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Authors: A. Breda, C. Cruz

Abstract:

The role of images/illustrations in communicating meanings and triggering emotions assumes an increasingly relevant role in contemporary texts, regardless of the age group for which they are intended or the nature of the texts that host them. It is no coincidence that children's books are full of illustrations and that the image/text ratio decreases as the age group grows. The vast majority of children's books can be considered as multimodal texts containing text and images/illustrations, interacting with each other, to provide the young reader with a broader and more creative understanding of the book's narrative. This interaction is very diverse, ranging from images/illustrations that are not essential for understanding the storytelling to those that contribute significantly to the meaning of the story. Usually, these books are also read by adults, namely by parents, educators, and teachers who act as mediators between the book and the children, explaining aspects that are or seem to be too complex for the child's context. It should be noted that there are books labeled as children's books, that are clearly intended for both children and adults. In this work, following a qualitative and interpretative methodology based on written productions, participant observation, and field notes, we will describe the perceptions of future teachers of the 1st cycle of basic education, attending a master’s degree at a Portuguese university, about the role of the image in literary and non-literary texts, namely in mathematical texts, and how these can constitute precious resources for emotional regulation and for the design of creative didactic situations. The analysis of the collected data allowed us to obtain evidence regarding the evolution of the participants' perception regarding the crucial role of images in children's literature, not only as an emotional regulator for young readers but also as a creative source for the design of meaningful didactical situations, crossing other scientific areas, other than the mother tongue, namely mathematics.

Keywords: Children’s literature, emotions, multimodal texts, soft skills.

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Authors: Shu-Hui Jan, Hui-Ping Tserng, Shih-Ping Ho

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Construction project control attempts to obtain real-time as-built schedule information and to eliminate project delays by effectively enhancing dynamic schedule control and management. Suitable platforms for enhancing an as-built schedule visually during the construction phase are necessary and important for general contractors. As the application of building information modeling (BIM) becomes more common, schedule management integrated with the BIM approach becomes essential to enhance visual construction management implementation for the general contractor during the construction phase. To enhance visualization of the updated as-built schedule for the general contractor, this study presents a novel system called the Construction BIM-assisted Schedule Management (ConBIM-SM) system for general contractors in Taiwan. The primary purpose of this study is to develop a web ConBIM-SM system for the general contractor to enhance visual as-built schedule information sharing and efficiency in tracking construction as-built schedule. Finally, the ConBIM-SM system is applied to a case study of a commerce building project in Taiwan to verify its efficacy and demonstrate its effectiveness during the construction phase. The advantages of the ConBIM-SM system lie in improved project control and management efficiency for general contractors, and in providing BIM-assisted as-built schedule tracking and management, to access the most current as-built schedule information through a web browser. The case study results show that the ConBIM-SM system is an effective visual as-built schedule management platform integrated with the BIM approach for general contractors in a construction project.

Keywords: BIM, Building information modeling, construction schedule management, as-built schedule management, BIM schedule updating mechanism.

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Authors: T. Citarasu, M. Michaelbabu V. N. Vakharia

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The rhizome of Java grass, Cyperus rotundus was extracted different organic polar and non-polar solvents and performed the in vitro antiviral and immunostimulant activities against White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) and Vibrio harveyi respectively. Based on the initial screening the ethyl acetate extract of C. rotundus was strong activities and further it was purified through silica column chromatography and the fractions were screened again for antiviral and immunostimulant activity. Among the different fractions screened against the WSSV and V. harveyi, the fractions, FIII to FV had strong activities. In order to study the in vivo influence of C. rotundus, the fractions (F-III to FV) were pooled and delivered to the F. indicus through artificial feed for 30 days. After the feeding trail the experimental and control diet fed F. indicus were challenged with virulent WSSV and studied the survival, molecular diagnosis, biochemical, haematological, and immunological parameters. Surprisingly, the pooled fractions (F-IV to FVI) incorporated diets helped to significantly (P<0.01) suppressed viral multiplication, showed significant (P<0.01) differences in protein and glucose levels, improved total haemocyte count (THC), coagulase activity, significantly increased (P <= 0.001) prophenol oxidase and intracellular superoxide anion production compared to the control shrimps. Based on the results, C. rotundus extracts effectively suppressed WSSV multiplication and improve the immune system in F. indicus against WSSV infection and this knowledge will helps to develop novel drugs from C. rotundus against WSSV.

Keywords: Antiviral drugs, Cyperus rotundus, Fenneropenaeus indicus, WSSV.

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Authors: M. Senthil Arumugam, M.V.C. Rao

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This paper presents a novel two-phase hybrid optimization algorithm with hybrid genetic operators to solve the optimal control problem of a single stage hybrid manufacturing system. The proposed hybrid real coded genetic algorithm (HRCGA) is developed in such a way that a simple real coded GA acts as a base level search, which makes a quick decision to direct the search towards the optimal region, and a local search method is next employed to do fine tuning. The hybrid genetic operators involved in the proposed algorithm improve both the quality of the solution and convergence speed. The phase–1 uses conventional real coded genetic algorithm (RCGA), while optimisation by direct search and systematic reduction of the size of search region is employed in the phase – 2. A typical numerical example of an optimal control problem with the number of jobs varying from 10 to 50 is included to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Several statistical analyses are done to compare the validity of the proposed algorithm with the conventional RCGA and PSO techniques. Hypothesis t – test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test are also carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The results clearly demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only improves the quality but also is more efficient in converging to the optimal value faster. They can outperform the conventional real coded GA (RCGA) and the efficient particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm in quality of the optimal solution and also in terms of convergence to the actual optimum value.

Keywords: Hybrid systems, optimal control, real coded genetic algorithm (RCGA), Particle swarm optimization (PSO), Hybrid real coded GA (HRCGA), and Hybrid genetic operators.

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Authors: Abdurazzag Ali Aburas, Indira Rustempasic, Indira Muhic, Busra Gheith Yildiz

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At present time, competition, unpredictable fluctuations have made communication engineering education in the global sphere really difficult. Confront with new situation in the engineering education sector. Communication engineering education has to be reformed and ready to use more advanced technologies. We realized that one of the general problems of student`s education is that after graduating from their universities, they are not prepared to face the real life challenges and full skilled to work in industry. They are prepared only to think like engineers and professionals but they also need to possess some others non-technical skills. In today-s environment, technical competence alone is not sufficient for career success. Employers want employees (graduate engineers) who have good oral and written communication (soft) skills. It does require for team work, business awareness, organization, management skills, responsibility, initiative, problem solving and IT competency. This proposed curriculum brings interactive, creative, interesting, effective learning methods, which includes online education, virtual labs, practical work, problem-based learning (PBL), and lectures given by industry experts. Giving short assignments, presentations, reports, research papers and projects students can significantly improve their non-technical skills. Also, we noticed the importance of using ICT technologies in engineering education which used by students and teachers, and included that into proposed teaching and learning methods. We added collaborative learning between students through team work which builds theirs skills besides course materials. The prospective on this research that we intent to update communication engineering curriculum in order to get fully constructed engineer students to ready for real industry work.

Keywords: communication engineering, curriculum education, ICT, industry

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Authors: Farooq A. Al-Sheikh, Carol Moralejo, Mark Pritzker, William A. Anderson, Ali Elkamel

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Ammonia in mining wastewater is a significant problem, and treatment can be especially difficult in cold climates where biological treatment is not feasible. An adsorption process is one of the alternative processes that can be used to reduce ammonia concentrations to acceptable limits, and therefore a LEWATIT resin strongly acidic H+ form ion exchange resin and a Bowie Chabazite Na form AZLB-Na zeolite were tested to assess their effectiveness. For these adsorption tests, two packed bed columns (a mini-column constructed from a 32-cm long x 1-cm diameter piece of glass tubing, and a 60-cm long x 2.5-cm diameter Ace Glass chromatography column) were used containing varying quantities of the adsorbents. A mining wastewater with ammonia concentrations of 22.7 mg/L was fed through the columns at controlled flowrates. In the experimental work, maximum capacities of the LEWATIT ion exchange resin were 0.438, 0.448, and 1.472 mg/g for 3, 6, and 9 g respectively in a mini column and 1.739 mg/g for 141.5 g in a larger Ace column while the capacities for the AZLB-Na zeolite were 0.424, and 0.784 mg/g for 3, and 6 g respectively in the mini column and 1.1636 mg/g for 38.5 g in the Ace column. In the theoretical work, Thomas, Adams-Bohart, and Yoon-Nelson models were constructed to describe a breakthrough curve of the adsorption process and find the constants of the above-mentioned models. In the regeneration tests, 5% hydrochloric acid, HCl (v/v) and 10% sodium hydroxide, NaOH (w/v) were used to regenerate the LEWATIT resin and AZLB-Na zeolite with 44 and 63.8% recovery, respectively. In conclusion, continuous flow adsorption using a LEWATIT ion exchange resin and an AZLB-Na zeolite is efficient when using a co-flow technique for removal of the ammonia from wastewater. Thomas, Adams-Bohart, and Yoon-Nelson models satisfactorily fit the data with R² closer to 1 in all cases.

Keywords: AZLB-Na zeolite, continuous adsorption, LEWATIT resin, models, regeneration.

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Authors: A. Megalingam, M.M.Mayuram

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Evaluation of contact pressure, surface and subsurface contact stresses are essential to know the functional response of surface coatings and the contact behavior mainly depends on surface roughness, material property, thickness of layer and the manner of loading. Contact parameter evaluation of real rough surface contacts mostly relies on statistical single asperity contact approaches. In this work, a three dimensional layered solid rough surface in contact with a rigid flat is modeled and analyzed using finite element method. The rough surface of layered solid is generated by FFT approach. The generated rough surface is exported to a finite element method based ANSYS package through which the bottom up solid modeling is employed to create a deformable solid model with a layered solid rough surface on top. The discretization and contact analysis are carried by using the same ANSYS package. The elastic, elastoplastic and plastic deformations are continuous in the present finite element method unlike many other contact models. The Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio of layer is varied in the present work to observe the contact parameters effect while keeping the surface roughness and substrate material properties as constant. The contacting asperities attain elastic, elastoplastic and plastic states with their continuity and asperity interaction phenomena is inherently included. The resultant contact parameters show that neighboring asperity interaction and the Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio of layer influence the bulk deformation consequently affect the interface strength.

Keywords: Asperity interaction, finite element method, rough surface contact, single layered solid

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Authors: D. Farsi, Gh. Dokhtvasi, S. Abbasi, S. Shafiee Ardestani, E. Payani

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Background and aim: It has not been well studied whether fentanyl-thiopental (FT) is effective and safe for PSA in orthopedic procedures in Emergency Department (ED). The aim of this trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of intravenous FT versus fentanyl-midazolam (FM) in patients who suffered from shoulder dislocation or distal radial fracture-dislocation. Methods: In this randomized double-blinded study, Seventy-six eligible patients were entered the study and randomly received intravenous FT or FM. The success rate, onset of action and recovery time, pain score, physicians’ satisfaction and adverse events were assessed and recorded by treating emergency physicians. The statistical analysis was intention to treat. Results: The success rate after administrating loading dose in FT group was significantly higher than FM group (71.7% vs. 48.9%, p=0.04); however, the ultimate unsuccessful rate after 3 doses of drugs in the FT group was higher than the FM group (3 to 1) but it did not reach to significant level (p=0.61). Despite near equal onset of action time in two study group (P=0.464), the recovery period in patients receiving FT was markedly shorter than FM group (P<0.001). The occurrence of adverse effects was low in both groups (p=0.31). Conclusion: PSA using FT is effective and appears to be safe for orthopedic procedures in the ED. Therefore, regarding the prompt onset of action, short recovery period of thiopental, it seems that this combination can be considered more for performing PSA in orthopedic procedures in ED.

Keywords: Procedural Sedation and Analgesia, Thiopental, Fentanyl, Midazolam, Orthopedic Procedure, Emergency Department, Pain.

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Authors: Neslihan Yuca, Nilgün Karatepe, Fahrettin Yakuphanoğlu

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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess unique structural, mechanical, thermal and electronic properties, and have been proposed to be used for applications in many fields. However, to reach the full potential of the CNTs, many problems still need to be solved, including the development of an easy and effective purification procedure, since synthesized CNTs contain impurities, such as amorphous carbon, carbon nanoparticles and metal particles. Different purification methods yield different CNT characteristics and may be suitable for the production of different types of CNTs. In this study, the effect of different purification chemicals on carbon nanotube quality was investigated. CNTs were firstly synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of acetylene (C2H2) on a magnesium oxide (MgO) powder impregnated with an iron nitrate (Fe(NO3)3·9H2O) solution. The synthesis parameters were selected as: the synthesis temperature of 800°C, the iron content in the precursor of 5% and the synthesis time of 30 min. The liquid phase oxidation method was applied for the purification of the synthesized CNT materials. Three different acid chemicals (HNO3, H2SO4, and HCl) were used in the removal of the metal catalysts from the synthesized CNT material to investigate the possible effects of each acid solution to the purification step. Purification experiments were carried out at two different temperatures (75 and 120 °C), two different acid concentrations (3 and 6 M) and for three different time intervals (6, 8 and 15 h). A 30% H2O2 : 3M HCl (1:1 v%) solution was also used in the purification step to remove both the metal catalysts and the amorphous carbon. The purifications using this solution were performed at the temperature of 75°C for 8 hours. Purification efficiencies at different conditions were evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis. Thermal and electrical properties of CNTs were also determined. It was found that the obtained electrical conductivity values for the carbon nanotubes were typical for organic semiconductor materials and thermal stabilities were changed depending on the purification chemicals.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes, purification, acid digestion, thermalstability, electrical conductivity

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Authors: Annur Suhadi, Haris B. Harahap, Zaim Arrosyidi, Epan, Darmapala

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Oilfields under waterflood often face the problem of plugging injectors either by internal filtration or external filter cake built up inside pore throats. The content of suspended solids shall be reduced to required level of filtration since corrective action of plugging is costly expensive. The performance of nutshell filters, where filtration takes place, is good using pecan and walnut shells. Candlenut shells were used instead of pecan and walnut shells since they were abundant in Indonesia, Malaysia, and East Africa. Physical and chemical properties of walnut, pecan, and candlenut shells were tested and the results were compared. Testing, using full-scale nutshell filters, was conducted to determine the oil content, turbidity, and suspended solid removal, which was based on designed flux rate. The performance of candlenut shells, which were deeply bedded in nutshell filters for filtration process, was monitored. Cleaned water outgoing nutshell filters had total suspended solids of 17 ppm, while oil content could be reduced to 15.1 ppm. Turbidity, using candlenut shells, was below the specification for injection water, which was less than 10 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU). Turbidity of water, outgoing nutshell filter, was ranged from 1.7-5.0 NTU at various dates of operation. Walnut, pecan, and candlenut shells had moisture content of 8.98 wt%, 10.95 wt%, and 9.95 wt%, respectively. The porosity of walnut, pecan, and candlenut shells was significantly affected by moisture content. Candlenut shells had property of toluene solubility of 7.68 wt%, which was much higher than walnut shells, reflecting more crude oil adsorption. The hardness of candlenut shells was 2.5-3 Mohs, which was close to walnut shells’ hardness. It was advantage to guarantee the cleaning filter cake by fluidization process during backwashing.

Keywords: Candlenut shells, walnut shells, pecan shells, nutshell filter, filtration.

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Authors: Ladda Leungratanamart, Seree Chadcham

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Fluid intelligence declines along with age, but it can be developed. For this reason, increasing fluid intelligence in young adults can be possible. This study examined the effects of a two-month treadmill exercise program on fluid intelligence. The researcher designed a treadmill exercise program to promote cardiorespiratory fitness. Thirty-eight healthy voluntary students from the Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Chon Buri were assigned randomly to an exercise group (n=18) and a control group (n=20). The experiment consisted of three sessions: The baseline session consisted of measuring the VO₂max, electroencephalogram and behavioral response during performed the Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM) test, a measure of fluid intelligence. For the exercise session, an experimental group exercises using treadmill training at 60 % to 80 % maximum heart rate for 30 mins, three times per week, whereas the control group did not exercise. For the following two sessions, each participant was measured the same as baseline testing. The data were analyzed using the t-test to examine whether there is significant difference between the means of the two groups. The results showed that the mean VO₂ max in the experimental group were significantly more than the control group (p<.05), suggesting a two-month treadmill exercise program can improve fluid intelligence. When comparing the behavioral data, it was found that experimental group performed RPM test more accurately and faster than the control group. Neuroelectric data indicated a significant increase in percentages of alpha band ERD (%ERD) at P3 and Pz compared to the pre-exercise condition and the control group. These data suggest that a two-month treadmill exercise program can contribute to the development of cardiorespiratory fitness which influences an increase fluid intelligence. Exercise involved in cortical activation in difference brain areas.

Keywords: Treadmill exercise, fluid intelligence, raven progressive matrices test, %ERD of upper Alpha band.

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Authors: Akinori Ozaki

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In this study, in order to clarify wind-induced phenomena, especially vertical mixing of density stratification in a closed water area with floating-leaved plants, we conducted hydraulic experiments on wind flow characteristics, wind wave characteristics, entrainment phenomena and turbulent structure by using a wind tunnel test tank and simulated floating-leaved plants. From the experimental results of wind flow and wind wave characteristics, we quantified the impact of the occupancy rate of the plants on their resistance characteristics. From the experimental results of entrainment phenomena, we defined the parameter that could explain the magnitude of mixing between the density stratifications, and quantified the impact of the occupancy rate on vertical mixing between stratifications. From the experimental results of the turbulent structure of the upper layer, we clarified the differences in small-scale turbulence components at each occupancy rate and quantified the impact of the occupancy rate on the turbulence characteristics. For a summary of this study, we theoretically quantified wind-induced entrainment phenomena in a closed water area with luxuriant growth of floating-leaved plants. The results indicated that the impact of luxuriant growth of floating-leaved plants in a closed water body could be seen in the difference in small-scale fluid characteristics, and these characteristics could be expressed using the small-scale turbulent components.

Keywords: Density Stratification, Floating-leaved Plant, Wind-induced Entrainment Phenomenon, Turbulent Structure

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Authors: Z. Gholamzadeh, A. Zali, S. A. H. Feghhi, C. Tenreiro, Y. Kadi, M. Rezazadeh, M. Aref

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Most HWRs currently use natural uranium fuel. Using enriched uranium fuel results in a significant improvement in fuel cycle costs and uranium utilization. On the other hand, reactivity changes of HWRs over the full range of operating conditions from cold shutdown to full power are small. This reduces the required reactivity worth of control devices and minimizes local flux distribution perturbations, minimizing potential problems due to transient local overheating of fuel. Analyzing heavy water effectiveness on neutronic parameters such as enrichment requirements, peaking factor and reactivity is important and should pay attention as primary concepts of a HWR core designing. Two nuclear nuclear reactors of CANDU-type and hexagonal-type reactor cores of 33 fuel assemblies and 19 assemblies in 1.04 P/D have been respectively simulated using MCNP-4C code. Using heavy water and light water as moderator have been compared for achieving less reactivity insertion and enrichment requirements. Two fuel matrixes of (232Th/235U)O2 and (238/235U)O2 have been compared to achieve more economical and safe design. Heavy water not only decreased enrichment needs, but it concluded in negative reactivity insertions during moderator density variations. Thorium oxide fuel assemblies of 2.3% enrichment loaded into the core of heavy water moderator resulted in 0.751 fission to absorption ratio and peaking factor of 1.7 using. Heavy water not only provides negative reactivity insertion during temperature raises which changes moderator density but concluded in 2 to 10 kg reduction of enrichment requirements, depend on geometry type.

Keywords: MCNP-4C, Reactor core, Multiplication factor, Reactivity, Peaking factor.

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Authors: Abeer Aljohani

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The COVID-19 virus spread has been one of the extreme pandemics across the globe. It is also referred as corona virus which is a contagious disease that continuously mutates into numerous variants. Currently, the B.1.1.529 variant labeled as Omicron is detected in South Africa. The huge spread of COVID-19 disease has affected several lives and has surged exceptional pressure on the healthcare systems worldwide. Also, everyday life and the global economy have been at stake. Numerous COVID-19 cases have produced a huge burden on hospitals as well as health workers. To reduce this burden, this paper predicts COVID-19 disease based on the symptoms and medical history of the patient. As machine learning is a widely accepted area and gives promising results for healthcare, this research presents an architecture for COVID-19 detection using ML techniques integrated with feature dimensionality reduction. This paper uses a standard University of California Irvine (UCI) dataset for predicting COVID-19 disease. This dataset comprises symptoms of 5434 patients. This paper also compares several supervised ML techniques on the presented architecture. The architecture has also utilized 10-fold cross validation process for generalization and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique for feature reduction. Standard parameters are used to evaluate the proposed architecture including F1-Score, precision, accuracy, recall, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) and Area under Curve (AUC). The results depict that Decision tree, Random Forest and neural networks outperform all other state-of-the-art ML techniques. This result can be used to effectively identify COVID-19 infection cases.

Keywords: Supervised machine learning, COVID-19 prediction, healthcare analytics, Random Forest, Neural Network.

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Authors: Leila Batmany

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This research studies the relationship between the feeling of distributive justice and national identity of the youth. The present analysis intends to experimentally investigate the various dimensions of the justice feeling and its effect on the national identity components. The study has taken justice into consideration from four different points of view on the basis of availability of valuable social sources such as power, wealth, knowledge and status in the political, economic, and cultural and status justice respectively. Furthermore, the national identity has been considered as the feeling of honour, attachment and commitment towards national society and its seven components i.e. history, language, culture, political system, religion, geographical territory and society. The 'field study' has been used as the method for the research with the individual as unit, taking 368 young between the age of 18 and 29 living in Tehran, chosen randomly according to Cochran formula. The individual samples have been randomly chosen among five districts in north, south, west, east, and centre of Tehran, based on the multistage cluster sampling. The data collection has been performed with the use of questionnaire and interview. The most important results are as follows: i) The feeling of economic justice is the weakest one among the youth. ii) The strongest and the weakest dimensions of the national identity are, respectively, the historical and the social dimension. iii) There is a positive and meaningful relationship between the feeling political and statues justice and then national identity, whereas no meaningful relationship exists between the economic and cultural justice and the national identity. iv) There is a positive and meaningful relationship between the feeling of justice in all dimensions and legitimacy of the political system. There is also such a relationship between the legitimacy of the political system and national identity. v) Generally, there is a positive and meaningful relationship between the feeling of distributive justice and national identity among the youth. vi) It is through the legitimacy of the political system that justice feeling can have an influence on the national identity.

Keywords: Distributive justice, national identity, legitimacy of political system, Cochran formula, multistage cluster sampling.

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Authors: Chimaobi V. Okolo, Onyinye S. Ugwuanyi, Kenneth A. Okpala

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This study evaluated the effect of exchange rate volatility on the manufacturing sector of Nigeria. The flow and stock market theories of exchange rate determination was adopted considering macroeconomic determinants such as balance of trade, trade openness, and net international investment. Furthermore, the influence of changes in parallel exchange rate, official exchange rate and real effective exchange rate was modeled on the manufacturing sector output. Vector autoregression techniques and vector error correction mechanism were adopted to explore the macroeconomic determinants of exchange rate fluctuation in Nigeria and to examine the influence of exchange rate volatility on the manufacturing sector output in Nigeria. The exchange rate showed an unstable and volatile movement in Nigeria. Official exchange rate significantly impacted on the manufacturing sector of Nigeria and shock to previous manufacturing sector output caused 60.76% of the fluctuation in the manufacturing sector output in Nigeria. Trade balance, trade openness and net international investments did not significantly determine exchange rate in Nigeria. However, own shock accounted for about 95% of the variation of exchange rate fluctuation in the short-run and long-run. Among other macroeconomic variables, net international investment accounted for about 2.85% variation of the real effective exchange rate fluctuation in the short-run and in the long-run. Monetary authorities should maintain stability of the exchange rates through proper management so as to encourage local production and government should formulate and implement policies that will develop other sectors of the economy as this will widen the country’s revenue base, reduce our over reliance on oil sector for our foreign exchange earnings and in turn reduce the shocks on our domestic economy.

Keywords: Exchange rate volatility, exchange rate determinants, manufacturing sector, official exchange rate, parallel exchange rate, real effective exchange rate.

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Authors: Omar A. Saraereh, M. A. Smadi, A. K. S. Al-Bayati, Jasim A. Ghaeb, Qais H. Alsafasfeh

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A low profile planar antenna for twelve-band operation in the mobile phone is presented. The proposed antenna radiating elements occupy an area equals 17 × 50 mm² are mounted on the compact no-ground portion of the system circuit board to achieve a simple low profile structure. In order to overcome the shortcoming of narrow bandwidth for conventional planar printed antenna, a novel bandwidth enhancement approach for multiband handset antennas is proposed here. The technique used in this study shows that by using a coupled-fed mechanism and a slotted ground structure, a multiband operation with wideband characteristic can be achieved. The influences of the modifications introduced into the ground plane improved significantly the bandwidths of the designed antenna. The slotted ground plane structure with the coupled-fed elements contributes their lowest, middle and higher-order resonant modes to form four operating modes. The generated modes are able to cover LTE 700/2300/2500, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS, WiMAX 3500, WLAN 2400/5200/5800 operations. Parametric studies via simulation are provided and discussed. Proposed antenna’s gain, efficiency and radiation pattern characteristics over the desired operating bands are obtained and discussed. The reasonable results observed can meet the requirements of practical mobile phones.

Keywords: Antenna, handset, LTE, Mobile, Multiband, Slotted ground, specific absorption rate (SAR).

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Authors: Atiq U. Zaman, Juliet Arnott

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This paper analyses the various benefits and barriers of residential deconstruction in the context of environmental performance and circular economy based on a case study project in Christchurch, New Zealand. The case study project “Whole House Deconstruction” which aimed, firstly, to harvest materials from a residential house, secondly, to produce new products using the recovered materials, and thirdly, to organize an exhibition for the local public to promote awareness on resource conservation and sustainable deconstruction practices. Through a systematic deconstruction process, the project recovered around 12 tonnes of various construction materials, most of which would otherwise be disposed of to landfill in the traditional demolition approach. It is estimated that the deconstruction of a similar residential house could potentially prevent around 27,029 kg of carbon emission to the atmosphere by recovering and reusing the building materials. In addition, the project involved local designers to produce 400 artefacts using the recovered materials and to exhibit them to accelerate public awareness. The findings from this study suggest that the deconstruction project has significant environmental benefits, as well as social benefits by involving the local community and unemployed youth as a part of their professional skills development opportunities. However, the project faced a number of economic and institutional challenges. The study concludes that with proper economic models and appropriate institutional support a significant amount of construction and demolition waste can be reduced through a systematic deconstruction process. Traditionally, the greatest benefits from such projects are often ignored and remain unreported to wider audiences as most of the external and environmental costs have not been considered in the traditional linear economy.

Keywords: Circular economy, construction and demolition waste, resource recovery, systematic deconstruction, sustainable waste management.

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Authors: Eronini Umez-Eronini

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Compressed air energy storage (CAES) coupled with wind farms have gained attention as a means to address the intermittency and variability of wind power. However, most existing studies and implementations focus on bulk or centralized CAES plants. This study presents a dynamic model of a hybrid wind farm with distributed CAES, using air storage tanks and compressor and expander trains at each wind turbine station. It introduces the concept of a distributed CAES with linked air cooling and heating, and presents an approach to scheduling and regulating the production of compressed air and power in such a system. Mathematical models of the dynamic components of this hybrid wind farm system, including a simple transient wake field model, were developed and simulated using MATLAB, with real wind data and Transmission System Operator (TSO) absolute power reference signals as inputs. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed ad hoc supervisory controller is able to track the minute-scale power demand signal within an error band size comparable to the electrical power rating of a single expander. This suggests that combining the global distributed CAES control with power regulation for individual wind turbines could further improve the system’s performance. The round trip electrical storage efficiency computed for the distributed CAES was also in the range of reported round trip storage electrical efficiencies for improved bulk CAES. These findings contribute to the enhancement of efficiency of wind farms without access to large-scale storage or underground caverns.

Keywords: Distributed CAES, compressed air, energy storage, hybrid wind farm, wind turbines, dynamic simulation.

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Authors: Pamita Awasthi, Kirna, Shilpa Dogra, Manu Vatsal, Ritu Barthwal

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Doxorubicin, also known as Adriamycin, is an anthracycline class of drug used in cancer chemotherapy. It is used in the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, acute leukemia, breast cancer, lung cancer, endometrium cancer and ovary cancers. It functions via intercalating DNA and ultimately killing cancer cells. The major side effects of doxorubicin are hair loss, myelosuppression, nausea & vomiting, oesophagitis, diarrhea, heart damage and liver dysfunction. The minor modifications in the structure of compound exhibit large variation in the biological activity, has prompted us to carry out the synthesis of sulfonamide derivatives. Sulfonamide is an important feature with broad spectrum of biological activity such as antiviral, antifungal, diuretics, antiinflammatory, antibacterial and anticancer activities. Structure of the synthesized compound N-(1-methyl-2-oxo-2-N-methyl anilinoethyl) benzene sulfonamide confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR),13C NMR, Mass and FTIR spectroscopic tools to assure the position of all protons and hence stereochemistry of the molecule. Further we have reported the binding potential of synthesized sulfonamide analogues in comparison to doxorubicin drug using Auto Dock 4.2 software. Computational binding energy (B.E.) and inhibitory constant (Ki) has been evaluated for the synthesized compound in comparison of doxorubicin against Poly (dA-dT).Poly (dA-dT) and Poly (dG-dC).Poly (dG-dC) sequences. The in vitro cytotoxic study against human breast cancer cell lines confirms the better anticancer activity of the synthesized compound over currently in use anticancer drug doxorubicin. The IC50 value of the synthesized compound is 7.12 μM whereas for doxorubicin is 7.2 μM.

Keywords: Anticancer, Auto Dock, Doxorubicin, Sulfonamide.

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Authors: D. Sarkar, M. Pal, A. K. Sarkar

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Asphaltic concrete for pavement construction in India are produced by using crushed stone, gravels etc. as aggregate. In north-Eastern region of India, there is a scarcity of stone aggregate. Therefore the road engineers are always in search of an optional material as aggregate which can replace the regularly used material. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the utilization of substandard or marginal aggregates in flexible pavement construction. The investigation was undertaken to evaluate the effects of using lower quality aggregates such as over burnt brick aggregate on the preparation of asphalt concrete for flexible pavements. The scope of this work included a review of available literature and existing data, a laboratory evaluation organized to determine the effects of marginal aggregates and potential techniques to upgrade these substandard materials, and a laboratory evaluation of these upgraded marginal aggregate asphalt mixtures. Over burnt brick aggregates are water susceptible and can leads to moisture damage. Moisture damage is the progressive loss of functionality of the material owing to loss of the adhesion bond between the asphalt binder and the aggregate surface. Hence zycosoil as an anti striping additive were evaluated in this study. This study summarizes the results of the laboratory evaluation carried out to investigate the properties of asphalt concrete prepared with zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Marshall specimen were prepared with stone aggregate, zycosoil modified stone aggregate, over burnt brick aggregate and zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Results show that addition of zycosoil with stone aggregate increased stability by 6% and addition of zycosoil with over burnt brick aggregate increased stability by 30%.

Keywords: Asphalt Concrete, Over Burnt Brick Aggregate, Marshall Stability, Zycosoil.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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Governments around the world are adopting Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) because of the important opportunities it provides through E-government (EG) to modernize government public administration processes and delivery of quality and efficient public services. Almost every country in the world is adopting ICT in its public sector administration (EG) to modernize and change the traditional process of government, increase citizen engagement and participation in governance, as well as the provision of timely information to citizens. This paper, therefore, seeks to present the adoption, development and implementation of EG in regions globally, as well as the ICT indicators around the world, which are making EG initiatives successful. Europe leads the world in its EG adoption and development index, followed by the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Africa. There is a gradual growth in ICT indicators in terms of the increase in Internet access and usage, increase in broadband penetration, an increase of individuals using the Internet at home and a decline in fixed telephone use, while the mobile cellular phone has been on the increase year-on-year. Though the lack of ICT infrastructure is a major challenge to EG adoption and implementation around the world, in Africa it is very pervasive, hampering the expansion of Internet access and provision of broadband, and hence is a barrier to the successful adoption, development, and implementation of EG initiatives in countries on the continent. But with the general improvement and increase in ICT indicators around the world, it provides countries in Europe, Americas, Asia, Arab States, Oceania and Africa with the huge opportunity to enhance public service delivery through the adoption of EG. Countries within these regions cannot fail their citizens who desire to enjoy an enhanced and efficient public service delivery from government and its many state institutions.

Keywords: E-government development index, e-government, indicators, information and communication technologies.

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Authors: P. Valsalal, S. Thangalakshmi

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There is a widespread changeover in the electrical power industry universally from old-style monopolistic outline towards a horizontally distributed competitive structure to come across the demand of rising consumption. When the transmission lines of derestricted system are incapable to oblige the entire service needs, the lines are overloaded or congested. The governor between customer and power producer is nominated as Independent System Operator (ISO) to lessen the congestion without obstructing transmission line restrictions. Among the existing approaches for congestion management, the frequently used approaches are reorganizing the generation and load curbing. There is a boundary for reorganizing the generators, and further loads may not be supplemented with the prevailing resources unless more private power producers are added in the system by considerably raising the cost. Hence, congestion is relaxed by appropriate Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices which boost the existing transfer capacity of transmission lines. The FACTs device, namely, Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) is preferred, and the correct placement of UPFC is more vital and should be positioned in the highly congested line. Hence, the weak line is identified by using power flow performance index with the new objective function with proposed hybrid Fish – Bee algorithm. Further, the location of UPFC at appropriate line reduces the branch loading and minimizes the voltage deviation. The power transfer capacity of lines is determined with and without UPFC in the identified congested line of IEEE 30 bus structure and the simulated results are compared with prevailing algorithms. It is observed that the transfer capacity of existing line is increased with the presented algorithm and thus alleviating the congestion.

Keywords: Available line transfer capability, congestion management, FACTS device, hybrid fish-bee algorithm, ISO, UPFC.

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Authors: Aneta Oblouková, Eva Vítková

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The article deals with the issue of water and sewerage charge rate prices in the Czech Republic. The research is specifically focused on the analysis of the development of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rate in the Czech Republic in 1994-2021 and on the validation of the chosen methodology relevant for the prediction of the development of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rate in the Czech Republic. The research is based on data collection. The data for this research were obtained from the Czech Statistical Office. The aim of the paper is to validate the relevance of the mathematical linear trend estimate technique for the calculation of the predicted average prices of water and sewerage charge rates. The real values of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rates in the Czech Republic in 1994-2018 were obtained from the Czech Statistical Office and were converted into a mathematical equation. The same type of real data was obtained from the Czech Statistical Office for 2019-2021. Prediction of the average prices of water and sewerage charge rates in the Czech Republic in 2019-2021 was also calculated using a chosen method – a linear trend estimation technique. The values obtained from the Czech Statistical Office and the values calculated using the chosen methodology were subsequently compared. The research result is a validation of the chosen mathematical technique to be a suitable technique for this research.

Keywords: Czech Republic, linear trend estimation, price prediction, water and sewerage charge rate.

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Authors: Naci Büyükkaracığan

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Hydroclimatic observation values ​​are used in the planning of the project of water resources. Climate variables are the first of the values ​​used in planning projects. At the same time, the climate system is a complex and interactive system involving the atmosphere, land surfaces, snow and bubbles, the oceans and other water structures. The amount and distribution of precipitation, which is an important climate parameter, is a limiting environmental factor for dispersed living things. Trend analysis is applied to the detection of the presence of a pattern or trend in the data set. Many trends work in different parts of the world are usually made for the determination of climate change. The detection and attribution of past trends and variability in climatic variables is essential for explaining potential future alteration resulting from anthropogenic activities. Parametric and non-parametric tests are used for determining the trends in climatic variables. In this study, trend tests were applied to annual total precipitation data obtained in period of 1972 and 2012, in the Konya Basin. Non-parametric trend tests, (Sen’s T, Spearman’s Rho, Mann-Kendal, Sen’s T trend, Wald-Wolfowitz) and parametric test (mean square) were applied to annual total precipitations of 15 stations for trend analysis. The linear slopes (change per unit time) of trends are calculated by using a non-parametric estimator developed by Sen. The beginning of trends is determined by using the Mann-Kendall rank correlation test. In addition, homogeneities in precipitation trends are tested by using a method developed by Van Belle and Hughes. As a result of tests, negative linear slopes were found in annual total precipitations in Konya.

Keywords: Trend analysis, precipitation, hydroclimatology, Konya, Turkey.

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Authors: Komeil Valipourian, Mohsen Ramezan Shirazi, Orod Zarrin Kafsh

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By enhancing the applicatıon of grounds for establishment and due to the lack of appropriate sites, engineers attempt to seek out a new method to reduce the weakness of soils. İn aspect of economic situation, various ways have been used to decrease the weak grounds. Because of the rapid development of infrastructural facilities, spreading the construction operation is an obligation. Furthermore, in various sites with the really bad soil situation, engineers have considered obvious problems. One of the most essential ways for developing the weak soils is stone column. Obviously, the method was introduced in France in 1830 to improve a native soil initially. Stone columns have an expanding range of usage in different rough foundation sites all over the world to increase the bearing capacity, to reduce the whole and differential settlements, to enhance the rate of consolidation, to stabilize slopes stability of embankments and to increase the liquefaction resistance as well. A recent procedure called installing vertical nails along the round stone columns in order to make better the performance of considered columns is offered. Moreover, thanks to the enhancing the nail diameter, number and embedment nail depth, the positive points of vertical circumferential nails increases. Based on the result of this study, load caring capacity will be develop with enhancing the length and the power of reinforcements in vertical encasement stone column (CESC). In this study, the main purpose is comparing two methods of stone columns (installed a nail surrounding the stone columns and using geogrid on clay) for enhancing the bearing capacity, decreasing the whole and various settlements.

Keywords: Bearing Capacity, Clay, Geogrid, Nailing, Settlements, Stone Column.

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Authors: Nourhan A. Saad, Sara Elgazzar, Gehan Saleh

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The food industry nowadays is becoming customer-oriented and needs faster response time to deal with food incidents. There is a deep need for good traceability systems to help the supply chain (SC) partners to minimize production and distribution of unsafe or poor quality products, which in turn will enhance the food SC performance. The current food labeling systems implemented in developing countries cannot guarantee that food is authentic, safe and of good quality. Therefore, the use of origin labels, mainly the geographical indications (GIs), allows SC partners to define quality standards and defend their products' reputation. According to our knowledge there are no studies discussed the use of GIs in developing countries. This research represents a research schema about the implementation of European quality labeling system in developing countries and its impact on enhancing SC performance. An empirical study was conducted on the Egyptian traditional food sector based on a sample of seven restaurants implementing the Med-diet labeling system. First, in-depth interviews were carried out to analyze the Egyptian traditional food SC. Then, a framework was developed to link the European quality labeling system and SC performance. Finally, a structured survey was conducted based on the applied framework to investigate the impact of Med-diet labeling system on the SC performance. The research provides an applied framework linking Med-diet quality labeling system to SC performance of traditional food sector in developing countries generally and especially in the Egyptian traditional food sector. The framework can be used as a SC performance management tool to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of food industry's SC performance.

Keywords: Food supply chain, med-diet labeling system, quality labeling system, supply chain performance.

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Authors: A. Sunkar, A. Saraswati, Y. Santosa

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Controversies surrounding the impacts of oil palm plantations have resulted in some heated debates, especially concerning biodiversity loss and indigenous people well-being. The indigenous people of Dayak generally used wildlife to fulfill their daily needs thus were assumed to have experienced negative impacts due to oil palm developments within and surrounding their settlement areas. This study was conducted to identify the characteristics of the Dayak community settled around an oil palm plantation, to determine their perceptions of wildlife loss or gain as the results of the development of oil palm plantations, and to identify the determinant characteristic of the perceptions. The research was conducted on March 2018 in Nanga Tayap and Tajok Kayong Villages, which were located around the oil palm plantation of NTYE of Ketapang, West Kalimantan-Indonesia. Data were collected through in depth-structured interview, using closed and semi-open questionnaires and three-scale Likert statements. Interviews were conducted with 74 respondents using accidental sampling, and categorized into respondents who were dependent on oil palm for their livelihoods and those who were not. Data were analyzed using quantitative statistics method, Likert Scale, Chi-Square Test, Spearman Test, and Mann-Whitney Test. The research found that the indigenous Dayak people were aware of wildlife species loss and gain since the establishment of the plantation. Nevertheless, wildlife loss did not affect their social, economic, and cultural needs since they could find substitutions. It was found that prior to the plantation’s development, the local Dayak communities were already slowly experiencing some livelihood transitions through local village development. The only determinant characteristic of the community that influenced their perceptions of wildlife loss/gain was level of education.

Keywords: Wildlife, oil palm plantations, indigenous Dayak, biodiversity loss and gain.

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Authors: Sugandhi, Parteek Kumar, Sanmeet Kaur

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Sign Language (SL) is used by deaf and other people who cannot speak but can hear or have a problem with spoken languages due to some disability. It is a visual gesture language that makes use of either one hand or both hands, arms, face, body to convey meanings and thoughts. SL automation system is an effective way which provides an interface to communicate with normal people using a computer. In this paper, an avatar based dictionary has been proposed for text to Indian Sign Language (ISL) generation system. This research work will also depict a literature review on SL corpus available for various SL s over the years. For ISL generation system, a written form of SL is required and there are certain techniques available for writing the SL. The system uses Hamburg sign language Notation System (HamNoSys) and Signing Gesture Mark-up Language (SiGML) for ISL generation. It is developed in PHP using Web Graphics Library (WebGL) technology for 3D avatar animation. A multilingual ISL dictionary is developed using HamNoSys for both English and Hindi Language. This dictionary will be used as a database to associate signs with words or phrases of a spoken language. It provides an interface for admin panel to manage the dictionary, i.e., modification, addition, or deletion of a word. Through this interface, HamNoSys can be developed and stored in a database and these notations can be converted into its corresponding SiGML file manually. The system takes natural language input sentence in English and Hindi language and generate 3D sign animation using an avatar. SL generation systems have potential applications in many domains such as healthcare sector, media, educational institutes, commercial sectors, transportation services etc. This research work will help the researchers to understand various techniques used for writing SL and generation of Sign Language systems.

Keywords: Avatar, dictionary, HamNoSys, hearing-impaired, Indian Sign Language, sign language.

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Authors: D. Mokhtari

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Any variation in environmental characteristics of geomorphosites would lead to destabilisation of their geotouristic values all around the planet. The Urmia lake, with an area of approximately 5,500 km2 and a catchment area of 51,876 km2, and to which various reasons over time, especially in the last fifty years have seen a sharp decline and have decreased by about 93 % in two recent decades. These variations are not only driving significant changes in the morphology and ecology of the present lake landscape, but at the same time are shaping newly formed morphologies, which vanished some valuable geomorphosites or develop into smaller geomorphosites with significant value from a scientific and cultural point of view. This paper analyses and discusses features and evolution in several representative coastal and island geomorphosites. For this purpose, a total of 23 geomorphosites were studied in two data series (1963 and 2015) and the respective data were compared and analysed. The results showed, the total loss in geomorphosites area in a half century amounted to a loss of more than 90% of the valuable geomorphosites. Moreover, the comparison between the mean yearly value of coastal area lost over the entire period and the yearly average calculated for the shorter period (1998- 2014) clearly indicates a pattern of acceleration. This acceleration in the rate of reduction in lake area was seen in most of the southern half of the lake. In the region as well, the general water-level falling is not only causing the loss of a significant water resource, which is followed by major impact on regional ecosystems, but is also driving the most marked recent (last century) changes in the geotouristic landscapes. In fact, the disappearance of geomorphosites means the loss of tourism phenomenon. In this context attention must be paid to the question of conservation. The action needed to safeguard geomorphosites includes: 1) Preventive action, 2) Corrective action, and 3) Sharing knowledge.

Keywords: Changing lake, environmental changes, geomorphosite, northwest of Iran, Urmia lake.

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