Search results for: government programs

Authors: Isaura Esther Solano Núñez, David Suarez

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The main purpose of this research is to discover what causes death in children of the Wayuu community, and deeply analyze those results in order to take corrective measures to properly control infant mortality. We consider important to determine the reasons that are producing early death in this specific type of population, since they are the most vulnerable to high risk environmental conditions. In this way, the government, through competent authorities, may develop prevention policies and the right measures to avoid an increase of this tragic fact. The methodology used to develop this investigation is data mining, which consists in gaining and examining large amounts of data to produce new and valuable information. Through this technique it has been possible to determine that the child population is dying mostly from malnutrition. In short, this technique has been very useful to develop this study; it has allowed us to transform large amounts of information into a conclusive and important statement, which has made it easier to take appropriate steps to resolve a particular situation.

Keywords: Malnutrition, datamining, analytical, descriptive, population, wayuu, indigenous.

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Authors: Aline Alves Bandeira, Luís Pedro Lima, Maria Cecília de Paula Silva, Paulo Henrique de Viveiros Tavares

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Nowadays, the study of public policies regarding management efficiency is essential. Public policies are about what governments do or do not do, being an area that has grown worldwide, contributing through the knowledge of technologies and methodologies that monitor and evaluate the performance of public administrators. The information published on official government websites needs to provide for transparency and responsiveness of managers. Thus, transparency is a primordial factor for the execution of accountability, providing, in this way, services to the citizen with the expansion of transparent, efficient, democratic information and that value administrative eco-efficiency. The ecologically balanced management of a Smart City must optimize environmental education, building a fairer society, which brings about equality in the use of quality environmental resources. Smart Cities add value in the construction of public management, enabling interaction between people, enhancing environmental education and the practical applicability of administrative eco-efficiency, fostering economic development and improving the quality of life.

Keywords: Accountability, environmental education, new public administration, smart cities.

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Authors: Sotirios Raptis

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Bayesian reasoning (BR) or Linear (Auto) Regression (AR/LR) can predict different sources of data using priors or other data, and can link social service demands in cohorts, while their consideration in isolation (self-prediction) may lead to service misuse ignoring the context. The paper advocates that BR with Binomial (BD), or Normal (ND) models or raw data (.D) as probabilistic updates can be compared to AR/LR to link services in Scotland and reduce cost by sharing healthcare (HC) resources. Clustering, cross-correlation, along with BR, LR, AR can better predict demand. Insurance companies and policymakers can link such services, and examples include those offered to the elderly, and low-income people, smoking-related services linked to mental health services, or epidemiological weight in children. 22 service packs are used that are published by Public Health Services (PHS) Scotland and Scottish Government (SG) from 1981 to 2019, broken into 110 year series (factors), joined using LR, AR, BR. The Primary component analysis found 11 significant factors, while C-Means (CM) clustering gave five major clusters.

Keywords: Bayesian probability, cohorts, data frames, regression, services, prediction.

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Authors: Eleni Giouli

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Distance learning provides a flexible approach to education, enabling busy learners to complete their coursework at their own pace, on their own schedule, and from a convenient location. This flexibility combined with a series of other issues; make the benefits of lifelong distance learning numerous. The purpose of the paper is to investigate whether distance education can contribute to the improvement of adult skills in Greece, highlighting in this way the necessity of the lifelong distance learning. To investigate this goal, a questionnaire is constructed and analyzed based on responses from 3,016 attendees of lifelong distance learning programs in the e-learning of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. In order to do so, a series of relationships is examined including the effects of a) the gender, b) the previous educational level, c) the current employment status, and d) the method used in the distance learning program, on the development of new general, technical, administrative, social, cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills. The basic conclusions that emerge after using a binary logistic framework are that the following factors are critical in order to develop new skills: the gender, the education level and the educational method used in the lifelong distance learning program. The skills more significantly affected by those factors are the acquiring new skills in general, as well as acquiring general, language and cultural, entrepreneurial and green skills, while for technical and social skills only gender and educational method play a crucial role. Moreover, routine skills and social skills are not affected by the four factors included in the analysis.

Keywords: Adult skills, distance learning, education, lifelong learning.

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Authors: Rolf Katzenbach, Frithjof Clauss, Jie Zheng

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The final energy use can be divided mainly in four sectors: commercial, industrial, residential, and transportation. The trend in final energy consumption by sector plays as a most straightforward way to provide a wide indication of progress for reducing energy consumption and associated environmental impacts by different end use sectors. The average share of end use energy for residential sector in the world was nearly 20% until 2011, in Germany a higher proportion is between 25% and 30%. However, it remains less studied than energy use in other three sectors as well its impacts on climate and environment. The reason for this involves a wide range of fields, including the diversity of residential construction like different housing building design and materials, living or energy using behavioral patterns, climatic condition and variation as well other social obstacles, market trend potential and financial support from government.

This paper presents an extensive and in-depth analysis of the manner by which projects researched and operated by authors in the fields of energy efficiency primarily from the perspectives of both technical potential and initiative energy saving consciousness in the residential sectors especially in social housing buildings.

Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Retro-commissioning, Social Housing, Sustainability.

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Authors: Raja Suzana Raja Kasim

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This paper attempts to highlight the significant role of knowledge management practices (KMP) and competencies in improving the performance and efficiency of public sector organizations. It appears that public sector organizations in developing countries have not received much attention in the research literature of knowledge management and competencies. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the role of KMP and competencies in achieving superior performance among public sector organizations in Malaysia in the broader perspective. Survey questionnaires were distributed to all Administrative and Diplomatic Officers (ADS) from 28 ministries located in Putrajaya, Malaysia. This paper also examines preliminary empirical results on the relationship between support for knowledge management practices, competencies, and orientation in Malaysia-s public organizations. This paper supports the notion that the practices of knowledge management at the organizational level are a prerequisite for successful organizational performance. In conclusion, the results not only have the potential to contribute theoretically to both management strategy and knowledge management field literature but also to the area of organizational performance.

Keywords: knowledge, knowledge management practices, competencies, organizational performance

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Authors: Toshihiko Takemura, Makoto Osajima, Masatoshi Kawano

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This paper includes a positive analysis to quantitatively grasp the relationship among vulnerability, information security incidents, and the countermeasures by using data based on a 2007 questionnaire survey for Japanese ISPs (Internet Service Providers). To grasp the relationships, logistic regression analysis is used. The results clarify that there are relationships between information security incidents and the countermeasures. Concretely, there is a positive relationship between information security incidents and the number of information security systems introduced as well as a negative relationship between information security incidents and information security education. It is also pointed out that (especially, local) ISPs do not execute efficient information security countermeasures/ investment concerned with systems, and it is suggested that they should positively execute information security education. In addition, to further heighten the information security level of Japanese telecommunication infrastructure, the necessity and importance of the government to implement policy to support the countermeasures of ISPs is insisted.

Keywords: Information security countermeasures, information security incidents, internet service providers, positive analysis

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Authors: Daekook Kang, Wooseok Jang, Jeonghwan Jeon

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As Korea government has expanded the budget for the national research and development business, the need for the installation of institute taking a role of deliberation, coordination, and operation of research development business and its budget has been increased continuously. In response to the demands of the times, recently, the National Science & Technology Council (NSTC) was installed. However, to achieve a creative economy more efficiently, the fundamental introspection on the current state of the national administration system of science and technology in Korea should be needed. Accordingly, this study, firstly, analyzes the function and organizational structure of NSTC in Korea. Then, this study investigates the current state of the National Science and Technology Council in main world countries. Lastly, this study derives some implications based on the comparison analysis of the current state of the National Science and Technology Council between Korea and these countries. The present study will help in finding the way for the advancement of the NSTC in Korea.

Keywords: Comparison analysis of Science and Technology Council, CSTP, National Science and Technology Council in Korea, Operating system of NSTC.

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Authors: Obaidullah Nadeem, Rizwan Hameed

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The preparation of good-quality Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports contribute to enhancing overall effectiveness of EIA. This component of the EIA process becomes more important in situation where public participation is weak and there is lack of expertise on the part of the competent authority. In Pakistan, EIA became mandatory for every project likely to cause adverse environmental impacts from July 1994. The competent authority also formulated guidelines for preparation and review of EIA reports in 1997. However, EIA is yet to prove as a successful decision support tool to help in environmental protection. One of the several reasons of this ineffectiveness is the generally poor quality of EIA reports. This paper critically reviews EIA reports of some randomly selected projects. Interviews of EIA consultants, project proponents and concerned government officials have also been conducted to underpin the root causes of poor quality of EIA reports. The analysis reveals several inadequacies particularly in areas relating to identification, evaluation and mitigation of key impacts and consideration of alternatives. The paper identifies some opportunities and suggests measures for improving the quality of EIA reports and hence making EIA an effective tool to help in environmental protection.

Keywords: Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA Guidelines, EIA Reports, Pakistan.

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Authors: J. Stejskal, P. Hajek

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The goal of this article is the analysis of knowledge transfer at the regional level of the Czech Republic. We show how goals of enterprises´ innovative activities are related to the rate of cooperation with different actors within regional innovative systems as well as in other world regions. The results show that the most important partners of enterprises are their suppliers and clients in most Czech regions. The cooperation rate of enterprises correlates significantly mainly with enterprises´ efforts to enter new markets and reduce labour costs per unit output. The meaning of this cooperation decreases with the increase of partner’s distance. Regarding the type of a cooperating partner, cooperation within an enterprise had to do with the increase of market share and decrease of labour costs. On the other hand, cooperation with clients had to do with efforts to replace outdated products or processes or enter new markets. We can pay less attention to the cooperation with government authorities and organizations. The reasons for marginalization of this cooperation should be submitted to further detailed investigation.

Keywords: Knowledge, transfer, innovative process, Czech republic, region.

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Authors: F. Forouharmajd, S. Pourabdian, N. Ziayi Ghahnavieh

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For many years, the ear protectors have been used to preventing the audio and non-audio effects of received noise from occupation environments. Despite performing hearing protection programs, there are many people which still suffer from noise-induced hearing loss. This study was conducted with the aim of determination of human hearing system response to received noise and the effectiveness of ear protectors on preventing of noise-induced hearing loss. Sound pressure microphones were placed in a simulated ear canal. The severity of noise measured inside and outside of ear canal. The noise reduction values due to installing ear protectors were calculated in the octave band frequencies and LabVIEW programmer. The results of noise measurement inside and outside of ear canal showed a different in received sound levels by ear canal. The effectiveness of ear protectors has been considerably reduced for the low frequency limits. A change in resonance frequency also was observed after using ear protectors. The study indicated the ear canal structure may affect the received noise and it may lead a difference between the received sound from the measured sound by a sound level meter, and hearing system. It means the human hearing system may probably respond different from a sound level meter. Hearing protectors’ efficiency declines by increasing the noise levels, and thus, they are not suitable to protect workers against industrial noise particularly low frequency noise. Hearing protectors may be solely a reason to damaging of hearing system in a special frequency via changing of human hearing system acoustical structure. We need developing the subjective method of hearing protectors testing, because their evaluation is not designed based on industrial noise or in the field.

Keywords: Ear protector, hearing system, occupational noise, workers.

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Authors: Yusri Yusof, Stephen Newman, Aydin Nassehi, Keith Case

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The changing economic climate has made global manufacturing a growing reality over the last decade, forcing companies from east and west and all over the world to collaborate beyond geographic boundaries in the design, manufacture and assemble of products. The ISO10303 and ISO14649 Standards (STEP and STEP-NC) have been developed to introduce interoperability into manufacturing enterprises so as to meet the challenge of responding to production on demand. This paper describes and illustrates a STEP compliant CAD/CAPP/CAM System for the manufacture of rotational parts on CNC turning centers. The information models to support the proposed system together with the data models defined in the ISO14649 standard used to create the NC programs are also described. A structured view of a STEP compliant CAD/CAPP/CAM system framework supporting the next generation of intelligent CNC controllers for turn/mill component manufacture is provided. Finally a proposed computational environment for a STEP-NC compliant system for turning operations (SCSTO) is described. SCSTO is the experimental part of the research supported by the specification of information models and constructed using a structured methodology and object-oriented methods. SCSTO was developed to generate a Part 21 file based on machining features to support the interactive generation of process plans utilizing feature extraction. A case study component has been developed to prove the concept for using the milling and turning parts of ISO14649 to provide a turn-mill CAD/CAPP/CAM environment.

Keywords:

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Authors: R. Suresh, Pavan Kumar Nimmagadda, Ming Zo Tan, Shane Hart, Sharp Ugwuocha

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Polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits are extensively used in the oil and gas industry as well as the mining industry. Industry engineers continually improve upon PDC drill bit designs and hydraulic conditions. Optimized injection nozzles play a key role in improving the drilling performance and efficiency of these ever changing PDC drill bits. In the first part of this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling is performed to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of drilling fluid flow around the PDC drill bit. An Open-source CFD software – OpenFOAM simulates the flow around the drill bit, based on the field input data. A specifically developed console application integrates the entire CFD process including, domain extraction, meshing, and solving governing equations and post-processing. The results from the OpenFOAM solver are then compared with that of the ANSYS Fluent software. The data from both software programs agree. The second part of the paper describes the parametric study of the PDC drill bit nozzle to determine the effect of parameters such as number of nozzles, nozzle velocity, nozzle radial position and orientations on the flow field characteristics and bit washing patterns. After analyzing a series of nozzle configurations, the best configuration is identified and recommendations are made for modifying the PDC bit design.

Keywords: ANSYS Fluent, computational fluid dynamics, nozzle configuration, OpenFOAM, PDC dill bit.

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Authors: Ashraf Pirasteh, Alireza Hidarnia, Ali Asghari, Soghrate Faghihzadeh, Fazlollah Ghofranipour

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Background: Regular physical activity contributes positively to physical and psychological health. In the present study, the stages of change of physical activity and the total physical Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the proportion of adolescent girls in each stages of change and the causative factors associated with physical activity such as the related social support and self efficacy in a sample of the high school students. Methods: In this study, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the Transtheorical Model (TTM) guided instrument development. The data regarding the demographics, psychosocial determinants of physical activity, stage of change and physical activity was gathered by questionnaires. Several measures of psychosocial determinants of physical activity were translated from English into Persian using the back-translation technique. These translated measures were administered to 512 ninth and tenth-grade Iranian high school students for factor analysis. Results: The distribution of the stage of change for physical activity was as follow: 18/5% in precontemplation, 23.4% in contemplation, 38.2% in preparation, 4.6% in action and 15.3% in maintenance. They were in 80.1% pre-adoption stages (precontemplation stage, contemplation stage and preparation stage) and 19.9% post-adoption stages (action stage and maintenance stage) of physical activity. There was a significant relate between age and physical activity in adolescent girls (age-related decline of physical activity) p<0001. Conclusion: The findings of the present study can contribute to improve health behaviors and for administration of health promotion programs in the adolescent populations.

Keywords: Adolescent, Iranian girls, Physical activity, Stages of change

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Authors: Jirarat Teeravaraprug, Tarathorn Podcharathitikull

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Nowadays, Ministry of Industry has given an attention to develop Eco-industrial towns in Thailand. Eco-industrial towns are a way of demonstrating the application of industrial ecology and are subjects of increased interest as government, business and society. This concept of Eco-industrial town is quite new in Thailand. It is used as a way of achieving more sustainable industrial development. However, many firms or organizations have misunderstood the concept and treated with suspicion. The planning and development of Eco-industrial towns is a significant challenge for the developers and public agencies. This research then gives an attempt to determine current problems of being Eco-Industrial towns and determine success factors for developing Eco-Industrial towns in Thailand. The research starts with giving knowledge about Eco-industrial towns to stakeholders and conducting public hearing in order to acquire the problems of being Eco-industrial towns. Then, factors effecting the development of Eco-Industrial town are collected. The obtained factors are analyzed by using the concept of IOC. Then, the remained factors are categorized and structured based on the concept of AHP. A questionnaire is constructed and distributed to the experts who are involved in the Eco-industrial town project. The result shows that the most significant success criterion is management teams of industrial parks or groups and the second most significant goes to governmental policies.

Keywords: AHP, Eco-industrial town, success factors, Thailand.

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Authors: Roberto Iglesias, Theocharis Kyriacou, Ulrich Nehmzow, Steve Billings

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Fundamental sensor-motor couplings form the backbone of most mobile robot control tasks, and often need to be implemented fast, efficiently and nevertheless reliably. Machine learning techniques are therefore often used to obtain the desired sensor-motor competences. In this paper we present an alternative to established machine learning methods such as artificial neural networks, that is very fast, easy to implement, and has the distinct advantage that it generates transparent, analysable sensor-motor couplings: system identification through nonlinear polynomial mapping. This work, which is part of the RobotMODIC project at the universities of Essex and Sheffield, aims to develop a theoretical understanding of the interaction between the robot and its environment. One of the purposes of this research is to enable the principled design of robot control programs. As a first step towards this aim we model the behaviour of the robot, as this emerges from its interaction with the environment, with the NARMAX modelling method (Nonlinear, Auto-Regressive, Moving Average models with eXogenous inputs). This method produces explicit polynomial functions that can be subsequently analysed using established mathematical methods. In this paper we demonstrate the fidelity of the obtained NARMAX models in the challenging task of robot route learning; we present a set of experiments in which a Magellan Pro mobile robot was taught to follow four different routes, always using the same mechanism to obtain the required control law.

Keywords: Mobile robotics, system identification, non-linear modelling, NARMAX.

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Authors: Shin-Shin Kao

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This paper reviews the crucial situation in higher education in Taiwan due to the rapid decline of the birth rate in the past three decades, and how the government and local colleges/universities work to face the challenge. Recruiting international students is one of the possible ways to resolve the problem, but offering enough courses in English is one of the main obstacles when the majority of learners are still Taiwanese students. In the academic year of 2012, Chung Yuan Christian University determined to make its campus international and began to enforce two required courses for freshmen taught in English. It failed in the beginning, but succeeded in the following academic year of 2013. Using the teaching evaluations accumulated in the past three years, this paper aims to clarify the myths which had been bothering most faculties. It also offers some suggestions for college/university teachers interested in giving lectures in English to English as Second Language (ESL) learners. A conclusion is presented at the end of the paper, in which the author explained why Taiwanese students could learn their profession in English.

Keywords: Calculus, English, teaching evaluation, teaching strategy, vocabulary.

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Authors: Fan Yang

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With the development of social economy and the popularization of quality education, the Chinese government invests more and more funding in education. Campus constructions are experiencing a great development phase. Under the trend of sustainable development, modern green campus design needs to meet new requirements of contemporary, informational and diversified education means and adapt to future education development. Educators, designers and other participants of campus design are facing new challenges. By studying and analyzing the universal unsatisfied current situations and sustainable development requirements of Chinese campuses, this paper summarizes the strategies and intentions of the whole-life-cycle campus design. In addition, a Chinese high school in Zhejiang province is added to illustrate the design cycle in an actual case. It is aimed to make all participants of campus design, especially the designers, to realize the importance of whole-life-cycle campus design and cooperate better. Sustainable campus design is expected to come true in deed instead of becoming a slogan in this way.

Keywords: Campus design, green school, sustainable development, whole-life-cycle design.

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Authors: M.Bilal Bagbanci, Ozlem Koprulu Bagbanci

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Bursa, since the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, being on the important trade roads and having a capital accumulation as a result of silk production, was one of the first cities of modernization activities applied. Bursa maintained its importance even during the Republican Period and became one of the most important cities of the country and today is the fourth biggest and the industrialized city in Turkey. Social, political, economical and cultural changes occured with the reforms starting with the 1839 Edict of Tanzimat that aimed at modernizing the society and the government and centralizing the political power began in the Ottoman Empire. After the Tanzimat Reforms transformation of the city changed and planning processes began in Bursa according to the vision of Governors. The theresholds of the city are very important data for a sustainable planning for the city planners. Main aim of this study is to investigate the changes and transformations of the city according to the changes in the socio-economical and cultural properties for the city planners.

Keywords: Transportation, urbanization, Tanzimat reforms, modernization.

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Authors: Roman Ružarovský, Radovan Holubek, Daynier Rolando Delgado Sobrino

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Currently is characterized production engineering together with the integration of industrial automation and robotics such very quick view of to manufacture the products. The production range is continuously changing, expanding and producers have to be flexible in this regard. It means that need to offer production possibilities, which can respond to the quick change. Engineering product development is focused on supporting CAD software, such systems are mainly used for product design. That manufacturers are competitive, it should be kept procured machines made available capable of responding to output flexibility. In response to that problem is the development of flexible manufacturing systems, consisting of various automated systems. The integration of flexible manufacturing systems and subunits together with product design and of engineering is a possible solution for this issue. Integration is possible through the implementation of CIM systems. Such a solution and finding a hyphen between CAD and procurement system ICIM 3000 from Festo Co. is engaged in the research project and this contribution. This can be designed the products in CAD systems and watch the manufacturing process from order to shipping by the development of methods and processes of integration, This can be modeled in CAD systems products and watch the manufacturing process from order to shipping to develop methods and processes of integration, which will improve support for product design parameters by monitoring of the production process, by creating of programs for production using the CAD and therefore accelerates the a total of process from design to implementation.

Keywords: CAD- Computer Aided Design, CAM- Computer Aided Manufacturing, CIM- Computer integrated manufacturing, iCIM 3000, integration, direct production from CAD.

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Authors: Florence Uchendu, Tola Atinmo

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Nigerian bread is baked with vitamin A fortified wheat flour. Study aimed at determining its contribution to preschoolers- vitamin A nutriture. A cross-sectional/experimental study was carried out in four poor-urban Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria. A pretested food frequency questionnaire was administered to randomly selected mothers of 1600 preschoolers (24-59 months). Retinyl Palmitate content of fourteen bread samples randomly collected from bakeries in all LGAs was analyzed at 0 and 5 days at 25oC using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Data analysis was done at p<.05. Mean total intake of vitamin A from bread was 220.40μgRAE (733.94±775.68i.u). Bread contributed 6.5–178.4% of preschoolers RDA (1333i.u/400μgRAE). Mean contribution to vitamin A intake was 55.06±58.18%. Strong statistical significant relationship existed between total vitamin A intake and % RDA which was directly proportional (p<.01). Result indicates that bread made an important contribution towards vitamin A intake in poor-urban Lagosian preschoolers.

Keywords: Bread, dietary intake, Lagos metropolis, preschoolers

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Authors: W. A. Pamungkas, R. B. Setyawati, A. F. Rifai, C. P. Setiawan, A. W. Budiman, Inayati, J. Waluyo, S. H. Pranolo

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The increase in LPG consumption in Indonesia is not balanced with the amount of supply. The high demand for LPG due to the success of the government's kerosene-to-LPG conversion program and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to an increase in LPG consumption in the household sector and caused Indonesia's trade balance to experience a deficit. The high consumption of LPG encourages the need for alternative fuels which aims to substitute LPG. Dimethyl Ether (DME) is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3OCH3, has a high cetane number and has characteristics similar to LPG. DME can be produced from various sources such as coal, biomass and natural gas. Based on the economic analysis conducted at 10% Internal Rate of Return (IRR), coal has the largest Net Present Value (NPV) of Rp. 20,034,837,497,241 with a payback period of 3.86 years, then biomass with an NPV of Rp. 10,401,526,072,850 and payback period of 5.16. The latter is natural gas with an NPV of IDR 7,401,272,559,191 and a payback period of 6.17 years. Of the three sources of raw materials used, if the sensitivity is calculated using the selling price of DME equal to the selling price of LPG, it will get an NPV value that is greater than the NPV value when using the current DME price. The advantages of coal as a raw material for DME are profitableness, low price and abundant resources, but it has high greenhouse gas emission.

Keywords: LPG, DME, coal, biomass, natural gas.

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Authors: D. Y. Bawa, M. I. Ribah, I. S. Jega, V. O. Oyedepo

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A study was conducted to assess some heavy metal concentration (Cadmium (Cd), Copper (Cu), Iron (Fe), Lead (Pb) and Zinc (Zn)) in the gills and bones of Oreochromis niloticus obtained from Jega river. 30 fish samples were collected from March to July 2014 (fortnightly). Bones and gills were used for the assessment of some heavy metals using Atomic Absorption Spectrometer. Results indicated that Pb was not detected in both gills and bones but Fe, Cd, Zn and Cu were present in both the gills and bones of the fish samples. The concentrations of heavy metals in gills were; Fe 3.37±1.10, Cd 0.62±0.08, Zn 6.21±0.11 and Cu 1.28±0.10 mg/kg. The concentrations of heavy metals in bones: Fe 13.08±1.00 mg/kg, Cd 0.99±0.06 mg/kg, Zn 1.28±0.10 mg/kg and Cu 2.23±0.20 mg/kg. The results were found to be within the internationally acceptable standard limits. However, the consumption of small amounts of the identified heavy metals in fish could lead to gradual accumulation over a long period of time and exert toxic effects to consumers. Efforts should be made by the Government to provide appropriate channels for waste disposal to reduce impact on fish.

Keywords: Gills and bones, heavy metal concentration, Jega river, Oreochromis niloticus.

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Authors: Cesar Eduardo Hernández Curiel, Victor Hugo Benítez Baltazar, Jesús Horacio Pacheco Ramírez

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This paper is devoted to present the advances in the design of a prototype that is able to supervise the complex behavior of water quality parameters such as pH and temperature, via a real-time monitoring system. The current water quality tests that are performed in government water quality institutions in Mexico are carried out in problematic locations and they require taking manual samples. The water samples are then taken to the institution laboratory for examination. In order to automate this process, a water quality monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks is proposed. The system consists of a sensor node which contains one pH sensor, one temperature sensor, a microcontroller, and a ZigBee radio, and a base station composed by a ZigBee radio and a PC. The progress in this investigation shows the development of a water quality monitoring system. Due to recent events that affected water quality in Mexico, the main motivation of this study is to address water quality monitoring systems, so in the near future, a more robust, affordable, and reliable system can be deployed.

Keywords: pH measurement, water quality monitoring, wireless sensor networks, ZigBee.

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Authors: Muhammad Tariq A. Chaudhary

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The tremendous loss of life that resulted in the aftermath of recent earthquakes in developing countries is mostly due to the collapse of non-engineered and semi-engineered building structures. Such structures are used as houses, schools, primary healthcare centers and government offices. These building are classified structurally into two categories viz. non-engineered and semi-engineered. Non-engineered structures include: adobe, unreinforced masonry (URM) and wood buildings. Semi-engineered buildings are mostly low-rise (up to 3 story) light concrete frame structures or masonry bearing walls with reinforced concrete slab. This paper presents an overview of the typical damage observed in non-engineered structures and their most likely causes in the past earthquakes with specific emphasis on the performance of such structures in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. It is demonstrated that seismic performance of these structures can be improved from life-safety viewpoint by adopting simple low-cost modifications to the existing construction practices. Incorporation of some of these practices in the reconstruction efforts after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake are examined in the last section for mitigating seismic risk hazard.

Keywords: Kashmir earthquake, non-engineered buildings, seismic hazard, structural details, structural strengthening.

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Authors: Nyeng P. Gyang

Abstract:

Even though past, current and future trends suggest that multicore and cloud computing systems are increasingly prevalent/ubiquitous, this class of parallel systems is nonetheless underutilized, in general, and barely used for research on employing parallel Delaunay triangulation for parallel surface modeling and generation, in particular. The performances, of actual/physical and virtual/cloud multicore systems/machines, at executing various algorithms, which implement various parallelization strategies of the incremental insertion technique of the Delaunay triangulation algorithm, were evaluated. T-tests were run on the data collected, in order to determine whether various performance metrics differences (including execution time, speedup and efficiency) were statistically significant. Results show that the actual machine is approximately twice faster than the virtual machine at executing the same programs for the various parallelization strategies. Results, which furnish the scalability behaviors of the various parallelization strategies, also show that some of the differences between the performances of these systems, during different runs of the algorithms on the systems, were statistically significant. A few pseudo superlinear speedup results, which were computed from the raw data collected, are not true superlinear speedup values. These pseudo superlinear speedup values, which arise as a result of one way of computing speedups, disappear and give way to asymmetric speedups, which are the accurate kind of speedups that occur in the experiments performed.

Keywords: Cloud computing systems, multicore systems, parallel delaunay triangulation, parallel surface modeling and generation.

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Authors: Achmad Zamroni, Masahiro Yamao

Abstract:

Coastal resource management, community empowerment and socio economic development are the cornerstones for uplifting the lives of coastal area inhabitants. This paper aims to identify the positive impacts of coastal management projects toward fishermen-s economic well-being, to analyze the role of fishermen and their families in effecting economic change and to analyze the roles of stakeholders in managing coastal resources. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative data, and interviews were conducted with fishermen. Findings show that community empowerment and conservation of coastal resources through local and central government projects have exerted positive impact on the coastal community. Some activities involved women who are more active particularly in “off-fishing" season. Traditionally, local fishermen together with local stakeholders have set up a zoning system to minimize conflicts between fishermen. In addition, zoning is used to protect certain ecosystems that can provide benefits well into the future.

Keywords: Economic development, Off-fishing, Resource management, Stakeholders' participation, Women's participation

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Authors: Chen Zhang, Jiwu Wang

Abstract:

With China's urbanization continuing to accelerate, a amount of rural people flood into China's cities in recent years, and the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is getting more and more serious. In 2005, the Chinese government put forward a plan for “the construction of new rural village", in order to coordinate the development of both urban and rural areas. The planning method of rural region differs sharply from that of urban areas, as same as village social structure and habits of farmer-s life, so the studies which can consider the special needs of village construction in China are absolutely essential. This paper expresses explore current situation and problems existing in the construction of China-s new rural village, such as bigger gap between urban and rural areas, excessive new construction projects, extinct traditional village style and so on. It tries to analyze the deep reason of the present situation of the village from law system, industrial structure, financial sources and planning method. Then it also provides a guide for developing policies and procedures promoting the development of china-s rural areas.

Keywords: Rural areas, village construction, physical planning, law system, financial sources, Public participation, China.

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Authors: Nopadol Burananuth

Abstract:

This research was aimed to investigate (1) the relationship among local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities and state measures deployment; and (2) the effects of local social movements, non-governmental Organization activities, and state measures deployment on conflict of local people towards the Thai-Malaysian gas pipeline project. These people included 1,000 residents of the four districts in Songkhla province. The methods of data analysis consist of multiple regression analysis. The results of the analysis showed that: (1) local social movements depended on information, and mass communication; deployment of state measures depended on compromise, coordination, and mass communication; and (2) the conflict of local people depended on mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for participation of people in the project. Thus, it is recommended that to successfully implement any government policy, consideration must be paid to the conflict of local people, mobilization, negotiation, and campaigning for people’s participation in the project.

Keywords: Conflict, NGO activities, social movements, state measures.

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Authors: Csilla M. Szabó

Abstract:

In Hungary, the society has changed a lot for the past 25 years, and these changes could be detected in educational situations as well. The number and the intensity of conflicts have been increased in most fields of life, as well as at schools. Teachers have difficulties to be able to handle school conflicts. What is more, the new net generation, generation Z has values and behavioural patterns different from those of the previous one, which might generate more serious conflicts at school, especially with teachers who were mainly socialising in a traditional teacher – student relationship. In Hungary, the bill CCIV of 2011 declared the foundation of Institutes of Teacher Training in higher education institutes. One of the tasks of the Institutes is to survey the competences and needs of teachers working in public education and to provide further trainings and services for them according to their needs and requirements. This job is supported by the Social Renewal Operative Programs 4.1.2.B. The professors of a college carried out a questionnaire and surveyed the needs and the requirements of teachers working in the region. Based on the results, the professors of the Institute of Teacher Training decided to meet the requirements of teachers and to launch short teacher further training courses in spring 2015. One of the courses is going to focus on school conflict management through mediation. The aim of the pilot course is to provide conflict management techniques for teachers and to present different mediation techniques to them. The theoretical part of the course (5 hours) will enable participants to understand the main points and the advantages of mediation, while the practical part (10 hours) will involve teachers in role plays to learn how to cope with conflict situations applying mediation. We hope if conflicts could be reduced, it would influence school atmosphere in a positive way and the teaching – learning process could be more successful and effective.

Keywords: Conflict resolution, generation Z, mediation, teacher training.

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