Search results for: Close call situation.

Authors: Sapfo A. Mortaki

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This article examines the presence of Greek immigrant artists (painters and sculptors) in Paris during 1970-2010. The aim is to highlight their presence in the French capital through archival research in the daily and periodical press as well as present the impact of their artistic activity on the French intellectual life and society. At the same time, their contribution to the development of cultural life in Greece becomes apparent. The integration of those migrant artists into an environment of cultural coexistence and the understanding of the social phenomenon of their migration, in the context of postmodernity, are being investigated. The cultural relations between the two countries are studied in the context of support mechanisms, such as the Greek community, cultural institutions, museums and galleries. The recognition of the Greek artists by the French society and the social dimension in the context of their activity in Paris, are discussed in terms of the assimilation theory. Since the 1970s, and especially since the fall of the dictatorship in Greece, in opposition to the prior situation, artists' contacts with their homeland have been significantly enhanced, with most of them now travelling to Paris, while others work in parallel in both countries. As a result, not only do the stages of the development of their work through their pursuits become visible, but, most importantly, the artistic world becomes informed about the multifaceted expression of art through the succession of various contemporary currents. Thus, the participation of Greek artists in the international cultural landscape is demonstrated.

Keywords: Artistic migration, cultural impact, Greek artists, postmodernity, theory of assimilation.

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Authors: Filiz Ersoz, Taner Ersoz, Tugrul Bayraktar

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Renewable energy is referred to as "clean energy" and common popular support for the use of renewable energy (RE) is to provide electricity with zero carbon dioxide emissions. This study provides useful insight into the European Union (EU) RE, especially, into electricity generation obtained from renewables, and their targets. The objective of this study is to identify groups of European countries, using multivariate statistical analysis and selected indicators. The hierarchical clustering method is used to decide the number of clusters for EU countries. The conducted statistical hierarchical cluster analysis is based on the Ward’s clustering method and squared Euclidean distances. Hierarchical cluster analysis identified eight distinct clusters of European countries. Then, non-hierarchical clustering (k-means) method was applied. Discriminant analysis was used to determine the validity of the results with data normalized by Z score transformation. To explore the relationship between the selected indicators, correlation coefficients were computed. The results of the study reveal the current situation of RE in European Union Member States.

Keywords: Share of electricity generation, CO2 emission, targets, multivariate methods, hierarchical clustering, K-means clustering, discriminant analyzed, correlation, EU member countries.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma

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Obesity increases the risk of elevated blood pressure, which is a metabolic syndrome (MetS) component. Waist circumference (WC) is accepted as an indispensable parameter for the evaluation of these health problems. The close relationship of height with blood pressure values revealed the necessity of including height in tense indices. The association of tense indices with WC has also become an increasingly important topic. The purpose of this study was to develop a tense index that could contribute to differential diagnosis of MetS more than the indices previously introduced. 194 children, aged 6-11 years, were considered to constitute four groups. The study was performed on normal weight (Group 1), overweight + obese (Group 2), morbid obese [without (Group 3) and with (Group 4) MetS findings] children. Children were included in the groups according to the recommendations of World Health Organization based on age- and gender-dependent body mass index percentiles. For MetS group, MetS components well-established before were considered. Anthropometric measurements as well as blood pressure values were taken. Statistical calculations were performed. 0.05 was accepted as the p value indicating statistical significance. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups for pulse pressure, systolic-to-diastolic pressure ratio and tense index. Increasing values were observed from Group 1 to Group 4 in terms of mean arterial blood pressure and ADTI, which was highly correlated with WC in all groups except Group 1. Both tense index and ADTI exhibited significant correlations with WC in Group 3. However, in Group 4, ADTI, which includes height parameter in the equation, was unique in establishing a strong correlation with WC. In conclusion, ADTI was suggested as a tense index while investigating children with MetS.

Keywords: Blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, waist circumference.

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Authors: Akiko Kondo, Akio Kondo

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We are facing serious problems related to long-term depopulation and an aging society with a falling birth rate in Japan. In this situation, we are suffering from a shortfall in human resources as well as a shortage of workforce in rural regions. In addition, we are struggling with a protracted economic slump and excess concentration of population in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. It is an urgent national issue to consider how to live in this country and what kind of structure of society and administration policy is needed. It is necessary to clarify people’s desire for their way of living and social assistance to be provided. The aim of this study is to clarify the characteristics of regional issues and the degree of their seriousness in local municipalities of Japan. We conducted a questionnaire survey about regional agenda in all local municipalities in Japan. We obtained responses concerning the degree of seriousness of regional issues and degree of importance of policies. Based on the data gathered from the survey, it is apparent that many local municipalities are facing an aging population and declining population. We constructed a model to analyze factors for declining population. Using the model, it was clarified that a population’s age structure, job opportunities and income level affect the decline of population. In addition, we showed the way of the evaluation of state of local municipality.

Keywords: Evaluation, Local municipality, Regional analysis, Regional issue.

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Authors: Siti Azrina B. A. Aziz, Siti Hafizah A. Hamid

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New approaches to analyze and visualize data stream in real-time basis is important in making a prompt decision by the decision maker. Financial market trading and surveillance, large-scale emergency response and crowd control are some example scenarios that require real-time analytic and data visualization. This situation has led to the development of techniques and tools that support humans in analyzing the source data. With the emergence of Big Data and social media, new techniques and tools are required in order to process the streaming data. Today, ranges of tools which implement some of these functionalities are available. In this paper, we present chronological evolution evaluation of technologies for supporting of real-time analytic and visualization of the data stream. Based on the past research papers published from 2002 to 2014, we gathered the general information, main techniques, challenges and open issues. The techniques for streaming text visualization are identified based on Text Visualization Browser in chronological order. This paper aims to review the evolution of streaming text visualization techniques and tools, as well as to discuss the problems and challenges for each of identified tools.

Keywords: Information visualization, visual analytics, text mining, visual text analytics tools, big data visualization.

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Rong-Qi Chen, Chien-Yu Lin

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The topic of surface flattening plays a vital role in the field of computer aided design and manufacture. Surface flattening enables the production of 2D patterns and it can be used in design and manufacturing for developing a 3D surface to a 2D platform, especially in fashion design. This study describes surface flattening based on minimum energy methods according to the property of different fabrics. Firstly, through the geometric feature of a 3D surface, the less transformed area can be flattened on a 2D platform by geodesic. Then, strain energy that has accumulated in mesh can be stably released by an approximate implicit method and revised error function. In some cases, cutting mesh to further release the energy is a common way to fix the situation and enhance the accuracy of the surface flattening, and this makes the obtained 2D pattern naturally generate significant cracks. When this methodology is applied to a 3D mannequin constructed with feature lines, it enhances the level of computer-aided fashion design. Besides, when different fabrics are applied to fashion design, it is necessary to revise the shape of a 2D pattern according to the properties of the fabric. With this model, the outline of 2D patterns can be revised by distributing the strain energy with different results according to different fabric properties. Finally, this research uses some common design cases to illustrate and verify the feasibility of this methodology.

Keywords: Surface flattening, Strain energy, Minimum energy, approximate implicit method, Fashion design.

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Authors: Mehdi Habibnia Rami, Shidvash Vakilipour, Mohammad H. Sabour, Rouzbeh Riazi, Hossein Hassannia

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This paper deals with the steady and unsteady flow behavior on the separation bubble occurring on the rear portion of the suction side of T106A blade. The first phase was to implement the steady condition capturing the separation bubble. To accurately predict the separated region, the effects of three different turbulence models and computational grids were separately investigated. The results of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model on the finest grid structure are acceptably in a good agreement with its relevant experimental results. The second phase is mainly to address the effects of wake entrance on bubble disappearance in unsteady situation. In the current simulations, from what was suggested in an experiment, simulating the flow unsteadiness, with concentrations on small scale disturbances instead of simulating a complete oncoming wake, is the key issue. Subsequently, the results from the current strategy to apply the effects of the wake and two other experimental work were compared to be in a good agreement. Between the two experiments, one of them deals with wake passing unsteady flow, and the other one implements experimentally the same approach as the current Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation.

Keywords: T106A turbine cascade, shear-layer separation, steady and unsteady conditions, turbulence models, OpenFOAM.

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Authors: A. Gagat-Matuła

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The article is concerned in the issue of social support and quality of life of youth suffering from cerebral palsy, who are temporarily orphaned due to the emigration of a parent. Migration causes multi-aspect consequences in various spheres of life. They are particularly severe for the functioning of families. Temporal parting of parents and children, especially the disabled, is a difficult situation. In this case, the family structure is changed, as well as the quality of life of its members. Children can handle migration parting in a better or worse way; these can be divided into properly functioning and manifesting behaviour disorders. In conditions of the progressing phenomenon of labour migration of Poles and a wide spectrum of consequences for the whole social life, it is essential to undertake actions aimed at support of migrants and their families. This article focuses mainly on social support and quality of families members, of which, are the labour migrants perceived by youth suffering from cerebral palsy. The quantitative method was used in this study. In the study, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) by Diener, was used. The analysed group consisted of 50 persons (37 girls and 13 boys), aged 16 years to 18 years, whose parents are labour migrants. The results indicate that the quality of life and social support for youth suffering from cerebral palsy who are temporarily orphaned is at a low and average level.

Keywords: Social support, quality of life, migration, cerebral palsy.

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Authors: A. A. Aiyeloja, G.A. Adedeji, S. L. Larinde

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Termites have been observed as major pre-colonisation and post-colonisation pest insect of honeybees’ wooden hives in Nigeria. However, pest situation studies in modern beekeeping have been largely directed towards those pests that affect honeybees rather than the biological structure (wood) which houses the honeybees and the influence of seasons on the pests’ activities against the hives. This study, therefore, investigated the influence of seasons on the intensity of hives attacks by termites for 2 years in University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State using visual inspection. The Experimental Apiary was established with 15 Kenyan’s top bar hives made of Triplochiton scleroxylon wood that were strategically placed and observed within the Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management arboretum. The colonies hives consistently showed comparatively lower termite’s infestation levels in the dry season and, consequently, also lower attacks on the colonized hives. The result indicated raining season as a distinct period for more destructive activities of termites on the hives and strongly associated with dryness of the hives. Since previous study and observations have linked colonization with dry season coupled with minimal attacked on colonized hives; the non-colonised hives should be removed from the field at the onset of raining season and returned two weeks prior to dry season to reduce hives degradation by pests.

Keywords: Attack, hives degradation, Nigeria, seasons, termites.

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Authors: Ahmed M. Khedr, Saad M. Abdelrahman, Kareem M. Tonbol

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Two geo-referenced sea level datasets (September 2008 – November 2010) and (April 2012 – January 2014) were recorded at Alexandria Western Harbour (AWH). Accurate re-definition of tidal datum, referred to the latest International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF-2014), was discussed and updated to improve our understanding of the old predefined tidal datum at Alexandria. Tidal and non-tidal components of sea level were separated with the use of Delft-3D hydrodynamic model-tide suit (Delft-3D, 2015). Tidal characteristics at AWH were investigated and harmonic analysis showed the most significant 34 constituents with their amplitudes and phases. Tide was identified as semi-diurnal pattern as indicated by a “Form Factor” of 0.24 and 0.25, respectively. Principle tidal datums related to major tidal phenomena were recalculated referred to a meaningful geodetic height datum. The portion of residual energy (surge) out of the total sea level energy was computed for each dataset and found 77% and 72%, respectively. Power spectral density (PSD) showed accurate resolvability in high band (1–6) cycle/days for the nominated independent constituents, except some neighbouring constituents, which are too close in frequency. Wind and atmospheric pressure data, during the recorded sea level time, were analysed and cross-correlated with the surge signals. Moderate association between surge and wind and atmospheric pressure data were obtained. In addition, long-term sea level rise trend at AWH was computed and showed good agreement with earlier estimated rates.

Keywords: Alexandria, Delft-3D, Egypt, geodetic reference, harmonic analysis, sea level.

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Authors: Zeyad Abdelmageid, Xianbin Wang

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Choosing the operational channel for a WLAN access point (AP) in WLAN networks has been a static channel assignment process initiated by the user during the deployment process of the AP, which fails to cope with the dynamic conditions of the assigned channel at the station side afterwards. However, the dramatically growing number of Wi-Fi APs and stations operating in the unlicensed band has led to dynamic, distributed and often severe interference. This highlights the urgent need for the AP to dynamically select the best overall channel of operation for the basic service set (BSS) by considering the distributed and changing channel conditions at all stations. Consequently, dynamic channel selection algorithms which consider feedback from the station side have been developed. Despite the significant performance improvement, existing channel selection algorithms suffer from very high feedback overhead. Feedback latency from the STAs, due the high overhead, can cause the eventually selected channel to no longer be optimal for operation due to the dynamic sharing nature of the unlicensed band. This has inspired us to develop our own dynamic channel selection algorithm with reduced overhead through the proposed low-overhead, cluster-based station reporting mechanism. The main idea behind the cluster-based station reporting is the observation that STAs which are very close to each other tend to have very similar channel conditions. Instead of requesting each STA to report on every candidate channel while causing high overhead, the AP divides STAs into clusters then assigns each STA in each cluster one channel to report feedback on. With proper design of the cluster based reporting, the AP does not lose any information about the channel conditions at the station side while reducing feedback overhead. The simulation results show equal performance and at times better performance with a fraction of the overhead. We believe that this algorithm has great potential in designing future dynamic channel selection algorithms with low overhead.

Keywords: Channel assignment, Wi-Fi networks, clustering, DBSCAN, overhead.

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Authors: M. Johnson, R. Faggian, V. Sposito

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A participatory and engaged approach is key in connecting agricultural managers to sustainable agricultural systems to support and optimize production in Victoria’s food bowl. A sustainable intensification (SI) approach is well documented globally, but participation rates amongst Victorian farmers is fragmentary, and key outcomes and implementation strategies are poorly understood. Improvement in decision-support management tools and a greater understanding of the productivity gains available upon implementation of SI is necessary. This paper reviews the current understanding and uptake of SI practices amongst farmers in one of Victoria’s premier food producing regions, the Goulburn Broken; and it spatially analyses the potential for this region to adapt to climate change and optimize food production. A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) approach is taken to develop an interactive decision-support tool that can be accessible to on-ground agricultural managers. The tool encompasses multiple criteria analysis (MCA) that identifies factors during the construction phase of the tool, using expert witnesses and regional knowledge, framed within an Analytical Hierarchy Process. Given the complexities of the interrelations between each of the key outcomes, this participatory approach, in which local realities and factors inform the key outcomes and help to strategies for a particular region, results in a robust strategy for sustainably intensifying production in key food producing regions. The creation of an interactive, locally embedded, decision-support management and education tool can help to close the gap between farmer knowledge and production, increase on-farm adoption of sustainable farming strategies and techniques, and optimize farm productivity.

Keywords: Agriculture, decision-support management tools, GIS, sustainable intensification.

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Authors: Fatema Akram, Mohammad Golam Rasul, Mohammad Masud Kamal Khan, Md. Sharif Imam Ibne Amir

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A variety of routing techniques are available to develop surface runoff hydrographs from rainfall. The selection of runoff routing method is very vital as it is directly related to the type of watershed and the required degree of accuracy. There are different modelling softwares available to explore the rainfall-runoff process in urban areas. XPSTORM, a link-node based, integrated stormwater modelling software, has been used in this study for developing surface runoff hydrograph for a Golf course area located in Rockhampton in Central Queensland in Australia. Four commonly used methods, namely SWMM runoff, Kinematic wave, Laurenson, and Time-Area are employed to generate runoff hydrograph for design storm of this study area. In runoff mode of XPSTORM, the rainfall, infiltration, evaporation and depression storage for subcatchments were simulated and the runoff from the subcatchment to collection node was calculated. The simulation results are presented, discussed and compared. The total surface runoff generated by SWMM runoff, Kinematic wave and Time-Area methods are found to be reasonably close, which indicates any of these methods can be used for developing runoff hydrograph of the study area. Laurenson method produces a comparatively less amount of surface runoff, however, it creates highest peak of surface runoff among all which may be suitable for hilly region. Although the Laurenson hydrograph technique is widely acceptable surface runoff routing technique in Queensland (Australia), extensive investigation is recommended with detailed topographic and hydrologic data in order to assess its suitability for use in the case study area.

Keywords: ARI, design storm, IFD, rainfall temporal pattern, routing techniques, surface runoff, XPSTORM.

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Authors: Smah Doeban Almotiri

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One of the most common fields of natural language processing (NLP) is sentimental analysis. The inferred feeling in the text can be successfully mined for various events using sentiment analysis. Twitter is viewed as a reliable data point for sentimental analytics studies since people are using social media to receive and exchange different types of data on a broad scale during the COVID-19 epidemic. The processing of such data may aid in making critical decisions on how to keep the situation under control. The aim of this research is to look at how sentimental states differed in a single geographic region during the lockdown at two different times.1162 tweets were analyzed related to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown using keywords hashtags (lockdown, COVID-19) for the first sample tweets were from March 23, 2020, until April 23, 2020, and the second sample for the following year was from March 1, 2021, until April 4, 2021. Natural language processing (NLP), which is a form of Artificial intelligent was used for this research to calculate the sentiment value of all of the tweets by using AFINN Lexicon sentiment analysis method. The findings revealed that the sentimental condition in both different times during the region's lockdown was positive in the samples of this study, which are unique to the specific geographical area of New Zealand. This research suggests applied machine learning sentimental method such as Crystal Feel and extended the size of the sample tweet by using multiple tweets over a longer period of time.

Keywords: sentiment analysis, Twitter analysis, lockdown, Covid-19, AFINN, NodeJS

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Authors: Jun Hee Lee, Young Kyu Kim, Seong Jae Hong, Chamroeun Chhorn, Seung Woo Lee

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Roller-compacted concrete pavement (RCCP), an environmental friendly pavement of which load carry capacity benefitted from both hydration and aggregate interlock from roller compacting, demonstrated a superb structural performance for a relatively small amount of water and cement content. Even though an excellent structural performance can be secured, it is required to investigate roller-compacted concrete (RCC) under environmental loading and its long-term durability under critical conditions. In order to secure long-term durability, an appropriate internal air-void structure is required for this concrete. In this study, a method for improving the long-term durability of RCCP is suggested by analyzing the internal air-void structure and corresponding durability of RCC. The method of improving the long-term durability involves measurements of air content, air voids, and air-spacing factors in RCC that experiences changes in terms of type of air-entraining agent and its usage amount. This test is conducted according to the testing criteria in ASTM C 457, 672, and KS F 2456. It was found that the freezing-thawing and scaling resistances of RCC without any chemical admixture was quite low. Interestingly, an improvement of freezing-thawing and scaling resistances was observed for RCC with appropriate the air entraining (AE) agent content; Relative dynamic elastic modulus was found to be more than 80% for those mixtures. In RCC with AE agent mixtures, large amount of air was distributed within a range of 2% to 3%, and an air void spacing factor ranging between 200 and 300 μm (close to 250 μm, recommended by PCA) was secured. The long-term durability of RCC has a direct relationship with air-void spacing factor, and thus it can only be secured by ensuring the air void spacing factor through the inclusion of the AE in the mixture.

Keywords: RCCP, durability, air spacing factor, surface scaling resistance test, freezing and thawing resistance test.

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Authors: Dana Aljadaa, Hasim Altan

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Japan’s strategy is based on improving the current resources and productivity by identifying the environmental challenges to progress further in many areas. For example, it will help in understanding the competitive challenges in the industry, emerging innovation, and other progresses. The present study seeks to examine the characteristics of sustainable practices using materials that will last longer and following environmental policies. There has been a major emphasis since 1990s and onwards about recycling and preserving the environment. Furthermore, the present paper analyses and argues how national interest in policy increases resource productivity. It is a universal law, but these actions may be different based on the unique situation of the country. In addition, the present study explains some of the strategies developed by the Environmental Agency of Japan in the last few years. There are a few resources reviewed involving ‘Strategy for an Environmental Nation in the 21st Century’ from 2001, ‘Clean Asia Initiative’ from 2008, and ‘New Growth Strategy’ from 2010. The present paper also highlights the emphasis on increasing efficiency, as it is an important part of sustainability. We finally conclude by providing reasoning on the impact and positivity of reducing production and consumption on the environment, resulting in a productive and progressive Japan for the near and long term future.

Keywords: Green innovation, sustainable development, resource productivity, sound material-cycle society, waste management.

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Authors: Paul N. Napari, Patrick B. Cobbinah

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The 21^st century has been characterized by rapid urbanization with its associated environmental sanitation challenges especially in developing countries. However, studies have focused largely on institutional capacity and the resources needed to manage environmental sanitation challenges, with few insights on the attitudes of city residents. This paper analyzes the environmental sanitation situation in a rapidly urbanizing Tamale metropolis, examines how city residents’ attitudes have contributed to poor environmental sanitation and further reviews approaches that have been employed to manage environmental sanitation. Using secondary and empirical data sources, the paper reveals that only 7.5 tons of 150 tons of total daily solid wastes generated is effectively managed. The findings suggest that the poor sanitation in the city is influenced by two factors; poor attitudes of city residents and weak institutions. While poor attitudes towards environmental sanitation has resulted in indiscriminate disposal of waste, weak institutions have resulted in lack of capacity and pragmatic interventions to manage the environmental sanitation challenges in the city. The paper recommends public education on environmental sanitation, public private partnership, increased stakeholder engagement and preparation and implementation of environmental sanitation plan as mechanisms to ensure effective environmental sanitation management in the Tamale metropolis.

Keywords: Environmental sanitation, developing countries, waste management, developing countries, Tamale, urbanization.

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Authors: Maziar Ahmad Sharbafi, Caro Lucas, Abolfazel Toroghi Haghighat, Omid AmirGhiasvand, Omid Aghazade

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RoboCup Rescue simulation as a large-scale Multi agent system (MAS) is one of the challenging environments for keeping coordination between agents to achieve the objectives despite sensing and communication limitations. The dynamicity of the environment and intensive dependency between actions of different kinds of agents make the problem more complex. This point encouraged us to use learning-based methods to adapt our decision making to different situations. Our approach is utilizing reinforcement leaning. Using learning in rescue simulation is one of the current ways which has been the subject of several researches in recent years. In this paper we present an innovative learning method implemented for Police Force (PF) Agent. This method can cope with the main difficulties that exist in other learning approaches. Different methods used in the literature have been examined. Their drawbacks and possible improvements have led us to the method proposed in this paper which is fast and accurate. The Brain Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controller (BELBIC) is our solution for learning in this environment. BELBIC is a physiologically motivated approach based on a computational model of amygdale and limbic system. The paper presents the results obtained by the proposed approach, showing the power of BELBIC as a decision making tool in complex and dynamic situation.

Keywords: Emotional learning, rescue, simulation environment, RoboCup, multi-agent system.

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Authors: V. Emery David Jr., J. Wenchao, D. Mmereki, Y. John, F. Heriniaina

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Healthcare waste management continues to present an array of challenges for developing countries, and Liberia is of no exception. There is insufficient information available regarding the generation, handling, and disposal of health care waste. This face serves as an impediment to healthcare management schemes. The specific objective of this study is to present an evaluation of the current health care management practices in Liberia. It also presented procedures, techniques used, methods of handling, transportation, and disposal methods of wastes as well as the quantity and composition of health care waste. This study was conducted as an investigative case study, covering three different health care facilities; a hospital, a health center, and a clinic in Monrovia, Montserrado County. The average waste generation was found to be 0-7kg per day at the clinic and health center and 8-15kg per/day at the hospital. The composition of the waste includes hazardous and non-hazardous waste i.e. plastic, papers, sharps, and pathological elements etc. Nevertheless, the investigation showed that the healthcare waste generated by the surveyed healthcare facilities were not properly handled because of insufficient guidelines for separate collection, and classification, and adequate methods for storage and proper disposal of generated wastes. This therefore indicates that there is a need for improvement within the healthcare waste management system to improve the existing situation.

Keywords: Disposal, Healthcare waste, management, Montserrado County, Monrovia.

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Authors: Christian Doppler, Gernot Hirschl, Gerhard Zsiga

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Starting in 2020, an EU-wide CO2-limitation of 95 g/km is scheduled for the average of an OEMs passenger car fleet. Taking that into consideration additional improvement measures of the Diesel cycle are necessary in order to reduce fuel consumption and emissions while boosting, or at the least, keeping performance values at the same time. The present article deals with the possibilities of an optimized air/water charge air cooler, also called iCAC (indirect Charge Air Cooler) for a Diesel passenger car amongst extreme-boundary conditions. In this context, the precise objective was to show the impact of improved intercooling with reference to the engine working process (fuel consumption and NOx-emissions). Several extremeboundaries - e.g. varying ambient temperatures or mountainous routes - that will become very important in the near future regarding RDE (Real Driving emissions) were subject of the investigation. With the introduction of RDE in 2017 (EU6c measure), the controversial NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) will belong to the past and the OEMs will have to avoid harmful emissions in any conceivable real life situation. This is certainly going to lead to optimization-measurements at the powertrain, which again is going to make the implementation of iCACs, presently solely used for the premium class, more and more attractive for compact class cars. The investigations showed a benefit in FC between 1 and 3% for the iCAC in real world conditions.

Keywords: Air/Water-Charge Air Cooler, Co-Simulation, Diesel Working Process, EURO VI Fuel Consumption.

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Authors: Maria Toader, Gheorghe Valentin Roman

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The importance of fruit trees and bushes growing for Romania is due the concordance that exists between the different ecological conditions in natural basins, and the requirements of different species and varieties. There are, in Romania, natural areas dedicated to the main trees species: plum, apple, pear, cherry, sour cherry, finding optimal conditions for harnessing the potential of fruitfulness, making fruit quality both in terms of ratio commercial, and content in active principles. The share of fruits crops in the world economy of agricultural production is due primarily to the role of fruits in nourishment for human, and in the prevention and combating of diseases, in increasing the national income of cultivator countries and to improve comfort for human life. For Romania, the perspectives of the sector are positive, and are due to European funding opportunities, which provide farmers a specialized program that meets the needs of development and modernization of fruit growing industry, cultivation technology and equipment, organization and grouping of producers, creating storage facilities, conditioning, marketing and the joint use of fresh fruit. This paper shows the evolution of fruit growing, in Romania compared to other states. The document presents the current situation of the main tree species both in terms of surface but also of the productions and the role that this activity may have for the development of rural communities.

Keywords: Fruit growing, fruits trees, productivity, rural development.

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Authors: Mohammed Gamil Montasser, Angelo Battaglia

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Tourism is making its presence felt across the Sultanate of Oman. The story is one of the most recognized phenomena as a sustainable solid growth and is considered a remarkable outcome for any destination. The competitive situation and challenges within the tourism industry worldwide entail a better understanding of the destination position and its image to achieve Oman’s aspiration to retain its international reputation as one of the most desirable destinations in the Middle East. To access general perceptions of Oman’s attributes, their importance and their influences among U.S. tourists, an online survey was conducted with 522 American travelers who have traveled internationally, including non-visitors, virtual-visitors and visitors to Oman. This research involved a total of 36 attributes in the survey. Participants were asked to rate their agreement on how each attribute represented Oman and how important each attribute was for selecting destinations on 5- point Likert Scale. They also indicated if each attribute has a positive, neutral or negative influence on their destination selection. Descriptive statistics and importance performance analysis (IPA) were conducted. IPA illustrated U.S. tourists’ perceptions of Oman’s destination attributes and their importance in destination selection on a matrix with four quadrants, divided by actual mean value in each grid for importance (M=3.51) and performance (M=3.57). Oman tourism organizations and destination managers may use these research findings for future marketing and management efforts toward the U.S. travel market.

Keywords: Analysis of importance and performance, destination attributes, Oman’s position, U.S. tourists.

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Authors: Hossein Heidari Tabrizi, Azizeh Chalak

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The present study examined how translation teachers develop final tests as measures for checking on the quality of students’ academic translation in Iranian context. To achieve this goal, thirty experienced male and female translation teachers from the four types of the universities offering the program were invited to an in-depth 30-minute one-session semi-structured interview. The responses provided showed how much discrepancy exists among the Iranian translation teachers (as developers of final translation tests), who are least informed with the current translation evaluation methods. It was also revealed that the criteria they use for developing such tests and scoring student translations are not theory-driven but are highly subjective, mainly based on their personal experience and intuition. Hence, the quality and accountability of such tests are under serious question. The results also confirmed that the dominant method commonly and currently practiced is the purely essay-type format. To remedy the situation, some suggestions are in order. As part of the solution, to improve the reliability and validity of such tests, the present summative, product-oriented evaluation should be accompanied with some formative, process-oriented methods of evaluation. Training the teachers and helping them get acquainted with modern principles of translation evaluation as well as the existing models, and rating scales does improve the quality of academic translation evaluation.

Keywords: Iranian universities, students’ academic translations, translation final tests, undergraduate translation programs.

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Authors: Bakari M. M. Mwinyiwiwa

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Renewable Energy based microgrids are being considered to provide electricity for the expanding energy demand in the grid distribution network and grid isolated areas. The technical challenges associated with the operation and controls are immense. Electricity generation by Renewable Energy Sources is of stochastic nature such that there is a demand for regulation of voltage output in order to satisfy the standard loads’ requirements. In a renewable energy based microgrid, the energy sources give stochastically variable magnitude AC or DC voltages. AC voltage regulation of micro and mini sources pose practical challenges as well as unbearable costs. It is therefore practically and economically viable to convert the voltage outputs from stochastic AC and DC voltage sources to constant DC voltage to satisfy various DC loads including inverters which ultimately feed AC loads. This paper presents results obtained from SEPIC converter based DC bus voltage regulator as a case study for renewable energy microgrid application. Real-Time Simulation results show that upon appropriate choice of controller parameters for control of the SEPIC converter, the output DC bus voltage can be kept constant regardless of wide range of voltage variations of the source. This feature is particularly important in the situation that multiple renewable sources are to be integrated to supply a microgrid under main grid integration or isolated modes of operation.

Keywords: DC Voltage Regulator, microgrid, multisource, Renewable Energy, SEPIC Converter.

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Authors: Ntokozo C. Mthembu

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The notion of sustainable chemistry has become significant in the discourse for a global post-colonial era, including South Africa, especially when it comes to access to the general health system and related policies in relation to disease or ease of human life. In view of the stubborn vestiges of coloniality in the daily lives of indigenous African people in general, the fundamentals of present Western medical and traditional medicine systems and related policies in the democratic era were examined in this study. The situation of traditional healers in relation to current policy was also reviewed. The advent of democracy in South Africa brought about a variety of development opportunities and limitations, particularly with respect to indigenous African knowledge systems such as traditional medicine. There were high hopes that the limitations of previous narrow cultural perspectives would be rectified in the democratic era through development interventions, but some sections of society, such as traditional healers, remain marginalised. The Afrocentric perspective was explored in dissecting government interventions related to traditional medicine. This article highlights that multiple medical systems should be adopted and that health policies should be aligned in order to guarantee mutual respect and to address the remnants of colonialism in South Africa, Africa and the broader global community.

Keywords: Traditional healing system, healers, pluralist healthcare system, post-colonial era.

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Authors: F. J. Moral García, P. Valiente González, F. López Rodríguez

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Ground-level tropospheric ozone is one of the air pollutants of most concern. It is mainly produced by photochemical processes involving nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the lower parts of the atmosphere. Ozone levels become particularly high in regions close to high ozone precursor emissions and during summer, when stagnant meteorological conditions with high insolation and high temperatures are common. In this work, some results of a study about urban ozone distribution patterns in the city of Badajoz, which is the largest and most industrialized city in Extremadura region (southwest Spain) are shown. Fourteen sampling campaigns, at least one per month, were carried out to measure ambient air ozone concentrations, during periods that were selected according to favourable conditions to ozone production, using an automatic portable analyzer. Later, to evaluate the ozone distribution at the city, the measured ozone data were analyzed using geostatistical techniques. Thus, first, during the exploratory analysis of data, it was revealed that they were distributed normally, which is a desirable property for the subsequent stages of the geostatistical study. Secondly, during the structural analysis of data, theoretical spherical models provided the best fit for all monthly experimental variograms. The parameters of these variograms (sill, range and nugget) revealed that the maximum distance of spatial dependence is between 302-790 m and the variable, air ozone concentration, is not evenly distributed in reduced distances. Finally, predictive ozone maps were derived for all points of the experimental study area, by use of geostatistical algorithms (kriging). High prediction accuracy was obtained in all cases as cross-validation showed. Useful information for hazard assessment was also provided when probability maps, based on kriging interpolation and kriging standard deviation, were produced.

Keywords: Kriging, map, tropospheric ozone, variogram.

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Authors: Ibrahim Hamidu Magem

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Employee engagement has continued to gain popularity among practitioners, consultants and academicians recent years. This is due to the fact that the engaged employees are central to organizational success in today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing business environment. Employee engagement depicts a situation whereby employee’s harnessed themselves to their work roles. The importance of employee engagement to organizations cannot be overemphasized in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Organizations both large and small are constantly striving to improve their performance, retain employees, reduce absenteeism, and create loyal customers among others. To be able to achieve these organizations need a team of highly engaged employees. In line with this, the study attempts to provide a valuable framework for understanding the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement in organizations. The paper categorizes the antecedents of employee engagement into individual and organizational factors which it is assumed that the existence of such factors could result into engaged employees that will be of benefit to organizations. Therefore, it is recommended that organizations should revisit and redesign its employee engagement system to enable them attain their organizational goals and objectives. In addition, organizations should note that engagement is personal but organizational engagement programmes should be about everyone in the organization. The findings from this paper adds to existing studies about employee engagement and also provide awareness to academics and practitioners about the importance of employee engagement to improve organizations efficiency and effectiveness, as well as to impact to overall firm performance.

Keywords: Antecedent, employee engagement, job involvement, organization.

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Authors: Ljubica Dokić, Ivana Nikolić, Dragana Šoronja–Simović, Zita Šereš, Biljana Pajin, Nils Juul, Nikola Maravić

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The possibility of application the dietary fibers in production of crackers was observed in this work, as well as their influence on rheological and textural properties on the dough for crackers and influence on sensory properties of obtained crackers. Three different dietary fibers, oat, potato and pea fibers, replaced 10% of wheat flour. Long fermentation process and baking test method were used for crackers production. The changes of dough for crackers were observed by rheological methods of determination the viscoelastic dough properties and by textural measurements. Sensory quality of obtained crackers was described using quantity descriptive method (QDA) by trained members of descriptive panel. Additional analysis of crackers surface was performed by videometer. Based on rheological determination, viscoelastic properties of dough for crackers were reduced by application of dietary fibers. Manipulation of dough with 10% of potato fiber was disabled, thus the recipe modification included increase in water content at 35%. Dough compliance to constant stress for samples with dietary fibers decreased, due to more rigid and stiffer dough consistency compared to control sample. Also, hardness of dough for these samples increased and dough extensibility decreased. Sensory properties of final products, crackers, were reduced compared to control sample. Application of dietary fibers affected mostly hardness, structure and crispness of the crackers. Observed crackers were low marked for flavor and taste, due to influence of fibers specific aroma. The sample with 10% of potato fibers and increased water content was the most adaptable to applied stresses and to production process. Also this sample was close to control sample without dietary fibers by evaluation of sensory properties and by results of videometer method.

Keywords: Crackers, dietary fibers, rheology, sensory properties.

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Authors: R. N. Begum, Ambalika Sharma, G. K. Singh

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Identity theft has serious ramifications beyond data and personal information loss. This necessitates the implementation of robust and efficient user identification systems. Therefore, automatic biometric recognition systems are the need of the hour, and electrocardiogram (ECG)-based systems are unquestionably the best choice due to their appealing inherent characteristics. The Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are the recent state-of-the-art techniques for ECG-based user identification systems. However, the results obtained are significantly below standards, and the situation worsens as the number of users and types of heartbeats in the dataset grows. As a result, this study proposes a highly accurate and resilient ECG-based person identification system using CNN's dense learning framework. The proposed research explores explicitly the caliber of dense CNNs in the field of ECG-based human recognition. The study tests four different configurations of dense CNN which are trained on a dataset of recordings collected from eight popular ECG databases. With the highest False Acceptance Rate (FAR)  of 0.04% and the highest False Rejection Rate (FRR)  of 5%, the best performing network achieved an identification accuracy of 99.94%. The best network is also tested with various train/test split ratios. The findings show that DenseNets are not only extremely reliable, but also highly efficient. Thus, they might also be implemented in real-time ECG-based human recognition systems.

Keywords: Biometrics, dense networks, identification rate, train/test split ratio.

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Authors: Mohammad Hossein Hojjati , Fardin Boustani

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Groundwater is one of the most important water resources in Fars province. Based on this study, 95 percent of the total annual water consumption in Fars is used for agriculture, whereas the percentages for domestic and industrial uses are 4 and 1 percent, respectively. Population growth, urban and industrial growth, and agricultural development in Fars have created a condition of water stress. In this province, farmers and other users are pumping groundwater faster than its natural replenishment rate, causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables and depletion of this resource. In this research variation of groundwater level , their effects and ways to help control groundwater levels in some plains of Fars were evaluated .Excessive exploitation of groundwater in Darab, Jahrom, Estahban, Arsanjan, Khir and Niriz plains of Fars caused the groundwater levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown of the water table in Arsanjan, Khir. Estahban and Niriz plain plains were 12,8, 9 and 6 meters during 16,11,11 and 13 years ago respectively. This not only reduces available water resources and well yields but also can saline water intrusion, reductions in river flow and in wetland areas , drying springs, and ground subsidence, considerable increase in pumping costs and a significant decline in crop yields as a result of the increasing salinity. Finally based on situation and condition of the aquifer some suggestions are recommended.

Keywords: Fars province , ground water overdraft , water table

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