Search results for: Stress intensity factor

Authors: Teresa Caswell

Abstract:

Throughout the United States and within a myriad of demographic contexts, students of color experience the results of systemic inequities as an academic outcome. These disparities continue despite the increased resources provided to students and ongoing instruction-focused professional learning received by teachers. We postulated that lower levels of educator cultural competency are an underlying factor of why resource and instructional interventions are less effective than desired. Before implementing any type of intervention, however, cultural competency needed to be confirmed as a factor in schools demonstrating academic disparities between racial subgroups. A needs assessment was designed to measure levels of individual beliefs, including cultural competency, in both principals and teachers at three neighboring schools verified to have academic disparities. The resulting mixed method study utilized the Optimal Theory Applied to Identity Development (OTAID) model to measure cultural competency quantitatively, through self-identity inventory survey items, with teachers and qualitatively, through one-on-one interviews, with each school’s principal. A joint display was utilized to see combined data within and across school contexts. Each school was confirmed to have misalignments between principal and teacher levels of cultural competency beliefs while also indicating that a number of participants in the self-identity inventory survey may have intentionally skipped items referencing the term oppression. Additional use of the OTAID model and self-identity inventory in future research and across contexts is needed to determine transferability and dependability as cultural competency measures.

Keywords: Cultural competency, identity development, mixed method analysis, needs assessment.

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Authors: Perumal Kumar, Rajamohan Ganesan

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Addition of milli or micro sized particles to the heat transfer fluid is one of the many techniques employed for improving heat transfer rate. Though this looks simple, this method has practical problems such as high pressure loss, clogging and erosion of the material of construction. These problems can be overcome by using nanofluids, which is a dispersion of nanosized particles in a base fluid. Nanoparticles increase the thermal conductivity of the base fluid manifold which in turn increases the heat transfer rate. Nanoparticles also increase the viscosity of the basefluid resulting in higher pressure drop for the nanofluid compared to the base fluid. So it is imperative that the Reynolds number (Re) and the volume fraction have to be optimum for better thermal hydraulic effectiveness. In this work, the heat transfer enhancement using aluminium oxide nanofluid using low and high volume fraction nanofluids in turbulent pipe flow with constant wall temperature has been studied by computational fluid dynamic modeling of the nanofluid flow adopting the single phase approach. Nanofluid, up till a volume fraction of 1% is found to be an effective heat transfer enhancement technique. The Nusselt number (Nu) and friction factor predictions for the low volume fractions (i.e. 0.02%, 0.1 and 0.5%) agree very well with the experimental values of Sundar and Sharma (2010). While, predictions for the high volume fraction nanofluids (i.e. 1%, 4% and 6%) are found to have reasonable agreement with both experimental and numerical results available in the literature. So the computationally inexpensive single phase approach can be used for heat transfer and pressure drop prediction of new nanofluids.

Keywords: Heat transfer intensification, nanofluid, CFD, friction factor

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Authors: A. Benhadji, M. Taleb Ahmed

Abstract:

Among the various methods of treatment, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) are the most promising ones. In this study, Peroxi Electrocoagulation Process (PEP) was investigated for the treatment of detergent wastewater. The process was compared with electrooxidation treatment. The results showed that chemical oxygen demand (COD) was high 7584 mgO₂.L^-1, while the biochemical oxygen demand was low (250 mgO₂.L^-1). This wastewater was hardly biodegradable. Electrochemical process was carried out for the removal of detergent using a glass reactor with a volume of 1 L and fitted with three electrodes. A direct current (DC) supply was used. Samples were taken at various current density (0.0227 A/cm² to 0.0378 A/cm²) and reaction time (1-2-3-4 and 5 hour). Finally, the COD was determined. The results indicated that COD removal efficiency of PEP was observed to increase with current intensity and reached to 77% after 5 h. The highest removal efficiency was observed after 5 h of treatment.

Keywords: Advanced oxidation processes, chemical oxygen demand, COD, detergent, peroxi electrocoagulation process, PEP, wastewater

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Authors: D. Ščeulovs, E. Gaile-Sarkane

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Fast development of technologies, economic globalization and many other external circumstances stimulate company’s competitiveness. One of the major trends in today’s business is the shift to the exploitation of the Internet and electronic environment for entrepreneurial needs. Latest researches confirm that e-environment provides a range of possibilities and opportunities for companies, especially for micro-, small- and medium-sized companies, which have limited resources. The usage of e-tools raises the effectiveness and the profitability of an organization, as well as its competitiveness. In the electronic market, as in the classic one, there are factors, such as globalization, development of new technology, price sensitive consumers, Internet, new distribution and communication channels that influence entrepreneurship. As a result of eenvironment development, e-commerce and e-marketing grow as well.

Objective of the paper: To describe and identify factors influencing company’s competitiveness in e-environment.

Research methodology: The authors employ well-established quantitative and qualitative methods of research: grouping, analysis, statistics method, factor analysis in SPSS 20 environment, etc. The theoretical and methodological background of the research is formed by using scientific researches and publications, such as that from mass media and professional literature; statistical information from legal institutions as well as information collected by the authors during the surveying process. Research result: The authors detected and classified factors influencing competitiveness in e-environment. 

In this paper, the authors presented their findings based on theoretical, scientific, and field research. Authors have conducted a research on e-environment utilization among Latvian enterprises. 

Keywords: Competitiveness, e-environment, factors, factor analysis.

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Authors: Carmen D. Pricinâ, E. Corina Cipu, Victor Ţigoiu

Abstract:

The flow of a third grade fluid in an orthogonal rheometer is studied. We employ the admissible velocity field proposed in [5]. We solve the problem and obtain the velocity field as well as the components for the Cauchy tensor. We compare the results with those from [9]. Some diagrams concerning the velocity and Cauchy stress components profiles are presented for different values of material constants and compared with the corresponding values for a linear viscous fluid.

Keywords: Non newtonian fluid flow, orthogonal rheometer, third grade fluid.

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Authors: Z. Večeřa, P. Mikuška, J. Kellner, J. Navrátil, A. Langerová

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The submitted paper deals with the problems of trapping and enriching the gases and aerosols of the substances to be determined in the ambient atmosphere. Further, the paper is focused on the working principle of the miniaturized portable continuous concentrator we have designed and the possibilities of its application in air sampling and accumulation of organic and inorganic substances with which the air is contaminated. The stress is laid on trapping vapours and aerosols of solid substances with the comparatively low vapour tension such as explosive compounds.

Keywords: Detectors of explosives, portable continuousconcentrator, misuse of explosive, terrorism.

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Authors: H. Heidari-Bafroui, B. Ribeiro, A. Charbaji, C. Anagnostopoulos, M. Faghri

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In this paper, we report the development of a portable and inexpensive infrared lightbox for improving the detection limits of paper-based phosphate devices. Commercial paper-based devices utilize the molybdenum blue protocol to detect phosphate in the environment. Although these devices are easy to use and have a long shelf life, their main deficiency is their low sensitivity based on the qualitative results obtained via a color chart. To improve the results, we constructed a compact infrared lightbox that communicates wirelessly with a smartphone. The system measures the absorbance of radiation for the molybdenum blue reaction in the infrared region of the spectrum. It consists of a lightbox illuminated by four infrared light-emitting diodes, an infrared digital camera, a Raspberry Pi microcontroller, a mini-router, and an iPhone to control the microcontroller. An iPhone application was also developed to analyze images captured by the infrared camera in order to quantify phosphate concentrations. Additionally, the app connects to an online data center to present a highly scalable worldwide system for tracking and analyzing field measurements. In this study, the detection limits for two popular commercial devices were improved by a factor of 4 for the Quantofix devices (from 1.3 ppm using visible light to 300 ppb using infrared illumination) and a factor of 6 for the Indigo units (from 9.2 ppm to 1.4 ppm) with repeatability of less than or equal to 1.2% relative standard deviation (RSD). The system also provides more granular concentration information compared to the discrete color chart used by commercial devices and it can be easily adapted for use in other applications.

Keywords: Infrared lightbox, paper-based device, phosphate detection, smartphone colorimetric analyzer.

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Authors: Hilal A. Fadhil, Syed A. Aljunid, R. Badlishah Ahmed

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In this paper we study the use of a new code called Random Diagonal (RD) code for Spectral Amplitude Coding (SAC) optical Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, using Fiber Bragg-Grating (FBG), FBG consists of a fiber segment whose index of reflection varies periodically along its length. RD code is constructed using code level and data level, one of the important properties of this code is that the cross correlation at data level is always zero, which means that Phase intensity Induced Phase (PIIN) is reduced. We find that the performance of the RD code will be better than Modified Frequency Hopping (MFH) and Hadamard code It has been observed through experimental and theoretical simulation that BER for RD code perform significantly better than other codes. Proof –of-principle simulations of encoding with 3 channels, and 10 Gbps data transmission have been successfully demonstrated together with FBG decoding scheme for canceling the code level from SAC-signal.

Keywords: FBG, MFH, OCDMA, PIIN, BER.

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Authors: Jayesh K., Ganesh T., Suganthi D., Mohan R., Rakesh C. J., Sarojkumar D. M., Jacob S. J.

Abstract:

Prior to the use of detectors, characteristics comparison study was performed and baseline established. In patient specific QA, the portal dosimetry mean values of area gamma, average gamma and maximum gamma were 1.02, 0.31 and 1.31 with standard deviation of 0.33, 0.03 and 0.14 for IMRT and the corresponding values were 1.58, 0.48 and 1.73 with standard deviation of 0.31, 0.06 and 0.66 for VMAT. With ImatriXX 2-D array system, on an average 99.35% of the pixels passed the criteria of 3%-3 mm gamma with standard deviation of 0.24 for dynamic IMRT. For VMAT, the average value was 98.16% with a standard deviation of 0.86. The results showed that both the systems can be used in patient specific QA measurements for IMRT and VMAT. The values obtained with the portal dosimetry system were found to be relatively more consistent compared to those obtained with ImatriXX 2-D array system.

Keywords: Gamma, IMRT, QA, TPS, VMAT.

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Authors: Dae Hwan Kang, Young-IL Jeong, Chung-Wook Chung

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pH-sensitive drug targeting using nanoparticles for cancer chemotherapy have been spotlighted in recent decades. Graft copolymer composed of poly (L-histidine) (PHS) and dextran (DexPHS) was synthesized and pH-sensitive nanoparticles were fabricated for pH-responsive drug delivery of doxorubicin (DOX). Nanoparticles of DexPHS showed pH-sensitive changes in particle sizes and drug release behavior, i.e. particle sizes and drug release rate were increased at acidic pH, indicating that DexPHS nanoparticles have pH-sensitive drug delivery potentials. Antitumor activity of DOX-incorporated DexPHS nanoparticles were studied using CT26 colorectal carcinoma cells. Results indicated that fluorescence intensity was higher at acidic pH than basic pH. These results indicated that DexPHS nanoparticles have pH-responsive drug targeting.

Keywords: pH-sensitive polymer, nanoparticles, block copolymer, poly (L-histidine).

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Authors: Elena Lyakso, Olga Frolova, Yuri Matveev

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The aim of the study is to determine the acoustic features of voice and speech of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as a possible additional diagnostic criterion. The participants in the study were 95 children with ASD aged 5-16 years, 150 typically development (TD) children, and 103 adults – listening to children’s speech samples. Three types of experimental methods for speech analysis were performed: spectrographic, perceptual by listeners, and automatic recognition. In the speech of children with ASD, the pitch values, pitch range, values of frequency and intensity of the third formant (emotional) leading to the “atypical” spectrogram of vowels are higher than corresponding parameters in the speech of TD children. High values of vowel articulation index (VAI) are specific for ASD children’s speech signals. These acoustic features can be considered as diagnostic marker of autism. The ability of humans and automatic recognition of the psychoneurological state of children via their speech is determined.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, biomarker of autism, child speech, voice features.

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Authors: C. Temaneh-Nyah, J. Makiche, J. Nujoma

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This paper considers the characterization of a complex electromagnetic environment due to multiple sources of electromagnetic radiation as a five-dimensional surface which can be described by a set of several surface sections including: instant EM field intensity distribution maps at a given frequency and altitude, instantaneous spectrum at a given location in space and the time evolution of the electromagnetic field spectrum at a given point in space. This characterization if done over time can enable the exposure levels of Radio Frequency Radiation at every point in the analysis area to be determined and results interpreted based on comparison of the determined RFR exposure level with the safe guidelines for general public exposure given by recognized body such as the International commission on non-ionizing radiation protection (ICNIRP), Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the National Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA).

Keywords: Electromagnetic Environment, Electric Field Strength, Mathematical Models.

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Authors: Aifa Afirah Rozlan, Mohamad Suhaimi Jaafar, Azhar Abdul Rahman

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Raman spectroscopy are used to characterize the chemical changes in normoxic polyhydroxyethylacrylate gel dosimeter (PHEA) induced by radiation. Irradiations in the low dose region are performed and the polymerizations of PHEA gels are monitored by the observing the changes of Raman shift intensity of the carbon covalent bond of PHEA originated from both monomer and the cross-linker. The variation in peak intensities with absorbed dose was observed. As the dose increase, the peak intensities of covalent bond of carbon in the polymer gels decrease. This point out that the amount of absorbed dose affect the polymerization of polymer gels. As the absorbed dose increase, the polymerizations also increase. Results verify that PHEA gel dosimeters are sensitive even in lower dose region.

Keywords: normoxic polymer gel, ascorbic acid, Ramanspectroscopy, radiation dosimetry.

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Authors: Nidal Hadadin

Abstract:

This study investigated the effect of cross sectional geometry on sediment transport rate. The processes of sediment transport are generally associated to environmental management, such as pollution caused by the forming of suspended sediment in the channel network of a watershed and preserving physical habitats and native vegetations, and engineering applications, such as the influence of sediment transport on hydraulic structures and flood control design. Many equations have been proposed for computing the sediment transport, the influence of many variables on sediment transport has been understood; however, the effect of other variables still requires further research. For open channel flow, sediment transport capacity is recognized to be a function of friction slope, flow velocity, grain size, grain roughness and form roughness, the hydraulic radius of the bed section and the type and quantity of vegetation cover. The effect of cross sectional geometry of the channel on sediment transport is one of the variables that need additional investigation. The width-depth ratio (W/d) is a comparative indicator of the channel shape. The width is the total distance across the channel and the depth is the mean depth of the channel. The mean depth is best calculated as total cross-sectional area divided by the top width. Channels with high W/d ratios tend to be shallow and wide, while channels with low (W/d) ratios tend to be narrow and deep. In this study, the effects of the width-depth ratio on sediment transport was demonstrated theoretically by inserting the shape factor in sediment continuity equation and analytically by utilizing the field data sets for Yalobusha River. It was found by utilizing the two approaches as a width-depth ratio increases the sediment transport decreases.

Keywords: Sediment transport, shape factor, hydraulicgeometry, flow discharge, width depth ratio.

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Authors: Mona A. Fouad, Fatma M. Bayoumi, Hoda M. Onsi, Mohamed G. Darwish

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Digital libraries become more and more necessary in order to support users with powerful and easy-to-use tools for searching, browsing and retrieving media information. The starting point for these tasks is the segmentation of video content into shots. To segment MPEG video streams into shots, a fully automatic procedure to detect both abrupt and gradual transitions (dissolve and fade-groups) with minimal decoding in real time is developed in this study. Each was explored through two phases: macro-block type's analysis in B-frames, and on-demand intensity information analysis. The experimental results show remarkable performance in detecting gradual transitions of some kinds of input data and comparable results of the rest of the examined video streams. Almost all abrupt transitions could be detected with very few false positive alarms.

Keywords: Adaptive threshold, abrupt transitions, gradual transitions, MPEG video streams.

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Authors: Hasan Karal, Yasemin Aydin, Ömer Faruk Ursavas

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Primary studies are being carried out in Turkey for expanding information and communication technologies (ICT) aided instruction activities. Subject of the present study is to identify whether those studies achieved their goals in the application. Information technologies (IT) formative teachers in the primary schools, and academicians in the faculties of education were interviewed to investigate the process and results of implementing computer-aided instruction methods whose basis is strengthened in theory. Analysis of the results gained from two separate surveys demonstrated that capability of the teachers in elementary education institutions for carrying into effect computer-aided instruction and technical infrastructure has not been established for computer-aided instruction practices yet. Prospective teachers must be well-equipped in ICT to duly fulfill requirements of modern education and also must be self-confident. Finally, scope and intensity of the courses given in connection with teaching of the ICT in faculties of education needs to be revised.

Keywords: Information and Communication Technologies, Teacher, Education

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Authors: Saleh H. Abud, Z. Hassan, F. K. Yam

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Characteristics of MSM photodetector based on a porous In_0.08Ga_0.92N thin film were reported. Nanoporous structures of n-type In_0.08Ga_0.92N/AlN/Si thin films were synthesized by photoelectrochemical (PEC) etching at a ratio of 1:4 of HF:C₂H₅OH solution for 15min. The structural and optical properties of pre- and post-etched thin films were investigated. Field emission scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope images showed that the pre-etched thin film has a sufficiently smooth surface over a large region and the roughness increased for porous film. Blue shift has been observed in photoluminescence emission peak at 300 K for porous sample. The photoluminescence intensity of the porous film indicated that the optical properties have been enhanced. A high work function metals (Pt and Ni) were deposited as a metal contact on the porous films. The rise and recovery times of the devices were investigated at 390nm chopped light. Finally, the sensitivity and quantum efficiency were also studied.

Keywords: Porous InGaN, photoluminescence, SMS photodetector.

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Authors: Trisha Malhotra

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Sentiment analysis is a recent field of study that computationally assesses the emotional nature of a body of text. To assess its test-validity, sentiment analysis was carried out on the emotional corpus of text from a personal 15-day mood diary. Self-reported mood scores varied more or less accurately with daily mood evaluation score given by the software. On further assessment, it was found that while sentiment analysis was good at assessing ‘global’ mood, it was not able to ‘locally’ identify and differentially score synonyms of various emotional words. It is further critiqued for treating the intensity of an emotion as universal across cultures. Finally, the software is shown not to account for emotional complexity in sentences by treating emotions as strictly positive or negative. Hence, it is posited that a better output could be two (positive and negative) affect scores for the same body of text.

Keywords: Analysis, data, diary, emotions, mood, sentiment.

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Authors: Mahdi Asghari

Abstract:

The cavitation phenomenon is the formation and production of micro-bubbles and eventually the bursting of the micro-bubbles inside the liquid fluid, which results in localized high pressure and temperature, causing physical and chemical fluid changes. This pressure and temperature are predicted to be 2000 atmospheres and 5000 °C, respectively. As a result of small bubbles bursting from this process, temperature and pressure increase momentarily and locally, so that the intensity and magnitude of these temperatures and pressures provide the energy needed to break the molecular bonds of heavy compounds such as fuel oil. In this paper, we study the theory of cavitation and the methods of cavitation production by acoustic and hydrodynamic methods and the necessary mechanical equipment and reactors for industrial application of the hydrodynamic cavitation method to break down the molecular bonds of the fuel oil and convert it into useful and economical products.

Keywords: Cavitation, hydrodynamic cavitation, cavitation reactor, fuel oil.

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Authors: T. M. Agbede

Abstract:

Field experiments were carried out at Owo, southwest Nigeria to evaluate the effect of different tillage practices (zero tillage with mulch (ZTM), row tillage (RT) and conventional tillage (CT), and with or without oil palm bunch ash plus poultry manure (OBA+PM) on soil chemical properties, growth and yield of ginger. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete plot design with three replications. Soil chemical properties, growth and fresh rhizome yield reduced with frequency/intensity of tillage imposed while application of OBA+PM increased them. Among the tillage practices, the highest fresh rhizome yield (15.0t ha-1) was produced by ZTM which was significantly different from other tillage practices. Among the tillage – OBA+PM combinations, the  most satisfactorily yield (20.1t ha-1) was produced by ZTM+OBA+PM while the lowest yield (15.7t ha-1) was in CT+OBA+PM.

Keywords: Oil palm bunch ash, poultry manure, rhizome yield, tillage.

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Authors: Siripen Yiamjanya, Kevin Wongleedee

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This research paper aims to identify travel motivation by push and pull factors that affected decision making of international tourists in selecting Thailand as their destination choice. A total of 200 international tourists who traveled to Thailand during January and February, 2014 were used as the sample in this study. A questionnaire was employed as a tool in collecting the data, conducted in Bangkok. The list consisted of 30 attributes representing both psychological factors as “push- based factors” and destination factors as “pull-based factors”. Mean and standard deviation were used in order to find the top ten travel motives that were important determinants in the respondents’ decision making process to select Thailand as their destination choice. The finding revealed the top ten travel motivations influencing international tourists to select Thailand as their destination choice included [i] getting experience in foreign land; [ii] Thai food; [iii] learning new culture; [iv] relaxing in foreign land; [v] wanting to learn new things; [vi] being interested in Thai culture, and traditional markets; [vii] escaping from same daily life; [viii] enjoying activities; [ix] adventure; and [x] good weather. Classification of push- based and pull- based motives suggested that getting experience in foreign land was the most important push motive for international tourists to travel, while Thai food portrayed its highest significance as pull motive. Discussion and suggestions were also made for tourism industry of Thailand.

Keywords: Decision Making, Destination Choice, International Tourist, Pull Factor, Push Factor, Thailand, Travel Motivation.

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Authors: Glenda Wrenn, Juliet Muzere, Meldra Hall, Allyson Belton, Kisha Holden, Chanita Hughes-Halbert, Martha Kent, Bekh Bradley

Abstract:

Understanding the help seeking decision making process and experiences of health disparity populations with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is central to development of trauma-informed, culturally centered, and patient focused services. Yet, little is known about the decision making process among adult Black women who are non-treatment seekers as they are, by definition, not engaged in services. Methods: Audiotaped interviews were conducted with 30 African American adult women with clinically significant PTSD symptoms who were engaged in primary care, but not in treatment for PTSD despite symptom burden. A qualitative interview guide was used to elucidate key themes. Independent coding of themes mapped to theory and identification of emergent themes were conducted using qualitative methods. An existing quantitative dataset was analyzed to contextualize responses and provide a descriptive summary of the sample. Results: Emergent themes revealed that active mental avoidance, the intermittent nature of distress, ambivalence, and self-identified resilience as undermining to help seeking decisions. Participants were stuck within the help-seeking phase of ‘recognition’ of illness and retained a sense of “it is my decision” despite endorsing significant social and environmental negative influencers. Participants distinguished ‘help acceptance’ from ‘help seeking’ with greater willingness to accept help and importance placed on being of help to others. Conclusions: Elucidation of the decision-making process from the perspective of non-treatment seekers has implications for outreach and treatment within models of integrated and specialty systems care. The salience of responses to trauma symptoms and stagnation in the help seeking recognition phase are findings relevant to integrated care service design and community engagement.

Keywords: Culture, help-seeking, integrated care, PTSD.

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Authors: Zina Ghiloufi, Tahar Khir

Abstract:

A transient three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is developed to determine the velocity and temperature distribution in different positions cold room during pre-cooling of dates. The turbulence model used is the k-ω Shear Stress Transport (SST) with the standard wall function, the air. The numerical results obtained show that cooling rate is not uniform inside the room; the product at the medium of room has a slower cooling rate. This cooling heterogeneity has a large effect on the energy consumption during cold storage.

Keywords: Numerical simulation, CFD, k-ω (SST), cold room, dates, cooling rate.

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Authors: Chien-Chih Chen, Ya-Hsin Hsueh, Zong-Cian He

Abstract:

With getting older in the whole population, the prevalence of stroke and its residual disability is getting higher and higher recently in Taiwan. The functional electrical stimulation cycling system (FESCS) is useful for hemiplegic patients. Because that the muscle of stroke patients is under hybrid activation. The raw electromyography (EMG) represents the residual muscle force of stroke subject whereas the peak-to-peak of stimulus EMG indicates the force enhancement benefiting from ES. It seems that EMG signals could be used for a parameter of feedback control mechanism. So, we design the feedback control protocol of FESCS, it includes physiological signal recorder, FPGA biomedical module, DAC and electrical stimulation circuit. Using the intensity of real-time EMG signal obtained from patients, as a feedback control method for the output voltage of FES-cycling system.

Keywords: Functional Electrical Stimulation cycling system EMG, control protocol.

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Authors: John Walton, Vishal Parikh

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Contact centres have been exemplars of scientific management in the discipline of operations management for more than a decade now. With the movement of industries from a resource based economy to knowledge based economy businesses have started to realize the customer eccentricity being the key to sustainability amidst high velocity of the market. However, as technologies have converged and advanced, so have the contact centres. Contact Centres have redirected the supply chains and the concept of retailing is highly diminished due to over exaggeration of cost reduction strategies. In conditions of high environmental velocity together with services featuring considerable information intensity contact centres will require up to date and enlightened agents to satisfy the demands placed upon them by those requesting their services. In this paper we examine salient factors such as Power Distance, Knowledge structures and the dynamics of job specialisation and enlargement to suggest critical success factors in the domain of contact centres.

Keywords: Post Taylorism, Knowledge Management, Power Distance, Organisational Learning

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Authors: C. Selvaraj, K. R. Karthikeyan

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We obtain several interesting subordination results for a class of analytic functions defined by using a generalized integral operator.

Keywords: Analytic functions, Hadamard product, Subordinating factor sequence

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Authors: Ying Shen, Weihua Zhu

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Medical images are important to help identifying different diseases, for example, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to investigate the brain, spinal cord, bones, joints, breasts, blood vessels, and heart. Image segmentation, in medical image analysis, is usually the first step to find out some characteristics with similar color, intensity or texture so that the diagnosis could be further carried out based on these features. This paper introduces an improved C-means model to segment the MRI images. The model is based on information entropy to evaluate the segmentation results by achieving global optimization. Several contributions are significant. Firstly, Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used for achieving global optimization in this model where fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm (FCMA) is not capable of doing that. Secondly, the information entropy after segmentation is used for measuring the effectiveness of MRI image processing. Experimental results show the outperformance of the proposed model by comparing with traditional approaches.

Keywords: Magnetic Resonance Image, C-means model, image segmentation, information entropy.

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Authors: Mustafa M. Donma, Orkide Donma

Abstract:

The impact of metabolic syndrome (MetS) on cognition and functions of the brain is being investigated. Iron deficiency and deficiencies of B9 (folate) as well as B12 (cobalamin) vitamins are best-known nutritional anemias. They are associated with cognitive disorders and learning difficulties. The antidepressant effects of vitamin D are known and the deficiency state affects mental functions negatively. The aim of this study is to investigate possible correlations of MetS with serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), iron, folate, cobalamin and vitamin D in pediatric patients. 30 children, whose age- and sex-dependent body mass index (BMI) percentiles vary between 85 and 15, 60 morbid obese children with above 99^th percentiles constituted the study population. Anthropometric measurements were taken. BMI values were calculated. Age- and sex-dependent BMI percentile values were obtained using the appropriate tables prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO). Obesity classification was performed according to WHO criteria. Those with MetS were evaluated according to MetS criteria. Serum BDNF was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum folate was analyzed by an immunoassay analyzer. Serum cobalamin concentrations were measured using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Vitamin D status was determined by the measurement of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol [25-hydroxy vitamin D3, 25(OH)D] using high performance liquid chromatography. Statistical evaluations were performed using SPSS for Windows, version 16. The p values less than 0.05 were accepted as statistically significant. Although statistically insignificant, lower folate and cobalamin values were found in MO children compared to those observed for children with normal BMI. For iron and BDNF values, no alterations were detected among the groups. Significantly decreased vitamin D concentrations were noted in MO children with MetS in comparison with those in children with normal BMI (p ≤ 0.05). The positive correlation observed between iron and BDNF in normal-BMI group was not found in two MO groups. In THE MetS group, the partial correlation among iron, BDNF, folate, cobalamin, vitamin D controlling for waist circumference and BMI was r = -0.501; p ≤ 0.05. None was calculated in MO and normal BMI groups. In conclusion, vitamin D should also be considered during the assessment of pediatric MetS. Waist circumference and BMI should collectively be evaluated during the evaluation of MetS in children. Within this context, BDNF appears to be a key biochemical parameter during the examination of obesity degree in terms of mental functions, cognition and learning capacity. The association observed between iron and BDNF in children with normal BMI was not detected in MO groups possibly due to development of inflammation and other obesity-related pathologies. It was suggested that this finding may contribute to mental function impairments commonly observed among obese children.

Keywords: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor, iron, Vitamin B9, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D.

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Authors: H. Pasternak, A. Chwastek

Abstract:

The paper describes the results from a research project about repair of welds. The repair was carried out by grinding the flawed seams and re-welding them. The main task was to determine the FAT classes of original state and after repair of seams according to the assessment procedures, such as nominal, structural and effective notch stress approach. The first part shows the results of the tests, the second part encloses numerical analysis and evaluation of results to determine the fatigue strength classes according to three assessment procedures.

Keywords: Cyclic loading, fatigue crack, post-weld treatment, seams’ repair.

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Authors: T. Balogh, L. G. Vigh

Abstract:

Seismic design may require non-conventional concept, due to the fact that the stiffness and layout of the structure have a great effect on the overall structural behaviour, on the seismic load intensity as well as on the internal force distribution. To find an economical and optimal structural configuration the key issue is the optimal design of the lateral load resisting system. This paper focuses on the optimal design of regular, concentric braced frame (CBF) multi-storey steel building structures. The optimal configurations are determined by a numerical method using genetic algorithm approach, developed by the authors. Aim is to find structural configurations with minimum structural cost. The design constraints of objective function are assigned in accordance with Eurocode 3 and Eurocode 8 guidelines. In this paper the results are presented for various building geometries, different seismic intensities, and levels of energy dissipation.

Keywords: Dissipative Structures, Genetic Algorithm, Seismic Effects, Structural Optimization.

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