Search results for: The Social Area Disclosure.

Authors: Guillaume Mullier, Jean François Chatelain

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Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs) are widely used for advanced applications, in particular in aerospace, automotive and wind energy industries. Once cured to near net shape, CFRP parts need several finishing operations such as trimming, milling or drilling in order to accommodate fastening hardware and meeting the final dimensions. The present research aims to study the effect of the cutting temperature in trimming on the mechanical strength of high performance CFRP laminates used for aeronautics applications. The cutting temperature is of great importance when dealing with trimming of CFRP. Temperatures higher than the glass-transition temperature (Tg) of the resin matrix are highly undesirable: they cause degradation of the matrix in the trimmed edges area, which can severely affect the mechanical performance of the entire component. In this study, a 9.50mm diameter CVD diamond coated carbide tool with six flutes was used to trim 24-plies CFRP laminates. A 300m/min cutting speed and 1140mm/min feed rate were used in the experiments. The tool was heated prior to trimming using a blowtorch, for temperatures ranging from 20°C to 300°C. The temperature at the cutting edge was measured using embedded KType thermocouples. Samples trimmed for different cutting temperatures, below and above Tg, were mechanically tested using three-points bending short-beam loading configurations. New cutting tools as well as worn cutting tools were utilized for the experiments. The experiments with the new tools could not prove any correlation between the length of cut, the cutting temperature and the mechanical performance. Thus mechanical strength was constant, regardless of the cutting temperature. However, for worn tools, producing a cutting temperature rising up to 450°C, thermal damage of the resin was observed. The mechanical tests showed a reduced mean resistance in short beam configuration, while the resistance in three point bending decreases with increase of the cutting temperature.

Keywords: Composites, Trimming, Thermal Damage, Surface Quality.

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Authors: Waqqas-ur-Rehman Butt, Martin Servin, Marion Pause

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In recent years, object detection has gained much attention and very encouraging research area in the field of computer vision. The robust object boundaries detection in an image is demanded in numerous applications of human computer interaction and automated surveillance systems. Many methods and approaches have been developed for automatic object detection in various fields, such as automotive, quality control management and environmental services. Inappropriately, to the best of our knowledge, object detection under illumination with shadow consideration has not been well solved yet. Furthermore, this problem is also one of the major hurdles to keeping an object detection method from the practical applications. This paper presents an approach to automatic object detection in images under non-standardized environmental conditions. A key challenge is how to detect the object, particularly under uneven illumination conditions. Image capturing conditions the algorithms need to consider a variety of possible environmental factors as the colour information, lightening and shadows varies from image to image. Existing methods mostly failed to produce the appropriate result due to variation in colour information, lightening effects, threshold specifications, histogram dependencies and colour ranges. To overcome these limitations we propose an object detection algorithm, with pre-processing methods, to reduce the interference caused by shadow and illumination effects without fixed parameters. We use the Y CrCb colour model without any specific colour ranges and predefined threshold values. The segmented object regions are further classified using morphological operations (Erosion and Dilation) and contours. Proposed approach applied on a large image data set acquired under various environmental conditions for wood stack detection. Experiments show the promising result of the proposed approach in comparison with existing methods.

Keywords: Image processing, Illumination equalization, Shadow filtering, Object detection, Colour models, Image segmentation.

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Authors: Lucia Abbamonte, Olimpia Matarazzo

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In recent years linguistic research has turned increasing attention to covert/overt strategies to modulate authorial stance and positioning in scientific texts, and to the recipients' response. This study discussed some theoretical implications of the use of rhetoric in scientific communication and analysed qualitative data from the authoritative The Cognitive Neurosciences III (2004) volume. Its genre-identity, status and readability were considered, in the social interactive context of contemporary disciplinary discourses – in their polyphony of traditional and new, emerging genres. Evidence was given of the ways its famous authors negotiate and shape knowledge and research results – explicitly appraising team work and promoting faith in the fast-paced progress of Cognitive Neuroscience, also through experiential metaphors – by presenting a set of examples, ordered according to their dominant rhetorical quality.

Keywords: Appraisal, disciplinary discourses, experientialmetaphors, genre, identity, knowledge, readability, rhetoric, strategies, theoretical implications.

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Authors: Kelechi E. Ezeji

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Instruction towards acquiring skills in the use of Computer Aided Design technologies has become a vital part of architectural education curriculum in the digital era. Its implementation, however, requires deployment of extra resources to build new infrastructure, acquisition and maintenance of new equipment, retraining of staff and recruitment of new ones who are knowledgeable in this area. This study sought to examine the impact that ownership structure of Nigerian universities had on provision of staff and infrastructure for implementing computer aided design curriculum with a view to developing a framework for the evaluation for appropriate implementation by the institutions. Survey research design was employed. The focus was on departments of architecture in universities in south-east Nigeria accredited by the National Universities Commission. Data were obtained in the areas of infrastructure and personnel for CAD implementation. A multi-stage stratified random sampling method was adopted. The first stage of stratification involved the accredited departments. Random sampling by balloting was then carried out. At the second stage, sampling size formulae was applied to obtain respondents’ number. For data analysis, analysis of variance tool for testing differences of means was used. With ρ < 0.5, the study found that there was significant difference between private-funded, state-funded and federal-funded departments of architecture in the provision of personnel and infrastructure. The implications of these findings were that for successful implementation leading to attainment of CAD proficiency to occur in every institution regardless of ownership structure, minimum evaluation guidelines needed to be set. A regular comparison of implementation in institutions was recommended as a means of rating performance. This will inform better interaction with those who consistently show weakness to challenge them towards improvement.

Keywords: Computer-aided design, curriculum, funding, infrastructure.

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Authors: Pelin Yildiz

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The term interactive education indicates the meaning related with multidisciplinary aspects of distance education following contemporary means around a common basis with different functional requirements. The aim of this paper is to reflect the new techniques in education with the new methods and inventions. These methods are better supplied by interactivity. The integration of interactive facilities in the discipline of education with distance learning is not a new concept but in addition the usage of these methods on design issue is newly being adapted to design education. In this paper the general approach of this method and after the analysis of different samples, the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches are being identified. The method of this paper is to evaluate the related samples and then analyzing the main hypothesis. The main focus is to mention the formation processes of this education. Technological developments in education should be filtered around the necessities of the design education and the structure of the system could then be formed or renewed. The conclusion indicates that interactive methods of education in design issue is a meaning capturing not only technical and computational intelligence aspects but also aesthetical and artistic approaches coming together around the same purpose.

Keywords: Interactive education, distance learning, designeducation, computational intelligence.

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Authors: M. A. Sanda, B. Johansson, J. Johansson

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The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a futureoriented human work environment and organizational activity in deep mines that entails a vision of good and safe workplace. Futureoriented technological challenges and mental images required for modern work organization design were appraised. It is argued that an intelligent-deep-mine covering the entire value chain, including environmental issues and with work organization that supports good working and social conditions towards increased human productivity could be designed. With such intelligent system and work organization in place, the mining industry could be seen as a place where cooperation, skills development and gender equality are key components. By this perspective, both the youth and women might view mining activity as an attractive job and the work environment as a safe, and this could go a long way in breaking the unequal gender balance that exists in most mines today.

Keywords: Mining activity; deep mining; human operators; intelligent deep mine; work environment; organizational activity.

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Authors: Yanru Wu, Qing Sun

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Sightseeing glass bridges located in steep valley area are being built on a large scale owing to the development of tourism. Consequently, their aerostatic stability is seriously affected by the wind field characteristics created by strong wind and special terrain, such as wind speed and wind attack angle. For instance, a cable-stayed pedestrian bridge without backstays comprised of a 60-m cantilever girder and the glass bridge deck is located in an abrupt valley, acting as a viewing platform. The bridge’s nonlinear aerostatic stability was analyzed by the segmental model test and numerical simulation in this paper. Based on aerostatic coefficients of the main girder measured in wind tunnel tests, nonlinear influences caused by the structure and aerostatic load, inhomogeneous distribution of torsion angle along the bridge axis, and the influence of initial attack angle were analyzed by using the incremental double iteration method. The results show that the aerostatic response varying with speed shows an obvious nonlinearity, and the aerostatic instability mode is of the characteristic of space deformation of bending-twisting coupling mode. The vertical and torsional deformation of the main girder is larger than its lateral deformation, with the wind speed approaching the critical wind speed. The flow of negative attack angle will reduce the bridges’ critical stability wind speed, but the influence of the negative attack angle on the aerostatic stability is more significant than that of the positive attack angle. The critical wind speeds of torsional divergence and lateral buckling are both larger than 200 m/s; namely, the bridge will not occur aerostatic instability under the action of various wind attack angles.

Keywords: Aerostatic nonlinearity, cable-stayed pedestrian bridge, numerical simulation, nonlinear aerostatic stability.

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Authors: T. M. Mousa-Balabel, M. A. Salama

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The effect of shearing date on behaviors and performances of 20 pregnant Rahmani ewes was evaluated in four groups (5each). Ewes were shorn at 70, 100 and 130 days of pregnancy in the first three groups respectively, while the fourth group was maintained unshorn as a control. Some behavioral and physiological data related to ewes in addition, blood cortisol level were recorded. Results revealed a significant increase in the frequencies of comfort and eating behaviors, respiratory rate, pulse rate, lamb birth weight and blood cortisol level in early and mid pregnancy shorn ewes. Also, a slight increase in pregnancy period was observed for those ewes. On the other hand, social behaviors, and core temperature were not affected by shearing. These results conclude that prenatal shearing (early and mid-pregnancy) of ewes increases the frequencies of comfort and eating behaviors, and improves the survival rates of lambs by increasing their birth weights.

Keywords: behavior, blood cortisol, pregnant rahmani ewes, shearing.

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Authors: Moses C. Siame, Kazutoshi Haga, Atsushi Shibayama

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This study investigates the removal of silica, alumina and phosphorus as impurities from Sanje iron ore using wet high-intensity magnetic separation (WHIMS). Sanje iron ore contains low-grade hematite ore found in Nampundwe area of Zambia from which iron is to be used as the feed in the steelmaking process. The chemical composition analysis using X-ray Florence spectrometer showed that Sanje low-grade ore contains 48.90 mass% of hematite (Fe₂O₃) with 34.18 mass% as an iron grade. The ore also contains silica (SiO₂) and alumina (Al₂O₃) of 31.10 mass% and 7.65 mass% respectively. The mineralogical analysis using X-ray diffraction spectrometer showed hematite and silica as the major mineral components of the ore while magnetite and alumina exist as minor mineral components. Mineral particle distribution analysis was done using scanning electron microscope with an X-ray energy dispersion spectrometry (SEM-EDS) and images showed that the average mineral size distribution of alumina-silicate gangue particles is in order of 100 μm and exists as iron-bearing interlocked particles. Magnetic separation was done using series L model 4 Magnetic Separator. The effect of various magnetic separation parameters such as magnetic flux density, particle size, and pulp density of the feed was studied during magnetic separation experiments. The ore with average particle size of 25 µm and pulp density of 2.5% was concentrated using pulp flow of 7 L/min. The results showed that 10 T was optimal magnetic flux density which enhanced the recovery of 93.08% of iron with 53.22 mass% grade. The gangue mineral particles containing 12 mass% silica and 3.94 mass% alumna remained in the concentrate, therefore the concentrate was further treated in the second stage WHIMS using the same parameters from the first stage. The second stage process recovered 83.41% of iron with 67.07 mass% grade. Silica was reduced to 2.14 mass% and alumina to 1.30 mass%. Accordingly, phosphorus was also reduced to 0.02 mass%. Therefore, the two stage magnetic separation process was established using these results.

Keywords: Sanje iron ore, magnetic separation, silica, alumina, recovery.

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Authors: Le Xuan Cau

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Flash flood is occurred in short time rainfall interval: from 1 hour to 12 hours in small and medium basins. Flash floods typically have two characteristics: large water flow and big flow velocity. Flash flood is occurred at hill valley site (strip of lowland of terrain) in a catchment with large enough distribution area, steep basin slope, and heavy rainfall. The risk of flash floods is determined through Gridded Basin Flash Flood Potential Index (GBFFPI). Flash Flood Potential Index (FFPI) is determined through terrain slope flash flood index, soil erosion flash flood index, land cover flash floods index, land use flash flood index, rainfall flash flood index. Determining GBFFPI, each cell in a map can be considered as outlet of a water accumulation basin. GBFFPI of the cell is determined as basin average value of FFPI of the corresponding water accumulation basin. Based on GIS, a tool is developed to compute GBFFPI using ArcObjects SDK for .NET. The maps of GBFFPI are built in two types: GBFFPI including rainfall flash flood index (real time flash flood warning) or GBFFPI excluding rainfall flash flood index. GBFFPI Tool can be used to determine a high flash flood potential site in a large region as quick as possible. The GBFFPI is improved from conventional FFPI. The advantage of GBFFPI is that GBFFPI is taking into account the basin response (interaction of cells) and determines more true flash flood site (strip of lowland of terrain) while conventional FFPI is taking into account single cell and does not consider the interaction between cells. The GBFFPI Map of QuangNam, QuangNgai, DaNang, Hue is built and exported to Google Earth. The obtained map proves scientific basis of GBFFPI.

Keywords: ArcObjects SDK for .NET, Basin average value of FFPI, Gridded basin flash flood potential index, GBFFPI map.

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Authors: R. Altamimi, G. Skinner, K. Nesbitt

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Encouraging physical activity amongst children and adolescents is becoming an increasingly relevant issue in modern society. Studies have shown that involving children and adolescents in physical activity is essential for their physical, mental and social development. However, with technology playing an increasingly important role in reducing physical work it is becoming more critical to incorporate adequate physical activities into our lives. One way to overcome this problem is to harness technology so that it promotes physical activities, for example, by motivating children and adolescents to exercise more. This paper describes a promising solution to the question of how to increase levels of physical activity in children and adolescents by combining gaming technologies with exercise tracking goals. This research describes a framework called FITTER (Framework for Integrating activity Tracking Technologies for Electronic Recreation) that combines video game play with more traditional, non-computer physical activities.

Keywords: Exergames, Home-based eHealth, Human-computer Interaction, Natural User Interfaces, Wearable Health Informatics.

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Authors: Nophaket Napong

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Rooted in the study of social functioning of space in architecture, Space Syntax (SS) and the more recent Network Pattern (NP) researches demonstrate the 'spatial structures' of city, i.e. the hierarchical patterns of streets, junctions and alley ends. Applying SS and NP models, planners can conceptualize the real city-s patterns. Although, both models yield the optimal path of the city their underpinning displays of the city-s spatial configuration differ. The Axial Map analyzes the topological non-distance-based connectivity structure, whereas, the Central-Node Map and the Shortcut-Path Map, in contrast, analyze the metrical distance-based structures. This research contrasts and combines them to understand various forms of city-s structures. It concludes that, while they reveal different spatial structures, Space Syntax and Network Pattern urban models support each the other. Combining together they simulate the global access and the locally compact structures namely the central nodes and the shortcuts for the city.

Keywords: Street pattern, space syntax, syntactic and metrical models, network pattern models.

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Authors: Alireza Azimi Sani , Shahram Chaharmahalie

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Internal controls of accounting are an essential business function for a growth-oriented organization, and include the elements of risk assessment, information communications and even employees' roles and responsibilities. Internal controls of accounting systems are designed to protect a company from fraud, abuse and inaccurate data recording and help organizations keep track of essential financial activities. Internal controls of accounting provide a streamlined solution for organizing all accounting procedures and ensuring that the accounting cycle is completed consistently and successfully. Implementing a formal Accounting Procedures Manual for the organization allows the financial department to facilitate several processes and maintain rigorous standards. Internal controls also allow organizations to keep detailed records, manage and organize important financial transactions and set a high standard for the organization's financial management structure and protocols. A well-implemented system also reduces the risk of accounting errors and abuse. A well-implemented controls system allows a company's financial managers to regulate and streamline all functions of the accounting department. Internal controls of accounting can be set up for every area to track deposits, monitor check handling, keep track of creditor accounts, and even assess budgets and financial statements on an ongoing basis. Setting up an effective accounting system to monitor accounting reports, analyze records and protect sensitive financial information also can help a company set clear goals and make accurate projections. Creating efficient accounting processes allows an organization to set specific policies and protocols on accounting procedures, and reach its financial objectives on a regular basis. Internal accounting controls can help keep track of such areas as cash-receipt recording, payroll management, appropriate recording of grants and gifts, cash disbursements by authorized personnel, and the recording of assets. These systems also can take into account any government regulations and requirements for financial reporting.

Keywords: Internal controls, risk assessment, financial management.

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Authors: Jia-Ru Li, Chih-Hung Wang, Ching-Wen Lin

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The association between emotional inhibition strategies linked to depression has been showed inconsistent among studies. Mild emotional inhibition maybe benefit for social interaction, especially for female among East Asian cultures. The present study aimed to examine whether the inhibition–depression relationship is dependent on level of emotion inhibition and gender context, given differing value of suppressing emotional displays. We hypothesized that the negative associations between inhibition and adolescent depression would not directly, in which affected by interaction between emotion inhibition and gender. To test this hypothesis, we asked 309 junior high school students which age range from 12 to14 years old to report on their use of emotion inhibition and depression syndrome. A multiple regressions analysis revealed that significant interaction that gender as a moderator to the relationships between emotion inhibition and adolescent depression. The group with the highest level of depression was girls with high levels of emotion inhibition, whose depression score was higher than that of boys with high levels of emotion inhibition. The result highlights that the importance of context in understanding the inhibition-depression relationship.

Keywords: Emotional inhibition strategies, gender, adolescent depression.

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Authors: Ameer A. Jebur, William Atherton, Rafid M. Alkhaddar, Edward Loffill

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Superstructures like offshore platforms, tall buildings, transition towers, skyscrapers and bridges are normally designed to resist compression, uplift and lateral forces from wind waves, negative skin friction, ship impact and other applied loads. Better understanding and the precise simulation of the response of batter piles under the action of independent uplift loads is a vital topic and an area of active research in the field of geotechnical engineering. This paper investigates the use of finite element code (FEC) to examine the behaviour of model batter piles penetrated in dense sand, subjected to pull-out pressure by means of numerical modelling. The concept of the Winkler Model (beam on elastic foundation) has been used in which the interaction between the pile embedded depth and adjacent soil in the bearing zone is simulated by nonlinear p-y curves. The analysis was conducted on different pile slenderness ratios (lc⁄d) ranging from 7.5, 15.22 and 30 respectively. In addition, the optimum batter angle for a model steel pile penetrated in dense sand has been chosen to be 20° as this is the best angle for this simulation as demonstrated by other researcher published in literature. In this numerical analysis, the soil response is idealized as elasto-plastic and the model piles are described as elastic materials for the purpose of simulation. The results revealed that the applied loads affect the pullout pile capacity as well as the lateral pile response for dense sand together with varying shear strength parameters linked to the pile critical depth. Furthermore, the pile pull-out capacity increases with increasing the pile aspect ratios.

Keywords: Slenderness ratio, soil-pile interaction, winkler model (beam on elastic foundation), pull-out capacity.

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Authors: Linnea Stenliden

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The aim of this paper is to understand emerging learning conditions, when a visual analytics is implemented and used in K 12 (education). To date, little attention has been paid to the role visual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in education, and to the extent to which these tools can process actionable data for young students. This study was conducted in three public K 12 schools, in four social science classes with students aged 10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school. Empirical data were generated using video observations and analyzed with help of metaphors within Actor-network theory (ANT). The learning conditions are found to be distinguished by broad complexity, characterized by four dimensions. These emerge from the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper argues in relation to the found dimensions that novel approaches to teaching and learning could benefit students’ knowledge building as they work with visual analytics, analyzing visualized data.

Keywords: Analytical reasoning, complexity, data use, problem space, visual analytics, visual storytelling, translation.

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Authors: Y. Egercioglu, S. Yalciner

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With the development of technology, the growing trend of fast and safe passenger transport, air pollution, traffic congestion, increase in problems such as the increasing population and the high cost of private vehicle usage made many cities around the world with a population of more or less, start to build rail systems as a means of urban transport in order to ensure the economic and environmental sustainability and more efficient use of land in the city. The implementation phase of rail systems costs much more than other public transport systems. However, social and economic returns in the long term made these systems the most popular investment tool for planned and developing cities. In our country, the purpose, goals and policies of transportation plans are away from integrity, and the problems are not clearly detected. Also, not defined and incomplete assessment of transportation systems and insufficient financial analysis are the most important cause of failure. Rail systems and other transportation systems to be addressed as a whole is seen as the main factor in increasing efficiency in applications that are not integrated yet in our country to come to this point has led to the problem.

Keywords: Urban Transportation Projects, Urban Light Rail Systems, Urbanization, Izmir.

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Authors: Khalid Al Siyabi, Angie Al Habib

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To measure or asses any government’s efficiency we need to measure the performance of this government in regards to the quality of the service it provides. Using a technological platform in service provision became a trend and a public demand. It is also a public need to make sure these services are aligned to values and to the whole government’s strategy, vision and goals as well. Providing services using technology tools and channels can enhance the internal business process and also help establish many essential values to government services like transparency and excellence, since in order to establish e-services many standards and policies must be put in place to enable the handing over of decision making to a mature system oriented mechanism. There was no doubt that the Sultanate of Oman wanted to enhance its services and move it towards automation and establishes a smart government as well as links its services to life events. Measuring government efficiency is very essential in achieving social security and economic growth, since it can provide a clear dashboard of all projects and improvements. Based on this data we can improve the strategies and align the country goals to them.

Keywords: Government, Maturity, Oman, Performance, Service.

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Authors: Peng Zhang, Lihui Zheng, Xiangchun Wang, Xiaopan Kou

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Quantitative research on the main control factors of lost circulation has few considerations and single data source. Using Unmanned Intervention Algorithm to find the main control factors of lost circulation adopts all measurable parameters. The degree of lost circulation is characterized by the loss rate as the objective function. Geological, engineering and fluid data are used as layers, and 27 factors such as wellhead coordinates and Weight on Bit (WOB) used as dimensions. Data classification is implemented to determine function independent variables. The mathematical equation of loss rate and 27 influencing factors is established by multiple regression method, and the undetermined coefficient method is used to solve the undetermined coefficient of the equation. Only three factors in t-test are greater than the test value 40, and the F-test value is 96.557%, indicating that the correlation of the model is good. The funnel viscosity, final shear force and drilling time were selected as the main control factors by elimination method, contribution rate method and functional method. The calculated values of the two wells used for verification differ from the actual values by -3.036 m3/h and -2.374 m3/h, with errors of 7.21% and 6.35%. The influence of engineering factors on the loss rate is greater than that of funnel viscosity and final shear force, and the influence of the three factors is less than that of geological factors. The best combination of funnel viscosity, final shear force and drilling time is obtained through quantitative calculation. The minimum loss rate of lost circulation wells in Shunbei area is 10 m3/h. It can be seen that man-made main control factors can only slow down the leakage, but cannot fundamentally eliminate it. This is more in line with the characteristics of karst caves and fractures in Shunbei fault solution oil and gas reservoir.

Keywords: Drilling fluid, loss rate, main controlling factors, Unmanned Intervention Algorithm.

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Authors: Md. Asraful Haque, Babbar Imam

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Information Security is the most describing problem in present times. To cop up with the security of the information, the passwords were introduced. The alphanumeric passwords are the most popular authentication method and still used up to now. However, text based passwords suffer from various drawbacks such as they are easy to crack through dictionary attacks, brute force attacks, keylogger, social engineering etc. Graphical Password is a good replacement for text password. Psychological studies say that human can remember pictures better than text. So this is the fact that graphical passwords are easy to remember. But at the same time due to this reason most of the graphical passwords are prone to shoulder surfing. In this paper, we have suggested a shoulder-surfing resistant graphical password authentication method. The system is a combination of recognition and pure recall based techniques. Proposed scheme can be useful for smart hand held devices (like smart phones i.e. PDAs, iPod, iPhone, etc) which are more handy and convenient to use than traditional desktop computer systems.

Keywords: Authentication, Graphical Password, Text Password, Information Security, Shoulder-surfing.

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Authors: Robert F. Kenny, Glenda A. Gunter

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Current technological advances pale in comparison to the changes in social behaviors and 'sense of place' that is being empowered since the Internet made it on the scene. Today-s students view the Internet as both a source of entertainment and an educational tool. The development of virtual environments is a conceptual framework that needs to be addressed by educators and it is important that they become familiar with who these virtual learners are and how they are motivated to learn. Massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), if well designed, could become the vehicle of choice to deliver learning content. We suggest that these games, in order to accomplish these goals, must begin with well-established instructional design principles that are co-aligned with established principles of video game design. And have the opportunity to provide an instructional model of significant prescriptive power. The authors believe that game designers need to take advantage of the natural motivation player-learners have for playing games by developing them in such a way so as to promote, intrinsic motivation, content learning, transfer of knowledge, and naturalization.

Keywords: serious games, endogenous fantasy, intrinsic motivation, online learning.

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Authors: Victoria S. Scarratt

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Couples involved in age-gap relationships generally evoke negative stereotypes, opinions, and social disapproval. This research seeks to examine whether financial disparities in age-discrepant relationships cause negative attitudes in study participants. It was hypothesized that an age-gap couple (29-year difference) would receive a greater degree of societal disapproval when the couple also had a large salary-gap compared to a similarly aged couple (1-year difference) with a salary-gap. Additionally, there would be no significant difference between age-gap couples without a salary-gap compared to a similarly aged couple without a salary gap. To test the hypothesis, participants were given one of four scenarios regarding a couple in a romantic relationship. Then they were asked to respond to nine Likert scale questions. Results indicated that participants perceived age-gap relationships with a salary disparity to be less equitable in regard to a power imbalance between the couple and the financial and general gain that one partner will receive. A significant interaction was also detected for evoking feelings of disgust in participants, and how morally correct it is for the couple to continue their relationship.

Keywords: Age-gap relationships, financial discrepancies, love, relationships, societal stigmas.

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Authors: André M. Senna, Mary L. G. S. Senna, Rosa M. Machado-de-Sena

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One of the great challenges presented in educational practice is how to ensure the students not only acquire knowledge of training courses throughout their academic life, but also how to apply it in their current professional activities. Consequently, aiming to incite changes in the education system of healthcare professionals noticed the inadequacy of the training providers to solve the social problems related to health, the education related to these procedures should initiate in the earliest years of process. Following that idea, there is another question that needs an answer: If the change in the education should start sooner, in the period of basic training of healthcare professionals, what guidelines should a permanent education program incorporate to promote changes in an already established system? For this reason, the objective of this paper is to present different views of the teaching-learning process, with the purpose of better understanding the behavior adopted by healthcare professionals, through bibliographic study. The conclusion was that more than imparting knowledge to the individual, a larger approach is necessary on permanent education programs concerning the performance of professional health services in order to foment significant changes in education.

Keywords: Health education, continuing education, training, behavior.

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Authors: I. Székács, Á. Fejes, S. Klátyik, E. Takács, D. Patkó, J. Pomóthy, M. Mörtl, R. Horváth, E. Madarász, B. Darvas, A. Székács

Abstract:

Environmental and toxicological characteristics of formulated pesticides may substantially differ from those of their active ingredients or other components alone. This phenomenon is demonstrated in the case of the herbicide active ingredient glyphosate. Due to its extensive application, this active ingredient was found in surface and ground water samples collected in Békés County, Hungary, in the concentration range of 0.54–0.98 ng/ml. The occurrence of glyphosate appeared to be somewhat higher at areas under intensive agriculture, industrial activities and public road services, but the compound was detected at areas under organic (ecological) farming or natural grasslands, indicating environmental mobility. Increased toxicity of the formulated herbicide product Roundup compared to that of glyphosate was observed on the indicator aquatic organism Daphnia magna Straus. Acute LC₅₀ values of Roundup and its formulating adjuvant polyethoxylated tallowamine (POEA) exceeded 20 and 3.1 mg/ml, respectively, while that of glyphosate (as isopropyl salt) was found to be substantially lower (690-900 mg/ml) showing good agreement with literature data. Cytotoxicity of Roundup, POEA and glyphosate has been determined on the neuroectodermal cell line, NE-4C measured both by cell viability test and holographic microscopy. Acute toxicity (LC₅₀) of Roundup, POEA and glyphosate on NE-4C cells was found to be 0.013±0.002%, 0.017±0.009% and 6.46±2.25%, respectively (in equivalents of diluted Roundup solution), corresponding to 0.022±0.003 and 53.1±18.5 mg/ml for POEA and glyphosate, respectively, indicating no statistical difference between Roundup and POEA and 2.5 orders of magnitude difference between these and glyphosate. The same order of cellular toxicity seen in average cell area has been indicated under quantitative cell visualization. The results indicate that toxicity of the formulated herbicide is caused by the formulating agent, but in some parameters toxicological synergy occurs between POEA and glyphosate.

Keywords: Glyphosate, polyethoxylated tallowamine, Roundup, combined aquatic and cellular toxicity, synergy.

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Authors: Álvaro Machado Dias, Eduardo Oda, Henrique Teruo Akiba, Leo Arruda, Luiz Felipe Bruder

Abstract:

Cognitive Dissonance can be conceived both as a concept related to the tendency to avoid internal contradictions in certain situations, and as a higher order theory about information processing in the human mind. In the last decades, this last sense has been strongly surpassed by the former, as nearly all experiment on the matter discuss cognitive dissonance as an output of motivational contradictions. In that sense, the question remains: is cognitive dissonance a process intrinsically associated with the way that the mind processes information, or is it caused by such specific contradictions? Objective: To evaluate the effects of cognitive dissonance in the absence of rewards or any mechanisms to manipulate motivation. Method: To solve this question, we introduce a new task, the hypothetical social arrays paradigm, which was applied to 50 undergraduate students. Results: Our findings support the perspective that the human mind shows a tendency to avoid internal dissonance even when there are no rewards or punishment involved. Moreover, our findings also suggest that this principle works outside the conscious level.

Keywords: Cognitive Dissonance, Cognitive Psychology, Information Processing.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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Public sector organizations, ministries, departments and local government agencies are adopting e-government as a means to provide efficient and quality service delivery to citizens. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the extent to which perceived usefulness (PU) of e-government services moderates between perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) of e-government services and intention to use (IU) e-government services in Ghana. A structured research questionnaire instrument was developed and administered to 700 potential respondents in Ghana, of which 693 responded, representing 99% of the questionnaires distributed. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to capture and analyze the data. The results indicate that even though predictors such as PU and PEOU are main determiners of citizens’ intention to adopt and use e-government services in Ghana, it failed to show that PEOU and IU e-government services in Ghana is significantly moderated by the PU of e-government services. The implication of this finding on theory and practice is further discussed.

Keywords: E-government services, intention to use, moderating role, perceived ease-of-use, perceived usefulness, Ghana, technology acceptance model.

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Authors: Mehrangiz Rezaee, Zabih Charrahi

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In the last decade, with increasing tourism destinations and tourism growth, we are witnessing the widespread impacts of tourism on the economy, environment and society. Tourism and its related economy are now undergoing a transformation and as one of the key pillars of business economics, it plays a vital role in the world economy. Activities related to tourism and providing services appropriate to it in an area, like many economic sectors, require the necessary context on its origin. Given the importance of tourism industry and tourism potentials of Yazd province in Iran, it is necessary to use a proper procedure for prioritizing different areas for proper and efficient planning. One of the most important goals of planning is foresight and creating balanced development in different geographical areas. This process requires an accurate study of the areas and potential and actual talents, as well as evaluation and understanding of the relationship between the indicators affecting the development of the region. At the global and regional level, the development of tourist resorts and the proper distribution of tourism destinations are needed to counter environmental impacts and risks. The main objective of this study is the sustainable development of suitable tourism areas. Given that tourism activities in different territorial areas require operational zoning, this study deals with the evaluation of territorial tourism using concepts such as land use, fitness and sustainable development. It is essential to understand the structure of tourism development and the spatial development of tourism using land use patterns, spatial planning and sustainable development. Tourism spatial planning implements different approaches. However, the development of tourism as well as the spatial development of tourism is complex, since tourist activities can be carried out in different areas with different purposes. Multipurpose areas have great important for tourism because it determines the flow of tourism. Therefore, in this paper, by studying the development and determination of tourism suitability that is related to spatial development, it is possible to plan tourism spatial development by developing a model that describes the characteristics of tourism. The results of this research determine the suitability of multi-functional territorial tourism development in line with spatial planning of tourism.

Keywords: Land use change, spatial planning, sustainability, territorial tourist, Yazd.

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Authors: N. Porzionato, M. Mantiñan, E. Bussi, S. Grinberg, R. Gutierrez, G. Curutchet

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This work sets out to debate the tensions involved in the processes of contamination and self-purification in the urban space, particularly in the streams that run through the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. For much of their course, those streams are piped; their waters do not come into contact with the outdoors until they have reached deeply impoverished urban areas with high levels of environmental contamination. These are peripheral zones that, until thirty years ago, were marshlands and fields. They are now densely populated areas largely lacking in urban infrastructure. The Cárcova neighborhood, where this project is underway, is in the José León Suárez section of General San Martín county, Buenos Aires province. A stretch of José León Suarez canal crosses the neighborhood. Starting upstream, this canal carries pollutants due to the sewage and industrial waste released into it. Further downstream, in the neighborhood, domestic drainage is poured into the stream. In this paper, we formulate a hypothesis diametrical to the one that holds that these neighborhoods are the primary source of contamination, suggesting instead that in the stretch of the canal that runs through the neighborhood the stream’s waters are actually cleaned and the sediments accumulate pollutants. Indeed, the stretches of water that runs through these neighborhoods act as water processing plants for the metropolis. This project has studied the different organic-load polluting contributions to the water in a certain stretch of the canal, the reduction of that load over the course of the canal, and the incorporation of pollutants into the sediments. We have found that the surface water has considerable ability to self-purify, mostly due to processes of sedimentation and adsorption. The polluting load is accumulated in the sediments where that load stabilizes slowly by means of anaerobic processes. In this study, we also investigated the risks of sediment management and the use of the processes studied here in controlled conditions as tools of environmental restoration.

Keywords: Bioremediation, pollutants, sediments, urban streams.

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Authors: Lubna Eljabu, Mohammad Etemad, Stan Matwin

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The automatic extraction of shipping routes is advantageous for intelligent traffic management systems to identify events and support decision-making in maritime surveillance. At present, there is a high demand for the extraction of maritime traffic networks that resemble the real traffic of vessels accurately, which is valuable for further analytical processing tasks for vessels trajectories (e.g., naval routing and voyage planning, anomaly detection, destination prediction, time of arrival estimation). With the help of big data and processing huge amounts of vessels’ trajectory data, it is possible to learn these shipping routes from the navigation history of past behaviour of other, similar ships that were travelling in a given area. In this paper, we propose a spatial clustering model of vessels’ trajectories (SPTCLUST) to extract spatial representations of sailing routes from historical Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. The whole model consists of three main parts: data preprocessing, path finding, and route extraction, which consists of clustering and representative trajectory extraction. The proposed clustering method provides techniques to overcome the problems of: (i) optimal input parameters selection; (ii) the high complexity of processing a huge volume of multidimensional data; (iii) and the spatial representation of complete representative trajectory detection in the context of trajectory clustering algorithms. The experimental evaluation showed the effectiveness of the proposed model by using a real-world AIS dataset from the Port of Halifax. The results contribute to further understanding of shipping route patterns. This could aid surveillance authorities in stable and sustainable vessel traffic management.

Keywords: Vessel trajectory clustering, trajectory mining, Spatial Clustering, marine intelligent navigation, maritime traffic network extraction, sdailing routes extraction.

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Authors: Juliana A. Galhardi, Daniel M. Bonotto

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Coal is an important non-renewable energy source of and can be associated with radioactive elements. In Figueira city, Paraná state, Brazil, it was recorded high uranium activity near the coal mine that supplies a local thermoelectric power plant. In this context, the radon activity (Rn-222, produced by the Ra-226 decay in the U-238 natural series) was evaluated in groundwater, river water and effluents produced from the acid mine drainage in the coal reject dumps. The samples were collected in August 2013 and in February 2014 and analyzed at LABIDRO (Laboratory of Isotope and Hydrochemistry), UNESP, Rio Claro city, Brazil, using an alpha spectrometer (AlphaGuard) adjusted to evaluate the mean radon activity concentration in five cycles of 10 minutes. No radon activity concentration above 100 Bq.L-1, which was a previous critic value established by the World Health Organization. The average radon activity concentration in groundwater was higher than in surface water and in effluent samples, possibly due to the accumulation of uranium and radium in the aquifer layers that favors the radon trapping. The lower value in the river waters can indicate dilution and the intermediate value in the effluents may indicate radon absorption in the coal particles of the reject dumps. The results also indicate that the radon activities in the effluents increase with the sample acidification, possibly due to the higher radium leaching and the subsequent radon transport to the drainage flow. The water samples of Laranjinha River and Ribeirão das Pedras stream, which, respectively, supply Figueira city and receive the mining effluent, exhibited higher pH values upstream the mine, reflecting the acid mine drainage discharge. The radionuclides transport indicates the importance of monitoring their activity concentration in natural waters due to the risks that the radioactivity can represent to human health.

Keywords: Radon, radium, acid mine drainage, coal

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