Abstract: Sustainability is a very important and heavily
discussed subject, expanding through tourism as well. The study
proposition was to collect data and present it to the competent bodies
so they can mold their public policies to improve the conditions of
the site. It was hypothesized that the lack of data is currently
affecting the quality of life and the sustainable development of the
site and the tourism. The research was held in Mateiros, a city in the
state of Tocantins (TO)/Brasil near Palmas, its capital city. Because
of the concentration of tourists during the high season and several
tourist attractions being around, the research took place in Mateiros.
The methodological procedure had a script of theoretical construction
and investigation of the deductive scientific method parameters
through a case study in the Jalapão/TO/Brazil region, using it as a
tool for a questionnaire given to the competent bodies in an interview
system with the UN sustainability indexes as a base. In the three
sustainable development scope: environmental, social and economic,
the results indicated that the data presented by the interviewed were
scarce or nonexistent. It shows that more research is necessary,
providing the tools for the ones responsible to propose action plans to
improve the site, strengthening the tourism and making it even more
sustainable.
Abstract: Most of the existing video streaming protocols
provide video services without considering security aspects in
decentralized mobile ad-hoc networks. The security policies adapted
to the currently existing non-streaming protocols, do not comply with
the live video streaming protocols resulting in considerable
vulnerability, high bandwidth consumption and unreliability which
cause severe security threats, low bandwidth and error prone
transmission respectively in video streaming applications. Therefore
a synergized methodology is required to reduce vulnerability and
bandwidth consumption, and enhance reliability in the video
streaming applications in MANET. To ensure the security measures
with reduced bandwidth consumption and improve reliability of the
video streaming applications, a Secure Low-bandwidth Video
Streaming through Reliable Multipath Propagation (SLVRMP)
protocol architecture has been proposed by incorporating the two
algorithms namely Secure Low-bandwidth Video Streaming
Algorithm and Reliable Secure Multipath Propagation Algorithm
using Layered Video Coding in non-overlapping zone routing
network topology. The performances of the proposed system are
compared to those of the other existing secure multipath protocols
Sec-MR, SPREAD using NS 2.34 and the simulation results show
that the performances of the proposed system get considerably
improved.
Abstract: Plants can contain a wide variety of substances with
antioxidative properties which are associated with important health
benefits. These positive health effects are of great importance at a
time when the environment is laden with many toxic substances. Five
selected herbal plants namely, Mimosa pudica, Phyllanthus niruri,
Ceiba pentandra, Eleusine polydactyla and Trema amboinensi, were
chosen for the experiment to investigate their total phenolics content
and antioxidant activities using ABTS radical cation decolorization
power, and ferric reducing antioxidant power. The total phenolic
content of each herbal plants ranges from 0.84 to 42.59 mg gallic acid
equivalent/g. The antioxidant activity in the ABTS radical cation
decolorization power varies from 0.005 to 0.362 mg trolox
equivalent/g and the FRAP ranges from 0.30 to 28.42 mg gallic acid
equivalent/g. Among the five medicinal plants, Mimosa pudica has
been an excellent performer in terms of the 3 parameters measured; it
is followed by Phyllanthus niruri. The 5 herbal plants do not have
equivalent antioxidant power. The relative high values for M. pudica
and P. niruri supports the medicinal value of both plants. The total
phenolics, ABTS and FRAP correlate strongly with one another.
Abstract: Polyaniline is an indispensible component in lightemitting
devices (LEDs), televisions, cellular telephones, automotive,
corrosion-resistant coatings, actuators etc. The electrical conductivity
properties was found be increased by introduction of metal nano
particles. In the present study, an attempt has been made to utilize
platinum nano particles to achieve the improved electrical properties.
Polyaniline and Pt-polyaniline composite are synthesized by
electrochemical routes. X-ray diffractometer confirms the amorphous
nature of polyaniline. The Bragg’s diffraction peaks correspond to
platinum nanoparticles in Pt-polyaniline composite and
thermogravimetric analyzer indicates its decomposition at certain
temperature. The Scanning Electron Micrographs of colloidal
platinum nanoparticles were spherical, uniform shape in the
composite. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the PANI and
composites were also studied which indicate a significant decreasing
resistivity than PANI-Platinum after introduction of pt nanoparticles
in the matrix of polyaniline (PANI).
Abstract: High Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) are suggested
today as essential for the cognitive development of students and as
preparing them for real life skills. Teachers are encouraged to use
HOTS activities in the classroom to help their students develop
higher order skills and deep thinking. So it is essential to prepare preservice
teachers to write and use HOTS activities for their students.
This paper describes a model for integrating HOTS activities with
GeoGebra in pre-service teachers’ preparation. This model describes
four aspects of HOTS activities and working with them: activity
components, preparation procedure, strategies and processes used in
writing a HOTS activity and types of the HOTS activities. In
addition, the paper describes the pre-service teachers' difficulties in
preparing and working with HOTS activities, as well as their
perceptions regarding the use of these activities and GeoGebra in the
mathematics classroom. The paper also describes the contribution of
a HOTS activity to pupils' learning of mathematics, where this HOTS
activity was prepared and taught by one pre-service teacher.
Abstract: Several embryonic cellular mechanism including cell
cycle, growth and apoptosis are regulated by phosphatidylinositol-3-
kinase (PI3K)/Akt signaling pathway. The goal of present study is to
determine the effects of annatto (Bixa orellana)-derived δ-tocotrienol
(δ-TCT) on the regulations of PI3K/Akt genes in murine morula.
Twenty four 6-8 week old (23-25g) female balb/c mice were
randomly divided into four groups (G1-G4; n=6). Those groups were
subjected to the following treatments for 7 consecutive days: G1
(control) received tocopherol stripped corn oil, G2 was given 60
mg/kg/day of δ-TCT mixture (contains 90% delta & 10% gamma
isomers), G3 was given 60 mg/kg/day of pure δ-TCT (>98% purity)
and G4 received 60 mg/kg/day α-TOC. On Day 8, females were
superovulated with 5 IU Pregnant Mare’s Serum Gonadotropin
(PMSG) for 48 hours followed with 5 IU human Chorionic
Gonadotropin (hCG) before mated with males at the ratio of 1:1.
Females were sacrificed by cervical dislocation for embryo collection
48 hours post-coitum. About fifty morulas from each group were
used in the gene expression analyses using Affymetrix QuantiGene
Plex 2.0 Assay. Present data showed a significant increase (p
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to present the diagnostic
contribution that the screening instrument, Mini-Mental State
Examination-2: Expanded Version (MMSE-2:EV), brings in
detecting the cognitive impairment or in monitoring the progress of
degenerative disorders. The diagnostic signification is underlined by
the interpretation of the MMSE-2:EV scores, resulted from the test
application to patients with mild and major neurocognitive disorders.
The cases were selected from current practice, in order to cover vast
and significant neurocognitive pathology: mild cognitive impairment,
Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, Parkinson’s
disease, conversion of the mild cognitive impairment into
Alzheimer’s disease. The MMSE-2:EV version was used: it was
applied one month after the initial assessment, three months after the
first reevaluation and then every six months, alternating the blue and
red forms. Correlated with age and educational level, the raw scores
were converted in T scores and then, with the mean and the standard
deviation, the z scores were calculated. The differences of raw scores
between the evaluations were analyzed from the point of view of
statistic signification, in order to establish the progression in time of
the disease. The results indicated that the psycho-diagnostic approach
for the evaluation of the cognitive impairment with MMSE-2:EV is
safe and the application interval is optimal. In clinical settings with a
large flux of patients, the application of the MMSE-2:EV is a safe
and fast psychodiagnostic solution. The clinicians can draw objective
decisions and for the patients: it does not take too much time and
energy, it does not bother them and it doesn’t force them to travel
frequently.
Abstract: A Rice Sheller is used for obtaining polished white
rice from paddy. There are about 3000 Rice Shellers in Punjab and
50000 in India. During the process of shelling lot of dust is emitted
from different unit operations like paddy silo, paddy shaker, bucket
elevators, huskers, paddy separator etc. These dust emissions have
adverse effect on the health of the workers and the wear and tear of
the shelling machinery is fast. All the dust emissions spewing out of
these unit operations of a rice Sheller were contained by providing
suitable hoods and enclosures while ensuring their workability. These
were sucked by providing an induced draft fan followed by a high
efficiency cyclone separator that has got an overall dust collection
efficiency of more than 90%. This cyclone separator replaced two
cyclone separators and a filter bag house, which the Rice Sheller was
already having. The dust concentration in the stack after the
installation of cyclone separator is well within the stipulated
standards. Besides controlling pollution, there is improvement in the
quality of products like bran and the life of shelling machinery has
enhanced. The payback period of this technology is less than four
shelling months.
Abstract: Typical load-bearing biological materials like bone,
mineralized tendon and shell, are biocomposites made from both
organic (collagen) and inorganic (biomineral) materials. This
amazing class of materials with intrinsic internally designed
hierarchical structures show superior mechanical properties with
regard to their weak components from which they are formed.
Extensive investigations concentrating on static loading conditions
have been done to study the biological materials failure. However,
most of the damage and failure mechanisms in load-bearing
biological materials will occur whenever their structures are exposed
to dynamic loading conditions. The main question needed to be
answered here is: What is the relation between the layout and
architecture of the load-bearing biological materials and their
dynamic behavior? In this work, a staggered model has been
developed based on the structure of natural materials at nanoscale and
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been used to study the dynamic
behavior of the structure of load-bearing biological materials to
answer why the staggered arrangement has been selected by nature to
make the nanocomposite structure of most of the biological materials.
The results showed that the staggered structures will efficiently
attenuate the stress wave rather than the layered structure.
Furthermore, such staggered architecture is effectively in charge of
utilizing the capacity of the biostructure to resist both normal and
shear loads. In this work, the geometrical parameters of the model
like the thickness and aspect ratio of the mineral inclusions selected
from the typical range of the experimentally observed feature sizes
and layout dimensions of the biological materials such as bone and
mineralized tendon. Furthermore, the numerical results validated with
existing theoretical solutions. Findings of the present work emphasize
on the significant effects of dynamic behavior on the natural
evolution of load-bearing biological materials and can help scientists
to design bioinspired materials in the laboratories.
Abstract: The MEMS pressure sensor has been introduced and
presented in this paper. The types of pressure sensor and its theory of
operation are also included. The latest MEMS technology, the
fabrication processes of pressure sensor are explored and discussed.
Besides, various device applications of pressure sensor such as tire
pressure-monitoring system, diesel particulate filter and others are
explained. Due to further miniaturization of the device nowadays, the
pressure sensor with nanotechnology (NEMS) is also reviewed. The
NEMS pressure sensor is expected to have better performance as well
as lower in its cost. It has gained an excellent popularity in many
applications.
Abstract: In this paper, we consider a cognitive relay network
(CRN) in which the primary receiver (PR) is protected by peak
transmit power ¯PST and/or peak interference power Q constraints.
In addition, the interference effect from the primary transmitter (PT)
is considered to show its impact on the performance of the CRN. We
investigate the outage probability (OP) and outage capacity (OC) of
the CRN by deriving closed-form expressions over Rayleigh fading
channel. Results show that both the OP and OC improve by increasing
the cooperative relay nodes as well as when the PT is far away from
the SR.
Abstract: This paper shows the general perceptions of Spanish
university stakeholders in relation to the university’s annual reports
and the adequacy and potential of intellectual capital reporting. To
this end, a questionnaire was designed and sent to every member of
the Social Councils of Spanish public universities. It was thought that
these participants would provide a good example of the attitude of
university stakeholders since they represent the different social
groups connected with universities. From the results of this study we
are in the position of confirming the need for universities to offer
information on intellectual capital in their accounting information
model.
Abstract: Multiple User Interference (MUI) considers the
primary problem in Optical Code-Division Multiple Access
(OCDMA), which resulting from the overlapping among the users. In
this article we aim to mitigate this problem by studying an
interference cancellation scheme called successive interference
cancellation (SIC) scheme. This scheme will be tested on two
different detection schemes, spectral amplitude coding (SAC) and
direct detection systems (DS), using partial modified prime (PMP) as
the signature codes. It was found that SIC scheme based on both SAC
and DS methods had a potential to suppress the intensity noise, that is
to say it can mitigate MUI noise. Furthermore, SIC/DS scheme
showed much lower bit error rate (BER) performance relative to
SIC/SAC scheme for different magnitude of effective power. Hence,
many more users can be supported by SIC/DS receiver system.
Abstract: This study compares the intensity of game load among
player positions and between the 1st and the 2nd half of the games.
Two guards, three forwards, and three centers (female basketball
players) participated in this study. The heart rate (HR) and its
development were monitored during two competitive games.
Statistically insignificant differences in the intensity of game load
were recorded between guards, forwards, and centers below and
above 85% of the maximal heart rate (HRmax) and in the mean HR as
% of HRmax (87.81±3.79%, 87.02±4.37%, and 88.76±3.54%,
respectively). Moreover, when the 1st and the 2nd half of the games
were compared in the mean HR (87.89±4.18% vs. 88.14±3.63% of
HRmax), no statistical significance was recorded. This information can
be useful for coaching staff, to manage and to precisely plan the
training process.
Abstract: In recent years, fire accidents have been steadily
increased and the amount of property damage caused by the accidents
has gradually raised. Damaging building structure, fire incidents bring
about not only such property damage but also strength degradation and
member deformation. As a result, the building structure undermines its
structural ability. Examining the degradation and the deformation is
very important because reusing the building is more economical than
reconstruction. Therefore, engineers need to investigate the strength
degradation and member deformation well, and make sure that they
apply right rehabilitation methods. This study aims at evaluating
deformation characteristics of fire damaged and rehabilitated normal
strength concrete beams through both experiments and finite element
analyses. For the experiments, control beams, fire damaged beams and
rehabilitated beams are tested to examine deformation characteristics.
Ten test beam specimens with compressive strength of 21MPa are
fabricated and main test variables are selected as cover thickness of
40mm and 50mm and fire exposure time of 1 hour or 2 hours. After
heating, fire damaged beams are air-recurred for 2 months and
rehabilitated beams are repaired with polymeric cement mortar after
being removed the fire damaged concrete cover. All beam specimens
are tested under four points loading. FE analyses are executed to
investigate the effects of main parameters applied to experimental
study. Test results show that both maximum load and stiffness of the
rehabilitated beams are higher than those of the fire damaged beams.
In addition, predicted structural behaviors from the analyses also show
good rehabilitation effect and the predicted load-deflection curves are
similar to the experimental results. For the further, the proposed
analytical method can be used to predict deformation characteristics of
fire damaged and rehabilitated concrete beams without suffering from
time and cost consuming of experimental process.
Abstract: Sound processing is one the subjects that newly
attracts a lot of researchers. It is efficient and usually less expensive
than other methods. In this paper the flow generated sound is used to
estimate the flow speed of free flows. Many sound samples are
gathered. After analyzing the data, a parameter named wave power is
chosen. For all samples the wave power is calculated and averaged
for each flow speed. A curve is fitted to the averaged data and a
correlation between the wave power and flow speed is found. Test
data are used to validate the method and errors for all test data were
under 10 percent. The speed of the flow can be estimated by
calculating the wave power of the flow generated sound and using the
proposed correlation.
Abstract: Transparent nickel doped cobalt sulfide was fabricated
on a SnO2:F electrode and tested as an efficient electrocatalyst and as
an alternative to the expensive platinum counter electrode. In order to
investigate how this electrode could affect the electrical
characteristics of a dye-sensitized solar cell, we manufactured cells
with the same TiO2 photoanode sensitized with dye (N719) and
employing the same quasi-solid electrolyte, altering only the counter
electrode used. The cells were electrically and electrochemically
characterized and it was observed that the ones with the Ni doped
CoS2 outperformed the efficiency of the cells with the Pt counter
electrode (3.76% and 3.44% respectively). Particularly, the higher
efficiency of the cells with the Ni doped CoS2 counter electrode (CE)
is mainly because of the enhanced photocurrent density which is
attributed to the enhanced electrocatalytic ability of the CE and the
low charge transfer resistance at the CE/electrolyte interface.
Abstract: This contribution presents a friction estimator for
industrial purposes which identifies Coulomb friction in a steering
system. The estimator only needs a few, usually known, steering
system parameters. Friction occurs on almost every mechanical
system and has a negative influence on high-precision position
control. This is demonstrated on a steering angle controller for highly
automated driving. In this steering system the friction induces limit
cycles which cause oscillating vehicle movement when the vehicle
follows a given reference trajectory. When compensating the friction
with the introduced estimator, limit cycles can be suppressed. This
is demonstrated by measurements in a series vehicle.
Abstract: Psychopathic disorders are taking an important part in
judge sentencing, especially in Canada. First, we will see how this
phenomenon can be illustrated by the high proportion of psychopath
offenders incarcerated in North American prisons. Many decisions in
Canadians courtrooms seem to point out that psychopathy is often
used as a strong argument by the judges to preserve public safety.
The fact that psychopathy is often associated with violence,
recklessness and recidivism, could explain why many judges consider
psychopathic disorders as an aggravating factor. Generally, the judge
reasoning is based on Article 753 of Canadian Criminal Code related
to dangerous offenders, which is used for individuals who show a
pattern of repetitive and persistent aggressive behaviour. Then we
will show how, with cognitive neurosciences, the psychopath’s
situation in courtrooms would probably change. Cerebral imaging
and news data provided by the neurosciences show that emotional
and volitional functions in psychopath’s brains are impaired.
Understanding these new issues could enable some judges to
recognize psychopathic disorders as a mitigating factor. Finally, two
important questions ought to be raised in this article: can exploring
psychopaths ‘brains really change the judge sentencing in Canadian
courtrooms? If yes, can judges consider psychopathy more as a
mitigating factor than an aggravating factor?
Abstract: The quantitative study of cell mechanics is of
paramount interest, since it regulates the behaviour of the living cells
in response to the myriad of extracellular and intracellular
mechanical stimuli. The novel experimental techniques together with
robust computational approaches have given rise to new theories and
models, which describe cell mechanics as combination of
biomechanical and biochemical processes. This review paper
encapsulates the existing continuum-based computational approaches
that have been developed for interpreting the mechanical responses of
living cells under different loading and boundary conditions. The
salient features and drawbacks of each model are discussed from both
structural and biological points of view. This discussion can
contribute to the development of even more precise and realistic
computational models of cell mechanics based on continuum
approaches or on their combination with microstructural approaches,
which in turn may provide a better understanding of
mechanotransduction in living cells.