Abstract: Thoracotomy is a great surgery that has serious pulmonary complications, so purpose of this study was to determine the response of diaphragmatic excursion to inspiratory muscle trainer post thoracotomy. Thirty patients of both sexes (16 men and 14 women) with age ranged from 20 to 40 years old had done thoracotomy participated in this study. The practical work was done in cardiothoracic department, Kasr-El-Aini hospital at faculty of medicine for individuals 3 days Post operatively. Patients were assigned into two groups: group A (study group) included 15 patients (8 men and 7 women) who received inspiratory muscle training by using inspiratory muscle trainer for 20 minutes and routine chest physiotherapy (deep breathing, cough and early ambulation) twice daily, 3 days per week for one month. Group B (control group) included 15 patients (8 men and 7 women) who received the routine chest physiotherapy only (deep breathing, cough and early ambulation) twice daily, 3 days per week for one month. Ultrasonography was used to evaluate the changes in diaphragmatic excursion before and after training program. Statistical analysis revealed a significant increase in diaphragmatic excursion in the study group (59.52%) more than control group (18.66%) after using inspiratory muscle trainer post operatively in patients post thoracotomy. It was concluded that the inspiratory muscle training device increases diaphragmatic excursion in patients post thoracotomy through improving inspiratory muscle strength and improving mechanics of breathing and using of inspiratory muscle trainer as a method of physical therapy rehabilitation to reduce post-operative pulmonary complications post thoracotomy.
Abstract: Microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91D
Mg alloys for nonflammable use, containing Ca and Y, were
investigated in this study. Solid solution treatment of AZ91D Mg alloy
with Ca and Y was successfully conducted at 420oC and
supersaturated microstructure with almost all beta phases resolved into
matrix was obtained. After solid solution treatment, the alloy was
annealed at temperatures of 180 and 200oC for time intervals from 1
min to 48 hrs and hardness of each condition was measured by
micro-Vickers method. Peak aging conditions were deduced from the
results as at the temperature of 200oC for 10 hrs. Hot rolling was also
carried out at 400oC by the reduction ratio of 0.6 through 5 passes
followed by recrystallization treatment. Tensile and compressive
properties were measured at room temperature on the specimens of
each process, i.e. as-cast, solution treatment, hot rolling, and
recrystallization.
Abstract: Teaching of mathematics to engineering students is an
open ended problem in education. The main goal of mathematics
learning for engineering students is the ability of applying a wide
range of mathematical techniques and skills in their engineering
classes and later in their professional work. Most of the
undergraduate engineering students and faculties feels that no efforts
and attempts are made to demonstrate the applicability of various
topics of mathematics that are taught thus making mathematics
unavoidable for some engineering faculty and their students. The lack
of understanding of concepts in engineering mathematics may hinder
the understanding of other concepts or even subjects. However, for
most undergraduate engineering students, mathematics is one of the
most difficult courses in their field of study. Most of the engineering students never understood mathematics or
they never liked it because it was too abstract for them and they could
never relate to it. A right balance of application and concept based
teaching can only fulfill the objectives of teaching mathematics to
engineering students. It will surely improve and enhance their
problem solving and creative thinking skills. In this paper, some practical (informal) ways of making
mathematics-teaching application based for the engineering students
is discussed. An attempt is made to understand the present state of
teaching mathematics in engineering colleges. The weaknesses and
strengths of the current teaching approach are elaborated. Some of
the causes of unpopularity of mathematics subject are analyzed and a
few pragmatic suggestions have been made. Faculty in mathematics
courses should spend more time discussing the applications as well as
the conceptual underpinnings rather than focus solely on strategies
and techniques to solve problems. They should also introduce more
‘word’ problems as these problems are commonly encountered in
engineering courses. Overspecialization in engineering education
should not occur at the expense of (or by diluting) mathematics and
basic sciences. The role of engineering education is to provide the
fundamental (basic) knowledge and to teach the students simple
methodology of self-learning and self-development. All these issues
would be better addressed if mathematics and engineering faculty
join hands together to plan and design the learning experiences for
the students who take their classes. When faculties stop competing
against each other and start competing against the situation, they will
perform better. Without creating any administrative hassles these
suggestions can be used by any young inexperienced faculty of
mathematics to inspire engineering students to learn engineering
mathematics effectively.
Abstract: The focus of this study was to determine the factors associated with the use of substances for sport performance of youth in Lagos state sport. Questionnaire was the instrument used for the study. Descriptive research method was used. The estimated population for the study was 2000 sport men and women. The sample size was 200 respondents for purposive sampling techniques were used. The instrument was validated in it content and constructs value. The instrument was administered with the assistance of the coaches. Same 200 copies administered were returned. The data obtained was analysed using simple percentage and chi-square (x2) for stated hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The finding reveal that sport injuries exercise induced and anaphylaxis and asthma and feeling of loss of efficacy associated with alcohol used on sport performance among the users of substances. Alcohol users are recommended to partake in sport like swimming, basketball and volleyball because they have space of time for resting while at play. Government should be fully in charge of the health of sport men and women.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to study the numerical
implementation of the Hilbert Uniqueness Method for the exact
boundary controllability of Euler-Bernoulli beam equation. This study
may be difficult. This will depend on the problem under consideration
(geometry, control and dimension) and the numerical method used.
Knowledge of the asymptotic behaviour of the control governing the
system at time T may be useful for its calculation. This idea will
be developed in this study. We have characterized as a first step, the
solution by a minimization principle and proposed secondly a method
for its resolution to approximate the control steering the considered
system to rest at time T.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to analyze the temporal
and spatial variability of thermal conditions in the Republic of
Armenia. The paper describes annual fluctuations in air temperature.
Research has been focused on case study region of Armenia and
surrounding areas, where long–term measurements and observations
of weather conditions have been performed within the National
Meteorological Service of Armenia and its surrounding areas. The
study contains yearly air temperature data recorded between 1961-
2012. Mann-Kendal test and the autocorrelation function were
applied to detect the change trend of annual mean temperature, as
well as other parametric and non-parametric tests searching to find
the presence of some breaks in the long term evolution of
temperature. The analysis of all records reveals a tendency mostly
towards warmer years, with increased temperatures especially in
valleys and inner basins. The maximum temperature increase is up to
1,5°C. Negative results have not been observed in Armenia. The
patterns of temperature change have been observed since the 1990’s
over much of the Armenian territory. The climate in Armenia was
influenced by global change in the last 2 decades, as results from the
methods employed within the study.
Abstract: English like any other language is rich by means of arbitrary, conventional, symbols which lend it to lot of inconsistencies in spelling, phonology, syntax, and morphology. The research examines the irregularities prevalent in the structure and meaning of some ‘er’ lexical items in English and its implication to vocabulary acquisition. It centers its investigation on the derivational suffix ‘er’, which changes the grammatical category of word. English language poses many challenges to Second Language Learners because of its irregularities, exceptions, and rules. One of the meaning of –er derivational suffix is someone or somebody who does something. This rule often confuses the learners when they meet with the exceptions in normal discourse. The need to investigate instances of such inconsistencies in the formation of –er words and the meanings given to such words by the students motivated this study. For this purpose, some senior secondary two (SS2) students in six randomly selected schools in the metropolis were provided a large number of alphabetically selected ‘er’ suffix ending words, The researcher opts for a test technique, which requires them to provide the meaning of the selected words with- er. The marking of the test was scored on the scale of 1-0, where correct formation of –er word and meaning is scored one while wrong formation and meaning is scored zero. The number of wrong and correct formations of –er words meaning were calculated using percentage. The result of this research shows that a large number of students made wrong generalization of the meaning of the selected -er ending words. This shows how enormous the inconsistencies are in English language and how are affect the learning of English. Findings from the study revealed that though students mastered the basic morphological rules but the errors are generally committed on those vocabulary items that are not frequently in use. The study arrives at this conclusion from the survey of their textbook and their spoken activities. Therefore, the researcher recommends that there should be effective reappraisal of language teaching through implementation of the designed curriculum to reflect on modern strategies of teaching language, identification, and incorporation of the exceptions in rigorous communicative activities in language teaching, language course books and tutorials, training and retraining of teachers on the strategies that conform to the new pedagogy.
Abstract: Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook
attracts over 500 million users across the world, for those users, their
social life, even their practical life, has become interrelated. Their
interaction with social networking has affected their life forever.
Accordingly, social networking sites have become among the main
channels that are responsible for vast dissemination of different kinds
of information during real time events. This popularity in Social
networking has led to different problems including the possibility of
exposing incorrect information to their users through fake accounts
which results to the spread of malicious content during life events.
This situation can result to a huge damage in the real world to the
society in general including citizens, business entities, and others. In this paper, we present a classification method for detecting the
fake accounts on Twitter. The study determines the minimized set of
the main factors that influence the detection of the fake accounts on
Twitter, and then the determined factors are applied using different
classification techniques. A comparison of the results of these
techniques has been performed and the most accurate algorithm is
selected according to the accuracy of the results. The study has been
compared with different recent researches in the same area; this
comparison has proved the accuracy of the proposed study. We claim
that this study can be continuously applied on Twitter social network
to automatically detect the fake accounts; moreover, the study can be
applied on different social network sites such as Facebook with minor
changes according to the nature of the social network which are
discussed in this paper.
Abstract: A psychological contract is an agreement between the
employer and an employee that covers the parties’ informal and
frequently non-verbalized obligations and expectations towards each
other. The contract is a cognitive pattern-governing employee’s
behaviour in the organization. A gap between employee’s
expectations and the organizational reality may lead to difficult-to-solve
conflicts or cause the employee to modify their behaviour
towards organizational values and goals, if they are willing and ready
to verbalize their expectations. The article discusses psychological contracts in the financial
institutions in Poland. Its theoretical part outlines the types of
psychological contracts in organizations (relational, transactional, and
balanced) and shows the process of their verbalization. The purpose
of the article is to present how the type of the psychological contract
relates to employee’s readiness to verbalize it. The article ends with
conclusions arising from the study.
Abstract: Strong anthropogenic impact has uncontrolled
consequences on the nature of the soil. Hence, up-to-date sustainable
methods of soil state improvement are essential. Investigators provide
the evidence that biochar can positively effects physical, chemical,
and biological soil properties and the abundance of mycorrhizal fungi
which are in the focus of this study. The main aim of the present
investigation is to demonstrate the effect of two types of plant growth
promoting bacteria (PGPB) inoculums along with the beech wood
biochar and mineral N additives on mycorrhizal colonization.
Experiment has been set up in laboratory conditions with containers
filled with arable soil from the protection zone of the main water
source “Brezova nad Svitavou”. Lactuca sativa (lettuce) has been
selected as a model plant. Based on the obtained data, it can be
concluded that mycorrhizal colonization increased as the result of
combined influence of biochar and PGPB inoculums amendment. In
addition, correlation analyses showed that the numbers of main
groups of cultivated bacteria were dependent on the degree of
mycorrhizal colonization.
Abstract: The end panels of a large rectangular industrial duct,
which experience significant internal pressures, also experience
considerable transverse shear due to transfer of gravity loads to the
supports. The current design practice of such thin plate panels for
shear load is based on methods used for the design of plate girder
webs. The structural arrangements, the loadings and the resulting
behavior associated with the industrial duct end panels are, however,
significantly different from those of the web of a plate girder. The
large aspect ratio of the end panels gives rise to multiple bands of
tension fields, whereas the plate girder web design is based on one
tension field. In addition to shear, the industrial end panels are
subjected to internal pressure which in turn produces significant
membrane action. This paper reports a study which was undertaken
to review the current industrial analysis and design methods and to
propose a comprehensive method of designing industrial duct end
panels for shear resistance. In this investigation, a nonlinear finite element model was
developed to simulate the behavior of industrial duct end panel, along
with the associated edge stiffeners, subjected to transverse shear and
internal pressures. The model considered the geometric imperfections
and constitutive relations for steels. Six scale independent
dimensionless parameters that govern the behavior of such end panel
were identified and were then used in a parametric study. It was
concluded that the plate slenderness dominates the shear strength of
stockier end panels, and whereas, both the plate slenderness and the
aspect ratio influence the shear strength of slender end panels. Based
on these studies, this paper proposes design aids for estimating the
shear strength of rectangular duct end panels.
Abstract: Much of the literature on research design has focused
on research conducted in developed, uni-cultural or primarily English
speaking countries. Studies of qualitative case study research, the
challenges, and prospects have been embedded in Western/Eurocentric
society and social theories. Although there have been some
theoretical studies, few empirical studies have been conducted to
explore the nature of the challenges of qualitative case study in
developing countries. These challenges include accessibility to
organizations, conducting interviews in developing countries,
accessing documents and observing official meetings, language and
cultural challenges, the use of consent forms, issues affecting access
to companies, respondent issues, and data analysis. The author, while
conducting qualitative case study research in Libya, faced all these
issues. The discussion in this paper examines these issues in order to
make a contribution toward the literature in this area.
Abstract: Global economy today is full of sophistication. All
over the world, business and marketing practices are undergoing
unprecedented transformation. In realization of this fact, the federal
government of Nigeria has put in place a robust transformation
agenda in order to put Nigeria in a better position to be a competitive
player and in the process transform all sectors of its economy. New
technologies, especially the Internet, are the driving force behind this
transformation. However, technology has inadvertently affected the
way businesses are done thus necessitating the acquisition of new
skills. In developing countries like Nigeria, citizens are still battling
with effective application of those technologies. Obviously, students
of business education need to acquire relevant business knowledge to
be able to transit into the world of work on graduation from school
and compete favorably in the labor market. Therefore, effective
utilization of social media by both teachers and students can help
extensively in empowering students with the needed skills. Social
media which is a group of Internet-based applications built on the
ideological foundations of Web 2.0, that allow the creation and
exchange of user generated content, and if incorporated into the
classroom experience may be the needed answer to unemployment
and poverty in Nigeria as beneficiaries can easily connect with
existing and potential enterprises and customers, engage with them
and reinforce mutual business benefits. Challenges and benefits of
social media use in education in Nigeria universities were revealed in
this study.
Abstract: Strong anthropogenic impact has uncontrolled
consequences on the nature of the soil. Hence, up-to-date sustainable
methods of soil state improvement are essential. Investigators provide
the evidence that biochar can positively effects physical, chemical,
and biological soil properties and the abundance of mycorrhizal fungi
which are in the focus of this study. The main aim of the present
investigation is to demonstrate the effect of two types of plant growth
promoting bacteria (PGPB) inoculums along with the beech wood
biochar and mineral N additives on mycorrhizal colonization.
Experiment has been set up in laboratory conditions with containers
filled with arable soil from the protection zone of the main water
source “Brezova nad Svitavou”. Lactuca sativa (lettuce) has been
selected as a model plant. Based on the obtained data, it can be
concluded that mycorrhizal colonization increased as the result of
combined influence of biochar and PGPB inoculums amendment. In
addition, correlation analyses showed that the numbers of main
groups of cultivated bacteria were dependent on the degree of
mycorrhizal colonization.
Abstract: Machine visualization is an area of interest with fast
and progressive development. We present a method of machine
visualization which will be applicable in real industrial conditions
according to current needs and demands. Real factory data were
obtained in a newly built research plant. Methods described in this
paper were validated on a case study. Input data were processed and
the virtual environment was created. The environment contains
information about dimensions, structure, disposition, and function.
Hardware was enhanced by modular machines, prototypes, and
accessories. We added functionalities and machines into the virtual
environment. The user is able to interact with objects such as testing
and cutting machines, he/she can operate and move them. Proposed
design consists of an environment with two degrees of freedom of
movement. Users are in touch with items in the virtual world which
are embedded into the real surroundings. This paper describes development of the virtual environment. We
compared and tested various options of factory layout virtualization
and visualization. We analyzed possibilities of using a 3D scanner in
the layout obtaining process and we also analyzed various virtual
reality hardware visualization methods such as: Stereoscopic (CAVE)
projection, Head Mounted Display (HMD) and augmented reality
(AR) projection provided by see-through glasses.
Abstract: The effects of the contact ball-lens on the soda lime
glass in laser thermal cleavage with a cw Nd-YAG laser were
investigated in this study. A contact ball-lens was adopted to generate
a bending force on the crack formation of the soda-lime glass in the
laser cutting process. The Nd-YAG laser beam (wavelength of 1064
nm) was focused through the ball-lens and transmitted to the soda-lime
glass, which was coated with a carbon film on the surface with a
bending force from a ball-lens to generate a tensile stress state on the
surface cracking. The fracture was controlled by the contact ball-lens
and a straight cutting was tested to demonstrate the feasibility.
Experimental observations on the crack propagation from the leading
edge, main section and trailing edge of the glass sheet were compared
with various mechanical and thermal loadings. Further analyses on the
stress under various laser powers and contact ball loadings were made
to characterize the innovative technology. The results show that the distributions of the side crack at the
leading and trailing edges are mainly dependent on the boundary
condition, contact force, cutting speed and laser power. With the
increase of the mechanical and thermal loadings, the region of the side
cracks might be dramatically reduced with proper selection of the
geometrical constrains. Therefore the application of the contact
ball-lens is a possible way to control the fracture in laser cleavage with
improved cutting qualities.
Abstract: The increase of technogenic and natural accidents,
accompanied by air pollution, for example, by combustion products,
leads to the necessity of respiratory protection. This work is devoted to the development of a calorimetric method
and a device which allows investigating quickly the kinetics of
carbon dioxide sorption by chemisorbents on the base of potassium
superoxide in order to assess the protective properties of respiratory
protective closed circuit apparatus. The features of the traditional approach for determining the
sorption properties in a thin layer of chemisorbent are described, as
well as methods and devices, which can be used for the sorption
kinetics study. The authors developed an approach (as opposed to the traditional
approach) based on the power measurement of internal heat sources
in the chemisorbent layer. The emergence of the heat sources is a
result of exothermic reaction of carbon dioxide sorption. This
approach eliminates the necessity of chemical analysis of samples
and can significantly reduce the time and material expenses during
chemisorbents testing. Error of determining the volume fraction of adsorbed carbon
dioxide by the developed method does not exceed 12%. Taking into
account the efficiency of the method, we consider that it is a good
alternative to traditional methods of chemical analysis under the
assessment of the protection sorbents quality.
Abstract: Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) has been
introduced and globally gained increasing attention on its usefulness.
Continuous application of EMS may lead to the increment of muscle
mass and indirectly will increase the strength. This study can be used
as an alternative to help people especially those living a sedentary
lifestyle to improve their muscle activity without having to go
through a heavy workout session. Therefore, this study intended to
investigate the effectiveness of EMS training program in 5 weeks
interventions towards male body composition. It was a quasiexperimental
design, held at the Impulse Studio Bangsar, which
examined the effects of EMS training towards skeletal muscle mass
among the subjects. Fifteen subjects (n = 15) were selected to assist
in this study. The demographic data showed that, the average age of
the subjects was 43.07 years old ± 9.90, height (173.4 cm ± 9.09) and
weight was (85.79 kg ± 18.07). Results showed that there was a
significant difference on the skeletal muscle mass (p = 0.01 < 0.05),
upper body (p = 0.01 < 0.05) and lower body (p = 0.00 < 0.05).
Therefore, the null hypothesis has been rejected in this study. As a
conclusion, the application of EMS towards body composition can
increase the muscle size and strength. This method has been proven
to be able to improve athlete strength and thus, may be implemented
in the sports science area of knowledge.
Abstract: It is quite essential to investigate the causes of
pavement deterioration in order to select the proper maintenance
technique. The objective of this study was to identify factors cause
deterioration of recently constructed roads in Khartoum state. A
comprehensive literature concerning the factors of road deterioration,
common road defects and their causes were reviewed. Three major
road projects with different deterioration reasons were selected for
this study. The investigation involved field survey and laboratory
testing on those projects to examine the existing pavement
conditions. The results revealed that the roads investigated
experienced severe failures in the forms of cracks, potholes, and
rutting in the wheel path. The causes of those failures were found
mainly linked to poor drainage, traffic overloading, expansive
subgrade soils, and the use of low quality materials in construction.
Based on the results, recommendations were provided to help
highway engineers in selecting the most effective repair techniques
for specific kinds of distresses.
Abstract: Well logging records can help to answer many
questions from a wide range of special interested information and
basic petrophysical properties to formation evaluation of oil and gas
reservoirs. The accurate calculations of porosity in carbonate
reservoirs are the most challenging aspects of the well logging
analysis. Many equations have been developed over the years based
on known physical principles or on empirically derived relationships,
which are used to calculate porosity, estimate lithology, and water
saturation; however these parameters are calculated from well logs by
using modern technique in a current study. Nasiriya oil field is one of
the giant oilfields in the Middle East, and the formation under study
is the Mishrif carbonate formation which is the shallowest
hydrocarbon bearing zone in this oilfield. Neurolog software was
used to digitize the scanned copies of the available logs.
Environmental corrections had been made as per Schlumberger charts
2005, which supplied in the Interactive Petrophysics software. Three
saturation models have been used to calculate water saturation of
carbonate formations, which are simple Archie equation, Dual water
model, and Indonesia model. Results indicate that the Mishrif
formation consists mainly of limestone, some dolomite, and shale.
The porosity interpretation shows that the logging tools have a good
quality after making the environmental corrections. The average
formation water saturation for Mishrif formation is around 0.4-
0.6.This study is provided accurate behavior of petrophysical
properties with depth for this formation by using modern software.