Search results for: cartesian product.Mathematics Subject Classification[2000] :08A72

Authors: Essa Alenazi, Zulfikar Adamu

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is not an exception in relying on the growth of its construction industry to support rapid population growth. However, its need for infrastructure development is constrained by low productivity levels and cost overruns caused by factors such as delays to project completion. Delays in delivering a construction project are a global issue and while theories such as Optimism Bias have been used to explain such delays, in KSA, client-related causes of delays are also significant. The objective of this paper is to develop a framework-based approach to explore how the country’s construction industry can manage and reduce delays in construction projects through building information modelling (BIM) in order to mitigate the cost consequences of such delays.  It comprehensively and systematically reviewed the global literature on the subject and identified gaps, critical delay factors and the specific benefits that BIM can deliver for the delay management.  A case study comprising of nine hospital projects that have experienced delay and cost overruns was also carried out. Five critical delay factors related to the clients were identified as candidates that can be mitigated through BIM’s benefits. These factors are: Ineffective planning and scheduling of the project; changes during construction by the client; delay in progress payment; slowness in decision making by the client; and poor communication between clients and other stakeholders. In addition, data from the case study projects strongly suggest that optimism bias is present in many of the hospital projects. Further validation via key stakeholder interviews and documentations are planned.

Keywords: BIM, client perspective, delay management, optimism bias, public sector projects.

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Authors: Adrienne Kline, Jaydip Desai

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Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a noninvasive technique that registers signals originating from the firing of neurons in the brain. The Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset is a consumer product comprised of 14 EEG channels and was used to record the reactions of the neurons within the brain to two forms of stimuli in 10 participants. These stimuli consisted of auditory and visual formats that provided directions of ‘right’ or ‘left.’ Participants were instructed to raise their right or left arm in accordance with the instruction given. A scenario in OpenViBE was generated to both stimulate the participants while recording their data. In OpenViBE, the Graz Motor BCI Stimulator algorithm was configured to govern the duration and number of visual stimuli. Utilizing EEGLAB under the cross platform MATLAB®, the electrodes most stimulated during the study were defined. Data outputs from EEGLAB were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics® Version 20. This aided in determining the electrodes to use in the development of a brain-machine interface (BMI) using real-time EEG signals from the Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset. Signal processing and feature extraction were accomplished via the Simulink® signal processing toolbox. An Arduino™ Duemilanove microcontroller was used to link the Emotiv EEG Neuroheadset and the right and left Mecha TE™ Hands.

Keywords: Brain-machine interface, EEGLAB, emotiv EEG neuroheadset, openViBE, simulink.

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Authors: S. Abdi Goudazri, R. Ziaie Moayed, A. Nazeri

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Loose soils normally are of weak bearing capacity due to their structural nature. Being exposed to heavy traffic loads, they would fail in most cases. To tackle the aforementioned issue, geotechnical engineers have come up with different approaches; one of which is making use of geosynthetic-reinforced soil-aggregate systems. As these polymeric reinforcements have highlighted economic and environmentally-friendly features, they have become widespread in practice during the last decades. The present research investigates the efficiency of four different types of these reinforcements in increasing the bearing capacity of two-layered soil sections using a series California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test. The studied sections are comprised of a 10 cm-thick layer of no. 161 Firouzkooh sand (weak subgrade) and a 10 cm-thick layer of compacted aggregate materials (base course) classified as SP and GW according to the United Soil Classification System (USCS), respectively. The aggregate layer was compacted to the relative density (Dr) of 95% at the optimum water content (Wopt) of 6.5%. The applied reinforcements were including two kinds of geocomposites (type A and B), a geotextile, and a geogrid that were embedded at the interface of the lower and the upper layers of the soil-aggregate system. As the standard CBR mold was not appropriate in height for this study, the mold used for soaked CBR tests were utilized. To make a comparison between the results of stress-settlement behavior in the studied specimens, CBR values pertinent to the penetrations of 2.5 mm and 5 mm were considered. The obtained results demonstrated 21% and 24.5% increments in the amount of CBR value in the presence of geocomposite type A and geogrid, respectively. On the other hand, the effect of both geotextile and geocomposite type B on CBR values was generally insignificant in this research.

Keywords: Geosynthetics, geogrid, geotextile, CBR test, increasing bearing capacity.

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Authors: Ismail Karaca, Ridvan Saracoglu, Omer Soner

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Fuzzy Logic, an advanced method to support decision-making, is used by various scientists in many disciplines. Fuzzy programming is a product of fuzzy logic, fuzzy rules, and implication. In marine science, fuzzy programming for ships is dramatically increasing together with autonomous ship studies. In this paper, a program to support the decision-making process for ship navigation has been designed. The program is produced in fuzzy logic and rules, by taking the marine accidents and expert opinions into account. After the program was designed, the program was tested by 46 ship accidents reported by the Transportation Safety Investigation Center of Turkey. Wind speed, sea condition, visibility, day/night ratio have been used as input data. They have been converted into a risk factor within the Fuzzy Logic Designer application and fuzzy rules set by marine experts. Finally, the expert's meteorological risk factor for each accident is compared with the program's risk factor, and the error rate was calculated. The main objective of this study is to improve the navigational safety of ships, by using the advance decision support model. According to the study result, fuzzy programming is a robust model that supports safe navigation.

Keywords: Calculation of risk factor, fuzzy logic, fuzzy programming for ship, safe navigation of ships.

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Authors: Inas Hussein

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Alice Munro is a Canadian short-story writer who has been regarded as one of the greatest writers of fiction. Owing to her great contribution to fiction, she was the first Canadian woman and the only short-story writer ever to be rewarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Her literary works include collections of short stories and one book published as a novel. Her stories concentrate on the human condition and the human relationships as seen through the lens of daily life. The setting in most of her stories is her native Canada- small towns much similar to the one where she grew up. Her writing style is not only realistic but is also characterized by autobiographical, historical and regional features. The aim of this research is to analyze one of the key stylistic devices often adopted by Munro in her fictions: the juxtaposition of the past and the present, with reference to the title story in Munro's short story collection Too Much Happiness. The story under exploration is a brief biography of the Russian Mathematician and novelist Sophia Kovalevsky (1850 – 1891), the first woman to be appointed as a professor of Mathematics at a European University in Stockholm. Thus, the story has a historical protagonist and is set on the European continent. Munro dramatizes the severe historical and cultural constraints that hindered the career of the protagonist. A pragmatic stylistic framework is being adopted and the qualitative analysis is supported by textual reference. The stylistic analysis reveals that the juxtaposition of the past and the present is one of the distinctive features that characterize the author; in a typical Munrovian manner, the protagonist often moves between the units of time: the past, the present and, sometimes, the future. Munro's style is simple and direct but cleverly constructed and densely complicated by the presence of deeper layers and stories within the story. Findings of the research reveal that the story under investigation merits reading and analyzing. It is recommended that this story and other stories by Munro are analyzed to further explore the features of her art and style.

Keywords: Alice Munro, Too Much Happiness, juxtaposition of past and present, pragmatic stylistics.

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Authors: O. Onoriode Emoyan, E. Eyitemi Akporhonor, Charles Otobrise

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Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed mainly because of incomplete combustion of organic materials during industrial, domestic activities or natural occurrence. Their toxicity and contamination of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem have been established. However, with limited validity index, previous research has focused on PAHs isomer pair ratios of variable physicochemical properties in source identification. The objective of this investigation was to determine the empirical validity of Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC) and Cluster Analysis (CA) in PAHs source identification along soil samples of different land uses. Therefore, 16 PAHs grouped, as Endocrine Disruption Substances (EDSs) were determined in 10 sample stations in top and sub soils seasonally. PAHs was determined the use of Varian 300 gas chromatograph interfaced with flame ionization detector. Instruments and reagents used are of standard and chromatographic grades respectively. PCC and CA results showed that the classification of PAHs along pyrolitic and petrogenic organics used in source signature is about the predominance PAHs in environmental matrix. Therefore, the distribution of PAHs in the studied stations revealed the presence of trace quantities of the vast majority of the sixteen PAHs, which may ultimately inhabit the actual source signature authentication. Therefore, factors to be considered when evaluating possible sources of PAHs could be; type and extent of bacterial metabolism, transformation products/substrates, and environmental factors such as salinity, pH, oxygen concentration, nutrients, light intensity, temperature, co-substrates, and environmental medium are hereby recommended as factors to be considered when evaluating possible sources of PAHs.

Keywords: Comparative correlation, kinetically, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, thermodynamically- favored PAHs, sources evaluation.

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Authors: Vita Strazdina, Aleksandrs Jemeljanovs, Vita Sterna

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Not all proteins have the same nutritional value, since protein quality strongly depends on its amino acid composition and digestibility. The meat of game animals could be a high protein source because of its well-balanced essential amino acids composition. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat such as wild boar (Sus scrofa scrofa), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and beaver (Castor fiber) are not very much. Therefore, the aim of the investigation was evaluate protein composition of game meat hunted in Latvia. The biochemical analysis, evaluation of connective tissue and essential amino acids in meat samples were done, the amino acids score were calculate. Results of analysis showed that protein content 20.88-22.05% of all types of meat samples is not different statistically. The content of connective tissue from 1.3% in roe deer till 1.5% in beaver meat allowed classified game animal as high quality meat. The sum of essential amino acids in game meat samples were determined 7.05–8.26g100g-1. Roe deer meat has highest protein content and lowest content of connective tissues among game meat hunted in Latvia. Concluded that amino acid score for limiting amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine is high and shows high biological value of game meat.

Keywords: Dietic product, game meat, amino acids, scores.

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Authors: Isaac K. E. Ampomah, Seong-Bae Park, Sang-Jo Lee

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Over the past decade, there have been promising developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP) with several investigations of approaches focusing on Recognizing Textual Entailment (RTE). These models include models based on lexical similarities, models based on formal reasoning, and most recently deep neural models. In this paper, we present a sentence encoding model that exploits the sentence-to-sentence relation information for RTE. In terms of sentence modeling, Convolutional neural network (CNN) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs) adopt different approaches. RNNs are known to be well suited for sequence modeling, whilst CNN is suited for the extraction of n-gram features through the filters and can learn ranges of relations via the pooling mechanism. We combine the strength of RNN and CNN as stated above to present a unified model for the RTE task. Our model basically combines relation vectors computed from the phrasal representation of each sentence and final encoded sentence representations. Firstly, we pass each sentence through a convolutional layer to extract a sequence of higher-level phrase representation for each sentence from which the first relation vector is computed. Secondly, the phrasal representation of each sentence from the convolutional layer is fed into a Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) to obtain the final sentence representations from which a second relation vector is computed. The relations vectors are combined and then used in then used in the same fashion as attention mechanism over the Bi-LSTM outputs to yield the final sentence representations for the classification. Experiment on the Stanford Natural Language Inference (SNLI) corpus suggests that this is a promising technique for RTE.

Keywords: Deep neural models, natural language inference, recognizing textual entailment, sentence-to-sentence relation.

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Authors: P. Massanyi, L. Kichi, T. Slanina, E. Kolesar, J. Danko, N. Lukac, E. Tvrda, R. Stawarz, A. Kolesarova

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Target of this study was the analysis of the impact of crude glycerol on canine spermatozoa motility, morphology, viability, and membrane integrity. Experiments were realized in vitro. In the study, semen from 5 large dog breeds was used. They were typical representatives of large breeds, coming from healthy rearing, regularly vaccinated and integrated to the further breeding. Semen collections were realized at the owners of animals and in the veterinary clinic. Subsequently the experiments were realized at the Department of Animal Physiology of the SUA in Nitra. The spermatozoa motility was evaluated using CASA analyzer (SpermVisionTM, Minitub, Germany) at the temperature 5 and 37°C for 5 hours. In the study, 13 motility parameters were evaluated. Generally, crude glycerol has generally negative effect on spermatozoa motility. Morphological analysis was realized using Hancock staining and the preparations were evaluated at magnification 1000x using classification tables of morphologically changed spermatozoa. Data clearly detected the highest number of morphologically changed spermatozoa in the experimental groups (know twisted tails, tail torso and tail coiling). For acrosome alterations swelled acrosomes, removed acrosomes and acrosomes with undulated membrane were detected. In this study also the effect of crude glycerol on spermatozoa membrane integrity were analyzed. The highest crude glycerol concentration significantly affects spermatozoa integrity. Results of this study show that crude glycerol has effect of spermatozoa motility, viability, and membrane integrity. Detected changes are related to crude glycerol concentration, temperature, as well as time of incubation.

Keywords: Dog, semen, spermatozoa, acrosome, glycerol, CASA, viability.

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Authors: Siri-orn Champatong

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The purpose of this research was to study five vital factors related to employees’ job performance. A total of 250 respondents were sampled from employees who worked at a public warehouse organization, Bangkok, Thailand. Samples were divided into two groups according to their work experience. The average working experience was about 9 years for group one and 28 years for group two. A questionnaire was utilized as a tool to collect data. Statistics utilized in this research included frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test analysis, one way ANOVA, and Pearson Product-moment correlation coefficient. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The findings disclosed that the majority of respondents were female between 23- 31 years old, single, and hold an undergraduate degree. The average income of respondents was less than 30,900 baht. The findings also revealed that the factors of organization chart awareness, job process and technology, internal environment, employee loyalty, and policy and management were ranked as medium level. The hypotheses testing revealed that difference in gender, age, and position had differences in terms of the awareness of organization chart, job process and technology, internal environment, employee loyalty, and policy and management in the same direction with low level.

Keywords: Employees, Factors Related, Job Performance, Public Warehouse Organization.

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Authors: Sanjeev Sharma, Suman Lata

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With the availability of diverse printed, electronic literature and web sites on medical and health related information, it is impossible for the medical professional to get the information he seeks in the shortest possible time. For all these problems information literacy is the only solution. Thus, information literacy is recognized as an important aspect of medical education. In the present study, an attempt has been made to know the information literacy skills of the faculty and students at medical colleges of Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh. The scope of the study was confined to the 12 selected medical colleges of three States (Haryana, Punjab, and Chandigarh). The findings of the study were based on the data collected through 1018 questionnaires filled by the respondents of the medical colleges. It was found that Online Medical Websites (such as WebMD, eMedicine and Mayo Clinic etc.) were frequently used by 63.43% of the respondents of Chandigarh which is slightly more than Haryana (61%) and Punjab (55.65%). As well, 30.86% of the respondents of Chandigarh, 27.41% of Haryana and 27.05% of Punjab were familiar with the controlled vocabulary tool; 25.14% respondents of Chandigarh, 23.80% of Punjab, 23.17% of Haryana were familiar with the Boolean operators; 33.05% of the respondents of Punjab, 28.19% of Haryana and 25.14% of Chandigarh were familiar with the use and importance of the keywords while searching an electronic database; and 51.43% of the respondents of Chandigarh, 44.52% of Punjab and 36.29% of Haryana were able to make effective use of the retrieved information. For accessing information in electronic format, 47.74% of the respondents rated their skills high, while the majority of respondents (76.13%) were unfamiliar with the basic search technique i.e. Boolean operator used for searching information in an online database. On the basis of the findings, it was suggested that a comprehensive training program based on medical professionals information needs should be organized frequently. Furthermore, it was also suggested that information literacy may be included as a subject in the health science curriculum so as to make the medical professionals information literate and independent lifelong learners.

Keywords: Information, information literacy, medical colleges, medical professionals.

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Authors: Rangoli Goyal, Rama Bhargava

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The triple diffusive boundary layer flow of nanofluid under the action of constant magnetic field over a non-linear stretching sheet has been investigated numerically. The model includes the effect of Brownian motion, thermophoresis, and cross-diffusion; slip mechanisms which are primarily responsible for the enhancement of the convective features of nanofluid. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into a system of ordinary differential equations (by using group theory transformations) and solved numerically by using variational finite element method. The effects of various controlling parameters, such as the magnetic influence number, thermophoresis parameter, Brownian motion parameter, modified Dufour parameter, and Dufour solutal Lewis number, on the fluid flow as well as on heat and mass transfer coefficients (both of solute and nanofluid) are presented graphically and discussed quantitatively. The present study has industrial applications in aerodynamic extrusion of plastic sheets, coating and suspensions, melt spinning, hot rolling, wire drawing, glass-fibre production, and manufacture of polymer and rubber sheets, where the quality of the desired product depends on the stretching rate as well as external field including magnetic effects.

Keywords: FEM, Thermophoresis, Diffusiophoresis, Brownian motion.

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Authors: Mohamed Elshal, Hazim El-Mounayri, Omar El-Mounayri

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Emergency department (ED) is considered as a complex system of interacting entities: patients, human resources, software and hardware systems, interfaces, and other systems. This paper represents a research for implementing a detailed Systems Engineering (SE) approach in a mid-size hospital in central Indiana. This methodology will be applied by “The Initiative for Product Lifecycle Innovation (IPLI)” institution at Indiana University to study and solve the crowding problem with the aim of increasing throughput of patients and enhance their treatment experience; therefore, the nature of crowding problem needs to be investigated with all other problems that leads to it. The presented SE methods are workflow analysis and systems modeling where SE tools such as Microsoft Visio are used to construct a group of system-level diagrams that demonstrate: patient’s workflow, documentation and communication flow, data systems, human resources workflow and requirements, leadership involved, and integration between ER different systems. Finally, the ultimate goal will be managing the process through implementation of an executable model using commercialized software tools, which will identify bottlenecks, improve documentation flow, and help make the process faster.

Keywords: Systems modeling, ED operation, workflow modeling, systems analysis.

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Authors: Jana P. Vejpravova, Daniel Niznansky, Vaclav Vales, Barbara Bittova, Vaclav Tyrpekl, Stanislav Danis, Vaclav Holy, Stephen Doyle

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The aim of our work is to study phase composition, particle size and magnetic response of Fe2O3/TiO2 nanocomposites with respect to the final annealing temperature. Those nanomaterials are considered as smart catalysts, separable from a liquid/gaseous phase by applied magnetic field. The starting product was obtained by an ecologically acceptable route, based on heterogeneous precipitation of the TiO2 on modified g-Fe2O3 nanocrystals dispersed in water. The precursor was subsequently annealed on air at temperatures ranging from 200 oC to 900 oC. The samples were investigated by synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction (S-PXRD), magnetic measurements and Mössbauer spectroscopy. As evidenced by S-PXRD and Mössbauer spectroscopy, increasing the annealing temperature causes evolution of the phase composition from anatase/maghemite to rutile/hematite, finally above 700 oC the pseudobrookite (Fe2TiO5) also forms. The apparent particle size of the various Fe2O3/TiO2 phases has been determined from the highquality S-PXRD data by using two different approaches: the Rietveld refinement and the Debye method. Magnetic response of the samples is discussed in considering the phase composition and the particle size.

Keywords: X-ray diffraction, profile analysis, Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetic properties, TiO2, Fe2O3, Fe2TiO5

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Authors: Justyna Rybicka, Ashutosh Tiwari, Shane Enticott

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In the age of automation and computation aiding manufacturing, it is clear that manufacturing systems have become more complex than ever before. Although technological advances provide the capability to gain more value with fewer resources, sometimes utilisation of the manufacturing capabilities available to organisations is difficult to achieve. Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) provide a unique capability to manufacturing organisations where there is a need for product range diversification by providing line efficiency through production flexibility. This is very valuable in trend driven production set-ups or niche volume production requirements. Although FMS provides flexible and efficient facilities, its optimal set-up is key in achieving production performance. As many variables are interlinked due to the flexibility provided by the FMS, analytical calculations are not always sufficient to predict the FMS’ performance. Simulation modelling is capable of capturing the complexity and constraints associated with FMS. This paper demonstrates how discrete event simulation (DES) can address complexity in an FMS to optimise the production line performance. A case study of an automotive FMS is presented. The DES model demonstrates different configuration options depending on prioritising objectives: utilisation and throughput. Additionally, this paper provides insight into understanding the impact of system set-up constraints on the FMS performance and demonstrates the exploration into the optimal production set-up.

Keywords: Automotive, capacity performance, discrete event simulation, flexible manufacturing system.

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Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, Hong Wan Ping, M. Sayuti

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In this current era of competitive machinery productions, the industries are designed to place more emphasis on the product quality and reduction of cost whilst abiding by the pollution-preventing policy. In attempting to delve into the concerns, the industries are aware that the effectiveness of existing lubrication systems must be improved to achieve power-efficient and pollution-preventing machining processes. As such, this research is targeted to study on a plausible solution to the issue in grinding titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) by using nanolubrication, as an alternative to flood grinding. The aim of this research is to evaluate the optimum condition of grinding force and surface roughness using MQL lubricating system to deliver nano-oil at different level of weight concentration of Silicon Dioxide (SiO₂) mixed normal mineral oil. Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) method is carried out using a standard Taguchi orthogonal array of L16(43) to find the optimized combination of weight concentration mixture of SiO₂, nozzle orientation and pressure of MQL. Surface roughness and grinding force are also analyzed using signal-to-noise(S/N) ratio to determine the best level of each factor that are tested. Consequently, the best combination of parameters is tested for a period of time and the results are compared with conventional grinding method of dry and flood condition. The results show a positive performance of MQL nanolubrication.  

Keywords: Grinding, MQL, precision grinding, Taguchi optimization, titanium alloy.

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Authors: Gülten Silindir Keretli

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The aim of this study is to analyse the works of playwrights within the framework of existential philosophy. It is to observe the ontological existence in the plays of No Exit and Endgame. Literary works will be discussed separately in each section of this study. The despair of post-war generation of Europe problematized the ‘human condition’ in every field of literature which is the very product of social upheaval. With this concern in his mind, Sartre’s creative works portrayed man as a lonely being, burdened with terrifying freedom to choose and create his own meaning in an apparently meaningless world. The traces of the existential thought are to be found throughout the history of philosophy and literature. On the other hand, the theatre of the absurd is a form of drama showing the absurdity of the human condition and it is heavily influenced by the existential philosophy. Beckett is the most influential playwright of the theatre of the absurd. The themes and thoughts in his plays share many tenets of the existential philosophy. The existential philosophy posits the meaninglessness of existence and it regards man as being thrown into the universe and into desolate isolation. To overcome loneliness and isolation, the human ego needs recognition from the other people. Sartre calls this need of recognition as the need for ‘the Look’ (Le regard) from the Other. In this paper, existentialist philosophy and existentialist angst will be elaborated and then the works of existentialist theatre and theatre of absurd will be discussed within the framework of existential philosophy.

Keywords: Consciousness, existentialism, the notion of absurd, the other.

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Authors: Jatinderkumar R. Saini, Apurva A. Desai

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e-mail has become an important means of electronic communication but the viability of its usage is marred by Unsolicited Bulk e-mail (UBE) messages. UBE consists of many types like pornographic, virus infected and 'cry-for-help' messages as well as fake and fraudulent offers for jobs, winnings and medicines. UBE poses technical and socio-economic challenges to usage of e-mails. To meet this challenge and combat this menace, we need to understand UBE. Towards this end, the current paper presents a content-based textual analysis of more than 2700 body enhancement medicinal UBE. Technically, this is an application of Text Parsing and Tokenization for an un-structured textual document and we approach it using Bag Of Words (BOW) and Vector Space Document Model techniques. We have attempted to identify the most frequently occurring lexis in the UBE documents that advertise various products for body enhancement. The analysis of such top 100 lexis is also presented. We exhibit the relationship between occurrence of a word from the identified lexis-set in the given UBE and the probability that the given UBE will be the one advertising for fake medicinal product. To the best of our knowledge and survey of related literature, this is the first formal attempt for identification of most frequently occurring lexis in such UBE by its textual analysis. Finally, this is a sincere attempt to bring about alertness against and mitigate the threat of such luring but fake UBE.

Keywords: Body Enhancement, Lexis, Medicinal, Unsolicited Bulk e-mail (UBE), Vector Space Document Model, Viagra

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Authors: A. A. Njoh, S. T. Ndoula, A. Adidja, G. N. Menan, A. Mengue, E. Mboke, H. B. Bachir, S. C. Nchinjoh, L. Adisso, Y. Saidu, L. Cleenewerck de Kiev

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Vaccines serve a great deal in protecting the population globally. Vaccine products are subject to rigorous quality control and approval before use to ensure safety. Even if all actors take the required precautions, some people could still have adverse events following immunization (AEFI) caused by the vaccine composition or an error in its administration. AEFI underreporting is pronounced in low-income settings like Cameroon. The Country introduced electronic platforms to strengthen surveillance. With the introduction of many novel vaccines, like COVID-19 and the novel Oral Polio Vaccine (nOPV) 2, there was a need to monitor AEFI in Cameroon. A cross-sectional study was conducted from July to December 2022. Data on AEFI per region of Cameroon were reviewed for the previous five years. Data were analyzed with MS Excel, and the results were presented in proportions. AEFI reporting was uncommon in Cameroon. With the introduction of novel vaccines in 2021, the health authorities engaged in new tools and training to capture cases. AEFI detected almost doubled using the open data kit (ODK) compared to previous platforms, especially following the introduction of the nOPV2 and COVID-19 vaccines. The AEFI rate was 1.9 and 160 per administered 100,000 doses of nOPV2 and COVID-19 vaccines, respectively. This mobile tool captured individual information for people with AEFI from all regions. The platform helped to identify common AEFI following the use of these new vaccines. The ODK mobile technology was vital in improving AEFI reporting and providing data to monitor the use of new vaccines in Cameroon.

Keywords: Adverse events following immunization, AEFI, Cameroon, COVID-19 vaccines, novel oral polio vaccine 2, open data kit.

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Authors: A. Breda, C. Cruz

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The Japanese art of origami provides a rich context for designing exploratory mathematical activities for children and young people. By folding a simple sheet of paper, fascinating and surprising planar and spatial configurations emerge. Equally surprising is the unfolding process, which also produces striking patterns. The procedure of folding, unfolding, and folding again allows the exploration of interesting geometric patterns. When adequately and systematically done, we may deduce some of the mathematical rules ruling origami. As the child/youth folds the sheet of paper repeatedly, he can physically observe how the forms he obtains are transformed and how they relate to the pattern of the corresponding unfolding, creating space for the understanding/discovery of mathematical principles regulating the folding-unfolding process. As part of a 2023 Summer Academy organized by a Portuguese university, a session entitled “Folding, Thinking and Generalizing” took place. 23 students attended the session, all enrolled in the 2nd cycle of Portuguese Basic Education and aged between 10 and 12 years old. The main focus of this session was to foster the development of critical cognitive and socio-emotional skills among these young learners, using origami. These skills included creativity, critical analysis, mathematical reasoning, collaboration, and communication. Employing a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative analysis of data, collected during the session through field notes and students’ written productions, our findings reveal that structured origami-based activities not only promote student engagement with mathematical concepts in a playful and interactive but also facilitate the development of socio-emotional skills, which include collaboration and effective communication between participants. This research highlights the value of integrating origami into educational practices, highlighting its role in supporting comprehensive cognitive and emotional learning experiences.

Keywords: Active learning, hands-on activities, origami, creativity, critical thinking.

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Authors: R. Lekaviciene, D. Antiniene

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Attempts to split the construct of emotional intelligence (EI) into separate components – ability to understand own and others’ emotions and ability to control own and others’ emotions may be meaningful more theoretically than practically. In real life, a personality encounters various emotional situations that require exhibition of complex EI to solve them. Emotional situation solution tests enable measurement of such undivided EI. The object of the present study is to determine sociodemographic and other factors that are important for emotional situation solutions. The study involved 1,430 participants from various regions of Lithuania. The age of participants varied from 17 years to 27 years. Emotional social and interpersonal situation scale EI-DARL-V2 was used. Each situation had two mandatory answering formats: The first format contained assignments associated with hypothetical theoretical knowledge of how the situation should be solved, while the second format included the question of how the participant would personally resolve the given situation in reality. A questionnaire that contained various sociodemographic data of subjects was also presented. Factors, statistically significant for emotional situation solution, have been determined: gender, family structure, the subject’s relation with his or her mother, mother’s occupation, subjectively assessed financial situation of the family, level of education of the subjects and his or her parents, academic achievement, etc. The best solvers of emotional situations are women with high academic achievements. According to their chosen study profile/acquired profession, they are related to the fields in social sciences and humanities. The worst solvers of emotional situations are men raised in foster homes. They are/were bad students and mostly choose blue-collar professions.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, emotional situations, solution of situation, young people.

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Authors: Nabil A. Ibrahim, Nabil M. Abdel Moneim, Mohamed A. Ramadan, Marwa M. Hosni

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As the Textile Industry is the second largest industry in Egypt and as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up a great portion of this industry therein it is essential to apply the concept of Cleaner Production for the purpose of reducing pollution. In order to achieve this goal, a case study concerned with ecofriendly stone-washing of jeans-garments was investigated. A raw material-substitution option was adopted whereby the toxic potassium permanganate and sodium sulfide were replaced by the environmentally compatible hydrogen peroxide and glucose respectively where the concentrations of both replaced chemicals together with the operating time were optimized. In addition, a process-rationalization option involving four additional processes was investigated. By means of criteria such as product quality, effluent analysis, mass and heat balance; and cost analysis with the aid of a statistical model, a process optimization treatment revealed that the superior process optima were 50%, 0.15% and 50min for H2O2 concentration, glucose concentration and time, respectively. With these values the superior process ought to reduce the annual cost by about EGP 105 relative to the currently used conventional method.

Keywords: Cleaner Production, Eco-friendly of jeans garments, Stone washing, Textile Industry, Textile Wet Processing.

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Authors: Roghaieh Parvizsedghy, Seyyed Mojtaba Sadrameli

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Biodiesel as an alternative diesel fuel is steadily gaining more attention and significance. However, there are some drawbacks while using biodiesel regarding its properties that requires it to be blended with petrol based diesel and/or additives to improve the fuel characteristics. This study analyses thermal cracking as an alternative technology to improve biodiesel characteristics in which, FAME based biodiesel produced by transesterification of castor oil is fed into a continuous thermal cracking reactor at temperatures range of 450-500°C and flowrate range of 20-40 g/hr. Experiments designed by response surface methodology and subsequent statistical studies show that temperature and feed flowrate significantly affect the products yield. Response surfaces were used to study the impact of temperature and flowrate on the product properties. After each experiment, the produced crude bio-oil was distilled and diesel cut was separated. As shorter chain molecules are produced through thermal cracking, the distillation curve of the diesel cut fitted more with petrol based diesel curve in comparison to the biodiesel. Moreover, the produced diesel cut properties adequately pose within property ranges defined by the related standard of petrol based diesel. Cold flow properties, high heating value as the main drawbacks of the biodiesel are improved by this technology. Thermal cracking decreases kinematic viscosity, Flash point and cetane number. 

Keywords: Biodiesel, castor oil, fuel properties, thermal cracking.

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Authors: Jehad Al Dallal

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An application framework provides a reusable design and implementation for a family of software systems. Frameworks are introduced to reduce the cost of a product line (i.e., a family of products that shares the common features). Software testing is a timeconsuming and costly ongoing activity during the application software development process. Generating reusable test cases for the framework applications during the framework development stage, and providing and using the test cases to test part of the framework application whenever the framework is used reduces the application development time and cost considerably. This paper introduces the Framework Interface State Transition Tester (FIST2), a tool for automated unit testing of Java framework applications. During the framework development stage, given the formal descriptions of the framework hooks, the specifications of the methods of the framework-s extensible classes, and the illegal behavior description of the Framework Interface Classes (FICs), FIST2 generates unitlevel test cases for the classes. At the framework application development stage, given the customized method specifications of the implemented FICs, FIST2 automates the use, execution, and evaluation of the already generated test cases to test the implemented FICs. The paper illustrates the use of the FIST2 tool for testing several applications that use the SalesPoint framework.

Keywords: Automated testing, class testing, FICs, FIST2, object-oriented framework, object-oriented testing.

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Authors: B. L. Ho, L. Shi, D. F. Wang, V. C. T. Mok

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The brain’s functional connectivity while temporally non-stationary does express consistency at a macro spatial level. The study of stable resting state connectivity patterns hence provides opportunities for identification of diseases if such stability is severely perturbed. A mathematical model replicating the brain’s spatial connections will be useful for understanding brain’s representative geometry and complements the empirical model where it falls short. Empirical computations tend to involve large matrices and become infeasible with fine parcellation. However, the proposed analytical model has no such computational problems. To improve replicability, 92 subject data are obtained from two open sources. The proposed methodology, inspired by financial theory, uses multivariate regression to find relationships of every cortical region of interest (ROI) with some pre-identified hubs. These hubs acted as representatives for the entire cortical surface. A variance-covariance framework of all ROIs is then built based on these relationships to link up all the ROIs. The result is a high level of match between model and empirical correlations in the range of 0.59 to 0.66 after adjusting for sample size; an increase of almost forty percent. More significantly, the model framework provides an intuitive way to delineate between systemic drivers and idiosyncratic noise while reducing dimensions by more than 30 folds, hence, providing a way to conduct attribution analysis. Due to its analytical nature and simple structure, the model is useful as a standalone toolkit for network dependency analysis or as a module for other mathematical models.

Keywords: Functional magnetic resonance imaging, multivariate regression, network hubs, resting state functional connectivity.

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Authors: Joe Walsh, Mike Climstein, Ian Timothy Heazlewood, Stephen Burke, Jyrki Kettunen, Kent Adams, Mark DeBeliso

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Thousands of masters athletes participate quadrennially in the World Masters Games (WMG), yet this cohort of athletes remains proportionately under-investigated. Due to a growing global obesity pandemic in context of benefits of physical activity across the lifespan, the BMI trends for this unique population was of particular interest. The nexus between health, physical activity and aging is complex and has raised much interest in recent times due to the realization that a multifaceted approach is necessary in order to counteract the obesity pandemic. By investigating age based trends within a population adhering to competitive sport at older ages, further insight might be gleaned to assist in understanding one of many factors influencing this relationship.BMI was derived using data gathered on a total of 6,071 masters athletes (51.9% male, 48.1% female) aged 25 to 91 years ( =51.5, s =±9.7), competing at the Sydney World Masters Games (2009). Using linear and loess regression it was demonstrated that the usual tendency for prevalence of higher BMI increasing with age was reversed in the sample. This trend in reversal was repeated for both male and female only sub-sets of the sample participants, indicating the possibility of improved prevalence of BMI with increasing age for both the sample as a whole and these individual sub-groups.This evidence of improved classification in one index of health (reduced BMI) for masters athletes (when compared to the general population) implies there are either improved levels of this index of health with aging due to adherence to sport or possibly the reduced BMI is advantageous and contributes to this cohort adhering (or being attracted) to masters sport at older ages.

Keywords: Aging, masters athlete, Quetelet Index, sport

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Authors: Mária Hudáková, Vladimír Míka, Katarína Hollá

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Making decisions is the core of management and a result of conscious activities which is under way in a particular environment and concrete conditions. The managers decide about the goals, procedures and about the methods how to respond to the changes and to the problems which developed. Their decisions affect the effectiveness, quality, economy and the overall successfulness in every organisation. In spite of this fact, they do not pay sufficient attention to the individual steps of the decision-making process. They emphasise more how to cope with the individual methods and techniques of making decisions and forget about the way how to cope with analysing the problem or assessing the individual solution variants. In many cases, the underestimating of the analytical phase can lead to an incorrect assessment of the problem and this can then negatively influence its further solution. Based on our analysis of the theoretical solutions by individual authors who are dealing with this area and the realised research in Slovakia and also abroad we can recognise an insufficient interest of the managers to assess the risks in the decision-making process. The goal of this paper is to assess the risks in the managers´ decision-making process relating to the conditions of the environment, to the subject’s activity (the manager’s personality), to the insufficient assessment of individual variants for solving the problems but also to situations when the arisen problem is not solved. The benefit of this paper is the effort to increase the need of the managers to deal with the risks during the decision-making process. It is important for every manager to assess the risks in his/her decision-making process and to make efforts to take such decisions which reflect the basic conditions, states and development of the environment in the best way and especially for the managers´ decisions to contribute to achieving the determined goals of the organisation as effectively as possible.

Keywords: Risk, decision-making, manager, process, analysis, source of risk.

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Authors: Laila Ozola, Evita Straumite

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Celiac disease is a permanent enteropathy caused by the ingestion of gluten, a protein occurring in wheat, rye and barley. The only way of the effective daily treatment is a strict gluten-free diet. From the investigation of products available in the local market, it was found that Latvian producers do not offer gluten-free products. The aim of this research was to study and analyze changes of celiac patient’s attitude to gluten-free product quality and availability in the Latvian market and purchasing habits. The survey was designed using website www.visidati.lv, and a questionnaire was sent to people suffering from celiac disease. The first time the respondents were asked to fill in the questionnaire in 2011, but now repeatedly from the beginning of September 2013 till the end of January 2014. The questionnaire was performed with 75 celiac patients, respondents were from all Latvian regions and they answered 16 questions. One of the most important questions was aimed to find out consumers’ opinion about quality of gluten-free products, consumption patterns of gluten-free products, and, moreover, their interest in products made in Latvia. Respondents were asked to name gluten-free products they mainly buy and give specific purchase locations, evaluate the quality of products and necessity for products produced in Latvia. The results of questionnaire show that the consumers are satisfied with the quality of gluten-free flour, flour blends, sweets and pasta, but are not satisfied with the quality of bread and confectionery available in the Latvian markets.

Keywords: Consumers, gluten-free products, quality, survey.

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Authors: Alaa Al Hawari, Mohammad Khader, Wael El Hasan, Mahmoud Alijla, Ammar Manawi, Abdelbaki Benamour

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The production of aluminum alloys and ingots – starting from the processing of alumina to aluminum, and the final cast product – was studied using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. The studied aluminum supply chain consisted of a carbon plant, a reduction plant, a casting plant, and a power plant. In the LCA model, the environmental loads of the different plants for the production of 1 ton of aluminum metal were investigated. The impact of the aluminum production was assessed in eight impact categories. The results showed that for all of the impact categories the power plant had the highest impact only in the cases of Human Toxicity Potential (HTP) the reduction plant had the highest impact and in the Marine Aquatic Eco-Toxicity Potential (MAETP) the carbon plant had the highest impact. Furthermore, the impact of the carbon plant and the reduction plant combined was almost the same as the impact of the power plant in the case of the Acidification Potential (AP). The carbon plant had a positive impact on the environment when it come to the Eutrophication Potential (EP) due to the production of clean water in the process. The natural gas based power plant used in the case study had 8.4 times less negative impact on the environment when compared to the heavy fuel based power plant and 10.7 times less negative impact when compared to the hard coal based power plant.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment, aluminum production, Supply chain.

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Authors: Javier Romera, Alberto Justo, Ignacio Fidalgo, Javier Araluce, Joshué Pérez

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Nowadays, individuals with mobility needs face a significant challenge when docking vehicles. In many cases, after parking, they encounter insufficient space to exit, leading to two undesired outcomes: either avoiding parking in that spot or settling for improperly placed vehicles. To address this issue, this paper presents a parking control system employing gestural teleoperation. The system comprises three main phases: capturing body markers, interpreting gestures, and transmitting orders to the vehicle. The initial phase is centered around the MediaPipe framework, a versatile tool optimized for real-time gesture recognition. MediaPipe excels at detecting and tracing body markers, with a special emphasis on hand gestures. Hands detection is done by generating 21 reference points for each hand. Subsequently, after data capture, the project employs the MultiPerceptron Layer (MPL) for in-depth gesture classification. This tandem of MediaPipe’s extraction prowess and MPL’s analytical capability ensures that human gestures are translated into actionable commands with high precision. Furthermore, the system has been trained and validated within a built-in dataset. To prove the domain adaptation, a framework based on the Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2), as a communication backbone, alongside CARLA Simulator, is used. Following successful simulations, the system is transitioned to a real-world platform, marking a significant milestone in the project. This real-vehicle implementation verifies the practicality and efficiency of the system beyond theoretical constructs.

Keywords: Gesture detection, MediaPipe, MultiLayer Perceptron Layer, Robot Operating System.

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