bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fulfilling the Demand for Workplace Communication Skills in the Civil Engineering Industry
Authors: Masduki Masadliahani , Zakaria Normah
Published: December 2020

Human resources today must be nurtured with the skills needed at the workplace in preparation for future challenges. Many engineering graduates nowadays are facing difficulties in adapting themselves to the workplace. They are highly dependent on academic qualifications and underestimate the need for skilled workers who are not only technically proficient but have high competencies of soft skills, especially communication skills. The ability of graduates to communicate effectively can have a significant impact on their career development. Therefore, technical graduates need to equip themselves with knowledge of their future workplace’s communication needs. The objective of this study is to qualitatively explore the elements of communication skills demanded at the civil engineering workplace. Five participants consisting of experts from academia and industries were involved in semi-structured interviews. Data were hand-transcribed and analysed. Four themes emerged from the data and identified as oral communication, written communication, interpersonal communication, and visual communication. Thirty-four sub-themes appeared from the analysis and have been discussed accordingly.
Psychoactive Substance Use among Nigerian Secondary School Students: A Review of Current Literature
Authors: Shuaibu Hassana Ojonuba , Haliza Abdul Rahman , Samah Asnarulkhadi Abu , Zulkefli Nor Afiah Mohd
Published: December 2020

Substance use is a global health issue that may lead to engagement in other risky behaviours, addiction, accidents and non-communicable diseases. In Nigeria, this risky behaviour is becoming an emerging trend among secondary school students. This review was thus carried out to gain an overview of the prevalence and risk factors of substance use among secondary school students in Nigeria. A literature search of articles in Scopus, PubMed and other online databases was conducted for articles published between 2009 to 2019. Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Overall, psychoactive substance ranged from 21% to 87%. Alcohol consumption was the highest, while the use of tobacco, cannabis, and cocaine was low. The mean age at initiation ranged from 11 to 15 years. Male gender, peer influence, parental factors, individual factors and knowledge on the dangers of psychoactive substance use were common factors associated with substance use among Nigerian secondary school students. School-based interventions should be multifaceted and holistic. More research should be theory-based and conducted in the Northern parts of Nigeria. Future studies should measure other psychological factors that may influence these behaviours to provide more insight into interventions.
The Concept of Legal Entity from the Islamic Law Perspectives
Authors: Abdullah Luqman , Rosele Muhammad Ikhlas , Ahmad Wan Marhaini Wan
Published: December 2020

Contrary to English law, classical fiqh does not have any clear discourse on the issue of the legal entity. In these modern times, however, it is important that this concept be given a jurisprudential review so that Islamic fiqh could keep abreast of the ever-changing and complex problems faced by Muslims. These include the imposition of zakat and the will on institutions and criminal liability of a company. A number of studies have been conducted on this issue and scholars have discussed their differing views. This study contributes to the literature through an analysis of the legal entity based on the views of classical and modern literature in relation to Islamic law and English law. For clarity and better understanding, the study provides a comprehensive picture of the concept by focusing on the notion of business accepted in English law. A qualitative approach had been adopted and the literature was synthesised inductively, deductively, and comparatively. The findings indicate a dichotomous view of the issues surrounding the concept of legal entity. Based on the analysis of the said discourse, it is found that such a concept has long existed and is embedded in Islamic law.
Tourist Experience, Tourist Motivation and Destination Loyalty for Historic and Cultural Tourists
Authors: Zhang Juan , Walsh John
Published: December 2020

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between tourist experience, tourist motivation and destination loyalty for historic and cultural tourists. A survey of 1,389 tourists who visited Sheqi, an ancient town in center China was conducted as the basis for empirical analysis. The results of this study revealed that tourists’ experience influenced destination loyalty positively, and tourist motivation mediated the effect of tourist experience on destination loyalty significantly.
Malay Narratives in Nanyang Travel
Authors: Ser Wue Hiong , Ng Chwee Fang
Published: December 2020

“Nanyang” 南洋was a general term used by the Chinese for Southeast Asia before World War II. After the 19th century, the Chinese moved to Nanyang in succession. Located at the centre of “Nanyang”, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore became the gathering place of the Chinese at that time and they unexpectedly encountered the indigenous Malay civilisation, thus arousing cultural interaction and immersion. In the 1920s and 1930s, a large number of Chinese literati came to the south for various purposes such as seeking relatives and friends, travelling, investigating, or settling down for a long time, and they recorded the experiences of what they saw and heard in Nanyang in travel records or books. The “Nanyang Youji” 南洋游记 (Nanyang Travels) mainly recorded the customs and anecdotes of the Nanyang society. It is rich in content, diverse in subject matter, and large in volume. It also has a unique writing style, with great literary, historical, and even cultural anthropology value. Although the content of “Nanyang Youji” is mainly based on Chinese society and culture, many of them also contain records of the Malay customs and culture that the author personally witnessed which are thus, very precious. This article reviews several “Nanyang Youji” travel records to gain an insight into the Malay society and the Chinese-Malay cultural interaction from the perspective of the early Nanyang travellers.
Enhancement of Voltage Stability Through Optimal Placement of TCSC
Authors: Yadav Renu , Varshney Sarika , Srivastava Laxmi
Published: December 2020

The increase in power demand has forced the power system to operate closer to its stability limit. Voltage instability and line overloading have become challenging problems due to the strengthening of power system by various means. The nature of voltage stability can be analyzed by the production, transmission and consumption of
reactive power. One of the major causes of voltage instability is the reactive power unbalancing which occurs in stressed condition of power system. Flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices play an important role in improving the performance of a power system, but these devices are very costly and hence need to be placed optimally in power system. FACTS device like thyristor controlled series compensator (TCSC) can be employed to reduce the flows in heavily loaded lines, resulting in a low system loss and improved stability of network. In this paper, a method based on line stability index, real power performance index and reduction of total system VAR power losses has been proposed to decide the optimal location of TCSC. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated on IEEE
30-bus power system.
Design of Optimal Power System Stabilizer Using ETAP
Authors: R Raja Nivedha. , L Sreevidya. , Geetha V. , Deepa R.
Published: December 2020

The main objective of this paper is to improve the critical clearing time of the Steel Plant 35 MW Turbo generator. In order to enhance the transient behavior of the system, Power System Stabilizer is added so that proper damping is done. Damping intra area and inter area oscillations are critical to optimal power flow and stability on a system. Power system stabilizer is an effective damping device, as they provide auxiliary control signals to the excitation system of the generator. Transient stability analysis was carried out for the
Steel plant. The three phase to ground and line to ground fault was simulated. The critical clearing time was found to be more when Power System Stabilizer was added and when Power System Stabilizer was not added the critical clearing time has considerably
reduced.
Human Capital And Large Scale PV Deployment
Authors: Ghosh Biswajit
Published: December 2020

Energy is one of the central parameters required for human survival after food. “Knowledge is power” and renewable energy plays increasingly important role to run knowledge-based society for sustainable social and economic development. Out of
these, solar photovoltaic (PV) energy system is a useful tool to run the knowledge based systems. Apart from research and development, PV systems need suitable human capital for its successful penetration into every nook and corner of the society. The
main aim of the present paper is to address the quality and quantity of human capital need in future to bring the solar PV power in the world electric power budget. Analyses on the chronology of PV power systems indicated that PV would be equivalent to other
conventional power sources by the year 2023. Proper implementation of PV power systems needs three levels of human capital and these are i. Skilled technicians ii. Experienced technologists and iii. Efficient executives. While the technicians would be involved in the installation, operation, maintenance and monitoring of solar PV systems, technologists need to provide the basis for the liberalization of PV systems and the executives need to develop its market, policy, planning and execution. Academic and research institutions need to develop these types of human capital to match with future demand of the PV power systems. Market and human capital are interdependent and the market for clean energy depends on issues like energy security, climate change, fossil fuel depletion, new and novel technologies and environmentally conscious consumers. The future PV market depends upon how powerful these forces are individually and collectively. Thus the PV communities need to build up human capital as well as newer market to generate demand for human resource for better dissemination of PV power.
Modeling, Control and Design of DC-DC Boost Converter for Grid Connected Photo-Voltaic Applications
Authors: Pendem Suneel Raju , Subudhi Bidyadhar
Published: December 2020

This article presents a design and development method of a DC-DC boost converter with constant output voltage. This system has a nonlinear dynamic behavior, as it works in switch-mode. Moreover, it is exposed to significant variations which may take this system away from nominal conditions, due to changes on the load or on the line voltage at the input. From a fluctuating or a variable input voltage, boost converter is able to step up the input voltage to a higher constant dc output voltage using the Non-linear feedback controllers such as PID controller and the Sliding Mode controllers. By this technique, the output of the converter is measured and compared with a reference voltage. The differential of the compared value will be used to produce a pulse width modulation signal to control switch in the boost converter. Simulation results describe the performance of the proposed design.
EFFICIENT E-MRZT ALGORITHM BASED TREE CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE FOR ZIGBEE MOBILE WIRELESS NETWORKS
Authors: R M HARIRAM , S MANJUNATHA , MUNGARA JITENDRANATH
Published: December 2020

In Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs), the Zig bee protocol/IEEE 802.15.4 standard is a protocol specification for low range, less cost and low power systems. The Zig bee network is usually constructed using cluster trees for the purpose of performing data delivery among nodes and for power saving. Here the data delivery failures occur due to
node mobility. In order to handle node movements so as to increase data delivery we use mobility-robust tree construction technique with clustering mechanism. In this paper we propose an E-MRZT (Extended MRZT) algorithm. We collect information about regularity of mobility patterns and by using this history, perform data delivery. We employ a clustering
mechanism in our network to obtain a set of cluster trees; each with a specific mobility pattern. The entire setup is developed and simulated by using NS2 network simulator. The result is that we obtain mobility-robust tree with a considerable increase
in data delivery.
MINIMAX FILTERING IN WIRELESS SENSOR AND ACTOR NETWORKS
Authors: RAMESH K. , Vasundra S.
Published: December 2020

In this paper to handle the mobility of actors a hybrid strategy that includes location updating and location prediction is used. The usage of Kalman Filtering in location prediction high power and energy consumptions. To avoid the drawbacks of Kalman Filtering in location prediction, we make use of Mini max filtering (also Known as H∞ filtering). Mini max Filter has been used in WSANs by minimizing the estimation error and maximizing the worst case adversary noise. Mini max filtering will also minimize power and energy consumptions.
REVIEW ON HIERARCHICAL ROUTING IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Authors: NEETIKA ER , KAUR SIMARPREET
Published: December 2020

The Wireless Sensor Network(WSN) has become an interesting field of research of the 21st century. It is a type of the wireless ad-hoc network. This has brought about developing low cost, low-power and multi-function sensor nodes. The network life for wireless sensor network plays an important role in survivability. Energy efficiency is one of the critical concerns for wireless sensor networks. Sensor nodes are strictly constrained in terms of storage, board energy and processing capacity. For these reasons, many new protocols have been proposed for the purpose of data routing in sensor networks. These protocols can be classified into three main categories: data-centric, location-based and hierarchical. This paper mainly deals with some of the major Energy-efficient hierarchical routing protocols for wireless sensor networks. First we will discuss the energy-efficient Hierarchical routing protocols in brief along with their important features, objectives, drawbacks and area of application. Finally, we provide a comparison of these various protocols.
PENGEMBANGAN PENDIDIKAN ISLAM NONFORMAL AIMAS KABUPATEN SORONG
Authors: Rasyid Muhammad Rusdi
Published: December 2020

Penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan pendekatan yang digunakan adalah pendekatan fenomenologi dan pendekatan keilmuan berupa sosiologis dan historis. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah; 1) untuk menemukan dan mendeskripsikan motivasi masyarakat dalam pengembangan pendidikan Islam nonformal, 2) mendeskripsikan dan menganalisis bentuk pengembangan pendidikan Islam nonformal di Aimas Kabupaten Sorong. Adapun sumber data penelitian ini adalah tokoh masyarakat, para pembina, pembimbing, tenaga pendidik, peserta didik, dan masyarakat. Selanjutnya, metode pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi, wawancara, dokumentasi, dan triangulasi. Tahap selanjutnya adalah teknik pengolahan data dan analisis data dilakukan dengan melalui reduksi data, penyajian data, dan verifikasi data. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa terdapat dua faktor penting yang menjadi motivasi pengembangan pendidikan Islam nonformal pada masyarakat transmigran Aimas Kabupaten Sorong, yaitu: 1) rendahnya pemahaman keagamaan, 2) ekonomi. Bentuk pengembangan pendidikan Islam nonformal ada tiga, yaitu melalui Taman Pendidikan Al-Qur’an (TPQ), Madrasah Diniyah (Madin), dan Majelis Taklim (MT).
Adubação da cultura da canola com torta de crambe
Authors: Koch Schuroffi Caroline , Weber Thaís , Lopes Carla Limberger , Andrade Edna Aparecida de , Doreto Leonardo , Pereira Natalia , Zanão Júnior Luiz Antônio
Published: December 2020

Tem se buscado opções de adubação utilizando resíduos agroindustriais, como o gerado pela prensagem das sementes de crambe para obtenção de óleo, denominado torta de crambe. A proposta deste trabalho foi avaliar a produtividade de grãos e óleo de canola quando adubada com torta de crambe, em comparação com adubação mineral. Utilizaram-se cinco doses de torta de crambe: 0, 2, 4, 8 e 16 t ha-1 e 400 kgha-1 do fertilizante mineral NPK 10-15-15. O delineamento adotado foi o de blocos casualizados, com quatro repetições. Avaliou-se a altura das plantas, produtividade, massa de mil grãos e teor de óleo nos grãos. Os resultados foram submetidos à análise de variância, teste de médias e análise de regressão utilizando-se o programa Assistat. Não houve efeito significativo dos tratamentos aplicados entre as variáveis analisadas. No entanto, quanto maior a dose da torta de crambe utilizada, maiores foram as respostas das variáveis analisadas, produtividade, massa de mil grãos e altura das plantas. O teor de óleo dos grãos não foi influenciado pelos tratamentos aplicados neste trabalho. Para a cultura da canola cultivada em Latossolo Vermelho Distroférrico com boa fertilidade pode ocorrer a substituição da adubação mineral pela realizada com torta de crambe.
Architectural modulation as a projecting system in Santiago de Benicalaf
Authors: Cortés Meseguer Luis , Pardo Conejero José , Congost Josep , Pérez Llopis Jaume
Published: December 2020

Bien es sabido que las reglas de proyectar la Arquitectura contemporánea son muy distintas a otros periodos históricos e incluso, entre los distintos estilos existen distintas leyes que las diferencian. Con la aparición de los tratadistas se recuperó la tradición clásica de composición con el orden y figuras geométricas equilibrantes, sobre todo para fachadas y portadas. El usar los conocimientos de los tratados implicaba que los Maestros tenían una formación en Arquitectura y, por lo tanto, se puede hablar de una arquitectura culta y al analizar las obras, nos acerca más a su proceso. Tal es el caso de la fachada de la iglesia de Santiago de Benicalaf (Valencia) -Spain- en el que al seguir los tratados de mayor relevancia, es decir, los conocidos en tierras españolas, se ven reflejadas muchas de esas reglas y que nos permiten acercarnos al artífice, además de asentar la obra arquitectónica como referente arquitectónico dentro de su contexto patrimonial.
Estimación de la fenología de la vegetación a partir de imágenes de satélite: el caso de la península ibérica e islas Baleares (2001-2017)
Authors: Caparros-Santiago J.A. , Rodríguez-Galiano V.F.
Published: December 2020

Phenological dynamics of vegetation is considered as an important biological indicator for understanding the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Land surface phenology (LSP), the study of vegetation phenology from time series of vegetation indices (IV), has provided a comprehensive overview of ecosystem dynamics. Iberian Peninsula is one of the regions with the greatest diversity of ecosystems in European continent. It is therefore an excellent study area for monitoring phenological dynamics of vegetation. The aim of this study is to analyse the spatial variability of the phenology of the vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands for the period 2001-2017. NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) time series were generated from the surface reflectance product MOD09Q1 at a spatial resolution of 250 meters and with a composite period of 8 days. Atmospheric disturbances and noise were reduced using a Savitzky-Golay smoothing filter. Different phenological metrics or phenometrics were extracted using a threshold-based method. Results showed the existence of a different behaviour between spring and autumn phenophases in the Atlantic and Mediterranean biogeographic regions. The Mediterranean mountainous areas showed a similar phenological behaviour to the Atlantic vegetation. Biogeographic regions showed an internal variability, which may be derived from the different behaviour of land covers (e.g., natural vegetation vs. crops).
Marcas de procedência: contribuições para o estudo do livro raro
Authors: Carvalho Rodrigues Marcia , Esperon Vian Alissa , Diniz Teixeira Heytor
Published: December 2020

Objetivo: Apresentar os resultados parciais da pesquisa intitulada “Contexto, situação e perspectivas dos acervos bibliográficos raros pertencentes às universidades gaúchas”, que teve início no ano de 2017, especialmente no que se refere às marcas de procedência.Método: De abordagem quanti-qualitativa, a presente pesquisa fez uso de revisão bibliográfica para a construção do aporte teórico. A partir de levantamento realizado na Internet, identificou-se 19 universidades no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul; destas, 12 possuem acervo raro e constituíram a amostra do estudo. Um questionário contendo 16 questões semifechadas foi enviado às referidas universidades. Para este trabalho, foram selecionadas três questões cujo teor tem relação com o tema “marcas de procedência”.Resultado: Os resultados evidenciam a existência de acervos de obras raras heterogêneos, cuja formação se deu, predominantemente, por doação e negociação direta com o proprietário e/ou familiares do mesmo. Em relação aos aspectos bibliológicos e culturais das obras, observa-se que os apontados com maior frequência pelos respondentes foram “Obras que pertenceram a uma personalidade de destaque” e “Obras contendo dedicatórias ou autógrafos”.Conclusões: Diante das diferentes e possíveis circunstâncias apresentadas, ressalta-se a importância dos estudos sobre a procedência das obras, tanto para o conhecimento de sua história, quanto para a valorização e o fortalecimento da imagem das bibliotecas e das instituições, bem como para a disseminação desses acervos.
(In)visíveis? crianças quilombolas e a necropolítica da infância no Brasil
Authors: Souza Marcia Lucia Anacleto de
Published: December 2020

O texto discorre sobre a invisibilidade em torno das condições de vida das crianças quilombolas no contexto da pandemia da Covid-19, a partir da constatação da omissão do Estado na implementação de políticas públicas de proteção e defesa das vidas em seus territórios. Diante da ausência de dados sobre os efeitos da pandemia na vida das crianças quilombolas, alcançou-se a realidade das comunidades de que são parte, e os efeitos da necropolítica que, historicamente, nega-lhes direitos sociais e territoriais. Em diálogo com teorias e pesquisas da Sociologia da Infância e Antropologia da Criança, compreende-se a infância como categoria que revela as múltiplas experiências das crianças, e desse modo, amplia a compreensão das injunções sociais, políticas e institucionais que atravessam seus territórios e identidades.
DL-inferencing for 3D Cephalometric Landmarks Regression task using OpenVINO
Authors: Vasiliev Evgeny , Lachinov Dmitrii , Getmanskaya Alexandra
Published: December 2020

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit in practical solving of the problem of automatic three-dimensional Cephalometric analysis using deep learning methods. This year, the authors proposed an approach to the detection of cephalometric landmarks from CT-tomography data, which is resistant to skull deformities and use convolutional neural networks (CNN). Resistance to deformations is due to the initial detection of 4 points that are basic for the parameterization of the skull shape. The approach was explored on CNN for three architectures. A record regression accuracy in comparison with analogs was obtained. This paper evaluates the perfor- mance of decision making for the trained CNN-models at the inference stage. For a comparative study, the computing environments PyTorch and Intel Distribution of OpenVINO were selected, and 2 of 3 CNN architectures: based on VGG for regression of cephalometric landmarks and an Hourglass-based model, with the RexNext backbone for the land- marks heatmap regression. The experimental dataset was consist of 20 CT of patients with acquired craniomaxillofacial deformities and was in- clude pre- and post-operative CT scans whose format is 800x800x496 with voxel spacing of 0.2x0.2x0.2 mm. Using OpenVINO showed a great increase in performance over the PyTorch, with inference speedup from 13 to 16 times for a Direct Regression model and from 3.5 to 3.8 times for a more complex and precise Hourglass model.
The Application of the Model of High-Speed Pixel Clustering in Problems of Preprocessing of the Images of the Remote Sensing of the Earth
Authors: Khanykov Igor
Published: December 2020

The purpose of the research is to use the modified Ward’s method in high-speed processing of full-HD images of the remote sensing of the Earth. The classical Ward’s method is modified by dividing the computational process into three successive stages. The first stage quickly builds a coarse hierarchy of approximations. The second stage performs a quality improvement of the specified partition for a fixed number of colors (clusters). The third stage is the clustering of the superpixels using the Ward’s method. The software-algorithmic toolkit consists of four operations on clusters of pixels and image segments: merge operation joins together two clusters; divide operation reversibly disjoins the selected cluster into two; split operation extracts the part of the cluster into individual cluster; correct operation reclassifies pixels by extracting from one cluster and inserting into another cluster. The quality is assessed by the total squared error. The quality improvement is provided by iterative execution of a combination of merge and divide operations of pixel clusters, in particular image segments. One of the clusters (segments) is divided in two and a pair of other mismatched with it is combined into one according to the criterion of the minimum increment of the total squared error. The proposed modified Ward’s method is appropriate in processing of fullHD images of the remote sensing of the Earth. The results of processing in pure segmentation and clustering modes are compared. The proposed pixel clustering model is appropriate in high-speed processing of the fullHD images. The pixel clustering in comparison with image segmentation allows to define in more detail both the contours of objects of interest and their internal structure
Two Machine Learning Based Schemes for Solving Direct and Inverse Problems of Radiative Transfer Theory
Authors: Efremenko Dmitry , Jain Himani , Xu Jian
Published: December 2020

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are used to substitute computationally expensive radiative transfer models (RTMs) and inverse operators (IO) for retrieving optical parameters of the medium. However, the direct parametrization of RTMs and IOs by means of ANNs has certain drawbacks, such as loss of generality, computations of huge training datasets, robustness issues etc. This paper provides an analysis of different ANN-related methods, based on our results and those published by other authors. In particular, two techniques are proposed. In the first method, the ANN substitutes the eigenvalue solver in the discrete ordinate RTM, thereby reducing the computational time. Unlike classical RTM parametrization schemes based on ANN, in this method the resulting ANN can be used for arbitrary geometry and layer optical thicknesses. In the second method, the IO is trained by using the real measurements (preprocessed Level-2 TROPOMI data) to improve the stability of the inverse operator. This method provides robust results even without applying the Tikhonov regularization method.
Surface Modeling in the Course of Engineering Graphics
Authors: Markova Tatiana , Bochkov Andrey , Kokorin Mikhail , Nikitina Tatiana
Published: December 2020

Development of the designer’s documentation package by means of CAD systems implies good skills with toolkits of solid and surface modeling. The ability to identify the surface type, its generation process and consequently to choose the optimal modeling is acquired in the descriptive geometry course, as well as engineering graphics and computer graphics courses. The article describes training assignments designed for students of machine building departments aimed both at consolidation of theoretical knowledge and development of skills required to identify and model various surface types.
Multi-Criteria Assessment of Shape Quality in CAD Systems of the Future
Authors: Muftejev Valerijan , Ziatdinov Rushan , Nabiyev Rifkat
Published: December 2020

Unlike many other works, where authors are usually focused on one or two quality criteria, the current manuscript, which is a generalization of the article [35] published in Russian, offers a multi-criteria approach to the assessment of the shape quality of curves that constitute component parts of the surfaces used for the computer modelling of object shapes in various types of design. Based on the analysis of point particle motion along a curved path, requirements for the quality of functional curves are proposed: a high order of smoothness, a minimum number of curvature extrema, minimization of the maximum value of curvature and its variation rate, minimization of the potential energy of the curve, and aesthetic analysis from the standpoint of the laws of technical aesthetics. The authors do not set themselves the task of giving a simple and precise mathematical definition of such curves. On the contrary, this category can include various curves that meet certain quality criteria, the refinement and addition of which is possible in the near future. Engineering practice shows that quality criteria can change over time, which does not diminish the need to develop multi-criteria methods for assessing the quality of geometric shapes. Technical issues faced during edge rounding in 3D models that affect the quality of industrial design product shape have been reviewed as an example of the imperfection of existing CAD systems.
A Scientometric Analysis of Publications Related to Predictive Medicine
Authors: Khakimova Aida , Gu Dongxiao , Zolotarev Oleg , Berberova Maria , Charnine Michael
Published: December 2020

Due to the increasing popularity of new research in medicine thisstudy was conducted to determine recent research trends of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine (PPM). We identified the terms relevant to PPM using own search engine based on neural network processing in PubMed database. We extracted initially about 15000 articles. Then we carried out the statistical analysis for identifying research trends. The article presents the results of solving the problem of evaluating research topics at the level of thematic clusters in a separate subject area. An approach based on the analysis of article titles has been implemented. Identification of terms, connections between them and thematic clustering were carried out using the free software VOSViewer, which allows to extract terms in the form of noun phrases, as well as to cluster them.
Segmentation of Lungs, Lesions, and Lesion Types on Chest CT Scans of Patients with Covid-19
Authors: Lashchenova Daria , Gromov Alexander , Konushin Anton , Mesheryakova Anna
Published: December 2020

The covid-19 pandemic has quickly spread all over the world, overwhelming public healthcare systems in many countries. In this situation demand for automatic assistance systems, to facilitate and accelerate a doctor’s job has rapidly increased. Antibody tests were introduced for diagnosing covid-19, but physicians still need tools for quantification of disease severity, since treatment choice strongly depends on it. To estimate the severity of the disease physicians use computer tomography scans. It provides physicians with information about lung lesions and their types and they use this information to determine proper treatment. In this paper we made an attempt to build a system that uses patients’ computer tomography scans for lung and lesion segmentation and for segmentation of specific types of lesions (i.e. pulmonary consolidation and “crazypaving”). Models for lung, lesions, consolidation, and “crazy-paving” segmentation performed with 0.96, 0.65, 0.48, 0.45 Dice coefficients respectively. Also it was shown that removing images with inaccurate ground-truth from the training subset can improve the quality of models trained on it.
Methodological Foundations for Teaching Computer Graphics for Students in IT Areas
Authors: Karabchevsky Vitaly
Published: December 2020

Computer technologies of graphic education of students studying programming and information technologies are considered. Particular attention is paid to the joint use of descriptive geometry methods and three-dimensional geometric modeling tools in the creation and study of models of geometric shapes. A basic set of competencies has been identified, allowing to solve the main types of computer graphics tasks, methods for achieving these competencies are considered.
Modeling of UV Disinfection Irradiation Installations Using Computer Graphics Programs
Authors: Meshkova Tatiana , Budak Vladimir
Published: December 2020

In connection with the appearance and spread of COVID-19, lighting equipment manufacturers have prepared product lines and marketing programs to promote irradiators for air disinfection for domestic and industrial needs. In this regard, the CIE issued an official request for the use of ultraviolet radiation to fight the spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, the penetration force of ultraviolet rays is small. The action of rays is limited only to the surface of the irradiated object, and the method of calculating and simulating irradiators is based on obtaining normalized values of irradiation on the surface. However, the main goal of designing bactericidal systems is to distribute UV radiation uniformly in all directions of engineering designs, regardless of their type. However, now, there is no computer graphics program allows you to get the values of normalized values at each point in space to check the effectiveness of the bactericidal system. This article presents a new method for solving the problem of modeling irradiation installations with the ability to analyze the normalized values at each point of the volume of air being treated.
Computer Graphics: New Horizons in the Education of Lighting Designers and Engineers
Authors: Budak Vladimir , Makarov Denis
Published: December 2020

The development of computer graphics programs (CGP) and their widespread introduction into the practice of designing indoor and outdoor lighting with the ability to visualize the projected object has led to the fact that the design engineer simultaneously performs the functions of a designer. Similarly, designers creating artistic light images that previously assumed the selection and adjustment of light on the spot are now forced to select real lighting devices using PKG, which requires professional engineering knowledge. It determines the objective basis for creating a new specialty – light designer. However, the systems of engineering and art education have almost no common methodological foundations. We propose a method of teaching based on the use of PCG in the educational process, which will be able to combine both educational systems into a single specialty. The methodology is based on the joint project created with the teacher in CGP, collective discussion, and defense of the developed projects. It allows engineers to explain the created artistic images, and designers to explain the influence of the characteristics of light fields and parameters of lighting devices on the image. The results of test sessions among students in both areas of study are discussed. The thinking features of each student group and the possibility of developing a unified approach to design are analyzed.
Staining Cells with Extracts Prepared from Flowers of Bougainvillea X Buttiana.
Authors:   , Towet Paul
Published: December 2020

Background: Staining is the application of dyes to specimens to impart colour to cells through a chemical reaction. The study aimed at finding plant extracts to stain human blood cells, stem sections of Amaranthus species, Gram-negative organisms such as Escherichia coli, and Gram-positive organisms such as Staphylococcus aureus. Methodology: Healthy mature flowers of Bougainvillea X buttiana and Amaranthus species plants were picked from gardens around the University of Kisubi. Bracts of Bougainvillea X buttiana were separated from other flower parts and air-dried. Both negative and positive controls for cells were prepared. Results: White blood cells, platelets, and cells of Escherichia Coli and Staphylococcus aureus did not stain under all treatments with the extracts while human red blood cells and stem sections of Amaranthus species stained under certain treatments with the extracts. The extracts were more successful in staining stem sections of Amaranthus species as compared to human red blood cells where staining occurred in very few circumstances. Stem sections of Amaranthus species required shorter to stain effectively while human red blood cells required longer to stain effectively. Conclusion: Extracts of the bracts of Bougainvillea X  can be experimented with various cells when their pH is neutral and alkaline.
ADDITIVES FOR CELLULASE ENHANCEMENT
Authors: Obeng Eugene M. , Chan Yi Wei  , Nadzirah Adam Siti Nurul , Ongkudon Clarence M.
Published: December 2020

Cellulases have been vital for the saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass into reduced sugars to produce biofuels and other essential biochemicals. However, the sugar yields achievable for canonical cellulases (i.e. endoglucanases, exoglucanases and β-glucosidases) have not been convincing in support of the highly acclaimed prospects and end-uses heralded. The persistent pursuit of the biochemical industry to obtain high quantities of useful chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass has resulted in the supplementation of cellulose-degrading enzymes with other biologicalcomplementation. Also, chemical additives (e.g. salts, surfactants and chelating agents) have been employed to enhance the stability and improve the binding and overall functionality of cellulases to increase product titre. Herein, we report the roadmap of cellulase-additive supplementations and the associated yield performances.
CHARACTERISATION OF AN ANTARCTIC YEAST, Glaciozyma antarctica PI12
Authors: Teoh Chul Peng  , Koh Soon Peng  , Clemente Michael Wong Vui Ling
Published: December 2020

Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 is a psychrophilic yeast isolated from Antarctica. It has an optimal growth in yeast peptone dextrose (YPD) and yeast mould (YM) broth media but not in potato dextrose (PD) broth medium. Early phase G. antarctica PI12 cells had elongated-shape and became oval-shaped as they aged. G. antarctica PI12 exhibited bipolar budding and formed a chain of cells during the lag and early exponential phases. The number of chains decreased as the yeast aged. It appeared mainly as a single cell at the stationary phase, and a small number of them still produced buds. Some cells at the stationary phase entered the quiescence state (G0) as a longterm survival strategy. The G. antarctica PI12 cell size decreased when they entered the stationary phase. G. antarctica PI12 was found to produce hydrolytic enzymes, chitinase, cellulase, mannanase, and xylanase. A higher glucose concentration of 2% in the PD agar medium inhibited the activities of chitinase but not the cellulase, mananase and xylanase.
Improving Deep-Learning-based Face Recognition to Increase Robustness against Morphing Attacks
Authors: M. Kelly Una , Spreeuwers Luuk , Veldhuis Raymond
Published: December 2020

State-of-the-art face recognition systems (FRS) are vulnerable to morphing attacks, in which two photos of different people are merged in such a way that the resulting photo resembles both people. Such a photo could be used to apply for a passport, allowing both people to travel with the same identity document. Research has so far focussed on developing morphing detection methods. We suggest that it might instead be worthwhile to make face recognition systems themselves more robust to morphing attacks. We show that deep-learning-based face recognition can be improved simply by treating morphed images just like real images during training but also that, for significant improvements, more work is needed. Furthermore, we test the performance of our FRS on morphs of a type not seen during training. This addresses the problem of overfitting to the type of morphs used during training, which is often overlooked in current research.
Research on Noise Reduction and Enhancement of Weld Image
Authors: Zhang Xiang-Song , Gao Wei-Xin , Zhu Shi-Ling
Published: December 2020

In order to eliminate the salt pepper and Gaussian mixed noise in X-ray weld image, the extreme value characteristics of salt and pepper noise are used to separate the mixed noise, and the non local mean filtering algorithm is used to denoise it. Because the smoothness of the exponential weighted kernel function is too large, it is easy to cause the image details fuzzy, so the cosine coefficient based on the function is adopted. An improved non local mean image denoising algorithm is designed by using weighted Gaussian kernel function. The experimental results show that the new algorithm reduces the noise and retains the details of the original image, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio is increased by 1.5 dB. An adaptive salt and pepper noise elimination algorithm is proposed, which can automatically adjust the filtering window to identify the noise probability. Firstly, the median filter is applied to the image, and the filtering results are compared with the pre filtering results to get the noise points. Then the weighted average of the middle three groups of data under each filtering window is used to estimate the image noise probability. Before filtering, the obvious noise points are removed by threshold method, and then the central pixel is estimated by the reciprocal square of the distance from the center pixel of the window. Finally, according to Takagi Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy rules, the output estimates of different models are fused by using noise probability. Experimental results show that the algorithm has the ability of automatic noise estimation and adaptive window adjustment. After filtering, the standard mean square deviation can be reduced by more than 20%, and the speed can be increased more than twice. In the enhancement part, a nonlinear image enhancement method is proposed, which can adjust the parameters adaptively and enhance the weld area automatically instead of the background area. The enhancement effect achieves the best personal visual effect. Compared with the traditional method, the enhancement effect is better and more in line with the needs of industrial field.
Blind SQL Injection Attacks Optimization
Authors: Ventura Ruben
Published: December 2020

This paper presents new and evolved methods to perform Blind SQL Injection attacks. These are much faster than the current publicly available tools and techniques due to optimization and redesign ideas that hack databases in more efficient methods, using cleverer injection payloads; this is the result of years of private research. Implementing these methods within carefully crafted code has resulted in the development of the fastest tools in the world to extract information from a database through Blind SQL Injection vulnerabilities. These tools are around 1600% faster than the currently most popular tools. The nature of such attack vectors will be explained in this paper, including all of their intrinsic details.
Lower Bound of Zero-visibility Cops and Robber Game on the Cube Grid
Authors: Wang Jiahui , Zhong Farong
Published: December 2020

Zero-visibility cops and robber game is a variant of the classical model. The robber is invisible in the zero-visibility game. In this paper, we study the zero-visibility cops and robber game on the cube grid. We first study a partition problem of the cube grid. Then we prove the lower bound on the zero-visibility cop number of the cube grid by using the results in the partition. We also show the lower bound is a quadratic polynomial about n.
Clinical Assessment and Management of Covid-19 Patients using Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Phalnikar Rashmi , Dixit Subhal , Talele Harsha
Published: December 2020

The COVID-19 infection caused by Novel Corona Virus has been declared a pandemic and a public health emergency of international concern. Infections caused by Corona Virus have been previously recognized in people and is known to cause Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Unlike the earlier infections, COVID19 spreads alarmingly and the experience and volume of the scientific knowledge on the virus is small and lacks substantiation. To manage this crisis, Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to play a key role in understanding and addressing the COVID-19 crisis. It tends to be valuable to identify the infection, analyse it, treat it and also predict the stages of infection. Artificial intelligence algorithms can be applied to make diagnosis of COVID-19 and stepping up research and therapy. The paper explains a detailed flowchart of COVID-19 patient and discusses the use of AI at various stages. The preliminary contribution of the paper is in identifying the stages where the use of Artificial Intelligence and its allied fields can help in managing COVID-19 patient and paves a road for systematic research in future.
THE INFLUENCE OF INSECURITY ON ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION OF THE MINORITIES IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, PAKISTAN
Authors: Rehman Ubaid ur , Amin Faisal , Mudasser Abbas Syed
Published: December 2020

The Christian minorities in Pakistan have constitutional recognition and rights but mostly facing economic deprivation due to insecurity. This study focused on Influence of insecurity on economic deprivation of minorities in KP, Pakistan. The cross-sectional design was adopted to explore the association between economic deprivation (dependent variable) and lack of security (independent variable). Study utilized a quantitative survey to collect data through a questionnaire. The simple random sampling technique was used to access sample in population comprised of Christian community. Two instruments included index of minority deprivation and minority discrimination questionnaire were used to measure economic deprivation and insecurity. Findings revealed that religious insecurity, professional insecurity and financial showed as indicators of insecurity had highly significant (p=.000) and positive (r=.257) association with economic deprivation of minorities. It is concluded that government should minimize religious extremism, enhance the quota system in jobs and education that may decrease the economic deprivation of minorities.
DEVELOPING A TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL FOR THE MOBILE BANKING ADOPTION IN PAKISTAN
Authors: Ibrahim Muhammad , Khalil Shahid Muhammad , Ahmed Syed Shuja
Published: December 2020

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a simplistic information system. The improved features of new technology strongly impact the consumer's use of it. The objective of the research was to develop TAM for online banking in Pakistan. This research was the primary research wherein data was collected from five hundred respondents which were students of universities of private and government sector (Islamabad/ Rawalpindi cities) through questionnaires. Correlation and regression tests were conducted via SPSS software; correlation analysis showed that a significant positive relationship exists without ethics among all the factors. In regression analysis value of R2 = 0.621 it indicates that every independent variable has 62% impact on dependent variable, model has capability to predict future results of research. The research result suggested that ethics and ethical values are the main hurdles in adoption of the mobile banking in Pakistan. The research findings will help the business managers and related organizations to reconstruct their business strategies in order to capture and retain the maximum potential customers.