of cardiac arrest victims. The objective of this study was to examine retention of life support measures (BLS/ALS) knowledge and skills of nurses following education intervention programme. Materials and Methods: Pre-experimental research design was used to conduct the study among the nurses working in medical units of B.P Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, where CPR is very commonly performed. Using convenient sampling technique total of 20 nurses agreed to participate and give consent were included in the study. The theoretical, demonstration and re-demonstration were arranged involving the trained doctors and nurses during the three hours educational session. Post-test was carried out after two week of education intervention programme. The 2010 BLS & ALS guidelines were used as guide for the study contents. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS-15 software. Results: It was found that there is significant increase in knowledge after education intervention in the components of life support measures (BLS/ALS) i.e. ratio of chest compression to ventilation in BLS (P=0.001), correct sequence of CPR (p <0.001), rate of chest compression in ALS (P=0.001), the depth of chest compression in adult CPR (p<0.001), and position of chest compression in CPR (P=0.016). Nurses were well appreciated the programme and request to continue in future for all the nurses. Conclusions: At recent BLS/ALS courses (2010), a significant number of nurses remain without any such training. Action is needed to ensure all nurses receive BLS training and practice this skill regularly in order to retain their knowledge.

Keywords: pre-experimental, basic and advance life support, nurses, sampling technique

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Authors: Tatyana Suvorkina

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It is indisputable that the problem of the origin of Manichaeism is very complex. Manichaeism is characterized as a syncretic religion, which was influenced by many teachings, but it is difficult to define one which can be called fundamental. The aim of this paper is an attempt to regard Jewish apocalyptic tradition as one of the most defining source of formation of Manichaean systems. To realize this aim a comparison of the Manichean texts and the Jewish apocryphal literature is made. Consideration is given first to the Coptic Manichaean treatise Kephalaia, The Cologne Mani Codex and to books of Enoch. Under the article it is not denied that Manichaeism was influenced by different doctrines and, passed through centuries, it could adapt and strengthen this influence at an even deeper level. But the fact that the Judeo-Christian environment where Mani grew up and where the first sprouts of his teaching were formed had impact on future prophet seems obvious. Nevertheless, attempts to analyze the system of Mani within the Jewish tradition are quite rare, although such studies were carried out for Gnosticism. But Manichaeism, despite the Gnostic features it contains, is not 'one of the Gnostics' to place it under this term among the rest. Frequently, gnostic currents are pointed out as the main sources for the formation of Mani’s teachings. But it seems possible that Mani's interest in Gnosticism was motivated by the fact that he considered it as something close to that interpretation of Hebrew texts, which he aspired to undertake. The question of understanding the Manichaean system is connected not only with Manichaeism but also with other dualistic teachings, which were recognized by contemporaries as Manichaean. It is seen that polemics between Manicheans and Hellenized Christianity separated from Judaism and continued to separate with every century, were polemics between adherents of initially two different worldviews who had, however, a common source. Therefore an analysis of the controversy in the context of interpretations of this common source by disputing parties is seen very important for further study.

Keywords: dualism, Jewish apocalypticism, Manichaeism, syncretism

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Authors: Manish Khanra, Shashank Prabhu

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The decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors is currently high on the agenda in the EU and its member states, as these sectors have substantial shares in overall GHG emissions while it is facing serious challenges to decarbonize. In particular, the aviation sector accounts for 2.8% of global anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. These emissions are anticipated to grow dramatically unless immediate mitigating efforts are implemented. Hydrogen and its derivatives based on renewable electricity can have a key role in the transition towards CO₂-neutral flights. The substantial shares of energy carriers in the form of drop-in fuel, direct combustion and Hydrogen-to-Electric are promising in most scenarios towards 2050. For creating appropriate policies to ramp up the production and utilisation of hydrogen commodities in the German aviation sector, a detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of supply-demand sites is essential. The objective of this research work is to assess the demand for hydrogen-based alternative fuels in the German aviation sector to achieve the perceived goal of the ‘Net Zero’ scenario by 2050. Here, the analysis of the technological pathways for the production and utilisation of these fuels in various aircraft options is conducted for reaching mitigation targets. Our method is based on data-driven bottom-up assessment, considering production and demand sites and their spatial distribution. The resulting energy demand and its spatial distribution with consideration of technology diffusion lead to a possible transition pathway of the aviation sector to meet short-term and long-term mitigation targets. Additionally, to achieve mitigation targets in this sector, costs and policy aspects are discussed, which would support decision-makers from airline industries, policymakers and the producers of energy commodities.

Keywords: the aviation sector, hard-to-abate sectors, hydrogen demand, alternative fuels, technological pathways, data-driven approach

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Authors: Loyce Nahwera, Joy Wachira, Edwin Kiptolo, Constance Nsibambi, Mshilla Maghanga, Timothy Makubuya

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Introduction: Hypertension is one of the most prominent risk factors for cardiovascular diseases globally, and it can be modified through lifestyle interventions such as exercise. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of a 12-week aerobic dance programme on systolic blood pressure (SBP) in stage 1 hypertensive individuals. Methods: This study employed an experimental research design. A total of 36 stage 1 hypertensive individuals who were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups completed the study. Systolic BP was measured using a mercury sphygmomanometer at baseline, mid-point and after the program. The experimental group participants trained 3 days a week, 45 minutes per session, at a moderate intensity of 40-60% of maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) monitored by Garmin heart rate monitors. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. The significance level was set at p<0.05. A paired sample t-test was used to compare mean differences within the groups. Results: Data from the 36 participants (22 males and 14 females) (experimental; n=18, control; n=18) show that the experimental group had a mean SBP of 143.83±6.382 mmHg at baseline while the control had a mean of 137.61±6.400 mmHg. Following the end of a 6-week aerobic dance, the mean SBP of the experimental group reduced to 138.06±9.539 mmHg while that of the control marginally decreased to 137.00±8.073 mmHg. At the completion of a 12-week program, the mean SBP of the experimental group reduced to 136.33±9.191 mmHg, while that of the control marginally increased to 139.56±9.954 mmHg. This implies that both the 6-week and 12-week aerobic dance program reduced the SBP of the experimental group by 5.77±7.133 mmHg and 7.50±8.487 mmHg, respectively, while the control group fast reduced marginally by 0.61 before ultimately increasing by 1.95±7.974 mmHg at 12-weeks. The changes were statistically significant (p<0.05) at both 6 and 12 weeks of an aerobic dance program. Conclusion: The study concluded that aerobic dance is an effective non-pharmacological method for managing SBP of stage 1 hypertensive individuals both in the short-term (6 weeks) and long-term (12 weeks).

Keywords: aerobic dance, blood pressure, stage 1 hypertension, systolic blood pressure.

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Authors: Nadia H. Mohammed, Anmar Al-Taie, Fadia H. Al-Sultany

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Although breast cancer prevalence continues to increase, mortality has been decreasing as a result of early detection and improvement in adjuvant systemic therapy. Nevertheless, this disease required further efforts to understand and identify the associated potential risk factors that could play a role in the prevalence of this malignancy among Iraqi women. The objective of this study was to assess the perception of certain predictive risk factors on the prevalence of breast cancer types among a sample of Iraqi women diagnosed with breast cancer. This was a retrospective observational study carried out at National Cancer Research Center in College of Medicine, Baghdad University from November 2017 to January 2018. Data of 100 patients with breast cancer whose biopsies examined in the National Cancer Research Center were included in this study. Data were collected to structure a detailed assessment regarding the patients’ demographic, medical and cancer records. The majority of study participants (94%) suffered from ductal breast cancer with mean age 49.57 years. Among those women, 48.9% were obese with body mass index (BMI) 35 kg/m². 68.1% of them had positive family history of breast cancer and 66% had low parity. 40.4% had stage II ductal breast cancer followed by 25.5% with stage III. It was found that 59.6% and 68.1% had positive oestrogen receptor sensitivity and positive human epidermal growth factor (HER2/neu) receptor sensitivity respectively. In regard to the impact of prediction of certain variables on the incidence of ductal breast cancer, positive family history of breast cancer (P < 0.0001), low parity (P< 0.0001), stage I and II breast cancer (P = 0.02) and positive HER2/neu status (P < 0.0001) were significant predictive factors among the study participants. The results from this study provide relevant evidence for a significant positive and potential association between certain risk factors and the prevalence of breast cancer among Iraqi women.

Keywords: Ductal Breast Cancer, Hormone Sensitivity, Iraq, Risk Factors

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Authors: Qiyao Han, Xianhai Meng

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Urban infrastructures refer to the fundamental facilities and systems that serve cities. Due to the global climate change and human activities in recent years, many urban areas around the world are facing enormous challenges from natural and man-made disasters, like flood, earthquake and terrorist attack. For this reason, urban resilience to disasters has attracted increasing attention from researchers and practitioners. Given the complexity of infrastructure systems and the uncertainty of disasters, this paper suggests that studies of resilience could focus on urban functional sustainability (in social, economic and environmental dimensions) supported by infrastructure systems under disturbance. It is supposed that urban infrastructure systems with high resilience should be able to reconfigure themselves without significant declines in critical functions (services), such as primary productivity, hydrological cycles, social relations and economic prosperity. Despite that some methods have been developed to integrate the resilience and sustainability of individual infrastructure components, more work is needed to enable system-level integration. This research presents a conceptual analysis framework for integrating resilience and sustainability based on fractal theory. It is believed that the ability of an ecological system to maintain structure and function in face of disturbance and to reorganize following disturbance-driven change is largely dependent on its self-similar and hierarchical fractal structure, in which cross-scale resilience is produced by the replication of ecosystem processes dominating at different levels. Urban infrastructure systems are analogous to ecological systems because they are interconnected, complex and adaptive, are comprised of interconnected components, and exhibit characteristic scaling properties. Therefore, analyzing resilience of ecological system provides a better understanding about the dynamics and interactions of infrastructure systems. This paper discusses fractal characteristics of ecosystem resilience, reviews literature related to system-level infrastructure resilience, identifies resilience criteria associated with sustainability dimensions, and develops a conceptual analysis framework. Exploration of the relevance of identified criteria to fractal characteristics reveals that there is a great potential to analyze infrastructure systems based on fractal. In the conceptual analysis framework, it is proposed that in order to be resilient, urban infrastructure system needs to be capable of “maintaining” and “reorganizing” multi-scale critical functions under disasters. Finally, the paper identifies areas where further research efforts are needed.

Keywords: fractal, urban infrastructure, sustainability, system-level resilience

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Authors: Sylvain Amailland, Jean-Hugh Thomas, Charles Pézerat, Romuald Boucheron, Jean-Claude Pascal

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The noise requirements for naval and research vessels have seen an increasing demand for quieter ships in order to fulfil current regulations and to reduce the effects on marine life. Hence, new methods dedicated to the characterization of propeller noise, which is the main source of noise in the far-field, are needed. The study of cavitating propellers in closed-section is interesting for analyzing hydrodynamic performance but could involve significant difficulties for hydroacoustic study, especially due to reverberation and boundary layer noise in the tunnel. The aim of this paper is to present a numerical methodology for the identification of hydroacoustic sources on marine propellers using hydrophone arrays in a large hydrodynamic tunnel. The main difficulties are linked to the reverberation of the tunnel and the boundary layer noise that strongly reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper it is proposed to estimate the reflection coefficients using an inverse method and some reference transfer functions measured in the tunnel. This approach allows to reduce the uncertainties of the propagation model used in the inverse problem. In order to reduce the boundary layer noise, a cleaning algorithm taking advantage of the low rank and sparse structure of the cross-spectrum matrices of the acoustic and the boundary layer noise is presented. This approach allows to recover the acoustic signal even well under the boundary layer noise. The improvement brought by this method is visible on acoustic maps resulting from beamforming and DAMAS algorithms.

Keywords: acoustic imaging, boundary layer noise denoising, inverse problems, model adaptation

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Authors: Anthony Idowu Ajayi, Ezebunwa Ethelbert Nwokocha, Wilson Akpan, Oladele Vincent Adeniyi

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Studies on emergency contraception (EC) mostly utilise quantitative methods and focus on medically approved drugs for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies. This methodological bias necessarily obscures insider perspectives on sexual behaviour, particularly on why specific methods are utilized by women who seek to prevent unplanned pregnancies. In order to privilege this perspective, with a view to further enriching the discourse and policy on the prevention and management of unplanned pregnancies, this paper brings together the findings from several focus groups and in-depth interviews conducted amongst unmarried female undergraduate students in two Nigerian universities. The study found that while the research participants had good knowledge of the consequences of unprotected sexual intercourses - with abstinence and condom widely used - participants’ willingness to rely only on medically sound measures to prevent unwanted pregnancies was not always mediated by such knowledge. Some of the methods favored by participants appeared to be those commonly associated with people of low socio-economic status in the society where the study was conducted. Medically unsafe concoctions, some outright dangerous, were widely believed to be efficacious in preventing unwanted pregnancy. Furthermore, respondents’ narratives about their sexual behaviour revealed that inadequate sex education, socio-economic pressures, and misconceptions about the efficacy of “crude” emergency contraception methods were all interrelated. The paper therefore suggests that these different facets of the unplanned pregnancy problem should be the focus of intervention.

Keywords: unplanned pregnancy, unsafe abortion, emergency contraception, concoctions

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Authors: Aline Valverde Arroteia, Tatiana Gondim do Amaral, Silvio Burrattino Melhado

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During the last twenty years, the construction field in Brazil has evolved significantly in response to its market growing and competitiveness. However, this evolving path has faced many obstacles such as cultural barriers and the lack of efforts to achieve quality at the construction site. At the same time, the greatest amount of information generated on the designing or construction phases is lost due to the lack of an effective coordination of these activities. Face this problem, the aim of this research was to implement a French method named PEO which means preparation for building construction (in Portuguese) seeking to understand the design management process and its interface with the building construction phase. The research method applied was qualitative, and it was carried out through two case studies in the city of Goiania, in Goias, Brazil. The research was divided into two stages called pilot study at Company A and implementation of PEO at Company B. After the implementation; the results demonstrated the PEO method's effectiveness and feasibility while a booster on the quality improvement of design management. The analysis showed that the method has a purpose to improve the design and allow the reduction of failures, errors and rework commonly found in the production of buildings. Therefore, it can be concluded that the PEO is feasible to be applied to real estate and building companies. But, companies need to believe in the contribution they can make to the discovery of design failures in conjunction with other stakeholders forming a construction team. The result of PEO can be maximized when adopting the principles of simultaneous engineering and insertion of new computer technologies, which use a three-dimensional model of the building with BIM process.

Keywords: communication, design and construction interface management, preparation for building construction (PEO), proactive coordination (CPA)

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Authors: Ghadeer Mohammad Said El-Sheikh, Samer Mohamad Shalhoob

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Medical equipment operation state is a valid reflection of health care organizations' performance, where such equipment highly contributes to the quality of healthcare services on several levels in which quality improvement has become an intrinsic part of the discourse and activities of health care services. In healthcare organizations, clinical and biomedical engineering departments play an essential role in maintaining the safety and efficiency of such equipment. One of the most challenging topics when it comes to such sophisticated equipment is the lifespan of medical equipment, where many factors will impact such characteristics of medical equipment through its life cycle. So far, many attempts have been made in order to address this issue where most of the approaches are kind of arbitrary approaches and one of the criticisms of existing approaches trying to estimate and understand the lifetime of a medical equipment lies under the inquiry of what are the environmental factors that can play into such a critical characteristic of a medical equipment. In an attempt to address this shortcoming, the purpose of our study rises where in addition to the standard technical factors taken into consideration through the decision-making process by a clinical engineer in case of medical equipment failure, the dimension of environmental factors shall be added. The investigations, researches and studies applied for the purpose of supporting the decision making process by a clinical engineers and assessing the lifespan of healthcare equipment’s in the Lebanese society was highly dependent on the identification of technical criteria’s that impacts the lifespan of a medical equipment where the affecting environmental factors didn’t receive the proper attention. The objective of our study is based on the need for introducing a new well-designed plan for evaluating medical equipment depending on two dimensions. According to this approach, the equipment that should be replaced or repaired will be classified based on a systematic method taking into account two essential criteria; the standard identified technical criteria and the added environmental criteria.

Keywords: technical, environmental, healthcare, characteristic of medical equipment

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Authors: Shorena Pharjiani

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The Present empirical paper investigates the relationship between FDI and economic growth by 10 selected industries in 10 Central and Eastern European countries from the period 1995 to 2012. Different estimation approaches were used to explore the connection between FDI and economic growth, for example OLS, RE, FE with and without time dummies. Obtained empirical results leads to some main consequences: First, the Central and East European countries (CEEC) attracted foreign direct investment, which raised the productivity of industries they entered in. It should be concluded that the linkage between FDI and output growth by industries is positive and significant enough to suggest that foreign firm’s participation enhanced the productivity of the industries they occupied. There had been an endogeneity problem in the regression and fixed effects estimation approach was used which partially corrected the regression analysis in order to make the results less biased. Second, it should be stressed that the results show that time has an important role in making FDI operational for enhancing output growth by industries via total factor productivity. Third, R&D positively affected economic growth and at the same time, it should take some time for research and development to influence economic growth. Fourth, the general trends masked crucial differences at the country level: over the last 20 years, the analysis of the tables and figures at the country level show that the main recipients of FDI of the 11 Central and Eastern European countries were Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The main reason was that these countries had more open door policies for attracting the FDI. Fifth, according to the graphical analysis, while Hungary had the highest FDI inflow in this region, it was not reflected in the GDP growth as much as in other Central and Eastern European countries.

Keywords: central and East European countries (CEEC), economic growth, FDI, panel data

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Authors: Anan Jarab, Riham Almrayat, Salam Alqudah, Maher Khdour, Tareq Mukattash, Sharell Pinto

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Background: The prevalence of diabetes in Jordan is among the highest in the world, making it a particularly alarming health problem there. It has been indicated that poor adherence to the prescribed therapy lead to poor glycemic control and enhance the development of diabetes complications and unnecessary hospitalization. Purpose: To explore factors associated with medication non-adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes in Jordan. Materials and Methods: Variables including socio-demographics, disease and therapy factors, diabetes knowledge, and health-related quality of life in addition to adherence assessment were collected for 171 patients with type 2 diabetes using custom-designed and validated questionnaires. Logistic regression was performed to develop a model with variables that best predicted medication non-adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes in Jordan. Results: The majority of the patients (72.5%) were non-adherent. Patients were found four times less likely to adhere to their medications with each unit increase in the number of prescribed medications (OR = 0.244, CI = 0.08-0.63) and nine times less likely to adhere to their medications with each unit increase in the frequency of administration of diabetic medication (OR = 0.111, CI = 0.04-2.01). Patients in the present study were also approximately three times less likely (OR = 0.362, CI = 0.24-0.87) to adhere to their medications if they reported having concerns about side effects and twice more likely to adhere to medications (OR = 0.493, CI = 0.08-1.16) if they had one or more micro-vascular complication. Conclusion: The current study revealed low adherence rate to the prescribed therapy among Jordanians with type 2 diabetes. Simplifying dosage regimen, selecting treatments with lower side effects along with an emphasis on diabetes complications should be taken into account when developing care plans for patients with type 2 diabetes.

Keywords: type 2 diabetes, adherence, glycemic control, clinical pharmacist, Jordan

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Authors: Robert John Godby

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To be responsive now and in the future, workplaces must address the demands of multicultural teams as they become more common elements of the global labor force. This is especially the case for aged care due to the aging population, industry growth and migrant recruitment. This research identifies influences on and improvements for learning in these environments. Its unique contribution is to illuminate how culturally diverse workplaces can work and learn together more effectively. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather data about this topic in two phases. Firstly, the research methods included a survey of 102 aged care workers around Australia from two multi-site aged care organisations. The questionnaire elicited both quantitative and qualitative data about worker characteristics and perspectives on working and learning in aged care. Secondly, a case study of one aged care worksite was formulated drawing on worksite information and interviews with workers. A review of the literature suggests that learning in multicultural work environments is influenced by three main factors: 1) the individual workers themselves, 2) their interaction with each other and 3) the environment in which they work. There are various accounts of these three factors, how they are manifested and how they lead to a change in workers’ disposition, knowledge, or expertise when confronted with new circumstances. The study has found that a key individual factor influencing learning is cultural background. Their unique view of the world was shown to affect their approach to both their work and co-working. Interactional factors suggest that the high requirement for collaboration in aged care positively supports learning in this context; however, it can be hindered by cultural bias and spoken accent. The study also found that environmental factors, such as disruptions caused by the pandemic, were another key influence. For example, the need to wear face masks hindered the communication needed for workplace learning. This was especially challenging due to the diverse language backgrounds and abilities within the teams. Potential improvements for learning in multicultural aged care work environments were identified. These include more frequent and structured inter-peer learning (e.g. buddying), communication training (e.g. English language usage for both native and non-native speaking workers) and support for cross-cultural habitude (e.g. recognizing and adapting to cultural differences). Workplace learning in cross-cultural aged care environments is an area that is not extensively dealt with in the literature. This study addresses this gap and holds the potential to contribute practical insights to aged care and other diverse industries.

Keywords: cross-cultural learning, learning in aged care, migrant learning, workplace learning

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Authors: Basma Abdel Mohsen Al-Sheikh

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This study aimed to create textile designs inspired by Najdi Al-Sadu art, with the objective of highlighting Saudi identity and heritage. The research proposed clothing designs for women and children, utilizing textiles inspired by Najdi Al-Sadu art, and incorporated artificial intelligence techniques in the design process. The study employed a descriptive-analytical approach to describe Najdi Al-Sadu, and an experimental method involving the creation of textile designs inspired by Al-Sadu. The study sample consisted of 33 participants, including experts in the fashion and textile industry, fashion designers, lecturers, professors, and postgraduate students from King Abdulaziz University. A questionnaire was used as a tool to gather opinions regarding the proposed designs. The results demonstrated a clear acceptance of the designs inspired by Najdi Al-Sadu and incorporating artificial intelligence, with approval rates ranging from 22% to 81% across different designs. The study concluded that artificial intelligence applications have a significant impact on fashion design, particularly in the integration of Al-Sadu art. The findings also indicated a positive reception of the designs in terms of their aesthetic and functional aspects, although individual preferences led to some variations in opinions. The results highlighted a demand for designs that combine heritage and modern fashion, striking a balance between authenticity and contemporary style. The study recommended that designers continue to explore ways to integrate cultural heritage, such as Al-Sadu art, with contemporary design elements to achieve this balance. Furthermore, it emphasized the importance of enhancing the aesthetic and functional aspects of designs, taking into consideration the preferences of the target market and customer expectations. The effective utilization of artificial intelligence was also emphasized to improve design processes, expand creative possibilities, and foster innovation and authenticity.

Keywords: Najdi Al-Sadu art, artificial intelligence, women's and children's fashion, clothing designs

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Authors: Asmaa M. El-Bandrawy, Afaf M. Botla, Ghada E. El-Refaye, Hassan O. Ghareeb

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Background: Urinary incontinence is a common problem among adults. Its incidence increases with age and it is more frequent in women. Pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) is the first-line therapy in the treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) either alone or combined with biofeedback-assisted PFMT. The aim of the work: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of biofeedback-assisted PFMT in postoperative stress urinary incontinence. Settings and Design: A single blind controlled trial design was. Methods and Material: This study was carried out in 30 volunteer patients diagnosed as severe degree of stress urinary incontinence and they were admitted to surgical treatment. They were divided randomly into two equal groups: (Group A) consisted of 15 patients who had been treated with post-operative biofeedback-assisted PFMT and home exercise program (Group B) consisted of 15 patients who had been treated with home exercise program only. Assessment of all patients in both groups (A) and (B) was carried out before and after the treatment program by measuring intra-vaginal pressure in addition to the visual analog scale. Results: At the end of the treatment program, there was a highly statistically significant difference between group (A) and group (B) in the intra-vaginal pressure and the visual analog scale favoring the group (A). Conclusion: biofeedback-assisted PFMT is an effective method for the symptomatic relief of post-operative female stress urinary incontinence.

Keywords: stress urinary incontinence, pelvic floor muscles, pelvic floor exercises, biofeedback

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Authors: Emmanuel Yussuf, John Muthama, John Ng'ang'A

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There has been increasing noise levels all over the world in the last decade. Many factors contribute to this increase, which is causing health related effects to humans. Developing countries are not left out of the whole picture as they are still growing and advancing their development. Motor vehicles are increasing on urban roads; there is an increase in infrastructure due to the rising population, increasing number of industries to provide goods and so many other activities. All this activities lead to the high noise levels in cities. This study was conducted in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD) with the main objective of simulating noise levels in order to understand the noise exposed to the people within the urban area, in relation to weather parameters namely temperature, rainfall and wind field. The study was achieved using the Neighbourhood Proximity Model and Time Series Analysis, with data obtained from proxies/remotely-sensed from satellites, in order to establish the levels of noise exposed to which people of Nairobi CBD are exposed to. The findings showed that there is an increase in temperature (0.1°C per year) and a decrease in precipitation (40 mm per year), which in comparison to the noise levels in the area, are increasing. The study also found out that noise levels exposed to people in Nairobi CBD were roughly between 61 and 63 decibels and has been increasing, a level which is high and likely to cause adverse physical and psychological effects on the human body in which air temperature, precipitation and wind contribute so much in the spread of noise. As a noise reduction measure, the use of sound proof materials in buildings close to busy roads, implementation of strict laws to most emitting sources as well as further research on the study was recommended. The data used for this study ranged from the year 2000 to 2015, rainfall being in millimeters (mm), temperature in degrees Celsius (°C) and the urban form characteristics being in meters (m).

Keywords: simulation, noise exposure, weather, proxy

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Authors: Rajish Shil, Mohammad Ali Houri, Mohammad Milad Ismail, Fatimah Al Kaabi

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The clinical presentation of Primary hyperparathyroidism can vary from simple asymptomatic hypercalcemia to severe life-threatening hypercalcemic crisis with multi-organ dysfunction, which can be due to parathyroid adenoma or sometimes with malignant cancer. This cascade of clinical presentation can lead to a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for treating the disease. We are presenting a case of severe hypercalcemic crisis due to parathyroid adenoma with an emphasis on early management, diagnosis, and interventions to prevent any lifelong complications and any permanent organ dysfunction. A 30 years old female with a history of primary Infertility, admitted to Al Ain Hospital critical care unit with Acute Severe Necrotizing Pancreatitis. She initially had a 1-month history of abdominal pain on and off, for which she was treated conservatively with no much improvement, and later on, she developed life-threatening severe pancreatitis, which required her to be admitted to the critical care unit. She was transferred from a private healthcare facility, where she was found to have a very high level of calcium up to 15mmol/L. She received systemic Zoledronic Acid, which lowered her calcium level transiently and later was increased again. She went on to develop multiple end-organ damages along with multiple electrolytes disturbances. She was found to have high levels of Parathyroid hormone, which was correlated with a parathyroid mass on the neck via radiological imaging. After a long course of medical treatment to lower the calcium to a near-normal level, parathyroidectomy was done, which showed parathyroid adenoma on histology. She developed hungry bone syndrome after the surgery and pancreatic pseudocyst after resolving of pancreatitis. She required aggressive treatment with Intravenous calcium for her hypocalcemia as she received zoledronic acid at the beginning of the disease. Later on, she was discharged on long term calcium and other electrolytes supplements. In patients presenting with hypercalcemia, it is prudent to investigate and start treatment early to prevent complications and end-organ damage from hypercalcemia and also to treat the primary cause of the hypercalcemia, with conscious follow up to prevent hypocalcemic complications after treatment. It is important to follow up patients with parathyroid adenomas for a long period in order to detect any recurrence of the tumor or to make sure if the primary tumor is either benign or malignant.

Keywords: hypercalcemia, pancreatitis, hypocalcemia, hyperparathyroidism

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Authors: Jiajia Peng, Jianqing Qiu, Jianjun Ren, Yu Zhao

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Background: Insufficient sleep has been focused on as a public health epidemic. However, a comprehensive analysis of disease trajectory associated with unhealthy sleep habits is still unclear currently. Objective: This study sought to comprehensively clarify the disease's trajectory in relation to the overall poor sleep pattern and unhealthy sleep behaviors separately. Methods: 410,682 participants with available information on sleep behaviors were collected from the UK Biobank at the baseline visit (2006-2010). These participants were classified as having high- and low risk of each sleep behavior and were followed from 2006 to 2020 to identify the increased risks of diseases. We used Cox regression to estimate the associations of high-risk sleep behaviors with the elevated risks of diseases, and further established diseases trajectory using significant diseases. The low-risk unhealthy sleep behaviors were defined as the reference. Thereafter, we also examined the trajectory of diseases linked with the overall poor sleep pattern by combining all of these unhealthy sleep behaviors. To visualize the disease's trajectory, network analysis was used for presenting these trajectories. Results: During a median follow-up of 12.2 years, we noted 12 medical conditions in relation to unhealthy sleep behaviors and the overall poor sleep pattern among 410,682 participants with a median age of 58.0 years. The majority of participants had unhealthy sleep behaviors; in particular, 75.62% with frequent sleeplessness, and 72.12% had abnormal sleep durations. Besides, a total of 16,032 individuals with an overall poor sleep pattern were identified. In general, three major disease clusters were associated with overall poor sleep status and unhealthy sleep behaviors according to the disease trajectory and network analysis, mainly in the digestive, musculoskeletal and connective tissue, and cardiometabolic systems. Of note, two circularity disease pairs (I25→I20 and I48→I50) showed the highest risks following these unhealthy sleep habits. Additionally, significant differences in disease trajectories were observed in relation to sex and sleep medication among individuals with poor sleep status. Conclusions: We identified the major disease clusters and high-risk diseases following participants with overall poor sleep health and unhealthy sleep behaviors, respectively. It may suggest the need to investigate the potential interventions targeting these key pathways.

Keywords: sleep, poor sleep, unhealthy sleep behaviors, disease trajectory, UK Biobank

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Authors: Moquan Gong

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In recent years, with the rapid development of deep learning, pre-training technology for natural language processing has made great progress. The early field of natural language processing has long used word vector methods such as Word2Vec to encode text. These word vector methods can also be regarded as static pre-training techniques. However, this context-free text representation brings very limited improvement to subsequent natural language processing tasks and cannot solve the problem of word polysemy. ELMo proposes a context-sensitive text representation method that can effectively handle polysemy problems. Since then, pre-training language models such as GPT and BERT have been proposed one after another. Among them, the BERT model has significantly improved its performance on many typical downstream tasks, greatly promoting the technological development in the field of natural language processing, and has since entered the field of natural language processing. The era of dynamic pre-training technology. Since then, a large number of pre-trained language models based on BERT and XLNet have continued to emerge, and pre-training technology has become an indispensable mainstream technology in the field of natural language processing. This article first gives an overview of pre-training technology and its development history, and introduces in detail the classic pre-training technology in the field of natural language processing, including early static pre-training technology and classic dynamic pre-training technology; and then briefly sorts out a series of enlightening technologies. Pre-training technology, including improved models based on BERT and XLNet; on this basis, analyze the problems faced by current pre-training technology research; finally, look forward to the future development trend of pre-training technology.

Keywords: natural language processing, pre-training, language model, word vectors

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Authors: Hadjer Chellia

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the present study reports on second language use among Algerian international students in the UK. In Algeria, French has an important status among the Algerian verbal repertoires due to colonial reasons. This has triggered many language conflicts and many debates among policy makers in Algeria. In higher education, Algerian English students’ sociolinguistic profile is characterised by the use of French as a sign of prestige. What may leave room for debate is the effect of crossing borders towards the UK as a result of international mobility programmes, a transition which could add more complexity since French, is not so significant as a language in the UK context. In this respect, the micro-objective is to explore the fate of French use among Ph.D. students in the UK as a newly established group vis-à-vis English. To fulfill the purpose of the present inquiry, the research employs multiple approaches in which semi-structured interview is a primary source of data to know participants’ attitudes about French use, targeting both their pre-migratory experience and current one. Web-based questionnaires are set up to access larger population. Focus group sessions are further procedures of scrutiny in this piece of work to explore the actual linguistic behaviours. Preliminary findings from both interviews and questionnaires reveal that students’ current experience, particularly living in the UK, affects their pre-migratory attitudes towards French language and its use. The overall findings are expected to bring manifold contributions to the field of research among which is setting factors that influence language use among newly established émigrés communities. The research is also relevant to international students’ experience of study abroad in terms of language use in the guise of internationalization of higher education, mobility and exchange programmes. It could contribute to the sociolinguistics of the Algerian diaspora: the dispersed residence of non-native communities - not to mention its significance on the Algerian research field abroad.

Keywords: Algerian diaspora, French language, language maintenance, language shift, mobility

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Authors: Sherly Shelton, Zhaohui Lin

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In recent decades, the inter-annual variability of summer precipitation over the India and Sri Lanka has intensified significantly with an increased frequency of both abnormally dry and wet summers. Therefore prediction of the inter-annual variability of summer precipitation is crucial and urgent for water management and local agriculture scheduling. However, none of the hypotheses put forward so far could understand the relationship to monsoon variability and related factors that affect to the South West Monsoon (SWM) variability in Sri Lanka. This study focused to identify the spatial and temporal variability of SWM rainfall events from June to September (JJAS) over Sri Lanka and associated trend. The monthly rainfall records covering 1980-2013 over the Sri Lanka are used for 19 stations to investigate long-term trends in SWM rainfall over Sri Lanka. The linear trends of atmospheric variables are calculated to understand the drivers behind the changers described based on the observed precipitation, sea surface temperature and atmospheric reanalysis products data for 34 years (1980–2013). Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was applied to understand the spatial and temporal behaviour of seasonal SWM rainfall variability and also investigate whether the trend pattern is the dominant mode that explains SWM rainfall variability. The spatial and stations based precipitation over the country showed statistically insignificant decreasing trends except few stations. The first two EOFs of seasonal (JJAS) mean of rainfall explained 52% and 23 % of the total variance and first PC showed positive loadings of the SWM rainfall for the whole landmass while strongest positive lording can be seen in western/ southwestern part of the Sri Lanka. There is a negative correlation (r ≤ -0.3) between SMRI and SST in the Arabian Sea and Central Indian Ocean which indicate that lower temperature in the Arabian Sea and Central Indian Ocean are associated with greater rainfall over the country. This study also shows that consistently warming throughout the Indian Ocean. The result shows that the perceptible water over the county is decreasing with the time which the influence to the reduction of precipitation over the area by weakening drawn draft. In addition, evaporation is getting weaker over the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Sri Lankan landmass which leads to reduction of moisture availability required for the SWM rainfall over Sri Lanka. At the same time, weakening of the SST gradients between Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal can deteriorate the monsoon circulation, untimely which diminish SWM over Sri Lanka. The decreasing trends of moisture, moisture transport, zonal wind, moisture divergence with weakening evaporation over Arabian Sea, during the past decade having an aggravating influence on decreasing trends of monsoon rainfall over the Sri Lanka.

Keywords: Arabian Sea, moisture flux convergence, South West Monsoon, Sri Lanka, sea surface temperature

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Authors: Giles Balbinotti, Lucas Balbinotti, Paula Hembecker

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The management of the productive process project activities, for the conception of future work and for the financial health of the companies, is an important condition in an organizational model that corroborates the management of the human aspects and their variabilities existing in the work. It is important to seek, at all levels of the organization, understanding and consequent cultural change, and so that factors associated with human aspects are considered and prioritized in the projects. In this scenario, the central question of research for this study is placed from the context of the work, in which the managers and project coordinators are inserted, as follows: How is the top management convinced, in the design stages, to take The ‘Ergonomics’ as strategy for the performance and sustainability of the business? In this perspective, this research has as general objective to analyze how the application of the management of the human aspects in a real project of productive process in the automotive industry, including the activity of the manager and coordinator of the project beyond the strategies of convincing to act in the ergonomics of design. For this, the socio-technical and ergonomic approach is adopted, given its anthropocentric premise in the sense of acting on the social system simultaneously to the technical system, besides the support of the Modapts system that measures the non-value-added times and the correlation with the Critical positions. The methodological approach adopted in this study is based on a review of the literature and the analysis of the activity of the project coordinators of an industry, including the management of human aspects in the context of work variability and the strategies applied in project activities. It was observed in the study that the loss of performance of the serial production lines reaches the important number of the order of 30%, which can make the operation with not value-added, and this loss has as one of the causes, the ergonomic problems present in the professional activity.

Keywords: human aspects in production process project, ergonomics in design, sociotechnical project management, sociotechnical, ergonomic principles, sustainability

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Authors: Weaam Aldeeban, Majd Aljamali, Lama A. Youssef

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Background & Objective: Warfarin is considered a problematic drug due to its narrow therapeutic window and wide inter-individual response variations, which are attributed to demographic, environmental, and genetic factors, particularly single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) in the genes encoding VKORC1 and CYP2C9 involved in warfarin's mechanism of action and metabolism, respectively. CYP2C9*2rs1799853 and CYP2C9*3rs1057910 alleles are linked to reduced enzyme activity, as carriers of either or both alleles are classified as moderate or slow metabolizers, and therefore exhibit higher sensitivity of warfarin compared with wild type (CYP2C9*1*1). Our study aimed to assess the frequency of *1, *2, and *3 alleles in the CYP2C9 gene in a cohort of Syrian patients receiving a maintenance dose of warfarin for different indications, the impact of genotypes on warfarin dosing, and the frequency of adverse effects (i.e., bleedings). Subjects & Methods: This retrospective cohort study encompassed 94 patients treated with warfarin. Patients’ genotypes were identified by sequencing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) specific products of the gene encoding CYP2C9, and the effects on warfarin therapeutic outcomes were investigated. Results: Sequencing revealed that 43.6% of the study population has the *2 and/or *3 SNPs. The mean weekly maintenance dose of warfarin was 37.42 ± 15.5 mg for patients with the wild-type allele (CYP2C9*1*1), whereas patients with one or both variants (*2 and/or *3) demanded a significantly lower dose (28.59 ±11.58 mg) of warfarin, (P= 0.015). A higher percentage (40.7%) of patients with allele *2 and/or *3 experienced hemorrhagic accidents compared with only 17.9% of patients with the wild type *1*1, (P = 0.04). Conclusions: Our study proves an association between *2 and *3 genotypes and higher sensitivity to warfarin and a tendency to bleed, which necessitates lowering the dose. These findings emphasize the significance of CYP2C9 genotyping prior to commencing warfarin therapy in order to achieve optimal and faster dose control and to ensure effectiveness and safety.

Keywords: warfarin, CYP2C9, polymorphisms, Syrian, hemorrhage

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Authors: Alaa Allakany, Koji Okamura

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Multicast technology is an efficient and scalable technology for data distribution in order to optimize network resources. However, in the IP network, the responsibility for management of multicast groups is distributed among network routers, which causes some limitations such as delays in processing group events, high bandwidth consumption and redundant tree calculation. Software Defined Networking (SDN) represented by OpenFlow presented as a solution for many problems, in SDN the control plane and data plane are separated by shifting the control and management to a remote centralized controller, and the routers are used as a forwarder only. In this paper we will proposed fast switching mechanism for solving the problem of link failure in multicast tree based on Tabu Search heuristic algorithm and modifying the functions of OpenFlow switch to fasts switch to the pack up sub tree rather than sending to the controller. In this work we will implement multicasting OpenFlow controller, this centralized controller is a core part in our multicasting approach, which is responsible for 1- constructing the multicast tree, 2- handling the multicast group events and multicast state maintenance. And finally modifying OpenFlow switch functions for fasts switch to pack up paths. Forwarders, forward the multicast packet based on multicast routing entries which were generated by the centralized controller. Tabu search will be used as heuristic algorithm for construction near optimum multicast tree and maintain multicast tree to still near optimum in case of join or leave any members from multicast group (group events).

Keywords: multicast tree, software define networks, tabu search, OpenFlow

Procedia PDF Downloads 231