Abstract: The research “Buddha Images in Mudras Representing Days of a Week: Tactile Texture Design for the Blind” aims to provide original tactile format to institutions for the blind, as supplementary textbooks, to accumulate Buddhist knowledge, so that it could be extracurricular learning. The research studied on 33 students with both total and partial blindness, the latter with the ability to read Braille’s signs, of elementary 4 – 6, who are pursuing their studies on the second semester of the academic year 2013 at Bangkok School for the Blind. The researcher opted samples specifically, studied data acquired from both documents and fieldworks. Those methods must be related to the blind, tactile format production, and Buddha images in mudras representing days of a week. Afterwards, the formats will be analyzed and designed so that there would be 8 format pictures of Buddha images in mudras representing days of the week. Experts will next evaluate the media and try out.
Abstract: Collaborative filtering (CF) algorithm has been popularly used for recommender systems in both academic and practical applications. It basically generates recommendation results using users’ numeric ratings. However, the additional use of the information other than user ratings may lead to better accuracy of CF. Considering that a lot of people are likely to share their honest opinion on the items they purchased recently due to the advent of the Web 2.0, user's review can be regarded as the new informative source for identifying user's preference with accuracy. Under this background, this study presents a hybrid recommender system that fuses CF and user's review mining. Our system adopts conventional memory-based CF, but it is designed to use both user’s numeric ratings and his/her text reviews on the items when calculating similarities between users.
Abstract: The age a child to be exposed to a second language is a controversial issue in communities such as the Maldives where English is taught as a second language. It has been observed that different stakeholders have different viewpoints towards the issue. Some believe that the earlier children are exposed to a second language, the better they learn, while others disagree with the notion. Hence, this case study investigates whether children learn a second language better when they are exposed at an earlier age or not. The spoken and written data collected confirm that earlier exposure helps in mastering the sound pattern and speaking fluency with more native-like accent, while a later age is better for learning more abstract and concrete aspects such as grammar and syntactic rules.
Abstract: Radon is a radioactive gas emitted from radium, a daughter product of uranium that occurs naturally in rocks and soil. Radon, together with its decay products, emits alpha particles that can damage lung tissue. The activity concentration of 222Ra has been analyzed in water samples collected from borewells and rivers in and around Hassan city, Karnataka State, India. The measurements were performed by Emanometry technique. The concentration of 222Rn in borewell waters varies from 18.49±1.89 to 397.26±12.3 Bql-1 with geometric mean 120.48±12.87 Bql-1 and in river waters it varies from 92.63±9.31 to 93.98±9.51 Bql-1 with geometric mean of 93.16±9.33 Bql-1. In the present study, the radon concentrations are higher in Adarshanagar and Viveka Nagar which are found to be 397.26±12.3 Bql-1 and 325.78±32.56 Bql-1. Most of the analysed samples show a 222Rn concentration more than 100 Bql-1 and this can be attributed to the geology of the area where the ground waters are located, which is predominantly of granitic characteristic. The average inhalation dose and ingestion dose in the borewell water are found to be 0.405 and 0.033 µSvy-1; and in river water it is found to be 0.234 and 0.019 µSvy-1, respectively. The average total effective dose rate in borewell waters and river waters are found to be 0.433 and 0.253 µSvy-1, which does not cause any health risk to the population of Hassan region.
Abstract: This paper will explore formation of HCl aerosol at atmospheric boundary layers and encourages the uptake of environmental modeling systems (EMSs) as a practice evaluation of gaseous emissions (“framework measures”) from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The conceptual model predicts greenhouse gas emissions to ecological points beyond landfill site operations. It focuses on incorporation traditional knowledge into baseline information for both measurement data and the mathematical results, regarding parameters influence model variable inputs. The paper has simplified parameters of aerosol processes based on the more complex aerosol process computations. The simple model can be implemented to both Gaussian and Eulerian rural dispersion models. Aerosol processes considered in this study were (i) the coagulation of particles, (ii) the condensation and evaporation of organic vapors, and (iii) dry deposition. The chemical transformation of gas-phase compounds is taken into account photochemical formulation with exposure effects according to HCl concentrations as starting point of risk assessment. The discussion set out distinctly aspect of sustainability in reflection inputs, outputs, and modes of impact on the environment. Thereby, models incorporate abiotic and biotic species to broaden the scope of integration for both quantification impact and assessment risks. The later environmental obligations suggest either a recommendation or a decision of what is a legislative should be achieved for mitigation measures of landfill gas (LFG) ultimately.
Abstract: Earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel boring machines are designed for digging in different types of soil, especially clay soils. This operation requires the treatment of soil by lubricants to facilitate the procedure of excavation. A possible use of this soil is limited by the effect of treatment on the hydro-mechanical properties of the soil. This work aims to study the effect of a foaming agent on the hydro-mechanical properties of clay soil. The injection of the foam agent in the soil leads to create a soil matrix in which they are incorporated gas bubbles. The state of the foam in the soil is scalable thanks to the degradation of the gas bubbles in the soil.
Abstract: Safety or the state of being safe can be described as a condition of being not dangerous or not harmful. It is necessary for an individual to avoid dangerous situations every day. Also, an organization is subject to legal requirements for the health and safety of persons inside and around the immediate workplace, or who are exposed to the workplace activities. Although it might be difficult to keep a situation where complete safety is ensured, efforts must nonetheless be made to consider ways of removing any potential danger within an organization. In order to ensure a safe working environment, the capability of responding (i.e., resilience) to signals (i.e., information concerning events that could pose future problems that must be taken into account) that occur in and around corporations is necessary. The ability to evaluate this essential point is thus one way in which safety and security can be managed. This study focuses on OHSAS18001, an internationally applied standard for the construction and operation of occupational health and safety management systems, by using IDEF0 for Function Modeling (IDEF0) and the Resilience Matrix originally made by Bracco. Further, this study discusses a method for evaluating a manner in which Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) systematically functions within corporations. Based on the findings, this study clarifies the potential structural objection for corporations when implementing and operating the OHSAS standard.
Abstract: This paper reports the effects of laser energy on the characteristics of bubbles generated in the weld zone and the formation of new chemical bonds at the Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)/Ti joint interface in laser joining of PET to Ti. The samples were produced by using different laser energies ranging from 1.5 J – 6 J in steps of 1.5 J, while all other joining parameters remained unchanged. The types of chemical bonding at the joint interface were analysed by the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) depth-profiling method. The results show that the characteristics of the bubbles and the thickness of the chemically bonded interface, which contains the laser generated bonds of Ti–C and Ti–O, increase markedly with increasing laser energy input. The tensile failure load of the joint depends on the combined effect of the amount and distribution of the bubbles formed and the chemical bonding intensity of the joint interface.
Abstract: The paper describes conceptual design, control strategies, and partial simulation for a new fully autonomous lower limb wearable exoskeleton system for human motion enhancement that can support its weight and increase strength and endurance. Various problems still remain to be solved where the most important is the creation of a power and cost efficient system that will allow an exoskeleton to operate for extended period without batteries being frequently recharged. The designed exoskeleton is enabling to decouple the weight/mass carrying function of the system from the forward motion function which reduces the power and size of propulsion motors and thus the overall weight, cost of the system. The decoupling takes place by blocking the motion at knee joint by placing passive air cylinder across the joint. The cylinder is actuated when the knee angle has reached the minimum allowed value to bend. The value of the minimum bending angle depends on usual walk style of the subject. The mechanism of the exoskeleton features a seat to rest the subject’s body weight at the moment of blocking the knee joint motion. The mechanical structure of each leg has six degrees of freedom: four at the hip, one at the knee, and one at the ankle. Exoskeleton legs are attached to subject legs by using flexible cuffs. The operation of all actuators depends on the amount of pressure felt by the feet pressure sensors and knee angle sensor. The sensor readings depend on actual posture of the subject and can be classified in three distinct cases: subject stands on one leg, subject stands still on both legs and subject stands on both legs but transit its weight from one leg to other. This exoskeleton is power efficient because electrical motors are smaller in size and did not participate in supporting the weight like in all other existing exoskeleton designs.
Abstract: The paper presents the results of research in which we were looking for common characteristics of the family environment of students alternative and innovative education systems. Topicality comes from the fact that nowadays in the Czech Republic there are several civic and parental initiatives held with the aim to establish schools for their children. The goal of our research was to reveal key aspects of these families and to identify their common indicators. Among other things, we were interested what reasons lead parents to decide to enroll their child into different education than standard (common). The survey was qualitative and there were eighteen respondents of parents of alternative schools´ pupils. The reason to implement qualitative design was the opportunity to gain deeper insight into the essence of phenomena and to obtain detailed information, which would become the basis for subsequent quantitative research. There have been semi structured interviews done with the respondents which had been recorded and transcribed. By an analysis of gained data (categorization and by coding), we found out that common indicator of our respondents is higher education and higher economic level. This issue should be at the forefront of the researches because there is lack of analysis which would provide a comparison of common and alternative schools in the Czech Republic especially with regard to quality of education. Based on results, we consider questions whether approaches of these parents towards standard education come from their own experience or from the lack of knowledge of current goals and objectives of education policy of the Czech Republic.
Abstract: It is known that stationary human occupants act as dynamic mass-spring-damper systems and can change the modal properties of civil engineering structures. This paper describes the full scale measurement to explain the tuned mass damper effects of stationary people on structural damping of footbridge with center span length of 33 m. A human body can be represented by a lumped system consisting of masses, springs, and dashpots. Complex eigenvalue calculation is also conducted by using ISO5982:1981 human model (two degree of freedom system). Based on experimental and analytical results for the footbridge with the stationary people in the standing position, it is demonstrated that stationary people behave as a tuned mass damper and that ISO5982:1981 human model can explain the structural damping characteristics measured in the field.
Abstract: Crop yields have not increased as dramatically as the demand for food. One method to counteract this is to use pesticides to keep away predators, e.g. several forms of insecticide are available to fight insects. These insecticides and pesticides are both controversial as their application and their residue in the food product can also harm humans. In this study an alternative method to combat insects is studied. A physical insect-killing effect of SiO2 particles is used. The particles are applied on fibres to avoid erosion in the fields, which would occur when applied separately. The development of such SiO2 functionalized PP fibres is shown.
Abstract: Transformational leadership has been identified as the most important factor affecting innovation and knowledge sharing; it leads to increased goal-directed behavior exhibited by followers and thus to enhanced performance and innovation for the organization. However, there is a lack of models linking transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, and process innovation within higher education (HE) institutions in general within developing countries, particularly in Iraq. This research aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge sharing in the transformational leadership and process innovation relationship. A quantitative approach was taken and 254 usable questionnaires were collected from public HE institutions in Iraq. Structural equation modelling with AMOS 22 was used to analyze the causal relationships among factors. The research found that knowledge sharing plays a pivotal role in the relationship between transformational leadership and process innovation, and that transformational leadership would be ideal in an educational context, promoting knowledge sharing activities and influencing process innovation in the public HE in Iraq. The research has developed some guidelines for researchers as well as leaders and provided evidence to support the use of TL to increase process innovation within HE environment in developing countries, particularly in Iraq.
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to study the hydro-mechanical behavior of a tuff and calcareous sand mixture. A first experimental phase was carried out in order to find the optimal mixture. This showed that the material composed of 80% tuff and 20% calcareous sand provides the maximum mechanical strength. The second experimental phase concerns the study of the drying-wetting behavior of the optimal mixture was carried out on slurry samples and compacted samples at the MPO. Experimental results let to deduce the parameters necessary for the prediction of the hydro-mechanical behavior of pavement formulated from tuff and calcareous sand mixtures, related to moisture. This optimal mixture satisfies the regulation rules and hence constitutes a good local eco-material, abundantly available, for the conception of pavements.
Abstract: Reverse logistics (RL) is supposed to be a systematic procedure that helps in improving the environmental hazards and maintain business sustainability for industries. Industries in Indian are now opting for adoption of RL techniques in business. But, RL practices are not popular in Indian industries because of many barriers for its successful implementation. Therefore, need arises to identify and evaluate the barriers to implement RL practices by taking an Indian industries perspective. Literature review approach and case study approach have been adapted to identify relevant barriers to implement RL practices. Further, Fuzzy Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory methodology has been brought into use for evaluating causal relationships among the barriers to implement RL practices. Seven barriers out of ten barriers have been categorized into the cause group and remaining into effect group. This research will help Indian industries to manage these barriers towards effective implementing RL practices.
Abstract: Recently, advanced geotechnical engineering problems
related to soil movement, particle loss, and modeling of local failure
(i.e. discontinua) as well as modeling the in-contact structures (i.e.
continua) are of the great interest among researchers. The aim of this
research is to meet the requirements with respect to the modeling
of the above-mentioned two different domains simultaneously. To
this end, a coupled numerical method is introduced based on
Discrete Element Method (DEM) and eXtended-Finite Element
Method (X-FEM). In the coupled procedure, DEM is employed to
capture the interactions and relative movements of soil particles as
discontinua, while X-FEM is utilized to model in-contact structures as
continua, which may consist of different types of discontinuities. For
verification purposes, the new coupled approach is utilized to examine
benchmark problems including different contacts between/within
continua and discontinua. Results are validated by comparison with
those of existing analytical and numerical solutions. This study
proves that extended-finite-discrete element method can be used
to robustly analyze not only contact problems, but also other
types of discontinuities in continua such as (i) crack formations
and propagations, (ii) voids and bimaterial interfaces, and (iii)
combination of previous cases. In essence, the proposed method
can be used vastly in advanced soil-structure interaction problems to
investigate the micro and macro behaviour of the surrounding soil and
the response of the embedded structure that contains discontinuities.
Abstract: Relationship between undrained shear strength (Su) and over consolidation ratio (OCR) of clay soil (marine clay) is very important in the field of geotechnical engineering to estimate the settlement behaviour of clay and to prepare a small scale physical modelling test. In this study, a relationship between shear strength and OCR parameters was determined using the laboratory vane shear apparatus and the fully automatic consolidated apparatus. The main objective was to establish non-linear correlation formula between shear strength and OCR and comparing it with previous studies. Therefore, in order to achieve this objective, three points were chosen to obtain 18 undisturbed samples which were collected with an increasing depth of 1.0 m to 3.5 m each 0.5 m. Clay samples were prepared under undrained condition for both tests. It was found that the OCR and shear strength are inversely proportional at similar depth and at same undrained conditions. However, a good correlation was obtained from the relationships where the R2 values were very close to 1.0 using polynomial equations. The comparison between the experimental result and previous equation from other researchers produced a non-linear correlation which has a similar pattern with this study.
Abstract: Internship program is a compulsory course of many undergraduate programs in Thailand. It gives opportunities to a lot of senior students as interns to practice their working skills in the real organizations and also gives chances for interns to face real-world working problems. Interns also learn how to solve those problems by direct and indirect experiences. This program in many schools is a well-structured course with a contract or agreement made with real business organizations. Moreover, this program also offers opportunities for interns to get jobs after completing it from where the internship program takes place. Interns also learn how to work as a team and how to associate with other colleagues, trainers, and superiors of each organization in term of social hierarchy, self-responsibility, and self-disciplinary. This research focuses on senior students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand whose studying major is information technology program. They practiced their working skills or took internship programs in the real business sector or real operating organizations in 2015-2016. Interns are categorized in to two types: normal program and special program. For special program, students study in weekday evening from Monday to Friday or Weekend and most of them work full-time or part-time job. For normal program, students study in weekday working hours and most of them do not work. The differences of these characters and the outcomes of internship performance were studied and analyzed in this research. This work applied some statistical analytics to find out whether the internship performance of each intern type has different performances statistically or not.
Abstract: Optimization is necessary for finding appropriate solutions to a range of real-life problems. In particular, genetic (or more generally, evolutionary) algorithms have proved very useful in solving many problems for which analytical solutions are not available. In this paper, we present an optimization algorithm called Dynamic Schema with Dissimilarity and Similarity of Chromosomes (DSDSC) which is a variant of the classical genetic algorithm. This approach constructs new chromosomes from a schema and pairs of existing ones by exploring their dissimilarities and similarities. To show the effectiveness of the algorithm, it is tested and compared with the classical GA, on 15 two-dimensional optimization problems taken from literature. We have found that, in most cases, our method is better than the classical genetic algorithm.
Abstract: The liquefaction process of cork based tree barks has led to an increase of interest due to its potential innovation in the lumber and wood industries. In this particular study the bark of Quercus cerris (Turkish oak) is used due to its appreciable amount of cork tissue, although of inferior quality when compared to the cork provided by other Quercus trees. This study aims to optimize alkaline catalysis liquefaction conditions, regarding several parameters. To better comprehend the possible chemical characteristics of the bark of Quercus cerris, a complete chemical analysis was performed. The liquefaction process was performed in a double-jacket reactor heated with oil, using glycerol and a mixture of glycerol/ethylene glycol as solvents, potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, and varying the temperature, liquefaction time and granulometry. Due to low liquefaction efficiency resulting from the first experimental procedures a study was made regarding different washing techniques after the filtration process using methanol and methanol/water. The chemical analysis stated that the bark of Quercus cerris is mostly composed by suberin (ca. 30%) and lignin (ca. 24%) as well as insolvent hemicelluloses in hot water (ca. 23%). On the liquefaction stage, the results that led to higher yields were: using a mixture of methanol/ethylene glycol as reagents and a time and temperature of 120 minutes and 200 ºC, respectively. It is concluded that using a granulometry of