Search results for: Production Planning and Control.

Authors: Samedin Mehmeti

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The rationale behind this study is considering combating and preventing the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings from a multidisciplinary perspective that involves many layers of the society. Trafficking in human beings is an abhorrent phenomenon highly affecting negatively the victims and their families in both human and material aspect, sometimes causing irreversible damages. The longer term effects of this phenomenon, in countries with a weak economic development and extremely young and dynamic population, such as Kosovo, without proper measures to prevented and control can cause tremendous damages in the society. Given the fact that a complete eradication of this phenomenon is almost impossible, efforts should be concentrated at least on the prevention and controlling aspects. Treating trafficking in human beings based on traditional police tactics, methods and proceedings cannot bring satisfactory results. There is no doubt that a multi-disciplinary approach is an irreplaceable requirement, in other words, a combination of authentic and functional proactive and reactive methods, techniques and tactics. Obviously, police must exercise its role in preventing and combating trafficking in human beings, a role sanctioned by the law, however, police role and contribution cannot by any means considered complete if all segments of the society are not included in these efforts. Naturally, civil society should have an important share in these collaborative and interactive efforts especially in preventive activities such as: awareness on trafficking risks and damages, proactive engagement in drafting appropriate legislation and strategies, law enforcement monitoring and direct or indirect involvement in protective and supporting activities which benefit the victims of trafficking etc.

Keywords: Civil society, cooperation, police, trafficking in human beings.

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Authors: Ronald F. Gonzales, Gordon W. Romney, Pradip Peter Dey, Mohammad Amin, Bhaskar Raj Sinha

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A virtualized and virtual approach is presented on academically preparing students to successfully engage at a strategic perspective to understand those concerns and measures that are both structured and not structured in the area of cyber security and information assurance. The Master of Science in Cyber Security and Information Assurance (MSCSIA) is a professional degree for those who endeavor through technical and managerial measures to ensure the security, confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, control, availability and utility of the world-s computing and information systems infrastructure. The National University Cyber Security and Information Assurance program is offered as a Master-s degree. The emphasis of the MSCSIA program uniquely includes hands-on academic instruction using virtual computers. This past year, 2011, the NU facility has become fully operational using system architecture to provide a Virtual Education Laboratory (VEL) accessible to both onsite and online students. The first student cohort completed their MSCSIA training this past March 2, 2012 after fulfilling 12 courses, for a total of 54 units of college credits. The rapid pace scheduling of one course per month is immensely challenging, perpetually changing, and virtually multifaceted. This paper analyses these descriptive terms in consideration of those globalization penetration breaches as present in today-s world of cyber security. In addition, we present current NU practices to mitigate risks.

Keywords: Cyber security, information assurance, mitigate risks, virtual machines, strategic perspective.

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Authors: Guarry Montrose, Ted Soubdhan

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In the fight against climate change, the energy consuming building sector must also be taken into account to solve this problem. In this case thermal insulation of buildings using bio-based materials is an interesting solution. Therefore, the thermal performance of some materials of this type has been studied. The advantages of these natural materials of plant origin are multiple, biodegradable, low economic cost, renewable and readily available. The use of biobased materials is widespread in the building sector in order to replace conventional insulation materials with natural materials. Vegetable fibers are very important because they have good thermal behaviour and good insulating properties. The aim of using bio-sourced materials is in line with the logic of energy control and environmental protection, the approach is to make the inhabitants of the houses comfortable and reduce their energy consumption (energy efficiency). In this research we will present the results of studies carried out on the thermal conductivity of banana leaves, latan leaves, vetivers fibers, palm kernel fibers, sargassum, coconut leaves, sawdust and bulk sugarcane leaves. The study on thermal conductivity was carried out in two ways, on the one hand using the flash method, and on the other hand a so-called hot box experiment was carried out. We will discuss and highlight a number of influential factors such as moisture and air pockets present in the samples on the thermophysical properties of these materials, in particular thermal conductivity. Finally, the result of a thermal performance test of banana leaves on a roof in Haiti will also be presented in this work.

Keywords: Buildings, insulating properties, natural materials of plant origin, thermal performance.

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Authors: Bitan Kumar Sarkar, Akashdeep Agarwal, Rajib Dey, Gopes Chandra Das

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The rapid depletion of high-grade iron ore (Fe₂O₃) has gained attention on the use of other sources of iron ore. Titaniferous magnetite ore (TMO) is a special type of magnetite ore having high titania content (23.23% TiO₂ present in this case). Due to high TiO₂ content and high density, TMO cannot be treated by the conventional smelting reduction. In this present work, the TMO has been collected from high-grade metamorphic terrain of the Precambrian Chotanagpur gneissic complex situated in the eastern part of India (Shaltora area, Bankura district, West Bengal) and the hematite ore has been collected from Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), Visakhapatnam. At VSP, iron ore is received from Bailadila mines, Chattisgarh of M/s. National Mineral Development Corporation. The preliminary characterization of TMO and hematite ore (HMO) has been investigated by WDXRF, XRD and FESEM analyses. Similarly, good quality of coal (mainly coking coal) is also getting depleted fast. The basic purpose of this work is to find how lean grade coal can be utilised along with TMO for smelting to produce pig iron. Lean grade coal has been characterised by using TG/DTA, proximate and ultimate analyses. The boiler grade coal has been found to contain 28.08% of fixed carbon and 28.31% of volatile matter. TMO fines (below 75 μm) and HMO fines (below 75 μm) have been separately agglomerated with lean grade coal fines (below 75 μm) in the form of briquettes using binders like bentonite and molasses. These green briquettes are dried first in oven at 423 K for 30 min and then reduced isothermally in tube furnace over the temperature range of 1323 K, 1373 K and 1423 K for 30 min & 60 min. After reduction, the reduced briquettes are characterized by XRD and FESEM analyses. The best reduced TMO and HMO samples are taken and blended in three different weight percentage ratios of 1:4, 1:8 and 1:12 of TMO:HMO. The chemical analysis of three blended samples is carried out and degree of metallisation of iron is found to contain 89.38%, 92.12% and 93.12%, respectively. These three blended samples are briquetted using binder like bentonite and lime. Thereafter these blended briquettes are separately smelted in raising hearth furnace at 1773 K for 30 min. The pig iron formed is characterized using XRD, microscopic analysis. It can be concluded that 90% yield of pig iron can be achieved when the blend ratio of TMO:HMO is 1:4.5. This means for 90% yield, the maximum TMO that could be used in the blend is about 18%.

Keywords: Briquetting reduction, lean grade coal, smelting reduction, TMO.

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Authors: Dongseok Cho, Mitchell Driedger, Sera Han, Noman Khan, Mohammed Elmorsy, Mohamad El-Hajj

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Since the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine in late 2020, vaccination rates have varied around the globe. Access to a vaccine supply, mandated vaccination policy, and vaccine hesitancy contribute to these rates. This study used COVID-19 vaccination data from Our World in Data and the Multilateral Leaders Task Force on COVID-19 to create two COVID-19 vaccination indices. The first index is the Vaccine Utilization Index (VUI), which measures how effectively each country has utilized its vaccine supply to doubly vaccinate its population. The second index is the Vaccination Acceleration Index (VAI), which evaluates how efficiently each country vaccinated their populations within their first 150 days. Pearson correlations were created between these indices and country indicators obtained from the World Bank. Results of these correlations identify countries with stronger Health indicators such as lower mortality rates, lower age-dependency ratios, and higher rates of immunization to other diseases display higher VUI and VAI scores than countries with lesser values. VAI scores are also positively correlated to Governance and Economic indicators, such as regulatory quality, control of corruption, and GDP per capita. As represented by the VUI, proper utilization of the COVID-19 vaccine supply by country is observed in countries that display excellence in health practices. A country’s motivation to accelerate its vaccination rates within the first 150 days of vaccinating, as represented by the VAI, was largely a product of the governing body’s effectiveness and economic status, as well as overall excellence in health practises.

Keywords: Data mining, Pearson Correlation, COVID-19, vaccination rates, hesitancy.

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Authors: R.M. Kainkwa

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The African Great Lakes Region refers to the zone around lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Malawi. The main source of electricity in this region is hydropower whose systems are generally characterized by relatively weak, isolated power schemes, poor maintenance and technical deficiencies with limited electricity infrastructures. Most of the hydro sources are rain fed, and as such there is normally a deficiency of water during the dry seasons and extended droughts. In such calamities fossil fuels sources, in particular petroleum products and natural gas, are normally used to rescue the situation but apart from them being nonrenewable, they also release huge amount of green house gases to our environment which in turn accelerates the global warming that has at present reached an amazing stage. Wind power is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and free energy source that does not consume or pollute water. Wind generated electricity is one of the most practical and commercially viable option for grid quality and utility scale electricity production. However, the main shortcoming associated with electric wind power generation is fluctuation in its output both in space and time. Before making a decision to establish a wind park at a site, the wind speed features there should therefore be known thoroughly as well as local demand or transmission capacity. The main objective of this paper is to utilise monthly average wind speed data collected from one prospective site within the African Great Lakes Region to demonstrate that the available wind power there is high enough to generate electricity. The mean monthly values were calculated from records gathered on hourly basis for a period of 5 years (2001 to 2005) from a site in Tanzania. The documentations that were collected at a height of 2 m were projected to a height of 50 m which is the standard hub height of wind turbines. The overall monthly average wind speed was found to be 12.11 m/s whereas June to November was established to be the windy season as the wind speed during the session is above the overall monthly wind speed. The available wind power density corresponding to the overall mean monthly wind speed was evaluated to be 1072 W/m2, a potential that is worthwhile harvesting for the purpose of electric generation.

Keywords: Hydro power, windy season, available wind powerdensity.

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Authors: Bahram Khan, Anderson Rocha Ramos, Rui R. Paulo, Fernando J. Velez

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With the growing demand for a new blend of applications, the users dependency on the internet is increasing day by day. Mobile internet users are giving more attention to their own experiences, especially in terms of communication reliability, high data rates and service stability on move. This increase in the demand is causing saturation of existing radio frequency bands. To address these challenges, researchers are investigating the best approaches, Carrier Aggregation (CA) is one of the newest innovations, which seems to fulfill the demands of the future spectrum, also CA is one the most important feature for Long Term Evolution - Advanced (LTE-Advanced). For this purpose to get the upcoming International Mobile Telecommunication Advanced (IMT-Advanced) mobile requirements (1 Gb/s peak data rate), the CA scheme is presented by 3GPP, which would sustain a high data rate using widespread frequency bandwidth up to 100 MHz. Technical issues such as aggregation structure, its implementations, deployment scenarios, control signal techniques, and challenges for CA technique in LTE-Advanced, with consideration of backward compatibility, are highlighted in this paper. Also, performance evaluation in macro-cellular scenarios through a simulation approach is presented, which shows the benefits of applying CA, low-complexity multi-band schedulers in service quality, system capacity enhancement and concluded that enhanced multi-band scheduler is less complex than the general multi-band scheduler, which performs better for a cell radius longer than 1800 m (and a PLR threshold of 2%).

Keywords: Component carrier, carrier aggregation, LTE-Advanced, scheduling, spectrum management.

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Authors: A. Bajit, M. Nahid, A. Tamtaoui, E. H. Bouyakhf

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In this paper, we propose a Perceptually Optimized Foveation based Embedded ZeroTree Image Coder (POEFIC) that introduces a perceptual weighting to wavelet coefficients prior to control SPIHT encoding algorithm in order to reach a targeted bit rate with a perceptual quality improvement with respect to a given bit rate a fixation point which determines the region of interest ROI. The paper also, introduces a new objective quality metric based on a Psychovisual model that integrates the properties of the HVS that plays an important role in our POEFIC quality assessment. Our POEFIC coder is based on a vision model that incorporates various masking effects of human visual system HVS perception. Thus, our coder weights the wavelet coefficients based on that model and attempts to increase the perceptual quality for a given bit rate and observation distance. The perceptual weights for all wavelet subbands are computed based on 1) foveation masking to remove or reduce considerable high frequencies from peripheral regions 2) luminance and Contrast masking, 3) the contrast sensitivity function CSF to achieve the perceptual decomposition weighting. The new perceptually optimized codec has the same complexity as the original SPIHT techniques. However, the experiments results show that our coder demonstrates very good performance in terms of quality measurement.

Keywords: DWT, linear-phase 9/7 filter, Foveation Filtering, CSF implementation approaches, 9/7 Wavelet JND Thresholds and Wavelet Error Sensitivity WES, Luminance and Contrast masking, standard SPIHT, Objective Quality Measure, Probability Score PS.

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Authors: Moheb R. Girgis, Tarek M. Mahmoud, Tarek Abd-El-Hafeez

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This paper proposes a system to extract images from web pages and then detect the skin color regions of these images. As part of the proposed system, using BandObject control, we built a Tool bar named 'Filter Tool Bar (FTB)' by modifying the Pavel Zolnikov implementation. The Yahoo! Team provides us with the Yahoo! SDK API, which also supports image search and is really useful. In the proposed system, we introduced three new methods for extracting images from the web pages (after loading the web page by using the proposed FTB, before loading the web page physically from the localhost, and before loading the web page from any server). These methods overcome the drawback of the regular expressions method for extracting images suggested by Ilan Assayag. The second part of the proposed system is concerned with the detection of the skin color regions of the extracted images. So, we studied two famous skin color detection techniques. The first technique is based on the RGB color space and the second technique is based on YUV and YIQ color spaces. We modified the second technique to overcome the failure of detecting complex image's background by using the saturation parameter to obtain an accurate skin detection results. The performance evaluation of the efficiency of the proposed system in extracting images before and after loading the web page from localhost or any server in terms of the number of extracted images is presented. Finally, the results of comparing the two skin detection techniques in terms of the number of pixels detected are presented.

Keywords: Browser Helper Object, Color spaces, Image and URL extraction, Skin detection, Web Browser events.

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Authors: S. S. Sharma, Jagannath K, P. R. Prabhu

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Metal matrix composites consists of a metallic matrix combined with dispersed particulate phase as reinforcement. Aluminum alloys have been the primary material of choice for structural components of aircraft since about 1930. Well known performance characteristics, known fabrication costs, design experience, and established manufacturing methods and facilities, are just a few of the reasons for the continued confidence in 7XXX Al alloys that will ensure their use in significant quantities for the time to come. Particulate MMCs are of special interest owing to the low cost of their raw materials (primarily natural river sand here) and their ease of fabrication, making them suitable for applications requiring relatively high volume production. 7XXX Al alloys are precipitation hardenable and therefore amenable for thermomechanical treatment. Al–Zn alloys reinforced with particulate materials are used in aerospace industries in spite of the drawbacks of susceptibility to stress corrosion, poor wettability, poor weldability and poor fatigue resistance. The resistance offered by these particulates for the moving dislocations impart secondary hardening in turn contributes strain hardening. Cold deformation increases lattice defects, which in turn improves the properties of solution treated alloy. In view of this, six different Al–Zn–Mg alloy composites reinforced with silica (3 wt. % and 5 wt. %) are prepared by conventional semisolid synthesizing process. The cast alloys are solution treated and aged. The solution treated alloys are further severely cold rolled to enhance the properties. The hardness and strength values are analyzed and compared with silica free Al – Zn-Mg alloys. Precipitation hardening phenomena is accelerated due to the increased number of potential sites for precipitation. Higher peak hardness and lesser aging time are the characteristics of thermo mechanically treated samples. For obtaining maximum hardness, optimum number and volume of precipitate particles are required. The Al-5Zn-1Mg with 5% SiO₂ alloy composite shows better result.

Keywords: Dislocation, hardness, matrix, thermomechanical, precipitation hardening, reinforcement.

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Authors: F. O Anugom

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The general functions of the university amongst other things include teaching, research and community service. Universities are recognized as the apex of learning, accumulating and imparting knowledge and skills of all kinds to students to enable them to be productive, earn their living and to make optimum contributions to national development. This is equivalent to the production of human capital in the form of high level manpower needed to administer the educational society, be useful to the society and manage the economy. Quality has become a matter of major importance for university education in Nigeria. Accreditation is the systematic review of educational programs to ensure that acceptable standards of education, scholarship and infrastructure are being maintained. Accreditation ensures that institution maintain quality. The process is designed to determine whether or not an institution has met or exceeded the published standards for accreditation, and whether it is achieving its mission and stated purposes. Ensuring quality assurance in accreditation process falls in the hands of university management which justified the need for this study. This study examined accreditation and quality assurance: the management imperative. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. The design was a correlation survey with a population of 2,893 university administrators out of which 578 Heads of department and Dean of faculties were sampled. The instrument for data collection was titled Programme Accreditation Exercise scale with high levels of reliability. The research questions were answered with Pearson ‘r’ statistics. T-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses. It was found among others that the quality of accredited programme depends on the level of funding of universities in Nigeria. It was also indicated that quality of programme accreditation and physical facilities of universities in Nigeria have high relationship. But it was also revealed that programme accreditation is positively related to staffing in Nigerian universities. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommend that academic administrators should be included in the team of those who ensure quality programs in the universities. Private sector partnership should be encouraged to fund programs to ensure quality of programme in the universities. Independent agencies should be engaged to monitor the activities of accreditation teams to avoid bias.

Keywords: Accreditation, quality assurance, NUC, physical facilities, staffing.

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Authors: Triloksingh G. Arora, Mohan V. Aware, Dhananjay R. Tutakne

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Thyristor based firing angle controlled voltage regulators are extensively used for speed control of single phase induction motors. This leads to power saving but the applied voltage and current waveforms become non-sinusoidal. These non-sinusoidal waveforms increase voltage and thermal stresses which result into accelerated insulation aging, thus reducing the motor life. Life models that allow predicting the capability of insulation under such multi-stress situations tend to be very complex and somewhat impractical. This paper presents the fuzzy logic application to investigate the synergic effect of voltage and thermal stresses on intrinsic aging of induction motor insulation. A fuzzy expert system is developed to estimate the life of induction motor insulation under multiple stresses. Three insulation degradation parameters, viz. peak modification factor, wave shape modification factor and thermal loss are experimentally obtained for different firing angles. Fuzzy expert system consists of fuzzyfication of the insulation degradation parameters, algorithms based on inverse power law to estimate the life and defuzzyficaton process to output the life. An electro-thermal life model is developed from the results of fuzzy expert system. This fuzzy logic based electro-thermal life model can be used for life estimation of induction motors operated with non-sinusoidal voltage and current waveforms.

Keywords: Aging, Dielectric losses, Insulation and Life Estimation.

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Authors: Mazziotti Gomez de Teran C., Fiore D., Cola B., Fardelli A.

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The present paper summarizes the analysis of the request for consultation of information and data on industrial emissions made publicly available on the web site of the Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea on integrated pollution prevention and control from large industrial installations, the so called “AIA Portal”. As a matter of fact, a huge amount of information on national industrial plants is already available on internet, although it is usually proposed as textual documentation or images. Thus, it is not possible to access all the relevant information through interoperability systems and also to retrieval relevant information for decision making purposes as well as rising of awareness on environmental issue. Moreover, since in Italy the number of institutional and private subjects involved in the management of the public information on industrial emissions is substantial, the access to the information is provided on internet web sites according to different criteria; thus, at present it is not structurally homogeneous and comparable. To overcome the mentioned difficulties in the case of the Coordinating Committee for the implementation of the Agreement for the industrial area in Taranto and Statte, operating before the IPPC permit granting procedures of the relevant installation located in the area, a big effort was devoted to elaborate and to validate data and information on characterization of soil, ground water aquifer and coastal sea at disposal of different subjects to derive a global perspective for decision making purposes. Thus, the present paper also focuses on main outcomes matured during such experience.

Keywords: Public information, emissions into atmosphere, IPPC permits, territorial information systems.

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Authors: Wirat Sonchan, Pratoom Moungmee, Anek Sootmongkol

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This study aimed to examine the effects of a circuit training program on muscle strength, agility, anaerobic performance and cardiovascular endurance. The study involved 24 freshmen (age 18.87+0.68 yr.) male students of the Faculty of Sport Science, Burapha University. They sample study were randomly divided into two groups: Circuit Training group (CT; n=12) and a Control group (C; n=12). Baseline data on height, weight, muscle strength (hand grip dynamometer and leg strength dynamometer), agility (agility T-Test), and anaerobic performance (Running-based Anaerobic Sprint Test) and cardiovascular endurance (20 m Endurance Shuttle Run Test) were collected. The circuit training program included one circuit of eight stations of 30/60 seconds of work/rest interval with two cycles in Week 1-4, and 60/90 seconds of work/rest interval with three cycles in Week 5-8, performed three times per week. Data were analyzed using paired t-tests and independent sample t-test. Statistically significance level was set at 0.05. The results show that after 8 weeks of a training program, muscle strength, agility, anaerobic capacity and cardiovascular endurance increased significantly in the CT Group (p < 0.05), while significant increase was not observed in the C Group (p < 0.05). The results of this study suggest that the circuit training program improved muscle strength, agility, anaerobic capacity and cardiovascular endurance of the study subjects. This program may be used as a guideline for selecting a set of exercise to improve physical fitness.

Keywords: Cardiovascular endurance, circuit training, physical fitness, anaerobic performance.

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Authors: Abdulrahman Abdulrahman

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A side weir is a hydraulic structure set into the side of a channel. This structure is used for water level control in channels, to divert flow from a main channel into a side channel when the water level in the main channel exceeds a specific limit and as storm overflows from urban sewerage system. Computation of water surface over the side weirs is essential to determine the flow rate of the side weir. Analytical solutions for water surface profile along rectangular side weir are available only for the special cases of rectangular and trapezoidal channels considering constant specific energy. In this paper, a rectangular side weir located in a combined (trapezoidal with exponential) channel was considered. Expanding binominal series of integer and fraction powers and the using of reduction formula of cosine function integrals, a general analytical formula was obtained for water surface profile along a side weir in a combined (trapezoidal with exponential) channel. Since triangular, rectangular, trapezoidal and parabolic cross-sections are special cases of the combined cross section, the derived formula, is applicable to triangular, rectangular, trapezoidal cross-sections as analytical solution and semi-analytical solution to parabolic cross-section with maximum relative error smaller than 0.76%. The proposed solution should be a useful engineering tool for the evaluation and design of side weirs in open channel.

Keywords: Analytical solution, combined channel, exponential channel, side weirs, trapezoidal channel, water surface profile.

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Authors: Arash Taheri, Meysam Mohammadi-Amin, Seyed Hossein Moosavy

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Medical applications are among the most impactful areas of microrobotics. The ultimate goal of medical microrobots is to reach currently inaccessible areas of the human body and carry out a host of complex operations such as minimally invasive surgery (MIS), highly localized drug delivery, and screening for diseases at their very early stages. Miniature, safe and efficient propulsion systems hold the key to maturing this technology but they pose significant challenges. A new type of propulsion developed recently, uses multi-flagella architecture inspired by the motility mechanism of prokaryotic microorganisms. There is a lack of efficient methods for designing this type of propulsion system. The goal of this paper is to overcome the lack and this way, a numerical strategy is proposed to design multi-flagella propulsion systems. The strategy is based on the implementation of the regularized stokeslet and rotlet theory, RFT theory and new approach of “local corrected velocity". The effects of shape parameters and angular velocities of each flagellum on overall flow field and on the robot net forces and moments are considered. Then a multi-layer perceptron artificial neural network is designed and employed to adjust the angular velocities of the motors for propulsion control. The proposed method applied successfully on a sample configuration and useful demonstrative results is obtained.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Biomimetic Microrobots, Flagellar Propulsion, Swimming Robots.

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Authors: J. Pazourek, K. Šmejkal, P. Kollár, J. Rajchard, J. Šinko, Z. Balounová, E. Vlková, H. Salmonová

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Pectinatella magnifica (Leidy, 1851) is an invasive freshwater animal that lives in colonies. A colony of Pectinatella magnifica (a gelatinous blob) can be up to several feet in diameter large and under favorable conditions it exhibits an extreme growth rate. Recently European countries around rivers of Elbe, Oder, Danube, Rhine and Vltava have confirmed invasion of Pectinatella magnifica, including freshwater reservoirs in South Bohemia (Czech Republic). Our project (Czech Science Foundation, GAČR P503/12/0337) is focused onto biology and chemistry of Pectinatella magnifica. We monitor the organism occurrence in selected South Bohemia ponds and sandpits during the last years, collecting information about physical properties of surrounding water, and sampling the colonies for various analyses (classification, maps of secondary metabolites, toxicity tests). Because the gelatinous matrix is during the colony lifetime also a host for algae, bacteria and cyanobacteria (co-habitants), in this contribution, we also applied a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for determination of potentially present cyanobacterial toxins (microcystin-LR, microcystin-RR, nodularin). Results from the last 3-year monitoring show that these toxins are under limit of detection (LOD), so that they do not represent a danger yet. The final goal of our study is to assess toxicity risks related to fresh water resources invaded by Pectinatella magnifica, and to understand the process of invasion, which can enable to control it.

Keywords: Cyanobacteria, freshwater resources, Pectinatella magnifica invasion, toxicity monitoring.

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Authors: Petre Voicu, Mircea Oaida, Radu Vasiu, Catalin Gheorghiu, Aurel Dumitru

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The present work deals with the way in which food and tobacco waste can be used in agriculture. As a result of the lack of efficient technologies for their recycling, we are currently faced with the appearance of appreciable quantities of residual organic residues that find their use only very rarely and only after long storage in landfills. The main disadvantages of long storage of organic waste are the unpleasant smell, the high content of pathogenic agents, and the high content in the water. The release of these enormous amounts imperatively demands the finding of solutions to ensure the avoidance of environmental pollution. The measure practiced by us and presented in this paper consists of the processing of this waste in special installations, testing in pilot experimental perimeters, and later administration on agricultural lands without harming the quality of the soil, agricultural crops, and the environment. The current crisis of raw materials and energy also raises special problems in the field of organic waste valorization, an activity that takes place with low energy consumption. At the same time, their composition recommends them as useful secondary sources in agriculture. The transformation of food scraps and other residues concentrated organics thus acquires a new orientation, in which these materials are seen as important secondary resources. The utilization of food and tobacco waste in agriculture is also stimulated by the increasing lack of chemical fertilizers and the continuous increase in their price, under the conditions that the soil requires increased amounts of fertilizers in order to obtain high, stable, and profitable production. The need to maintain and increase the humus content of the soil is also taken into account, as an essential factor of its fertility, as a source and reserve of nutrients and microelements, as an important factor in increasing the buffering capacity of the soil, and the more reserved use of chemical fertilizers, improving the structure and permeability for water with positive effects on the quality of agricultural works and preventing the excess and/or deficit of moisture in the soil.

Keywords: Organic residue, food and tannery waste, fertilizer, soil.

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Authors: Amos Barkai, Guy Meredith, Fatima Felaar, Zahrah Dantie, Dave de Buys

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Fisheries management all around the world is hampered by the lack, or poor quality, of critical data on fish resources and fishing operations. The main reasons for the chronic inability to collect good quality data during fishing operations is the culture of secrecy common among fishers and the lack of modern data gathering technology onboard most fishing vessels. In response, OLRAC-SPS, a South African company, developed fisheries datalogging software (eLog in short) and named it Olrac. The Olrac eLog solution is capable of collecting, analysing, plotting, mapping, reporting, tracing and transmitting all data related to fishing operations. Olrac can be used by skippers, fleet/company managers, offshore mariculture farmers, scientists, observers, compliance inspectors and fisheries management authorities. The authors believe that using eLog onboard fishing vessels has the potential to revolutionise the entire process of data collection and reporting during fishing operations and, if properly deployed and utilised, could transform the entire commercial fleet to a provider of good quality data and forever change the way fish resources are managed. In addition it will make it possible to trace catches back to the actual individual fishing operation, to improve fishing efficiency and to dramatically improve control of fishing operations and enforcement of fishing regulations.

Keywords: data management, electronic logbook (eLog), electronic reporting system (ERS), fisheries management

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Rong-Qi Chen

Abstract:

In the field of fashion design, 3D Mannequin is a kind of assisting tool which could rapidly realize the design concepts. While the concept of 3D Mannequin is applied to the computer added fashion design, it will connect with the development and the application of design platform and system. Thus, the situation mentioned above revealed a truth that it is very critical to develop a module of 3D Mannequin which would correspond with the necessity of fashion design. This research proposes a concrete plan that developing and constructing a system of 3D Mannequin with Kinect. In the content, ergonomic measurements of objective human features could be attained real-time through the implement with depth camera of Kinect, and then the mesh morphing can be implemented through transformed the locations of the control-points on the model by inputting those ergonomic data to get an exclusive 3D mannequin model. In the proposed methodology, after the scanned points from the Kinect are revised for accuracy and smoothening, a complete human feature would be reconstructed by the ICP algorithm with the method of image processing. Also, the objective human feature could be recognized to analyze and get real measurements. Furthermore, the data of ergonomic measurements could be applied to shape morphing for the division of 3D Mannequin reconstructed by feature curves. Due to a standardized and customer-oriented 3D Mannequin would be generated by the implement of subdivision, the research could be applied to the fashion design or the presentation and display of 3D virtual clothes. In order to examine the practicality of research structure, a system of 3D Mannequin would be constructed with JAVA program in this study. Through the revision of experiments the practicability-contained research result would come out.

Keywords: 3D Mannequin, kinect scanner, interactive closest point, shape morphing, subdivision.

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Authors: Mohd Yussni Hashim, Mohd Nazrul Roslan, Shahruddin Mahzan @ Mohd Zin, Saparudin Ariffin

Abstract:

Fiber cross sectional area value is a crucial factor in determining the strength properties of natural fiber. Furthermore, unlike synthetic fiber, a diameter and cross sectional area of natural fiber has a large variation along and between the fibers. This study aims to determine the main and interaction effects of alkali treatment conditions which influence kenaf bast fiber mean cross sectional area. Three alkali treatment conditions at two different levels were selected. The conditions setting were alkali concentrations at 2 and 10 w/v %; fiber immersed temperature at room temperature and 100⁰C; and fiber immersed duration for 30 and 480 minutes. Untreated kenaf fiber was used as a control unit. Kenaf bast fiber bundle mounting tab was prepared according to ASTM C1557-03. Cross sectional area was measured using a Leica video analyzer. The study result showed that kenaf fiber bundle mean cross sectional area was reduced 6.77% to 29.88% after alkali treatment. From analysis of variance, it shows that interaction of alkali concentration and immersed time has a higher magnitude at 0.1619 compared to alkali concentration and immersed temperature interaction which was 0.0896. For the main effect, alkali concentration factor contributes to the higher magnitude at 0.1372 which indicated are decrease pattern of variability when the level was change from lower to higher level. Then, it was followed by immersed temperature at 0.1261 and immersed time at 0.0696 magnitudes.

Keywords: Natural fiber, kenaf bast fiber bundles, alkali treatment, cross sectional area.

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Authors: Chandrakala Varatharajoo, Adelina Binti Asmawi, Nabeel Abdallah Mohammad Abedalaziz

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The research explored the effect of morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary acquisition. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 100 ESL secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morph-Analysis Test and Morph-Vocabulary Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morph- Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the findings of the research are discussed in two main areas. First, individual instructions of two types of morphemic awareness have contributed significant results on inflectional and derivational awareness among the ESL secondary school students. Nevertheless, derivational morphology achieved a significant but relatively smaller amount of effect on secondary school students’ morphological awareness compared to inflectional morphology in this research. Second finding showed that the awareness of inflectional and derivational morphology was found significantly related to vocabulary achievement of ESL secondary school students. Nevertheless, inflectional morphemic awareness had higher significant effect on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary acquisition. Despite these findings, the study implies that morphemic analysis awareness can serve as an alternative strategy for ESL secondary school students in acquiring English vocabulary.

Keywords: Morphemic analysis, vocabulary, ESL students.

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Authors: S. Vignesh, N. Vishnu, S. Vigneshwaran, M. Vishnu Anand, Dinesh Kumar Babu, V. R. Sanal Kumar

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Numerical studies have been carried out using a validated two-dimensional standard k-omega turbulence model for the design optimization of a thrust vector control system using shock induced self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet. Parametric analytical studies have been carried out at different secondary injection locations to identifying the highest unsymmetrical distribution of the main gas flow due to shock waves, which produces a desirable side force more lucratively for vectoring. The results from the parametric studies of the case on hand reveal that the shock induced self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet is more efficient in certain locations at the divergent region of a CD nozzle than a case with supersonic single jet with same mass flow rate. We observed that the best axial location of the self-impinging supersonic secondary double jet nozzle with a given jet interaction angle, built-in to a CD nozzle having area ratio 1.797, is 0.991 times the primary nozzle throat diameter from the throat location. We also observed that the flexible steering is possible after invoking ON/OFF facility to the secondary nozzles for meeting the onboard mission requirements. Through our case studies we concluded that the supersonic self-impinging secondary double jet at predesigned jet interaction angle and location can provide more flexible steering options facilitating with 8.81% higher thrust vectoring efficiency than the conventional supersonic single secondary jet without compromising the payload capability of any supersonic aerospace vehicle.

Keywords: Fluidic thrust vectoring, rocket steering, self-impinging secondary supersonic jet, TVC in aerospace vehicles.

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Authors: Radwa Mabrook

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Virtual Reality (VR) content creation is a complex and an expensive process, which requires multi-disciplinary teams of content creators. Grant schemes from technology companies help media organisations to explore the VR potential in journalism and factual storytelling. Media organisations try to do as much as they can in-house, but they may outsource due to time constraints and skill availability. Journalists, game developers, sound designers and creative artists work together and bring in new cultures of work. This study explores the collaborative experimental nature of VR content creation, through tracing every actor involved in the process and examining their perceptions of the VR work. The study builds on Actor Network Theory (ANT), which decomposes phenomena into their basic elements and traces the interrelations among them. Therefore, the researcher conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with VR content creators between November 2017 and April 2018. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques allowed the researcher to recruit fact-based VR content creators from production studios and media organisations, as well as freelancers. Interviews lasted up to three hours, and they were a mix of Skype calls and in-person interviews. Participants consented for their interviews to be recorded, and for their names to be revealed in the study. The researcher coded interviews’ transcripts in Nvivo software, looking for key themes that correspond with the research questions. The study revealed that VR content creators must be adaptive to change, open to learn and comfortable with mistakes. The VR content creation process is very iterative because VR has no established work flow or visual grammar. Multi-disciplinary VR team members often speak different languages making it hard to communicate. However, adaptive content creators perceive VR work as a fun experience and an opportunity to learn. The traditional sense of competition and the strive for information exclusivity are now replaced by a strong drive for knowledge sharing. VR content creators are open to share their methods of work and their experiences. They target to build a collaborative network that aims to harness VR technology for journalism and factual storytelling. Indeed, VR is instilling collaborative and experimental cultures in journalism.

Keywords: Collaborative culture, content creation, experimental culture, virtual reality.

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Authors: Anca E. Gurzau, Alexandru Coman, Eugen S. Gurzau, Marinela Penes, Daniela Dumitrescu, DorinMarchean, Ioan Chera

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The environment pollution with pesticides and heavy metals is a recognized problem nowadays, with extension to the global scale the tendency of amplification. Even with all the progress in the environmental field, both in the emphasize of the effect of the pollutants upon health, the linked studies environment-health are insufficient, not only in Romania but all over the world also. We aim to describe the particular situation in Romania regarding the uncontrolled use of pesticides, to identify and evaluate the risk zones for health and the environment in Romania, with the final goal of designing adequate programs for reduction and control of the risk sources. An exploratory study was conducted to determine the magnitude of the pesticide use problem in a population living in Saliste, a rural setting in Transylvania, Romania. The significant stakeholders in Saliste region were interviewed and a sample from the population living in Saliste area was selected to fill in a designed questionnaire. All the selected participants declared that they used pesticides in their activities for more than one purpose. They declared they annually applied pesticides for a period of time between 11 and 30 years, from 5 to 9 days per year on average, mainly on crops situated at some distance from the houses but high risk behavior was identified as the volunteers declared the use of pesticides in the backyard gardens, near their homes, where children were playing. The pesticide applicators did not have the necessary knowledge about safety and exposure. The health data must be correlated with exposure biomarkers in attempt to identify the possible health effects of the pesticides exposure. Future plans include educational campaigns to raise the awareness of the population on the danger of uncontrolled use of pesticides.

Keywords: Pesticides, health effects, Romania, Saliste.

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Authors: Robson C. Santos, Julio C. P. Ribeiro, Iorran M. de Castro, Luan C. F. Rodrigues, Sandro R. L. Silva, Diego M. Quesada

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The work aims to develop a robot in the form of autonomous vehicle to detect, inspection and mapping of underground pipelines through the ATmega328 Arduino platform. Hardware prototyping is very similar to C / C ++ language that facilitates its use in robotics open source, resembles PLC used in large industrial processes. The robot will traverse the surface independently of direct human action, in order to automate the process of detecting buried pipes, guided by electromagnetic induction. The induction comes from coils that send the signal to the Arduino microcontroller contained in that will make the difference in intensity and the treatment of the information, and then this determines actions to electrical components such as relays and motors, allowing the prototype to move on the surface and getting the necessary information. This change of direction is performed by a stepper motor with a servo motor. The robot was developed by electrical and electronic assemblies that allowed test your application. The assembly is made up of metal detector coils, circuit boards and microprocessor, which interconnected circuits previously developed can determine, process control and mechanical actions for a robot (autonomous car) that will make the detection and mapping of buried pipelines plates. This type of prototype can prevent and identifies possible landslides and they can prevent the buried pipelines suffer an external pressure on the walls with the possibility of oil leakage and thus pollute the environment.

Keywords: Robotic, metal detector, embedded system, pipeline.

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Authors: J. Martin, A. Dannenberg, G. Detrell, R. Ewald, S. Fasoulas

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Microalgae-based photobioreactors (PBR) for Life Support Systems (LSS) are currently being investigated for future space missions such as a crewed base on planets or moons. Biological components may help reducing resupply masses by closing material mass flows with the help of regenerative components. Via photosynthesis, the microalgae use CO₂, water, light and nutrients to provide oxygen and biomass for the astronauts. These capabilities could have synergies with Earth applications that tackle current problems and the developed technologies can be transferred. For example, a current worldwide discussed issue is the increased nitrate and phosphate pollution of ground water from agricultural waste waters. To investigate the potential use of a biological system based on the ability of the microalgae to extract and use nitrate and phosphate for the treatment of polluted ground water from agricultural applications, a scalable test stand is being developed. This test stand investigates the maximization of intake rates of nitrate and quantifies the produced biomass and oxygen. To minimize the required energy, for the uptake of nitrate from artificial waste water (AWW) the Flashing Light Effect (FLE) and the adaption of the illumination spectrum were realized. This paper describes the composition of the AWW, the development of the illumination unit and the possibility of non-invasive process optimization and control via the adaption of the illumination spectrum and illumination cycles. The findings were a doubling of the energy related growth rate by adapting the illumination setting.

Keywords: Microalgae, illumination, nitrate uptake, flashing light effect.

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Authors: Roberto Rosenhaim, Marcos Antonio Crus Moreira, Robson da Cunha, Gerson Gomes Cunha

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This work provides details on the wind speed behavior within cities of Arraial do Cabo and São Pedro da Aldeia located in the Lakes Region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This region has one of the best potentials for wind power generation. In interurban layer, wind conditions are very complex and depend on physical geography, size and orientation of buildings and constructions around, population density, and land use. In the same context, the fundamental surface parameter that governs the production of flow turbulence in urban canyons is the surface roughness. Such factors can influence the potential for power generation from the wind within the cities. Moreover, the use of wind on a small scale is not fully utilized due to complexity of wind flow measurement inside the cities. It is difficult to accurately predict this type of resource. This study demonstrates how fuzzy logic can facilitate the assessment of the complexity of the wind potential inside the cities. It presents a decision support tool and its ability to deal with inaccurate information using linguistic variables created by the heuristic method. It relies on the already published studies about the variables that influence the wind speed in the urban environment. These variables were turned into the verbal expressions that are used in computer system, which facilitated the establishment of rules for fuzzy inference and integration with an application for smartphones used in the research. In the first part of the study, challenges of the sustainable development which are described are followed by incentive policies to the use of renewable energy in Brazil. The next chapter follows the study area characteristics and the concepts of fuzzy logic. Data were collected in field experiment by using qualitative and quantitative methods for assessment. As a result, a map of the various points is presented within the cities studied with its wind viability evaluated by a system of decision support using the method multivariate classification based on fuzzy logic.

Keywords: Behavior of winds, wind power, fuzzy logic, sustainable development.

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Authors: S. D. El Wakil

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The research work reported here was aimed at investigating the feasibility of joining high-porosity stainless steel discs and wrought iron bars by friction welding. The sound friction-welded joints were then subjected to a metallurgical investigation and an analysis of failure resulting from tensile loading. Discs having 50 mm diameter and 10 mm thickness were produced by loose sintering of stainless steel powder at a temperature of 1350 ^oC in an argon atmosphere for one hour. Minor machining was then carried out to control the dimensions of the discs, and the density of each disc could then be determined. The level of porosity was calculated and was found to be about 40% in all of those discs. Solid wrought iron bars were also machined to facilitate tensile testing of the joints produced by friction welding. Using our previously gained experience, the porous stainless steel disc and the wrought iron tube were successfully friction welded. SEM was employed to examine the fracture surface after a tensile test of the joint in order to determine the type of failure. It revealed that the failure did not occur in the joint, but rather in the in the porous metal in the area adjacent to the joint. The load carrying capacity was actually determined by the strength of the porous metal and not by that of the welded joint. Macroscopic and microscopic metallographic examinations were also performed and showed that the welded joint involved a dense heat-affected zone where the porous metal underwent densification at elevated temperature, explaining and supporting the findings of the SEM study.

Keywords: Fracture of friction-welded joints, metallurgy of friction welding, solid-porous structures, strength of joint.

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Authors: Al-Shabatat, M. Ahmad, Abbas, M., Ismail, H. Nizam

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Achievement motivation is believed to promote giftedness attracting people to invest in many programs to adopt gifted students providing them with challenging activities. Intellectual giftedness is founded on the fluid intelligence and extends to more specific abilities through the growth and inputs from the achievement motivation. Acknowledging the roles played by the motivation in the development of giftedness leads to an effective nurturing of gifted individuals. However, no study has investigated the direct and indirect effects of the achievement motivation and fluid intelligence on intellectual giftedness. Thus, this study investigated the contribution of motivation factors to giftedness development by conducting tests of fluid intelligence using Cattell Culture Fair Test (CCFT) and analytical abilities using culture reduced test items covering problem solving, pattern recognition, audio-logic, audio-matrices, and artificial language, and self report questionnaire for the motivational factors. A number of 180 highscoring students were selected using CCFT from a leading university in Malaysia. Structural equation modeling was employed using Amos V.16 to determine the direct and indirect effects of achievement motivation factors (self confidence, success, perseverance, competition, autonomy, responsibility, ambition, and locus of control) on the intellectual giftedness. The findings showed that the hypothesized model fitted the data, supporting the model postulates and showed significant and strong direct and indirect effects of the motivation and fluid intelligence on the intellectual giftedness.

Keywords: Achievement motivation, Intellectual Giftedness, Fluid Intelligence, Analytical Giftedness, CCFT, Structural EquationModeling.

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