Search results for: Science andtechnology policy

Authors: Chiung-Hui Chen

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Traditional service channel is losing its edge due to emerging service technology. To establish interaction with the clients, the service industry is using effective mechanism to give clients direct access to services with emerging technologies. Thus, as service science receives attention, special and unique consumption pattern evolves; henceforth, leading to new market mechanism and influencing attitudes toward life and consumption patterns. The market demand for customized services is thus valued due to the emphasis of personal value, and is gradually changing the demand and supply relationship in the traditional industry. In respect of interior design service, in the process of traditional interior design, a designer converts to a concrete form the concept generated from the ideas and needs dictated by a user (client), by using his/her professional knowledge and drawing tool. The final product is generated through iterations of communication and modification, which is a very time-consuming process. Although this process has been accelerated with the help of computer graphics software today, repeated discussions and confirmations with users are still required to complete the task. In consideration of what is addressed above a space user’s life model is analyzed with visualization technique to create an interaction system modeled after interior design knowledge. The space user document intuitively personal life experience in a model requirement chart, allowing a researcher to analyze interrelation between analysis documents, identify the logic and the substance of data conversion. The repeated data which is documented are then transformed into design information for reuse and sharing. A professional interior designer may sort out the correlation among user’s preference, life pattern and design specification, thus deciding the critical design elements in the process of service design.

Keywords: Information Design, Life Model-Based, Aesthetic Computing, Communication.

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Authors: Andrew Cummings, Rhianne Boag, Sarah Bryson, Gordon Turner

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Packages designed for transport of radioactive material must satisfy rigorous safety regulations specified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Higher Activity Waste (HAW) transport packages have to maintain containment of their contents during normal and accident conditions of transport (NCT and ACT). To ensure containment criteria is satisfied these packages are required to be leak-tight in all transport conditions to meet allowable activity release rates. Package design safety reports are the safety cases that provide the claims, evidence and arguments to demonstrate that packages meet the regulations and once approved by the competent authority (in the UK this is the Office for Nuclear Regulation) a licence to transport radioactive material is issued for the package(s). The standard approach to demonstrating containment in the RWM transport safety case is set out in BS EN ISO 12807. In this document a method for measuring a leak rate from the package is explained by way of a small interspace test volume situated between two O-ring seals on the underside of the package lid. The interspace volume is pressurised and a pressure drop measured. A small interspace test volume makes the method more sensitive enabling the measurement of smaller leak rates. By ascertaining the activity of the contents, identifying a releasable fraction of material and by treating that fraction of material as a gas, allowable leak rates for NCT and ACT are calculated. The adherence to basic safety principles in ISO12807 is very pessimistic and current practice in the demonstration of transport safety, which is accepted by the UK regulator. It is UK government policy that management of HAW will be through geological disposal. It is proposed that the intermediate level waste be transported to the geological disposal facility (GDF) in large cuboid packages. This poses a challenge for containment demonstration because such packages will have long seals and therefore large interspace test volumes. There is also uncertainty on the releasable fraction of material within the package ullage space. This is because the waste may be in many different forms which makes it difficult to define the fraction of material released by the waste package. Additionally because of the large interspace test volume, measuring the calculated leak rates may not be achievable. For this reason a justification for a lower releasable fraction of material is sought. This paper considers the use of aerosol processes to reduce the releasable fraction for both NCT and ACT. It reviews the basic coagulation and removal processes and applies the dynamic aerosol balance equation. The proposed solution includes only the most well understood physical processes namely; Brownian coagulation and gravitational settling. Other processes have been eliminated either on the basis that they would serve to reduce the release to the environment further (pessimistically in keeping with the essence of nuclear transport safety cases) or that they are not credible in the conditions of transport considered.

Keywords: Aerosol processes, Brownian coagulation, gravitational settling, transport regulations.

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Authors: Karishma Kashyap, Subha D. Parida

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Rapid population growth and urbanization is creating pressure throughout the world. This has a dramatic effect on a lot of elements which include water, food, transportation, energy, infrastructure etc. as few of the key services. Built environment sector is growing concurrently to meet the needs of urbanization. Due to such large scale development of buildings, there is a need for them to be monitored and managed efficiently. Along with appropriate management, climate adaptation is highly crucial as well because buildings are one of the major sources of greenhouse gas emission in their operation phase. Buildings to be adaptive need to provide a triple bottom approach to sustainability i.e., being socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. Hence, in order to deliver these sustainability outcomes, there is a growing understanding and thrive towards switching to green buildings or renovating new ones as per green standards wherever possible. Academic institutions in particular have been following this trend globally. This is highly significant as universities usually have high occupancy rates because they manage a large building portfolio. Also, as universities accommodate the future generation of architects, policy makers etc., they have the potential of setting themselves as a best industry practice model for research and innovation for the rest to follow. Hence their climate adaptation, sustainable growth and performance management becomes highly crucial in order to provide the best services to users. With the objective of evaluating appropriate management mechanisms within academic institutions, a feasibility study was carried out in a recent 5-Star Green Star rated university building (housing the School of Construction) in Victoria (south-eastern state of Australia). The key aim was to understand the behavioral and social aspect of the building users, management and the impact of their relationship on overall building sustainability. A survey was used to understand the building occupant’s response and reactions in terms of their work environment and management. A report was generated based on the survey results complemented with utility and performance data which were then used to evaluate the management structure of the university. Followed by the report, interviews were scheduled with the facility and asset managers in order to understand the approach they use to manage the different buildings in their university campuses (old, new, refurbished), respective building and parameters incorporated in maintaining the Green Star performance. The results aimed at closing the communication and feedback loop within the respective institutions and assist the facility managers to deliver appropriate stakeholder engagement. For the wider design community, analysis of the data highlights the applicability and significance of prioritizing key stakeholders, integrating desired engagement policies within an institution’s management structures and frameworks and their effect on building performance

Keywords: Building Optimization, Green Building, Post Occupancy Evaluation, Stakeholder Engagement.

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Authors: C. A. Roberts, J. G. Andrae, S. R. Smith, M. H. Poore, C. A. Young, D. W. Hancock, G. J. Pent

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To the author’s best knowledge, there are no published reports of effective methods for teaching fescue toxicosis and grass endophyte technology in the USA. To address this need, a group of university scientists, industry representatives, government agents, and livestock producers formed an organization called the Alliance for Grassland Renewal. One goal of the Alliance was to develop a teaching method that could be employed across all regions in the USA and all sectors of the agricultural community. The first step in developing this method was identification of experts who were familiar with the science and management of fescue toxicosis. The second step was curriculum development. Experts wrote a curriculum that addressed all aspects of toxicosis and management, including toxicology, animal nutrition, pasture management, economics, and mycology. The curriculum was created for presentation in lectures, laboratories, and in the field. The curriculum was in that it could be delivered across state lines, regardless of peculiar, in-state recommendations. The curriculum was also unique as it was unanimously supported by private companies otherwise in competition with each other. The final step in developing this teaching method was formulating a delivery plan. All experts, including university, industry, government, and production, volunteered to travel from any state in the USA, converge in one location, teach a 1-day workshop, then travel to the next location. The results of this teaching method indicate widespread success. Since 2012, experts across the entire USA have converged to teach Alliance workshops in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, with ongoing workshops in Arkansas and Tennessee. Data from post-workshop surveys indicate that instruction has been effective, as at least 50% of the participants stated their intention to adopt the endophyte technology presented in these workshops. The teaching method developed by the Alliance for Grassland Renewal has proved to be effective, and the Alliance continues to expand across the USA.

Keywords: Endophyte, Epichloë coenophiala, ergot alkaloids, fescue toxicosis, tall fescue.

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Authors: Samuel P. Prahlow, Anthony Sciuva, Katherine Bombly, Emily Wilson, Shiv Dhiman, Savita Arya

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A prevalence cohort study of atherosclerotic lesions within cadavers was performed to better understand and characterize the prevalence of atherosclerosis among Georgia residents within body donors in the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) - Georgia body donor program. We procured specimens from cadavers used for medical student, physical therapy student, and biomedical science student cadaveric anatomical dissection at PCOM - South Georgia and PCOM - Georgia. Tissues were prepared using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain as histological slides by Colquitt Regional Medical Center Laboratory Services. One section from each of the following arteries was taken after cadaveric dissection at the site of most calcification palpated grossly (if present): left anterior descending coronary artery, left internal carotid artery, abdominal aorta, splenic artery, and hepatic artery. All specimens were graded and categorized according to the American Heart Association’s Modified and Conventional Standards for Atherosclerotic Lesions using x4, x10, x40 microscopic magnification. Our study cohort included 22 cadavers, with 16 females and 6 males. The average age was 72.54 and median age was 72, with a range of 52 to 90 years old. The cause of death determination listing vascular and/or cardiovascular causes were present on 6 of the 22 death certificates. 19 of 22 (86%) cadavers had at least a single artery grading > 5. Of the cadavers with at least a single artery graded at greater than 5, only 5 of 19 (26%) cadavers had a vascular or cardiovascular cause of death reported. Malignancy was listed as a cause of death on 7 (32%) of death certificates. The average atherosclerosis grading of the common hepatic, splenic and left internal carotid arteries (2.15, 3.05, and 3.36 respectively) were lower than the left anterior descending artery and the abdominal aorta (5.16 and 5.86 respectively). This prevalence study characterizes atherosclerosis found in five medium and large systemic arteries within cadavers from the state of Georgia.

Keywords: Atherosclerosis, cardiovascular, histology, pathology.

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Authors: Ayman El Sabagh, Sobhy Sorour, Abd Elhamid Omar, Adel Ragab, Mohammad Sohidul Islam, Celaleddin Barutçular, Akihiro Ueda, Hirofumi Saneoka

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Salinity is one of the major factors limiting crop production in an arid environment. Despite its global importance soybean production suffer the problems of salinity stress causing damages at plant development. So it is implacable to either search for salinity enhancement of soybean plants. Therefore, in the current study we try to clarify the mechanism that might be involved in the ameliorating effects of osmo-protectants such as proline and glycine betaine as well as, compost application on soybean plants grown under salinity stress. The experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions at the Graduate School of Biosphere Science Laboratory of Hiroshima University, Japan in 2011. The experiment was designed as a spilt-split plot based on randomized complete block design with four replications. The treatments could be summarized as follows; (i) salinity concentrations (0 and 15 mM), (ii) compost treatments (0 and 24 t ha-1) and (iii) the exogenous, proline and glycine betaine concentrations (0 mM and 25 mM) for each. Results indicated that salinity stress induced reduction in growth and physiological aspects (dry weight per plant, chlorophyll content, N and K+ content) of soybean plant compared with those of the unstressed plants. On the other hand, salinity stress led to increases in the electrolyte leakage ratio, Na and proline contents. Special attention was paid to, the tolerance against salt stress was observed, the improvement of salt tolerance resulted from proline, glycine betaine and compost were accompanied with improved K+, and proline accumulation. While, significantly decreased electrolyte leakage ratio and Na+ content. These results clearly demonstrate that harmful effect of salinity could reduce on growth aspects of soybean. Consequently, exogenous osmoprotectants combine with compost will effectively solve seasonal salinity stress problem and are a good strategy to increase salinity resistance of soybean in the drylands.

Keywords: Compost, glycine betaine, growth, proline, salinity tolerance, soybean.

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Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Ioannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece’s deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs’ resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioural responses and experiences, can feed into: a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: Flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organisational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study.

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Authors: Ben Khayut, Lina Fabri, Maya Avikhana

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The modern Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) models cannot: a) independently, situationally, and continuously function without of human intelligence, used for retraining and reprogramming the ANI’s models, and b) think, understand, be conscious, and cognize under uncertainty and changing of the environmental objects. To eliminate these shortcomings and build a new generation of Artificial Intelligence systems, the paper proposes a Conception, Model, and Method of Computational Psycholinguistic Cognitive Situational-Fuzzy Self-Controlled Brain and Mind System (CPCSFSCBMSUU). This system uses a neural network as its computational memory, and activates functions of the perception, identification of real objects, fuzzy situational control, and forming images of these objects. These images and objects are used for modeling their psychological, linguistic, cognitive, and neural values of properties and features, the meanings of which are identified, interpreted, generated, and formed taking into account the identified subject area, using the data, information, knowledge, accumulated in the Memory. The functioning of the CPCSFSCBMSUU is carried out by its subsystems of the: fuzzy situational control of all processes, computational perception, identifying of reactions and actions, Psycholinguistic Cognitive Fuzzy Logical Inference, Decision Making, Reasoning, Systems Thinking, Planning, Awareness, Consciousness, Cognition, Intuition, and Wisdom. In doing so are performed analysis and processing of the psycholinguistic, subject, visual, signal, sound and other objects, accumulation and using the data, information and knowledge of the Memory, communication, and interaction with other computing systems, robots and humans in order of solving the joint tasks. To investigate the functional processes of the proposed system, the principles of situational control, fuzzy logic, psycholinguistics, informatics, and modern possibilities of data science were applied. The proposed self-controlled system of brain and mind is oriented on use as a plug-in in multilingual subject applications.

Keywords: Computational psycholinguistic cognitive brain and mind system, situational fuzzy control, uncertainty, AI.

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Authors: Keivan Beheshti Maal, Rasoul Shafiei, Noushin Kabiri

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Vinegar or sour wine is a product of alcoholic and subsequent acetous fermentation of sugary precursors derived from several fruits or starchy substrates. This delicious food additive and supplement contains not less than 4 grams of acetic acid in 100 cubic centimeters at 20°C. Among the large number of bacteria that are able to produce acetic acid, only few genera are used in vinegar industry most significant of which are Acetobacter and Gluconobacter. In this research we isolated and identified an Acetobacter strain from Iranian apricot, a very delicious and sensitive summer fruit to decay, we gathered from fruit's stores in Isfahan, Iran. The main culture media we used were Carr, GYC, Frateur and an industrial medium for vinegar production. We isolated this strain using a novel miniature fermentor we made at Pars Yeema Biotechnologists Co., Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT), Isfahan, Iran. The microscopic examinations of isolated strain from Iranian apricot showed gram negative rods to cocobacilli. Their catalase reaction was positive and oxidase reaction was negative and could ferment ethanol to acetic acid. Also it showed an acceptable growth in 5%, 7% and 9% ethanol concentrations at 30°C using modified Carr media after 24, 48 and 96 hours incubation respectively. According to its tolerance against high concentrations of ethanol after four days incubation and its high acetic acid production, 8.53%, after 144 hours, this strain could be considered as a suitable industrial strain for a production of a new type of vinegar, apricot vinegar, with a new and delicious taste. In conclusion this is the first report of isolation and identification of an Acetobacter strain from Iranian apricot with a very good tolerance against high ethanol concentrations as well as high acetic acid productivity in an acceptable incubation period of time industrially. This strain could be used in vinegar industry to convert apricot spoilage to a beneficiary product and mentioned characteristics have made it as an amenable strain in food and agricultural biotechnology.

Keywords: Acetic Acid Bacteria, Acetobacter, Fermentation, Food and Agricultural Biotechnology, Iranian Apricot, Vinegar.

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Authors: N. Šarlija, S. Pfeifer, M. Jeger, A. Bilandžić

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Enterprise growth is generally considered as a key driver of competitiveness, employment, economic development and social inclusion. As such, it is perceived to be a highly desirable outcome of entrepreneurship for scholars and decision makers. The huge academic debate resulted in the multitude of theoretical frameworks focused on explaining growth stages, determinants and future prospects. It has been widely accepted that enterprise growth is most likely nonlinear, temporal and related to the variety of factors which reflect the individual, firm, organizational, industry or environmental determinants of growth. However, factors that affect growth are not easily captured, instruments to measure those factors are often arbitrary, causality between variables and growth is elusive, indicating that growth is not easily modeled. Furthermore, in line with heterogeneous nature of the growth phenomenon, there is a vast number of measurement constructs assessing growth which are used interchangeably. Differences among various growth measures, at conceptual as well as at operationalization level, can hinder theory development which emphasizes the need for more empirically robust studies. In line with these highlights, the main purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to compare structure and performance of three growth prediction models based on the main growth measures: Revenues, employment and assets growth. Secondly, to explore the prospects of financial indicators, set as exact, visible, standardized and accessible variables, to serve as determinants of enterprise growth. Finally, to contribute to the understanding of the implications on research results and recommendations for growth caused by different growth measures. The models include a range of financial indicators as lag determinants of the enterprises’ performances during the 2008-2013, extracted from the national register of the financial statements of SMEs in Croatia. The design and testing stage of the modeling used the logistic regression procedures. Findings confirm that growth prediction models based on different measures of growth have different set of predictors. Moreover, the relationship between particular predictors and growth measure is inconsistent, namely the same predictor positively related to one growth measure may exert negative effect on a different growth measure. Overall, financial indicators alone can serve as good proxy of growth and yield adequate predictive power of the models. The paper sheds light on both methodology and conceptual framework of enterprise growth by using a range of variables which serve as a proxy for the multitude of internal and external determinants, but are unlike them, accessible, available, exact and free of perceptual nuances in building up the model. Selection of the growth measure seems to have significant impact on the implications and recommendations related to growth. Furthermore, the paper points out to potential pitfalls of measuring and predicting growth. Overall, the results and the implications of the study are relevant for advancing academic debates on growth-related methodology, and can contribute to evidence-based decisions of policy makers.

Keywords: Growth measurement constructs, logistic regression, prediction of growth potential, small and medium-sized enterprises.

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Authors: Suman Chaudhary, Rinku Dhanker, Tanvi, Sneh Goyal

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Sulphur oxidizing bacteria (SOB) have marked their significant role in perspectives of maintaining healthy environment as researchers from all over the world tested and apply these in waste water treatment plants, bioleaching of heavy metals, deterioration of bridge structures, concrete and for bioremediation purposes, etc. Also, these SOB are well adapted in all kinds of environment ranging from normal soil, water habitats to extreme natural sources like geothermal areas, volcanic eruptions, black shale and acid rock drainage (ARD). SOB have been isolated from low pH environment of anthropogenic origin like acid mine drainage (AMD) and bioleaching heaps, hence these can work efficiently in different environmental conditions. Besides having many applications in field of environment science, they may be proven to be very beneficial in area of agriculture as sulphur is the fourth major macronutrients required for the growth of plants. More amount of sulphur is needed by pulses and oilseed crops with respect to the cereal grains. Due to continuous use of land for overproduction of more demanding sulphur utilizing crops and without application of sulphur fertilizers, its concentration is decreasing day by day, and thus, sulphur deficiency is becoming a great problem as it affects the crop productivity and quality. Sulphur is generally found in soils in many forms which are unavailable for plants (cannot be use by plants) like elemental sulphur, thiosulphate which can be taken up by bacteria and converted into simpler forms usable by plants by undergoing a series of transformations. So, keeping the importance of sulphur in view for various soil types, oilseed crops and role of microorganisms in making them available to plants, we made an effort to isolate, optimize, and characterize SOB. Three potential strains of bacteria were isolated, namely SSF7, SSA21, and SSS6, showing sulphate production of concentration, i.e. 2.268, 3.102, and 2.785 mM, respectively. Also, these were optimized for various culture conditions like carbon, nitrogen source, pH, temperature, and incubation time, and characterization was also done.

Keywords: Sulphur oxidizing bacteria, isolation, optimization, characterization, sulphate production.

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Authors: Jenan Shakoor

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Obesity prevalence is increasing worldwide. University life is a challenging period especially for students who have to leave their familiar surroundings and settle in a new environment. The current study aimed to assess the diet and exercise habits and their association with body mass index (BMI) among nursing college students living at Kirkuk University residence. This was a descriptive study. A non-probability (purposive) sample of 101 students living in Kirkuk University residence was recruited during the period from the 15^th November 2015 to the 5^th May 2016. A questionnaire was constructed for the purpose of the study which consisted of four parts: the demographic characteristics of the study sample, eating habits, eating at college and healthy habits. The data were collected by interviewing the study sample and the weight and height were measured by a trained researcher at the college. Descriptive statistical analysis was undertaken. Data were prepared, organized and entered into the computer file; the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 20) was used for data analysis. A p value≤ 0.05 was accepted as statistical significant. A total of 63 (62.4%) of the sample were aged20-21with a mean age of 22.1 (SD±0.653). A third of the sample 38 (37.6%) were from level four at college, 67 (66.3%) were female and 46 45.5% of participants were from a middle socio-economic status. 14 (13.9%) of the study sample were overweight (BMI =25-29.9kg/m²) and 6 (5.9%) were obese (BMI≥30kg/m²) compared to 73 (72.3%) were of normal weight (BMI =18.5-24.9kg/m²). With regard to eating habits and exercise, 42 (41.6%) of the students rarely ate breakfast, 79 (78.2%) eat lunch at university residence, 77 (78.2%) of the students reported rarely doing exercise and 62 (61.4%) of them were sleeping for less than eight hours. No significant association was found between the variables age, sex, level of college and socio-economic status and BMI, while there was a significant association between eating lunch at university and BMI (p =0.03). No significant association was found between eating habits, healthy habits and BMI. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among the study sample was 19.8% with female students being more obese than males. Further studies are needed to identify BMI among residence students in other colleges and increasing the awareness of undergraduate students to healthy food habits.

Keywords: Body mass index, diet, obesity, university residence.

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Authors: Dipo Dunsin, Mohamed C. Ghanem, Karim Ouazzane

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Digital investigators often have a hard time spotting evidence in digital information. It has become hard to determine which source of proof relates to a specific investigation. A growing concern is that the various processes, technology, and specific procedures used in the digital investigation are not keeping up with criminal developments. Therefore, criminals are taking advantage of these weaknesses to commit further crimes. In digital forensics investigations, artificial intelligence (AI) is invaluable in identifying crime. Providing objective data and conducting an assessment is the goal of digital forensics and digital investigation, which will assist in developing a plausible theory that can be presented as evidence in court. This research paper aims at developing a multiagent framework for digital investigations using specific intelligent software agents (ISAs). The agents communicate to address particular tasks jointly and keep the same objectives in mind during each task. The rules and knowledge contained within each agent are dependent on the investigation type. A criminal investigation is classified quickly and efficiently using the case-based reasoning (CBR) technique. The proposed framework development is implemented using the Java Agent Development Framework, Eclipse, Postgres repository, and a rule engine for agent reasoning. The proposed framework was tested using the Lone Wolf image files and datasets. Experiments were conducted using various sets of ISAs and VMs. There was a significant reduction in the time taken for the Hash Set Agent to execute. As a result of loading the agents, 5% of the time was lost, as the File Path Agent prescribed deleting 1,510, while the Timeline Agent found multiple executable files. In comparison, the integrity check carried out on the Lone Wolf image file using a digital forensic tool kit took approximately 48 minutes (2,880 ms), whereas the MADIK framework accomplished this in 16 minutes (960 ms). The framework is integrated with Python, allowing for further integration of other digital forensic tools, such as AccessData Forensic Toolkit (FTK), Wireshark, Volatility, and Scapy.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, computer science, criminal investigation, digital forensics.

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Authors: Moatlhodi Wise Letshwenyo, Lesedi Lebogang

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Botswana is an arid country that needs to start reusing wastewater as part of its water security plan. Pilot scale slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter was investigated for the treatment of effluent from Botswana International University of Science and Technology to meet Botswana irrigation standards. The system was operated at hydraulic loading rates of 0.04 m/hr and 0.12 m/hr. The results show that the system was able to reduce turbidity from 262 Nephelometric Turbidity Units to a range between 18 and 0 Nephelometric Turbidity Units which was below 30 Nephelometric Turbidity Units threshold limit. The overall efficacy ranged between 61% and 100%. Suspended solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, and Chemical Oxygen Demand removal efficiency averaged 42.6%, 45.5%, and 77% respectively and all within irrigation standards. Other physio-chemical parameters were within irrigation standards except for bicarbonate ion which averaged 297.7±44 mg L^-1 in the influent and 196.22±50 mg L^-1 in the effluent which was above the limit of 92 mg L^-1, therefore averaging a reduction of 34.1% by the system. Total coliforms, fecal coliforms, and Escherichia coli in the effluent were initially averaging 1.1 log counts, 0.5 log counts, and 1.3 log counts respectively compared to corresponding influent log counts of 3.4, 2.7 and 4.1, respectively. As time passed, it was observed that only roughing filter was able to reach reductions of 97.5%, 86% and 100% respectively for faecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, and total coliforms. These organism numbers were observed to have increased in slow sand filter effluent suggesting multiplication in the tank. Water quality index value of 22.79 for the physio-chemical parameters suggests that the effluent is of excellent quality and can be used for irrigation purposes. However, the water quality index value for the microbial parameters (1820) renders the quality unsuitable for irrigation. It is concluded that slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter is a viable option for the treatment of secondary effluent for reuse purposes. However, further studies should be conducted especially for the removal of microbial parameters using the system.

Keywords: Irrigation, roughing filter, slow sand filter, turbidity, water quality index.

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Authors: Silvia Santano Guillén, Luigi Lo Iacono, Christian Meder

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One of the main aims of current social robotic research is to improve the robots’ abilities to interact with humans. In order to achieve an interaction similar to that among humans, robots should be able to communicate in an intuitive and natural way and appropriately interpret human affects during social interactions. Similarly to how humans are able to recognize emotions in other humans, machines are capable of extracting information from the various ways humans convey emotions—including facial expression, speech, gesture or text—and using this information for improved human computer interaction. This can be described as Affective Computing, an interdisciplinary field that expands into otherwise unrelated fields like psychology and cognitive science and involves the research and development of systems that can recognize and interpret human affects. To leverage these emotional capabilities by embedding them in humanoid robots is the foundation of the concept Affective Robots, which has the objective of making robots capable of sensing the user’s current mood and personality traits and adapt their behavior in the most appropriate manner based on that. In this paper, the emotion recognition capabilities of the humanoid robot Pepper are experimentally explored, based on the facial expressions for the so-called basic emotions, as well as how it performs in contrast to other state-of-the-art approaches with both expression databases compiled in academic environments and real subjects showing posed expressions as well as spontaneous emotional reactions. The experiments’ results show that the detection accuracy amongst the evaluated approaches differs substantially. The introduced experiments offer a general structure and approach for conducting such experimental evaluations. The paper further suggests that the most meaningful results are obtained by conducting experiments with real subjects expressing the emotions as spontaneous reactions.

Keywords: Affective computing, emotion recognition, humanoid robot, Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI), social robots.

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Authors: K. Beheshti Maal, R. Shafiee

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Vinegar is a precious food additive and complement as well as effective preservative against food spoilage. Recently traditional vinegar production has been improved using various natural substrates and fruits such as grape, palm, cherry, coconut, date, sugarcane, rice and balsam. These neoclassical fermentations resulted in several vinegar types with different tastes, fragrances and nutritional values because of applying various acetic acid bacteria as starters. Acetic acid bacteria include genera Acetobacter, Gluconacetobacter and Gluconobacter according to latest edition of Bergy-s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology that classifies genera on the basis of their 16s RNA differences. Acetobacter spp as the main vinegar starters belong to family Acetobacteraceae that are gram negative obligate aerobes, chemoorganotrophic bacilli that are oxidase negative and oxidize ethanol to acetic acid. In this research we isolated and identified a native Acetobacter strain with high acetic acid productivity and tolerance against high ethanol concentrations from Iranian peach as a summer delicious fruit that is very susceptible to food spoilage and decay. We used selective and specific laboratorial culture media such as Standard GYC, Frateur and Carr medium. Also we used a new industrial culture medium and a miniature fermentor with a new aeration system innovated by Pars Yeema Biotechnologists Co., Isfahan Science and Technology Town (ISTT), Isfahan, Iran. The isolated strain was successfully cultivated in modified Carr media with 2.5% and 5% ethanol simultaneously in high temperatures, 34 - 40º C after 96 hours of incubation period. We showed that the increase of ethanol concentration resulted in rising of strain sensitivity to high temperature. In conclusion we isolated and characterized a new Acetobacter strain from Iranian peach that could be considered as a potential strain for production of a new vinegar type, peach vinegar, with a delicious taste and advantageous nutritional value in food biotechnology and industrial microbiology.

Keywords: Acetobacter, Acetic Acid Bacteria, Vinegar, Peach, Food Biotechnology, Industrial Microbiology, Fermentation

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Authors: Marijana Ivanov, Roman Šubić

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This study analyzes the critical gaps in the architecture of European stability and the expected role of the banking union as the new important step towards completing the Economic and Monetary Union that should enable the creation of safe and sound financial sector for the euro area market. The single rulebook together with the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism - as two main pillars of the banking union, should provide a consistent application of common rules and administrative standards for supervision, recovery and resolution of banks – with the final aim of replacing the former bail-out practice with the bail-in system through which possible future bank failures would be resolved by their own funds, i.e. with minimal costs for taxpayers and real economy. In this way, the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns would be broken. It would also reduce the financial fragmentation recorded in the years of crisis as the result of divergent behaviors in risk premium, lending activities and interest rates between the core and the periphery. In addition, it should strengthen the effectiveness of monetary transmission channels, in particular the credit channels and overflows of liquidity on the money market which, due to the fragmentation of the common financial market, has been significantly disabled in period of crisis. However, contrary to all the positive expectations related to the future functioning of the banking union, major findings of this study indicate that characteristics of the economic system in which the banking union will operate should not be ignored. The euro area is an integration of strong and weak entities with large differences in economic development, wealth, assets of banking systems, growth rates and accountability of fiscal policy. The analysis indicates that low and unbalanced economic growth remains a challenge for the maintenance of financial stability and this problem cannot be resolved just by a single supervision. In many countries bank assets exceed their GDP by several times and large banks are still a matter of concern, because of their systemic importance for individual countries and the euro zone as a whole. The creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism is a response to the European crisis, which has particularly affected peripheral countries and caused the associated loop between the banking crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, but has also influenced banks’ balance sheets in the core countries, as the result of crossborder capital flows. The creation of the SSM and the SRM should prevent the similar episodes to happen again and should also provide a new opportunity for strengthening of economic and financial systems of the peripheral countries. On the other hand, there is a potential threat that future focus of the ECB, resolution mechanism and other relevant institutions will be extremely oriented towards large and significant banks (whereby one half of them operate in the core and most important euro area countries), and therefore it remains questionable to what extent will the common resolution funds will be used for rescue of less important institutions. Recent geopolitical developments will be the optimal indicator to show whether the previously established mechanisms are sufficient enough to maintain the adequate financial stability in the euro area market.

Keywords: Banking Union, financial integration, single supervisory mechanism (SSM).

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Authors: Ola Elfmark, Lars M. Bardal, Luca Oggiano, H˚avard Myklebust

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Team pursuit is a relatively new event in international long track speed skating. For a single speed skater the aerodynamic drag will account for up to 80% of the braking force, thus reducing the drag can greatly improve the performance. In a team pursuit the interactions between athletes in near proximity will also be essential, but is not well studied. In this study, systematic measurements of the aerodynamic drag, body posture and relative positioning of speed skaters have been performed in the low speed wind tunnel at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in order to investigate the aerodynamic interaction between two speed skaters. Drag measurements of static speed skaters drafting, leading, side-by-side, and dynamic drag measurements in a synchronized and unsynchronized movement at different distances, were performed. The projected frontal area was measured for all postures and movements and a blockage correction was performed, as the blockage ratio ranged from 5-15% in the different setups. The static drag measurements where performed on two test subjects in two different postures, a low posture and a high posture, and two different distances between the test subjects 1.5T and 3T where T being the length of the torso (T=0.63m). A drag reduction was observed for all distances and configurations, from 39% to 11.4%, for the drafting test subject. The drag of the leading test subject was only influenced at -1.5T, with the biggest drag reduction of 5.6%. An increase in drag was seen for all side-by-side measurements, the biggest increase was observed to be 25.7%, at the closest distance between the test subjects, and the lowest at 2.7% with ∼ 0.7 m between the test subjects. A clear aerodynamic interaction between the test subjects and their postures was observed for most measurements during static measurements, with results corresponding well to recent studies. For the dynamic measurements, the leading test subject had a drag reduction of 3% even at -3T. The drafting showed a drag reduction of 15% when being in a synchronized (sync) motion with the leading test subject at 4.5T. The maximal drag reduction for both the leading and the drafting test subject were observed when being as close as possible in sync, with a drag reduction of 8.5% and 25.7% respectively. This study emphasize the importance of keeping a synchronized movement by showing that the maximal gain for the leading and drafting dropped to 3.2% and 3.3% respectively when the skaters are in opposite phase. Individual differences in technique also appear to influence the drag of the other test subject.

Keywords: Aerodynamic interaction, drag cycle, drag force, frontal area, speed skating.

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Authors: Hezha Hewa, Taher Sur

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Nowadays, child affairs is a matter of both national and international interests. This issue is regarded a vital topic for various scientific fields across ages, and for all the communities without exception. However, the nature of child caring may vary due to the verities in science perspectives. So, considering child's affairs from different perspectives is helpful to have a complementary image about this matter. The purpose behind selecting this topic is to keep a balance between the victim on the one hand, and the guardian and the offender on the other hand, (i.e.) to avoid any kind of excessiveness either in the protection of the child and its rights not in the punishment of the offender. This is achieved through considering various legal materials in the Iraqi legislation and in the comparative legislations that are concerned with the child's issue and the extent to which the child makes use of these rights. The scope of this study involves the crimes that are considered as aggressions against the child's right to life, and the crimes that are dangerous to their physical and psychological safety. So, this study comprehensively considers the intentional murder of child, child murder to avoid disgrace, child kidnapping, child abandonment, physical abuse for the sake of punishment or not, child circumcision, verbal violence, and abstaining from leaving a child with a person who has the right of custody. This study ends with the most significant concluding points that have been derived throughout this study, which are: Unlike the Iraqi legislation, the Egyptian legislation defines the child in the Article 2 of the Child Law No. 12 of 1996 amended by the Law No. 126 of 2008 that the child is a person who does not exceed 18 years of age. Some legislation does not provide special criminal protection for child intentional murder, as in the Iraqi and the Egyptian legislation. However, some others have provided special criminal protection for a child, as in French and Syrian legislations. Child kidnapping is regarded as one of the most dangerous crimes that affects the child and the family as well, as it may expose the child's life to danger or to death. The most significant recommendations from the researcher are: The Iraqi legislation is recommended to take the necessary measures to establish a particular legislation for the child by including all the legal provisions that are associated with this weak creature, and make use of the Egyptian legislator’s experience as a pioneer in this respect. Both the Iraqi legislation and the Egyptian legislation are recommended to enact special laws to protect a child from the crimes of intentional murder, as the crime of child murder is currently subjected to the same provisions consider for adult murder.

Keywords: Child abuse, juvenile, legislation, punishment and aggravation.

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Authors: Amlan Kumar Das, Avinash Marwal, Vikram Pareek

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Liposome plays an important role in medical and pharmaceutical science as e.g. nano scale drug carriers. Liposomes are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer and an aqueous inner compartment. Magnet-driven liposome used for the targeted delivery of drugs to organs and tissues. These liposome preparations contain encapsulated drug components and finely dispersed magnetic particles. Liposomes are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer and an aqueous inner compartment that are generated in vitro. These are useful in terms of biocompatibility, biodegradability, and low toxicity, and can control biodistribution by changing the size, lipid composition, and physical characteristics. Furthermore, liposomes can entrap both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs and are able to continuously release the entrapped substrate, thus being useful drug carriers. Magnetic liposomes (MLs) are phospholipid vesicles that encapsulate magneticor paramagnetic nanoparticles. They are applied as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The biological synthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts plays an important role in the field of nanotechnology. Green-synthesized magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been produced by treating Iron (III) / Iron (II) chloride with the leaf extract of Datura inoxia. The phytochemicals present in the leaf extracts act as a reducing as well stabilizing agents preventing agglomeration, which include flavonoids, phenolic compounds, cardiac glycosides, proteins and sugars. The magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been trapped inside the aqueous core of the liposome prepared by reversed phase evaporation (REV) method using oleic and linoleic acid which has been shown to be driven under magnetic field confirming the formation magnetic liposome (ML). Chemical characterization of stealth magnetic liposome has been performed by breaking the liposome and release of magnetic nanoparticles. The presence iron has been confirmed by colour complex formation with KSCN and UV-Vis study using spectrophotometer Cary 60, Agilent. This magnet driven liposome using nanoparticles-protein hybrid can be a smart vesicles for the targeted drug delivery.

Keywords: Nanoparticles-Protein Hybrid, Magnetic Liposome.

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Authors: M. Nadeem, S. Nasir, K. A. Moazzam, R. Kashif

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The remarkable growth and evolution in information and communication technology (ICT) in the past few decades has transformed modern society in almost every aspect of life. The impact and application of ICT have been observed in almost all walks of life including science, arts, business, health, management, engineering, sports, and education. ICT in education is being used extensively for student learning, creativity, interaction, and knowledge sharing and as a valuable source of teaching instrument. Apart from the student’s perspective, it plays a vital role for teacher education, instructional methods and curriculum development. There is a significant difference in growth of ICT enabled education in developing countries compared to developed nations and according to research, this gap is widening. ICT gradually infiltrate in almost every aspect of life. It has a deep and profound impact on our social, economic, health, environment, development, work, learning, and education environments. ICT provides very effective and dominant tools for information and knowledge processing. It is firmly believed that the coming generation should be proficient and confident in the use of ICT to cope with the existing international standards. This is only possible if schools can provide basic ICT infrastructure to students and to develop an ICT-integrated curriculum which covers all aspects of learning and creativity in students. However, there is a digital divide and steps must be taken to reduce this digital divide considerably to have the profound impact of ICT in education all around the globe. This study is based on theoretical approach and an extensive literature review is being conducted to see the successful implementations of ICT integration in education and to identify technologies and models which have been used in education in developed countries. This paper deals with the modern applications of ICT in schools for both teachers and students to uplift the learning and creativity amongst the students. A brief history of technology in education is presented and discussed are some important ICT tools for both student and teacher’s perspective. Basic ICT-based infrastructure for academic institutions is presented. The overall conclusion leads to the positive impact of ICT in education by providing an interactive, collaborative and challenging environment to students and teachers for knowledge sharing, learning and critical thinking.

Keywords: Information and communication technology, ICT, education, ICT infrastructure, teacher education.

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Authors: Asif Ali, Daud Salim Faruquie

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With the advancement of knowledge about the utility and impact of sustainability, its feasibility has been explored into different walks of life. Scientists, however; have established their knowledge in four areas viz environmental, economic, social and cultural, popularly termed as four pillars of sustainability. Aspects of environmental and economic sustainability have been rigorously researched and practiced and huge volume of strong evidence of effectiveness has been founded for these two sub-areas. For the social and cultural aspects of sustainability, dependable evidence of effectiveness is still to be instituted as the researchers and practitioners are developing and experimenting methods across the globe. Therefore, the present research aimed to identify globally used practices of social and cultural sustainability and through evidence synthesis assess their outcomes to determine the effectiveness of those practices. A PICO format steered the methodology which included all populations, popular sustainability practices including walkability/cycle tracks, social/recreational spaces, privacy, health & human services and barrier free built environment, comparators included ‘Before’ and ‘After’, ‘With’ and ‘Without’, ‘More’ and ‘Less’ and outcomes included Social well-being, cultural coexistence, quality of life, ethics and morality, social capital, sense of place, education, health, recreation and leisure, and holistic development. Search of literature included major electronic databases, search websites, organizational resources, directory of open access journals and subscribed journals. Grey literature, however, was not included. Inclusion criteria filtered studies on the basis of research designs such as total randomization, quasirandomization, cluster randomization, observational or single studies and certain types of analysis. Studies with combined outcomes were considered but studies focusing only on environmental and/or economic outcomes were rejected. Data extraction, critical appraisal and evidence synthesis was carried out using customized tabulation, reference manager and CASP tool. Partial meta-analysis was carried out and calculation of pooled effects and forest plotting were done. As many as 13 studies finally included for final synthesis explained the impact of targeted practices on health, behavioural and social dimensions. Objectivity in the measurement of health outcomes facilitated quantitative synthesis of studies which highlighted the impact of sustainability methods on physical activity, Body Mass Index, perinatal outcomes and child health. Studies synthesized qualitatively (and also quantitatively) showed outcomes such as routines, family relations, citizenship, trust in relationships, social inclusion, neighbourhood social capital, wellbeing, habitability and family’s social processes. The synthesized evidence indicates slight effectiveness and efficacy of social and cultural sustainability on the targeted outcomes. Further synthesis revealed that such results of this study are due weak research designs and disintegrated implementations. If architects and other practitioners deliver their interventions in collaboration with research bodies and policy makers, a stronger evidence-base in this area could be generated.

Keywords: Built environment, cultural sustainability, social sustainability, sustainable architecture.

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Authors: Chuang-Hung Lin, Cheng-Yuan Hsu, Jia-Yan Lin

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It is an indispensible strategy to adopt greenery approach on architectural bases so as to improve ecological habitats, decrease heat-island effect, purify air quality, and relieve surface runoff as well as noise pollution, all of which are done in an attempt to achieve sustainable environment. How we can do with plant design to attain the best visual quality and ideal carbon dioxide fixation depends on whether or not we can appropriately make use of greenery according to the nature of architectural bases. To achieve the goal, it is a need that architects and landscape architects should be provided with sufficient local references. Current greenery studies focus mainly on the heat-island effect of urban with large scale. Most of the architects still rely on people with years of expertise regarding the adoption and disposition of plantation in connection with microclimate scale. Therefore, environmental design, which integrates science and aesthetics, requires fundamental research on landscape environment technology divided from building environment technology. By doing so, we can create mutual benefits between green building and the environment. This issue is extremely important for the greening design of the bases of green buildings in cities and various open spaces. The purpose of this study is to establish plant selection and allocation strategies under different building sunshade levels. Initially, with the shading of sunshine on the greening bases as the starting point, the effects of the shades produced by different building types on the greening strategies were analyzed. Then, by measuring the PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), the relative DLI (daily light integral) was calculated, while the DLI Map was established in order to evaluate the effects of the building shading on the established environmental greening, thereby serving as a reference for plant selection and allocation. The discussion results were to be applied in the evaluation of environment greening of greening buildings and establish the “right plant, right place” design strategy of multi-level ecological greening for application in urban design and landscape design development, as well as the greening criteria to feedback to the eco-city greening buildings.

Keywords: Daily light integral, plant design, urban open space.

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Authors: Japhet N. Mwambusi

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High tropical forests deforestation for solid wood furniture industry is among of climate change contributing agents. This pressure indirectly is caused by furniture joints failure due to poor gluing technology based on improper use of different glues to different wood species which lead to low quality and weak wood-glue joints. This study was carried in order to run performance tests of wood glues on different wood species used in wood workshops: Morogoro Tanzania whereby three popular wood species of C. lusitanica, T. glandis and E. maidenii were tested against five glues of Woodfix, Bullbond, Ponal, Fevicol and Coral found in the market. The findings were necessary on developing a guideline for proper glue selection for a particular wood species joining. Random sampling was employed to interview carpenters while conducting a survey on the background of carpenters like their education level and to determine factors that influence their glues choice. Monsanto Tensiometer was used to determine bonding strength of identified wood glues to different wood species in use under British Standard of testing wood shear strength (BS EN 205) procedures. Data obtained from interviewing carpenters were analyzed through Statistical Package of Social Science software (SPSS) to allow the comparison of different data while laboratory data were compiled, related and compared by the use of MS Excel worksheet software as well as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results revealed that among all five wood glues tested in the laboratory to three different wood species, Coral performed much better with the average shear strength 4.18 N/mm², 3.23 N/mm² and 5.42 N/mm² for Cypress, Teak and Eucalyptus respectively. This displays that for a strong joint to be formed to all tree wood species for soft wood and hard wood, Coral has a first priority in use. The developed table of guideline from this research can be useful to carpenters on proper glue selection to a particular wood species so as to meet glue-bond strength. This will secure furniture market as well as reduce pressure to the forests for furniture production because of the strong existing furniture due to their strong joints. Indeed, this can be a good strategy on reducing climate change speed in tropics which result from high deforestation of trees for furniture production.

Keywords: Climate change, deforestation, gluing technology, joint failure, wood-glue, wood species.

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Authors: A. Sunkar, Y. Santosa, S. B. Rushayati

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Indonesia has experienced annual forest fires that have rapidly destroyed and degraded its forests. Fires in the peat swamp forests of Riau Province, have set the stage for problems to worsen, this being the ecosystem most prone to fires (which are also the most difficult, to extinguish). Despite various efforts to curb deforestation, and forest degradation processes, severe forest fires are still occurring. To find an effective solution, the basic causes of the problems must be identified. It is therefore critical to have an indepth understanding of the underlying causal factors that have contributed to deforestation and forest degradation as a whole, in order to attain reductions in their rates. An assessment of the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation was carried out, in order to design and implement measures that could slow these destructive processes. Research was conducted in Giam Siak Kecil–Bukit Batu Biosphere Reserve (GSKBB BR), in the Riau Province of Sumatera, Indonesia. A biosphere reserve was selected as the study site because such reserves aim to reconcile conservation with sustainable development. A biosphere reserve should promote a range of local human activities, together with development values that are in line spatially and economically with the area conservation values, through use of a zoning system. Moreover, GSKBB BR is an area with vast peatlands, and is experiencing forest fires annually. Various factors were analysed to assess the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in GSKBB BR; data were collected from focus group discussions with stakeholders, key informant interviews with key stakeholders, field observation and a literature review. Landsat satellite imagery was used to map forest-cover changes for various periods. Analysis of landsat images, taken during the period 2010-2014, revealed that within the non-protected area of core zone, there was a trend towards decreasing peat swamp forest areas, increasing land clearance, and increasing areas of community oilpalm and rubber plantations. Fire was used for land clearing and most of the forest fires occurred in the most populous area (the transition area). The study found a relationship between the deforested/ degraded areas, and certain distance variables, i.e. distance from roads, villages and the borders between the core area and the buffer zone. The further the distance from the core area of the reserve, the higher was the degree of deforestation and forest degradation. Research findings suggested that agricultural expansion may be the direct cause of deforestation and forest degradation in the reserve, whereas socio-economic factors were the underlying driver of forest cover changes; such factors consisting of a combination of sociocultural, infrastructural, technological, institutional (policy and governance), demographic (population pressure) and economic (market demand) considerations. These findings indicated that local factors/problems were the critical causes of deforestation and degradation in GSKBB BR. This research therefore concluded that reductions in deforestation and forest degradation in GSKBB BR could be achieved through ‘local actor’-tailored approaches such as community empowerment.

Keywords: Actor-led solution, community empowerment, drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, Giam Siak Kecil– Bukit Batu Biosphere Reserve.

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Authors: Essam Abd-Elrazek

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With the rapid growth in business size, today-s businesses orient Throughout thirty years local, national and international experience in medicine as a medical student, junior doctor and eventually Consultant and Professor in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Management, I note significant generalised dissatisfaction among medical students and doctors regarding their medical education and practice. We repeatedly hear complaints from patients about the dysfunctional health care system they are dealing with and subsequently the poor medical service that they are receiving. Medical students are bombarded with lectures, tutorials, clinical rounds and various exams. Clinicians are weighed down with a never-ending array of competing duties. Patients are extremely unhappy about the long waiting lists, loss of their records and the continuous deterioration of the health care service. This problem has been reported in different countries by several authors [1,2,3]. In a trial to solve this dilemma, a genuine idea has been suggested implementing computer technology in medicine [2,3]. Computers in medicine are a medium of international communication of the revolutionary advances being made in the application of the computer to the fields of bioscience and medicine [4,5]. The awareness about using computers in medicine has recently increased all over the world. In Misr University for Science & Technology (MUST), Egypt, medical students are now given hand-held computers (Laptop) with Internet facility making their medical education accessible, convenient and up to date. However, this trial still needs to be validated. Helping the readers to catch up with the on going fast development in this interesting field, the author has decided to continue reviewing the literature, exploring the state-of-art in computer based medicine and up dating the medical professionals especially the local trainee Doctors in Egypt. In part I of this review article we will give a general background discussing the potential use of computer technology in the various aspects of the medical field including education, research, clinical practice and the health care service given to patients. Hope this will help starting changing the culture, promoting the awareness about the importance of implementing information technology (IT) in medicine, which is a field in which such help is needed. An international collaboration is recommended supporting the emerging countries achieving this target.

Keywords: Medical Informatics, telemedicine, e-health systems.

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Authors: Arnisa Lushaj, Arvjen Lushaj, Sunitha N. Seenappa, Georgia Butina-Watson, Bashkim Lushaj, Vera Malsia, Dodë Doçi, Mercedes Hunt, Ervin Buçpapaj

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Tourism and coastal lines are the business sectors since centuries especially in the European Nations and Albania is one such spots. However, in recent decades tourism is experienced as vulnerability of the surrounding ecological conditions of air, soil, water, land and the communities that are dependant and sharing the ecosystem among flora and fauna. Experts opine that apart from the maintenance of near-originality of ecological biodiversity the tourism rather known as ecotourism an indigenous socio-cultural maintenance of indigenous/traditional knowledge of the local people must be well cared in order to sustain on sustainable grounds. As a general tendency, growth of tourism has been affected by the deterioration in the economic conditions on one aspect and unsustainable ecological areas affected since human interventions earlier to this has negative impact on futuristic tourist spots. However, tourism in Albania as of now is 11% of GDP and coastal regions accounting to 2-4%. An amicable Mediterranean climate with 300 sunny days similar parameters of Greece and Spain throws up sustainable ecotourism in future decades provided public services namely, transportation, road safety, lodging, food availability, recreational regiments, banking accessibility are as per the World Tourism Organizations- protocols. Thus as of Albanian situation, classification of ecotourism activities to safe-guard the localities with its maintenance of ecological land, water and climate has become a paramount importance with a wanting and satisfactory options through harnessing human energy for profit and fitness of ecological flora and fauna. A check on anthropogenic wastes and their safer utilizations inclusive of agricultural and industrial operations in line with Lalzi Bay Coastal Line are of utmost importance for the reason that the Adriatic Sea Coast is the one long stretch of Albanian Lifeline. The present work is based on the methodology of the sustainable management of the same issue.

Keywords: Albania, ecotourism, Lalzi Bay, sustainability.

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Authors: G. Candel, D. Naccache

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t-SNE is an embedding method that the data science community has widely used. It helps two main tasks: to display results by coloring items according to the item class or feature value; and for forensic, giving a first overview of the dataset distribution. Two interesting characteristics of t-SNE are the structure preservation property and the answer to the crowding problem, where all neighbors in high dimensional space cannot be represented correctly in low dimensional space. t-SNE preserves the local neighborhood, and similar items are nicely spaced by adjusting to the local density. These two characteristics produce a meaningful representation, where the cluster area is proportional to its size in number, and relationships between clusters are materialized by closeness on the embedding. This algorithm is non-parametric. The transformation from a high to low dimensional space is described but not learned. Two initializations of the algorithm would lead to two different embedding. In a forensic approach, analysts would like to compare two or more datasets using their embedding. A naive approach would be to embed all datasets together. However, this process is costly as the complexity of t-SNE is quadratic, and would be infeasible for too many datasets. Another approach would be to learn a parametric model over an embedding built with a subset of data. While this approach is highly scalable, points could be mapped at the same exact position, making them indistinguishable. This type of model would be unable to adapt to new outliers nor concept drift. This paper presents a methodology to reuse an embedding to create a new one, where cluster positions are preserved. The optimization process minimizes two costs, one relative to the embedding shape and the second relative to the support embedding’ match. The embedding with the support process can be repeated more than once, with the newly obtained embedding. The successive embedding can be used to study the impact of one variable over the dataset distribution or monitor changes over time. This method has the same complexity as t-SNE per embedding, and memory requirements are only doubled. For a dataset of n elements sorted and split into k subsets, the total embedding complexity would be reduced from O(n2) to O(n2/k), and the memory requirement from n2 to 2(n/k)2 which enables computation on recent laptops. The method showed promising results on a real-world dataset, allowing to observe the birth, evolution and death of clusters. The proposed approach facilitates identifying significant trends and changes, which empowers the monitoring high dimensional datasets’ dynamics.

Keywords: Concept drift, data visualization, dimension reduction, embedding, monitoring, reusability, t-SNE, unsupervised learning.

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Authors: Elizabeth J. Currie, Fernando Ortega Perez

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—‘MEDICINE’ is a new project funded under the EC Horizon 2020 Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions, to determine concepts of health and healing from a culturally specific indigenous context, using a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The study will generate new theoretical and methodological approaches to model how peoples survive and adapt their traditional belief systems in a context of alien cultural impacts. In the immediate wake of the conquest of Peru by invading Spanish armies and ideology, native Andeans responded by forming the Taki Onkoy millenarian movement, which rejected European philosophical and ontological teachings, claiming “you make us sick”. The study explores how people’s experience of their world and their health beliefs within it, is fundamentally shaped by their inherent beliefs about the nature of being and identity in relation to the wider cosmos. Cultural and health belief systems and related rituals or behaviors sustain a people’s sense of identity, wellbeing and integrity. In the event of dislocation and persecution these may change into devolved forms, which eventually inter-relate with ‘modern’ biomedical systems of health in as yet unidentified ways. The development of new conceptual frameworks that model this process will greatly expand our understanding of how people survive and adapt in response to cultural trauma. It will also demonstrate the continuing role, relevance and use of TM in present-day indigenous communities. Studies will first be made of relevant pre-Colombian material culture, and then of early colonial period ethnohistorical texts which document the health beliefs and ritual practices still employed by indigenous Andean societies at the advent of the 17^th century Jesuit campaigns of persecution - ‘Extirpación de las Idolatrías’. Core beliefs drawn from these baseline studies will then be used to construct a questionnaire about current health beliefs and practices to be taken into the study population of indigenous Quechua peoples in the northern Andean region of Ecuador. Their current systems of knowledge and medicine have evolved within complex historical contexts of both the conquest by invading Inca armies in the late 15^th century, followed a generation later by Spain, into new forms. A new model will be developed of contemporary  Andean concepts of health, illness and healing demonstrating  the way these have changed through time. With this, a ‘policy tool’ will be constructed as a bridhging facility into contemporary global scenarios relevant to other Indigenous, First Nations, and migrant peoples to provide a means through which their traditional health beliefs and current needs may be more appropriately understood and met. This paper presents findings from the first analytical phases of the work based upon the study of the literature and the archaeological records. The study offers a novel perspective and methods in the development policies sensitive to indigenous and minority people’s health needs.

Keywords: Andean ethnomedicine, andean health beliefs, health beliefs models, traditional medicine.

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Authors: Jacqueline M. Dias, Amina A Khowaja

Abstract:

Clinical education is one of the most important components of a nursing curriculum as it develops the students’ cognitive, psychomotor and affective skills. Clinical teaching ensures the integration of knowledge into practice. As the numbers of students increase in the field of nursing coupled with the faculty shortage, clinical preceptors are the best choice to ensure student learning in the clinical settings. The clinical preceptor role has been introduced in the undergraduate nursing programme. In Pakistan, this role emerged due to a faculty shortage. Initially, two clinical preceptors were hired. This study will explore clinical preceptors views and experiences of precepting Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) students in an undergraduate program. A case study design was used. As case studies explore a single unit of study such as a person or very small number of subjects; the two clinical preceptors were fundamental to the study and served as a single case. Qualitative data were obtained through an iterative process using in depth interviews and written accounts from reflective journals that were kept by the clinical preceptors. The findings revealed that the clinical preceptors were dedicated to their roles and responsibilities. Another, key finding was that clinical preceptors’ prior knowledge and clinical experience were valuable assets to perform their role effectively. The clinical preceptors found their new role innovative and challenging; it was stressful at the same time. Findings also revealed that in the clinical agencies there were unclear expectations and role ambiguity. Furthermore, clinical preceptors had difficulty integrating theory into practice in the clinical area and they had difficulty in giving feedback to the students. Although this study is localized to one university, generalizations can be drawn from the results. The key findings indicate that the role of a clinical preceptor is demanding and stressful. Clinical preceptors need preparation prior to precepting students on clinicals. Also, institutional support is fundamental for their acceptance. This paper focuses on the views and experiences of clinical preceptors undertaking a newly established role and resonates with the literature. The following recommendations are drawn to strengthen the role of the clinical preceptors: A structured program for clinical preceptors is needed along with mentorship. Clinical preceptors should be provided with formal training in teaching and learning with emphasis on clinical teaching and giving feedback to students. Additionally, for improving integration of theory into practice, clinical modules should be provided ahead of the clinical. In spite of all the challenges, ten more clinical preceptors have been hired as the faculty shortage continues to persist.

Keywords: Baccalaureate nursing education, clinical education, clinical preceptors, nursing curriculum.

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