Search results for: support carbon sequestration

Authors: M. Awawdeh, A. Fedi

Abstract:

The application of data mining to environmental monitoring has become crucial for a number of tasks related to emergency management. Over recent years, many tools have been developed for decision support system (DSS) for emergency management. In this article a graphical user interface (GUI) for environmental monitoring system is presented. This interface allows accomplishing (i) data collection and observation and (ii) extraction for data mining. This tool may be the basis for future development along the line of the open source software paradigm.

Keywords: Data Mining, Environmental data, Mathematical Models, Matlab Graphical User Interface.

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Authors: R. Amornmaneekul, S. Chadsuthi, D. Triampo, W. Triampo

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We apply a particle tracking technique to track the motion of individual pathogenic Leptospira. We observe and capture images of motile Leptospira by means of CCD and darkfield microscope. Image processing, statistical theories and simulations are used for data analysis. Based on trajectory patterns, mean square displacement, and power spectral density characteristics, we found that the motion modes are most likely to be directed motion mode (70%) and the rest are either normal diffusion or unidentified mode. Our findings may support the fact that why leptospires are very well efficient toward targeting internal tissues as a result of increase in virulence factor.

Keywords: Leptospirosis, spirochetes, patterns, motion.

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Authors: Kristyanto B.

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Plenty of analyses based on Biomechanics were carried out on many jobs in manufactures or services. Now Biomechanics analysis is being applied on mothers who are giving birth. The analysis conducted in terms of normal condition of the birth process without Gyn Bed (Obstetric Bed). The aim of analysis is to study whether it is risky or not when choosing the position of mother’s postures when delivering the baby. This investigation was applied on two positions that generally appear in common birth process. Results will show the analysis of both positions to support the birth process based on the Biomechanics analysis (Ergonomic approaches). 

Keywords: Biomechanics analysis, Birth process, Position of postures analysis, Ergonomic approaches.

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Authors: S. Moshaf, Z. Hamidi-Esfahani, M. H. Azizi

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Xanthan gum is one of the major commercial biopolymers. Due to its excellent rheological properties xanthan gum is used in many applications, mainly in food industry. Commercial production of xanthan gum uses glucose as the carbon substrate; consequently the price of xanthan production is high. One of the ways to decrease xanthan price, is using cheaper substrate like agricultural wastes. Iran is one of the biggest date producer countries. However approximately 50% of date production is wasted annually. The goal of this study is to produce xanthan gum from waste date using Xanthomonas campestris PTCC1473 by submerged fermentation. In this study the effect of three variables including phosphor and nitrogen amount and agitation rate in three levels using response surface methodology (RSM) has been studied. Results achieved from statistical analysis Design Expert 7.0.0 software showed that xanthan increased with increasing level of phosphor. Low level of nitrogen leaded to higher xanthan production. Xanthan amount, increasing agitation had positive influence. The statistical model identified the optimum conditions nitrogen amount=3.15g/l, phosphor amount=5.03 g/l and agitation=394.8 rpm for xanthan. To model validation, experiments in optimum conditions for xanthan gum were carried out. The mean of result for xanthan was 6.72±0.26. The result was closed to the predicted value by using RSM.

Keywords: Optimization, RSM, Waste date, Xanthan gum, Xanthomonas Campestris

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Authors: Daniel F. García, Adrián Fernández

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Today, computer systems are more and more complex and support growing security risks. The security managers need to find effective security risk assessment methodologies that allow modeling well the increasing complexity of current computer systems but also maintaining low the complexity of the assessment procedure. This paper provides a brief analysis of common security risk assessment methodologies leading to the selection of a proper methodology to fulfill these requirements. Then, a detailed analysis of the most effective methodology is accomplished, presenting numerical examples to demonstrate how easy it is to use.

Keywords: Computer security, qualitative and quantitative methods, risk assessment methodologies, security risk assessment.

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Authors: Tatiani D. Mousoura

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Specific learning disability (SLD) in higher education has been partially explored in Greece so far. Moreover, opinions on professional perspectives for university students with SLD, is scarcely encountered in Greek research. The perceptions of the hidden character of SLD along with the university policy towards it and professional perspectives that result from this policy have been examined in the present research. This study has applied the paradigm of a Greek Tertiary Pedagogical Education Department (Early Childhood Education). Via mixed methods, data have been collected from different groups of people in the Pedagogical Department: students with SLD and without SLD, academic staff and administration staff, all of which offer the opportunity for triangulation of the findings. Qualitative methods include ten interviews with students with SLD and 15 interviews with academic staff and 60 hours of observation of the students with SLD. Quantitative methods include 165 questionnaires completed by third and fourth-year students and five questionnaires completed by the administration staff. Thematic analyses of the interviews’ data and descriptive statistics on the questionnaires’ data have been applied for the processing of the results. The use of medical terms to define and understand SLD was common in the student cohort, regardless of them having an SLD diagnosis. However, this medical model approach is far more dominant in the group of students without SLD who, by majority, hold misconceptions on a definitional level. The academic staff group seems to be leaning towards a social approach concerning SLD. According to them, diagnoses may lead to social exclusion. The Pedagogical Department generally endorses the principles of inclusion and complies with the provision of oral exams for students with SLD. Nevertheless, in practice, there seems to be a lack of regular academic support for these students. When such support does exist, it is only through individual initiatives. With regards to their prospective profession, students with SLD can utilize their personal experience, as well as their empathy; these appear to be unique weapons in their hands –in comparison with other educators− when it comes to teaching students in the future. In the Department of Pedagogy, provision towards SLD results sporadic, however the vision of an inclusive department does exist. Based on their studies and their experience, pedagogy students with SLD claim that they have an experiential internalized advantage for their future career as educators.

Keywords: Specific learning disability, dyslexia, pedagogy department, inclusion, professional role of SLDed educators, higher education, university policy.

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Authors: R. AliMohammadzadeh, M. Rahgozar, A. Zarnani

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The inherent flexibilities of XML in both structure and semantics makes mining from XML data a complex task with more challenges compared to traditional association rule mining in relational databases. In this paper, we propose a new model for the effective extraction of generalized association rules form a XML document collection. We directly use frequent subtree mining techniques in the discovery process and do not ignore the tree structure of data in the final rules. The frequent subtrees based on the user provided support are split to complement subtrees to form the rules. We explain our model within multi-steps from data preparation to rule generation.

Keywords: XML, Data Mining, Association Rule Mining.

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Authors: Alessandra Agostini, Roberto Boselli, Flavio De Paoli, Riccardo Dondi

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The work presented in this paper focus on Knowledge Management services enabling CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) applications to provide an appropriate adaptation to the user and the situation in which the user is working. In this paper, we explain how a knowledge management system can be designed to support users in different situations exploiting contextual data, users' preferences, and profiles of involved artifacts (e.g., documents, multimedia files, mockups...). The presented work roots in the experience we had in the MILK project and early steps made in the MAIS project.

Keywords: Information Management Systems, InformationRetrieval, Knowledge Management, Mobile CommunicationSystems.

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Authors: Asia Majeed

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This paper will investigate a form of learning mathematics by integrating technology in mathematics specifically for the university first-year calculus class to support students’ engagement in learning which influences students' conceptual and procedural understanding of the calculus content in a better way. The students with good grades in high school calculus generally struggle in first-year university calculus classes in learning mathematical analysis concepts. This problem has to be addressed. If this problem is not resolved, then most likely students with less ability to do mathematics might not able to complete their degrees. In this work, MATLAB is used to help students in learning and in improving calculus concepts.

Keywords: Calculus, first-year university students, teaching strategies, MATLAB.

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Authors: Naoto Suzuki

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Medical methods to completely treat glaucoma are yet to be developed. Therefore, ophthalmologists manage patients mainly to delay disease progression. Patients with glaucoma are mainly elderly individuals. In elderly people's houses, having an equipment that can provide medical treatment and care can release their family from their care. For elderly people with the glaucoma to live by themselves as much as possible, we developed a support robot having five functions: elderly people care, ophthalmological examination, trip assistance to the neighborhood, medical treatment, and data referral to a hospital. The medical and nursing care robot should approach the visual field that the patients can see at a speed suitable for their eyesight. This is because the robot will be dangerous if it approaches the patients from the visual field that they cannot see. We experimentally developed a robot that brings a white cane to elderly people with glaucoma. The base part of the robot is a carriage, which is a Megarover 1.1, and it has two infrared sensors. The robot moves along a white line on the floor using the infrared sensors and has a special arm, which does not use electricity. The arm can scoop the block attached to the white cane. Next, we also developed a direction detector comprised of a charge-coupled device camera (SVR41ResucueHD; Sun Mechatronics), goggles (MG-277MLF; Midori Anzen Co. Ltd.), and biconvex lenses with a focal length of 25 mm (Edmund Co.). Some young people were photographed using the direction detector, which was put on their faces. Image processing was performed using Scilab 6.1.0 and Image Processing and Computer Vision Toolbox 4.1.2. To measure the people's line of vision, we calculated the iris's center of gravity using five processes: reduction, trimming, binarization or gray scale, edge extraction, and Hough transform. We compared the binarization and gray scale processes in image processing. The binarization process was better than the gray scale process. For edge extraction, we compared five methods: Sobel, Prewitt, Laplacian of Gaussian, fast Fourier transform, and Canny. The Canny method was the optimal extraction method. We performed the Hough transform to search for the main coordinates from the iris's edge, and we found that the Hough transform could calculate the center point of the iris.

Keywords: Glaucoma, support robot, elderly people, Hough transform, direction detector, line of vision.

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Authors: E. Golden Julie, E. Sahaya Rose Vigita, S. Tamil Selvi

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Wireless sensor network is vulnerable to a wide range of attacks. Recover secrecy after compromise, to develop technique that can detect intrusions and able to resilient networks that isolates the point(s) of intrusion while maintaining network connectivity for other legitimate users. To define new security metrics to evaluate collaborative intrusion resilience protocol, by leveraging the sensor mobility that allows compromised sensors to recover secure state after compromise. This is obtained with very low overhead and in a fully distributed fashion using extensive simulations support our findings.

Keywords: WSN security, intrusion resilience, compromised sensors, mobility.

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Authors: Christopher C. Enweremadu, Hilary L. Rutto, Najeem Peleowo

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Biodiesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engines has been developed for some three decades now. While it is gaining wide acceptance in Europe, USA and some parts of Asia, the same cannot be said of Africa. With more than 35 countries in the continent depending on imported crude oil, it is necessary to look for alternative fuels which can be produced from resources available locally within any country. Hence this study presents performance of single cylinder diesel engine using blends of shea butter biodiesel. Shea butter was transformed into biodiesel by transesterification process. Tests are conducted to compare the biodiesel with baseline diesel fuel in terms of engine performance and exhaust emission characteristics. The results obtained showed that the addition of biodiesel to diesel fuel decreases the brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and increases the brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC). These results are expected due to the lower energy content of biodiesel fuel. On the other hand while the NOx emissions increased with increase in biodiesel content in the fuel blends, the emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), un-burnt hydrocarbon (UHC) and smoke opacity decreased. The engine performance which indicates that the biodiesel has properties and characteristics similar to diesel fuel and the reductions in exhaust emissions make shea butter biodiesel a viable additive or substitute to diesel fuel.

Keywords: Biodiesel, diesel engine, engine performance and emission, shea butter, transesterification

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Authors: N. Soussi, M. Bahaj

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The enormous amount of information stored on the web increases from one day to the next, exposing the web currently faced with the inevitable difficulties of research pertinent information that users really want. The problem today is not limited to expanding the size of the information highways, but to design a system for intelligent search. The vast majority of this information is stored in relational databases, which in turn represent a backend for managing RDF data of the semantic web. This problem has motivated us to write this paper in order to establish an effective approach to support semantic transformation algorithm for SPARQL queries to SQL queries, more precisely SPARQL SELECT queries; by adopting this method, the relational database can be questioned easily with SPARQL queries maintaining the same performance.

Keywords: RDF, Semantic Web, SPARQL, SPARQL Query Transformation, SQL.

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Authors: Song Meng, Dianfu Ma, Yongwang Zhao, Jianxin Li

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Cooperative visual modeling is more and more necessary in our complicated world. A collaborative environment which supports interactive operation and communication is required to increase work efficiency. We present a collaborative visual modeling framework which collaborative platform could be built on. On this platform, cooperation and communication is available for designers from different regions. This framework, which is different from other collaborative frameworks, contains a uniform message format, a message handling mechanism and other functions such as message pretreatment and Role-Communication-Token Access Control (RCTAC). We also show our implementation of this framework called Orchestra Designer, which support BPLE workflow modeling cooperatively online.

Keywords: colllaborative framework; visual modeling; message handling mechanism

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Authors: Ronbanchob Apiratikul

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This research studied recycled waste by the Recyclable Material Bank Project of 4 universities in the central region of Thailand for the evaluation of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared with landfilling activity during July 2012 to June 2013. The results showed that the projects collected total amount of recyclable wastes of about 911,984.80 kilograms. Office paper had the largest amount among these recycled wastes (50.68% of total recycled waste). Groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low according to their amount as paper, plastic, glass, mixed recyclables, and metal, respectively. The project reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to about 2814.969 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The most significant recycled waste that affects the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is office paper which is 70.16% of total reduced greenhouse gasses emission. According to amount of reduced greenhouse gasses emission, groups of recycled waste can be prioritized from high to low significances as paper, plastic, metals, mixed recyclables, and glass, respectively.

Keywords: Recycling, garbage bank, waste management, recyclable wastes, greenhouse gasses.

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Authors: Ö. Şenyiğit, A. Çolak

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It is of great importance for an architectural student to know the parameters through which he/she can conduct his/her design and makes his/her design effective in architectural education. Therefore; an empirical application study was carried out through the designing activity using the emulation model to support the design and design approaches of architectural students. During the investigation period, studies were done on the basic design elements and principles of the fall semester, and the emulation model, one of the designing methods that constitute the subject of the study, was fictionalized as three phased “recognition-interpretation-application”. As a result of the study, it was observed that when students were given a key method during the design process, their awareness increased and their aspects improved as well.

Keywords: Basic design, design education, design methods, emulation.

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Authors: Sunthorn S., Kittiphat R.

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The edge waviness in hot rolled steel is a common defect. Variables that affect such defect include raw material and machine. These variables are necessary to consider to understand such defect. This research studied the defect of edge waviness for SS 400 of metal sheet manufacture. Defect of metal sheets were divided into two groups. The specimens were investigated on chemical composition and mechanical properties to find the difference. The results of investigation showed that the difference was not significant. Therefore the roll mill machine should be used to adjust to support another location on a roller to avoide edge waviness.

Keywords: Edge waviness, Hot rolling steel, Metal sheet defect, SS 400, Roll leveler.

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Authors: Ali Keshavarzi, Fereydoon Sarmadian

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Investigation of soil properties like Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) plays important roles in study of environmental reaserches as the spatial and temporal variability of this property have been led to development of indirect methods in estimation of this soil characteristic. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) provide an alternative by estimating soil parameters from more readily available soil data. 70 soil samples were collected from different horizons of 15 soil profiles located in the Ziaran region, Qazvin province, Iran. Then, multivariate regression and neural network model (feedforward back propagation network) were employed to develop a pedotransfer function for predicting soil parameter using easily measurable characteristics of clay and organic carbon. The performance of the multivariate regression and neural network model was evaluated using a test data set. In order to evaluate the models, root mean square error (RMSE) was used. The value of RMSE and R2 derived by ANN model for CEC were 0.47 and 0.94 respectively, while these parameters for multivariate regression model were 0.65 and 0.88 respectively. Results showed that artificial neural network with seven neurons in hidden layer had better performance in predicting soil cation exchange capacity than multivariate regression.

Keywords: Easily measurable characteristics, Feed-forwardback propagation, Pedotransfer functions, CEC.

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Authors: Saeed Mohammed Baneamoon, Rosalina Abdul Salam

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Robotic system is an important area in artificial intelligence that aims at developing the performance techniques of the robot and making it more efficient and more effective in choosing its correct behavior. In this paper the distributed learning classifier system is used for designing a simulated control system for robot to perform complex behaviors. A set of enhanced approaches that support default hierarchies formation is suggested and compared with each other in order to make the simulated robot more effective in mapping the input to the correct output behavior.

Keywords: Learning Classifier System, Default Hierarchies, Robot Behaviors.

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Authors: Fatema Akram, Mohammad G. Rasul, M. Masud K. Khan, M. Sharif I. I. Amir

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Australia is a country of some 7,700 million square kilometers with a population of about 22.6 million. At present water security is a major challenge for Australia. In some areas the use of water resources is approaching and in some parts it is exceeding the limits of sustainability. A focal point of proposed national water conservation programs is the recycling of both urban stormwater and treated wastewater. But till now it is not widely practiced in Australia, and particularly stormwater is neglected. In Australia, only 4% of stormwater and rainwater is recycled, whereas less than 1% of reclaimed wastewater is reused within urban areas. Therefore, accurately monitoring, assessing and predicting the availability, quality and use of this precious resource are required for better management. As stormwater is usually of better quality than untreated sewage or industrial discharge, it has better public acceptance for recycling and reuse, particularly for non-potable use such as irrigation, watering lawns, gardens, etc. Existing stormwater recycling practice is far behind of research and no robust technologies developed for this purpose. Therefore, there is a clear need for using modern technologies for assessing feasibility of stormwater harvesting and reuse. Numerical modeling has, in recent times, become a popular tool for doing this job. It includes complex hydrological and hydraulic processes of the study area. The hydrologic model computes stormwater quantity to design the system components, and the hydraulic model helps to route the flow through stormwater infrastructures. Nowadays water quality module is incorporated with these models. Integration of Geographic Information System (GIS) with these models provides extra advantage of managing spatial information. However for the overall management of a stormwater harvesting project, Decision Support System (DSS) plays an important role incorporating database with model and GIS for the proper management of temporal information. Additionally DSS includes evaluation tools and Graphical user interface. This research aims to critically review and discuss all the aspects of stormwater harvesting and reuse such as available guidelines of stormwater harvesting and reuse, public acceptance of water reuse, the scopes and recommendation for future studies. In addition to these, this paper identifies, understand and address the importance of modern technologies capable of proper management of stormwater harvesting and reuse.

Keywords: Stormwater Management, Stormwater Harvesting and Reuse, Numerical Modeling, Geographic Information System (GIS), Decision Support System (DSS), Database.

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Authors: P.S.Prakash, S.Selvan

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Over the past several years, there has been a considerable amount of research within the field of Quality of Service (QoS) support for distributed multimedia systems. One of the key issues in providing end-to-end QoS guarantees in packet networks is determining a feasible path that satisfies a number of QoS constraints. The problem of finding a feasible path is NPComplete if number of constraints is more than two and cannot be exactly solved in polynomial time. We proposed Feasible Path Selection Algorithm (FPSA) that addresses issues with pertain to finding a feasible path subject to delay and cost constraints and it offers higher success rate in finding feasible paths.

Keywords: feasible path, multiple constraints, path selection, QoS routing

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Authors: Heejung Lee

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In a highly competitive environment, it becomes more important to shorten the whole business process while delivering or even enhancing the business value to the customers and suppliers. Although the workflow management systems receive much attention for its capacity to practically support the business process enactment, the effective workflow modeling method remain still challenging and the high degree of process complexity makes it more difficult to gain the short lead time. This paper presents a workflow structuring method in a holistic way that can reduce the process complexity using activity-needs and formal concept analysis, which eventually enhances the key performance such as quality, delivery, and cost in business process.

Keywords: Workflow management, reengineering, formal concept analysis.

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Authors: M. Giannopoulou, I. Roukounis, A. Roukouni.

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Geographical Information Systems are an integral part of planning in modern technical systems. Nowadays referred to as Spatial Decision Support Systems, as they allow synergy database management systems and models within a single user interface machine and they are important tools in spatial design for evaluating policies and programs at all levels of administration. This work refers to the creation of a Geographical Information System in the context of a broader research in the area of influence of an under construction station of the new metro in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, which included statistical and multivariate data analysis and diagrammatic representation, mapping and interpretation of the results.

Keywords: Databases, Geographical information systems (GIS), Land-use planning, Metro stations

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Authors: Ayelet Gur

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Background: In recent years we are witnessing a welcome trend in which more children/persons with disabilities are living at home with their families and within their communities. This trend is related to various policy innovations as the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities that reflect a shift from the medical-institutional model to a human rights approach. We also witness the emergence of family centered approaches that perceive the family and not just the individual with the disability as a worthy target of policy planning, implementation and evaluation efforts. The current investigation aims to explore economic, psychological and social factors among households of families of children or adults with intellectual disabilities in Israel and to present policy recommendation. Methods: A national sample of 301 households was recruited through the education and employment settings of persons with intellectual disability. The main caregiver of the person with the disability (a parent) was interviewed. Measurements included the income and expense surveys; assets and debts questionnaire; the questionnaire on resources and stress; the social involvement questionnaire and Personal Wellbeing Index. Results: Findings indicate significant gaps in financial circumstances between households of families of children with intellectual disabilities and households of the general Israeli society. Households of families of children with intellectual disabilities report lower income and higher expenditures and loans than the general society. They experience difficulties in saving and coping with unexpected expenses. Caregivers (the parents) experience high stress, low social participation, low financial support from family, friend and non-governmental organizations and decreased well-being. They are highly dependent on social security allowances which constituted 40% of the household's income. Conclusions: Households' dependency on social security allowances may seem contradictory to the encouragement of persons with intellectual disabilities to favor independent living in light of the human rights approach to disability. New policy should aim at reducing caregivers' stress and enhance their social participation and support, with special emphasis on families of lower socio-economic status. Finally, there is a need to continue monitoring the economic and psycho-social needs of households of families of children with intellectual disabilities and other developmental disabilities.

Keywords: Disability policy, family policy, intellectual and developmental disabilities, Israel, households study, parents of children with disabilities.

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Authors: Claudiu Brandas

Abstract:

Several recent studies have shown that the transparency of financial reporting have a significant influence on investor-s decisions. Thus, regulation authorities and professional organizations (IFAC) have emphasized the role of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and interactive data as a means of promoting transparency and monitoring corporate reporting. In this context, this paper has as objective the analysis of interactive reporting through XBRL and its use as a support in the process of taking decisions in corporate governance, namely the potential of interactive reports in XBRL to increase the transparency and monitoring process of corporate governance.

Keywords: Corporate Governance, decision, financial reporting, transparency, XBRL.

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Authors: Abbas Alli Taghipoor Bafghi, Hosein Bakhoda, Fateme Khodaei Chegeni

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An experimental investigation is carried out to establish the performance characteristics of a compression ignition engine while using cerium oxide nanoparticles as additive in neat diesel and diesel-biodiesel blends. In the first phase of the experiments, stability of neat diesel and diesel-biodiesel fuel blends with the addition of cerium oxide nanoparticles is analyzed. After series of experiments, it is found that the blends subjected to high speed blending followed by ultrasonic bath stabilization improves the stability. In the second phase, performance characteristics are studied using the stable fuel blends in a single cylinder four stroke engine coupled with an electrical dynamometer and a data acquisition system. The cerium oxide acts as an oxygen donating catalyst and provides oxygen for combustion. The activation energy of cerium oxide acts to burn off carbon deposits within the engine cylinder at the wall temperature and prevents the deposition of non-polar compounds on the cylinder wall results reduction in HC emissions. The tests revealed that cerium oxide nanoparticles can be used as additive in diesel and diesel-biodiesel blends to improve complete combustion of the fuel significantly.

Keywords: Diesel engine, cerium oxide, diesel-biodiesel blends, nanoparticles.

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Authors: Zhuomin Zou, Thijs Van Landeghem, Elke Gruyaert

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Using supplementary cementitious materials, such as ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) and limestone to replace Portland cement (PC) is a promising method to reduce the carbon emissions from cement production. To efficiently use GGBFS and limestone, it is necessary to carefully select the particle size distribution (PSD) of the binders. This study investigated the effects of the PSD of binders on the performance of slag-limestone ternary cement. Based on the PSD parameters of the binders, three types of ternary cements with a similar overall PSD were designed, i.e., No.1 fine GGBFS, medium PC, and coarse limestone; No.2 fine limestone, medium PC, and coarse GGBFS; No.3. fine PC, medium GGBFS, and coarse limestone. The binder contents in the ternary cements were 50% PC, 40% slag, and 10% limestone. The mortar performance of the three ternary cements was investigated in terms of flow table value, strength at 28 days, carbonation resistance and non-steady state chloride migration resistance at 28 days. Results show that ternary cement with fine limestone (No.2) has the weakest performance among the three ternary cements. Ternary cements with fine slag (No.1) show an overall comparable performance to ternary cement with fine PC (No.3). Moreover, the chloride migration coefficient of ternary cements with fine slag (No.1) is significantly lower than the other two ternary cements.

Keywords: Limestone, particle size distribution, slag, ternary cement.

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Authors: Jude A. Mbanasor, Chigozirim N. Onwusiribe

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The enigma climate change is no longer an illusion but a reality. In the recent years, the Nigeria climate has changed and the changes are shown by the changing patterns of rainfall, the sunshine, increasing level carbon and nitrous emission as well as deforestation. This study analyzed the behavioural response of bee keepers to variations in the climate and the adaptation techniques developed in response to the climate variation. Beekeeping is a viable economic activity for the alleviation of poverty as the products include honey, wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom, queens, bees and their larvae and are all marketable. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique to select 120 beekeepers from the five states of Southeast Nigeria. Well-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were adopted to collect the required data. Statistical tools like the Principal component analysis, data envelopment models, graphs, and charts were used for the data analysis. Changing patterns of rainfall and sunshine with the increasing rate of deforestation had a negative effect on the habitat of the bees. The bee keepers have adopted the Kenya Top bar and Langstroth hives and they establish the bee hives on fallow farmland close to the cultivated communal farms with more flowering crops.

Keywords: Climate, smart, smallholder, farmer, socioeconomic, response.

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Authors: Chang-Bin Huang, Fu-Kuang Ko

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Taiwan was the first country in Asia to announce “Nuclear-Free Homeland" in 2002. In 2008, the new government released the Sustainable Energy Policy Guidelines to lower the nationwide CO2 emissions some time between 2016 and 2020 back to the level of year 2008, further abatement of CO2 emissions is planed in year 2025 when CO2 emissions will decrease to the level of year 2000. Besides, under consideration of the issues of energy, environment and economics (3E), the new government declared that the nuclear power is a carbon-less energy option. This study analyses the effects of nuclear power generation for CO2 abatement scenarios in Taiwan. The MARKAL-MACRO energy model was adopted to evaluate economic impacts and energy deployment due to life extension of existing nuclear power plants and build new nuclear power units in CO2 abatement scenarios. The results show that CO2 abatement effort is expensive. On the other hand, nuclear power is a cost-effective choice. The GDP loss rate in the case of building new nuclear power plants is around two thirds of the Nuclear-Free Homeland case. Nuclear power generation has the capacity to provide large-scale CO2 free electricity. Therefore, the results show that nuclear power is not only an option for Taiwan, but also a requisite for Taiwan-s CO2 reduction strategy.

Keywords: Energy model, CO2 abatement, nuclear power, economic impacts.

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Authors: S. B. Otieno, T. S. Jayne, M. Muyanga

Abstract:

Selenium is an-antioxidant which is important for human health enters food chain through crops. In Kenya Zea mays is consumed by 96% of population hence is a cheap and convenient method to provide selenium to large number of population. Several soil factors are known to have antagonistic effects on selenium speciation hence the uptake by Zea mays. There are no studies in Kenya that has been done to determine the effects of soil characteristics (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) affect accumulation of selenium in Zea mays grains in Maize Belt in Kenya. About 100 Zea mays grain samples together with 100 soil samples were collected from the study site put in separate labeled Ziplocs and were transported to laboratories at room temperature for analysis. Maize grains were analyzed for selenium while soil samples were analyzed for pH, Cat Ion Exchange Capacity, total carbon, and electrical conductivity. The mean selenium in Zea mays grains varied from 1.82 ± 0.76 mg/Kg to 11±0.86 mg/Kg. There was no significant difference between selenium levels between different grain batches {χ (Df =76) = 26.04 P= 1.00} The pH levels varied from 5.43± 0.58 to 5.85± 0.32. No significant correlations between selenium in grains and soil pH (Pearson’s correlations = - 0.143), and between selenium levels in grains and the four (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) soil chemical characteristics {F (4,91) = 0.721 p = 0.579} was observed. It can be concluded that the soil chemical characteristics in the study site did not significantly affect the accumulation of native selenium in Zea mays grains.

Keywords: Maize, native, soil, selenium.

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