Abstract: Pain management is a question of quality of life and
an indicator for nursing quality. Chronic pain which is predominant
in oncology and palliative nursing situations is perceived today as a
multifactorial, individual emotional experience with specific
characteristics including the sociocultural dimension when dealing
with migrant patients. This dimension of chronic pain is of major
importance in professional nursing of migrant patients in hospices or
palliative care units. Objectives of the study are: 1. To find out more
about the sociocultural views on pain and nursing care, on customs
and nursing practices connected with pain of both Turkish Muslim
and German Christian women, 2. To improve individual and family
oriented nursing practice with view to sociocultural needs of patients
in severe pain in palliative care. In a qualitative-explorative comparative study 4 groups of women,
Turkish Muslims immigrants (4 from the first generation, 5 from the
second generation) and German Christian women of two generations
(5 of each age group) of the same age groups as the Turkish women
and with similar educational backgrounds were interviewed (semistructured
ethnographic interviews using Spradley, 1979) on their
perceptions and experiences of pain and nursing care within their
families. For both target groups the presentation will demonstrate the
following results in detail: Utterance of pain as well as “private” and
“public” pain vary within different societies and cultures. Permitted
forms of pain utterance are learned in childhood and determine
attitudes and expectations in adulthood. Language, especially when
metaphors and symbols are used, plays a major role for
misunderstandings. The sociocultural context of illness may include
specific beliefs that are important to the patients and yet seem more
than far-fetched from a biomedical perspective. Pain can be an
influential factor in family relationships where respect or hierarchies
do not allow the direct utterance of individual needs. Specific
resources are often, although not exclusively, linked to religious
convictions and are significantly helpful in reducing pain. The discussion will evaluate the results of the study with view to
the relevant literature and present nursing interventions and
instruments beyond medication that are helpful when dealing with
patients from various socio-cultural backgrounds in painful end-oflife
situations.
Abstract: Many embankment dams have suffered failures during
earthquakes due to the increase of pore water pressure under seismic
loading. After analyzing of the behavior of embankment dams under
severe earthquakes, major advances have been attained in the
understanding of the seismic action on dams. The present study concerns numerical analysis of the seismic
response of earth dams. The procedure uses a nonlinear stress-strain
relation incorporated into the code FLAC2D based on the finite
difference method. This analysis provides the variation of the pore
water pressure and horizontal displacement.
Abstract: While the feature sizes of recent Complementary Metal
Oxid Semiconductor (CMOS) devices decrease the influence of static
power prevails their energy consumption. Thus, power savings that
benefit from Dynamic Frequency and Voltage Scaling (DVFS) are
diminishing and temporal shutdown of cores or other microchip
components become more worthwhile. A consequence of powering off unused parts of a chip is that the
relative difference between idle and fully loaded power consumption
is increased. That means, future chips and whole server systems gain
more power saving potential through power-aware load balancing,
whereas in former times this power saving approach had only
limited effect, and thus, was not widely adopted. While powering
off complete servers was used to save energy, it will be superfluous
in many cases when cores can be powered down. An important
advantage that comes with that is a largely reduced time to respond
to increased computational demand. We include the above developments in a server power model
and quantify the advantage. Our conclusion is that strategies from
datacenters when to power off server systems might be used in the
future on core level, while load balancing mechanisms previously
used at core level might be used in the future at server level.
Abstract: Mumbai, being traditionally the epicenter of India's
trade and commerce, the existing major ports such as Mumbai and
Jawaharlal Nehru Ports (JN) situated in Thane estuary are also
developing its waterfront facilities. Various developments over the
passage of decades in this region have changed the tidal flux
entering/leaving the estuary. The intake at Pir-Pau is facing the
problem of shortage of water in view of advancement of shoreline,
while jetty near Ulwe faces the problem of ship scheduling due to
existence of shallower depths between JN Port and Ulwe Bunder. In
order to solve these problems, it is inevitable to have information
about tide levels over a long duration by field measurements.
However, field measurement is a tedious and costly affair;
application of artificial intelligence was used to predict water levels
by training the network for the measured tide data for one lunar tidal
cycle. The application of two layered feed forward Artificial Neural
Network (ANN) with back-propagation training algorithms such as
Gradient Descent (GD) and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) was used to
predict the yearly tide levels at waterfront structures namely at Ulwe
Bunder and Pir-Pau. The tide data collected at Apollo Bunder, Ulwe,
and Vashi for a period of lunar tidal cycle (2013) was used to train,
validate and test the neural networks. These trained networks having
high co-relation coefficients (R= 0.998) were used to predict the tide
at Ulwe, and Vashi for its verification with the measured tide for the
year 2000 & 2013. The results indicate that the predicted tide levels
by ANN give reasonably accurate estimation of tide. Hence, the
trained network is used to predict the yearly tide data (2015) for
Ulwe. Subsequently, the yearly tide data (2015) at Pir-Pau was
predicted by using the neural network which was trained with the
help of measured tide data (2000) of Apollo and Pir-Pau. The analysis of measured data and study reveals that: The
measured tidal data at Pir-Pau, Vashi and Ulwe indicate that there is
maximum amplification of tide by about 10-20 cm with a phase lag
of 10-20 minutes with reference to the tide at Apollo Bunder
(Mumbai). LM training algorithm is faster than GD and with increase
in number of neurons in hidden layer and the performance of the
network increases. The predicted tide levels by ANN at Pir-Pau and
Ulwe provides valuable information about the occurrence of high and
low water levels to plan the operation of pumping at Pir-Pau and
improve ship schedule at Ulwe.
Abstract: Open jet testing is a valuable testing technique which
provides the desired results with reasonable accuracy. It has been
used in past for the airships and now has recently been applied for the
hybrid ones, having more non-buoyant force coming from the wings,
empennage and the fuselage. In the present review work, an effort
has been done to review the challenges involved in open jet testing.
In order to shed light on the application of this technique, the
experimental results of two different configurations are presented.
Although, the aerodynamic results of such vehicles are unique to its
own design; however, it will provide a starting point for planning any
future testing. Few important testing areas which need more attention
are also highlighted. Most of the hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles are
unconventional in shape and there experimental data is generated,
which is unique to its own design.
Abstract: Our purpose is to investigate how the relationship
between employees and innovation management processes can drive
organizations to successful innovations. This research is deeply
related to a new way of thinking about human resources management
practices. It’s not simply about improving the employees’
engagement, but rather about a different and more radical
commitment: the employee can take on the role traditionally played
by the customer, namely to become the first tester of an innovative
product or service, the first user/customer and eventually the first
investor in the innovation. This new perception of employees could
create the basis of a novelty in the innovation process where
innovation is taken to a next level when the problems with customer
driven innovation on the one hand, and employees driven innovation
on the other can be balanced. This research identifies an effective
approach to innovation where the employees will participate
throughout the whole innovation process, not only in the idea
creation but also in the idea definition and development by giving
feedback in parallel to that provided by customers and lead-users.
Abstract: Magnetic Resonance Imaging Contrast Agents
(MRI-CM) are significant in the clinical and biological imaging as
they have the ability to alter the normal tissue contrast, thereby
affecting the signal intensity to enhance the visibility and detectability
of images. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles,
coated with dextran or carboxydextran are currently available for
clinical MR imaging of the liver. Most SPIO contrast agents are
T2 shortening agents and Resovist (Ferucarbotran) is one of a
clinically tested, organ-specific, SPIO agent which has a low
molecular carboxydextran coating. The enhancement effect of
Resovist depends on its relaxivity which in turn depends on factors
like magnetic field strength, concentrations, nanoparticle properties,
pH and temperature. Therefore, this study was conducted to
investigate the impact of field strength and different contrast
concentrations on enhancement effects of Resovist. The study
explored the MRI signal intensity of Resovist in the physiological
range of plasma from T2-weighted spin echo sequence at three
magnetic field strengths: 0.47 T (r1=15, r2=101), 1.5 T (r1=7.4,
r2=95), and 3 T (r1=3.3, r2=160) and the range of contrast
concentrations by a mathematical simulation. Relaxivities of r1 and r2
(L mmol-1 Sec-1) were obtained from a previous study and the selected
concentrations were 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08, 0.09, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5,
0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 mmol/L. T2-weighted images were
simulated using TR/TE ratio as 2000 ms /100 ms. According to the
reference literature, with increasing magnetic field strengths, the
r1 relaxivity tends to decrease while the r2 did not show any
systematic relationship with the selected field strengths. In parallel,
this study results revealed that the signal intensity of Resovist at lower
concentrations tends to increase than the higher concentrations. The
highest reported signal intensity was observed in the low field strength
of 0.47 T. The maximum signal intensities for 0.47 T, 1.5 T and 3 T
were found at the concentration levels of 0.05, 0.06 and 0.05 mmol/L,
respectively. Furthermore, it was revealed that, the concentrations
higher than the above, the signal intensity was decreased
exponentially. An inverse relationship can be found between the field
strength and T2 relaxation time, whereas, the field strength was
increased, T2 relaxation time was decreased accordingly. However,
resulted T2 relaxation time was not significantly different between
0.47 T and 1.5 T in this study. Moreover, a linear correlation of
transverse relaxation rates (1/T2, s–1) with the concentrations of
Resovist can be observed. According to these results, it can conclude
that the concentration of SPIO nanoparticle contrast agents and the
field strengths of MRI are two important parameters which can affect the signal intensity of T2-weighted SE sequence. Therefore, when MR
imaging those two parameters should be considered prudently.
Abstract: The increasing availability of information about earth
surface elevation (Digital Elevation Models DEM) generated from
different sources (remote sensing, Aerial Images, Lidar) poses the
question about how to integrate and make available to the most than
possible audience this huge amount of data. In order to exploit the potential of 3D elevation representation the
quality of data management plays a fundamental role. Due to the high
acquisition costs and the huge amount of generated data, highresolution
terrain surveys tend to be small or medium sized and
available on limited portion of earth. Here comes the need to merge
large-scale height maps that typically are made available for free at
worldwide level, with very specific high resolute datasets. One the
other hand, the third dimension increases the user experience and the
data representation quality, unlocking new possibilities in data
analysis for civil protection, real estate, urban planning, environment
monitoring, etc. The open-source 3D virtual globes, which are
trending topics in Geovisual Analytics, aim at improving the
visualization of geographical data provided by standard web services
or with proprietary formats. Typically, 3D Virtual globes like do not
offer an open-source tool that allows the generation of a terrain
elevation data structure starting from heterogeneous-resolution terrain
datasets. This paper describes a technological solution aimed to set
up a so-called “Terrain Builder”. This tool is able to merge
heterogeneous-resolution datasets, and to provide a multi-resolution
worldwide terrain services fully compatible with CesiumJS and
therefore accessible via web using traditional browser without any
additional plug-in.
Abstract: In this paper, the regression dependence of dancing
intensity from wind speed and length of span was established due to
the statistic data obtained from multi-year observations on line wires
dancing accumulated by power systems of Kazakhstan and the
Russian Federation. The lower and upper limitations of the equations
parameters were estimated, as well as the adequacy of the regression
model. The constructed model will be used in research of dancing
phenomena for the development of methods and means of protection
against dancing and for zoning plan of the territories of line wire
dancing.
Abstract: In this study, the potential benefits of playing action
video game among congenitally deaf and dumb subjects is reported in
terms of EEG ratio indices. The frontal and occipital lobes are
associated with development of motor skills, cognition, and visual
information processing and color recognition. The sixteen hours of
First-Person shooter action video game play resulted in the increase
of the ratios β/(α+θ) and β/θ in frontal and occipital lobes. This can
be attributed to the enhancement of certain aspect of cognition among
deaf and dumb subjects.
Abstract: 21st century has transformed the labor market
landscape in a way of posing new and different demands on
university graduates as well as university lecturers, which means that
the knowledge and academic skills students acquire in the course of
their studies should be applicable and transferable from the higher
education context to their future professional careers. Given the
context of the Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) classroom, the
teachers’ objective is not only to teach the language itself, but also to
prepare students to use that language as a medium to develop generic
skills and competences. These include media and information
literacy, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and analytical
skills, effective written and oral communication, as well as
collaborative work and social skills, all of which are necessary to
make university graduates more competitive in everyday professional
environments. On the other hand, due to limitations of time and large
numbers of students in classes, the frequently topic-centered syllabus
of LSP courses places considerable focus on acquiring the subject
matter and specialist vocabulary instead of sufficient development of
skills and competences required by students’ prospective employers.
This paper intends to explore some of those issues as viewed both by
LSP lecturers and by business professionals in their respective
surveys. The surveys were conducted among more than 50 LSP
lecturers at higher education institutions in Croatia, more than 40 HR
professionals and more than 60 university graduates with degrees in
economics and/or business working in management positions in
mainly large and medium-sized companies in Croatia. Various elements of LSP course content have been taken into
consideration in this research, including reading and listening
comprehension of specialist texts, acquisition of specialist vocabulary
and grammatical structures, as well as presentation and negotiation
skills. The ability to hold meetings, conduct business correspondence,
write reports, academic texts, case studies and take part in debates
were also taken into consideration, as well as informal business
communication, business etiquette and core courses delivered in a
foreign language. The results of the surveys conducted among LSP
lecturers will be analyzed with reference to what extent those
elements are included in their courses and how consistently and
thoroughly they are evaluated according to their course requirements.
Their opinions will be compared to the results of the surveys
conducted among professionals from a range of industries in Croatia
so as to examine how useful and important they perceive the same
elements of the LSP course content in their working environments.
Such comparative analysis will thus show to what extent the syllabi
of LSP courses meet the demands of the employment market when it
comes to the students’ language skills and competences, as well as
transferable skills. Finally, the findings will also be compared to the
observations based on practical teaching experience and the relevant
sources that have been used in this research. In conclusion, the ideas and observations in this paper are merely
open-ended questions that do not have conclusive answers, but might
prompt LSP lecturers to re-evaluate the content and objectives of
their course syllabi.
Abstract: The application of recycle waste tires into civil
engineering practices, namely asphalt paving mixtures and cementbased
materials has been gaining ground across the world. This
review summarizes and compares the recent achievements in the area
of plain rubberized concrete (PRC), in details. Different treatment
methods have been discussed to improve the performance of
rubberized Portland cement concrete. The review also includes the
effects of size and amount of tire rubbers on mechanical and
durability properties of PRC. The microstructure behaviour of the
rubberized concrete was detailed.
Abstract: Tourism can do a great deal of good in destinations,
whether it be by bringing economic benefits to local communities,
helping with conservation efforts or in placing a value on aspects of
cultural heritage. As responsive travelers, we must all try to do more
of the good and less of the negative. This is simply description of the
sustainable tourism. This paper aims to set some criteria of successful
sustainable tourism development and then through these criteria
analyzing the development of some resorts in Egypt known as
sustainable resorts. Hence, a comprehensive improvement of the
touristic areas is certainly needed to ensure a successful sustainable
tourism development radiated the sense of uniformity and coherence.
Egypt can benefit from these criteria to develop its resorts in order to
preserve and revitalize its unique natural character and achieve mixed
uses and tourism development.
Abstract: In the aviation industry, many faults may occur frequently during the maintenance processes and assembly operations of complex structured aircrafts because of their high dependencies of components. These faults affect the quality of aircraft parts or developed modules adversely. Technical employee requires long time and high labor force while checking the correctness of each component. In addition, the person must be trained regularly because of the ever-growing and changing technology. Generally, the cost of this training is very high. Augmented Reality (AR) technology reduces the cost of training radically and improves the effectiveness of the training. In this study, the usage of AR technology in the aviation industry has been investigated and the effectiveness of AR with heads-up display glasses has been examined. An application has been developed for comparison of production process with AR and manual one.
Abstract: Green roof system is considered a relatively new
concept in Malaysia even though it has been implemented widely in
the developed countries. Generally, green roofs provide many
benefits such as enhancing aesthetical quality of the built
environment, reduce urban heat island effect, reduce energy
consumption, improve stormwater attenuation, and reduce noise
pollution. A better understanding on the implementation of green roof
system in Malaysia is crucial, as Malaysia’s climate is different if
compared with the climate in temperate countries where most of the
green roof studies have been conducted. This study has concentrated
on the technical aspect of green roof system which focuses on i) types
of plants and method of planting; ii) engineering design for green
roof system; iii) its hydrological performance on reducing stormwater
runoff; and iv) benefits of green roofs with respect to energy.
Literature review has been conducted to identify the development and
obstacles associated with green roofs systems in Malaysia. The study
had identified the challenges and potentials of green roofs
development in Malaysia. This study also provided the
recommendations on standard design and strategies on the
implementation of green roofs in Malaysia in the near future.
Abstract: For several hundred years, the design of railway tracks
has practically remained unchanged. Traditionally, rail tracks are
placed on a ballast layer due to several reasons, including economy,
rapid drainage, and high load bearing capacity. The primary function
of ballast is to distributing dynamic track loads to sub-ballast and
subgrade layers, while also providing lateral resistance and allowing
for rapid drainage. Upon repeated trainloads, the ballast becomes
fouled due to ballast degradation and the intrusion of fines which
adversely affects the strength and deformation behaviour of ballast.
This paper presents the use of three-dimensional discrete element
method (DEM) in studying the shear behaviour of the fouled ballast
subjected to direct shear loading. Irregularly shaped particles of
ballast were modelled by grouping many spherical balls together in
appropriate sizes to simulate representative ballast aggregates. Fouled
ballast was modelled by injecting a specified number of miniature
spherical particles into the void spaces. The DEM simulation
highlights that the peak shear stress of the ballast assembly decreases
and the dilation of fouled ballast increases with an increase level of
fouling. Additionally, the distributions of contact force chain and
particle displacement vectors were captured during shearing progress,
explaining the formation of shear band and the evolutions of
volumetric change of fouled ballast.
Abstract: The aim of irrigation is to recharge the available water
in the soil. Quality of irrigation water is essential for the yield and
quality of crops produced, maintenance of soil productivity and
protection of the environment. The analysis of irrigation water arises
as a need to know the impact of irrigation water on the yield of crops,
the effect, and the necessary control measures to rectify the effect of
this for optimum production and yield of crops. This study was conducted to assess the quality of irrigation water
with its performance on crop planted, in Josepdam irrigation scheme
Bacita, Nigeria. Field visits were undertaken to identify and locate
water supply sources and collect water samples from these sources;
X1 Drain, Oshin, River Niger loop and Ndafa. Laboratory
experiments were then undertaken to determine the quality of raw
water from these sources. The analysis was carried for various parameters namely; physical
and chemical analyses after water samples have been taken from four
sources. The samples were tested in laboratory. Results showed that
the raw water sources shows no salinity tendencies with SAR values
less than 1me/l and Ecvaules at Zero while the pH were within the
recommended range by FAO, there are increase in potassium and
sulphate content contamination in three of the location. From this, it
is recommended that there should be proper monitoring of the
scheme by conducting analysis of water and soil in the environment,
preferable test should be carried out at least one year to cover the
impact of seasonal variations and to determine the physical and
chemical analysis of the water used for irrigation at the scheme.
Abstract: This paper looks at healing performances as
ethnographic expressions of local knowledge and culture embedded
within the Malay psyche and gemeinschaft. As society develops and
progresses, these healing performances are caught within conflicting
trajectories which become compounded by the contestations of
tradition, religious concerns, locality and modernity. As
exemplifications of the Malay ethos, these performances practice
common rituals, cater to the innate needs of the practitioners and
serve the targeted, closed, local community. This paper traces the
ethnographic methods in documenting these practices as rituals of
healing in a post-modern world. It delineates the ethnographic
concepts used to analyze these rituals, and to semiotically read the
varied binarial oppositions and juxtapositions. The paper concludes
by highlighting the reconciliatory processes involved in maintaining
these ritual performances as exemplifications of the Malay ethos
playing an important role in the re-aligning, re-balancing and healing
of the Malay community’s psyche.
Abstract: This paper describes an ab-initio design, development and calibration results of an Optical Sensor Ground Reaction Force Measurement Platform (OSGRFP) for gait and geriatric studies. The developed system employs an array of FBG sensors to measure the respective ground reaction forces from all three axes (X, Y and Z), which are perpendicular to each other. The novelty of this work is two folded. One is in its uniqueness to resolve the tri axial resultant forces during the stance in to the respective pure axis loads and the other is the applicability of inherently advantageous FBG sensors which are most suitable for biomechanical instrumentation. To validate the response of the FBG sensors installed in OSGRFP and to measure the cross sensitivity of the force applied in other directions, load sensors with indicators are used. Further in this work, relevant mathematical formulations are presented for extracting respective ground reaction forces from wavelength shifts/strain of FBG sensors on the OSGRFP. The result of this device has implications in understanding the foot function, identifying issues in gait cycle and measuring discrepancies between left and right foot. The device also provides a method to quantify and compare relative postural stability of different subjects under test, which has implications in post-surgical rehabilitation, geriatrics and optimizing training protocols for sports personnel.
Abstract: Introduction: To update ourselves and understand the
concept of latest electronic formats available for Health care
providers and how it could be used and developed as per standards.
The idea is to correlate between the patients Manual Medical Records
keeping and maintaining patients Electronic Information in a Health
care setup in this world. Furthermore, this stands with adapting to the
right technology depending upon the organization and improve our
quality and quantity of Healthcare providing skills. Objective: The
concept and theory is to explain the terms of Electronic Medical
Record (EMR), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health
Record (PHR) and selecting the best technical among the available
Electronic sources and software before implementing. It is to guide
and make sure the technology used by the end users without any
doubts and difficulties. The idea is to evaluate is to admire the uses
and barriers of EMR-EHR-PHR. Aim and Scope: The target is to
achieve the health care providers like Physicians, Nurses, Therapists,
Medical Bill reimbursements, Insurances and Government to assess
the patient’s information on easy and systematic manner without
diluting the confidentiality of patient’s information. Method: Health
Information Technology can be implemented with the help of
Organisations providing with legal guidelines and help to stand by
the health care provider. The main objective is to select the correct
embedded and affordable database management software and
generating large-scale data. The parallel need is to know how the
latest software available in the market. Conclusion: The question lies
here is implementing the Electronic information system with
healthcare providers and organization. The clinicians are the main
users of the technology and manage us to “go paperless”. The fact is
that day today changing technologically is very sound and up to date.
Basically, the idea is to tell how to store the data electronically safe
and secure. All three exemplifies the fact that an electronic format
has its own benefit as well as barriers.