GSTF Digital Library (GSTF-DL): Open Journal Systems (Global Science and Technology Forum)
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Using CFRP for Enhancing of Circular Cutout in High Strength RC Deep Beam
No full textThis paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of the using of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) to enhance the high strength reinforced concrete (RC) deep beam in case of creating a circular cutout throughout its web. A set of 5 specimens were grouped and investigated to evaluate the structural behavior in terms of shear strength capacity and deflection. The specimens were 1200mm long with rectangular cross-section of 100x500mm. Two symmetric circular cutouts of 150mm diameter were made at midpoint of each shear span. CFRP strips were installed around the cutouts in three different configurations in order to enhance the cutout zone. The results of this experimental work showed that the diagonal configuration of CFRP strips around the cutout was the best one, as the ultimate shear strength ratio with respect to control solid beam was 0.97, while it was 0.86 for control beam with cutouts. A significant positive effect was observed on the deflection for the beams that enhanced with CFRP strips. Also, CFRP sheet oriented diagonally around cutout was the most appropriate for reducing the deflection
An Overview of the Change Management Process and Examples of Software to Help Organizations Effectively Manage Change
Get PDFEvery organization undergoes change on a continual basis and must understand how to manage the change process. This article overviews change management and discusses software packages and other tools that can help organizations manage the inevitable changes which occur frequently. It also examines risks and control objectives associated with change. It concludes that organizations often overlook proper change management techniques and can benefit by the ideas discussed in this article
Ontology Based Approach for Diagnosis in Personalized Medicine
No full textDue to complexity of the human body, overlapping phenotypes and complex disease networks, disease diagnosis is a real challenge for the physicians. Medical diagnostic decision support systems have been developed as an approach to ease the process of disease diagnosis. Improved patient safety, improved quality of care and improved efficiency in health care delivery are potential benefits of MDDSS.This research proposes a novel and generic mathematical model into differential diagnosis of genetic diseases instead of traditional method of analyzing gene mutations to expose genetic diseases. It is achieved by genotype-phenotype correlation thro-ugh a common computer science concept called Ontology. Basically emerging genetic mutations of the patient are mapped to the standardized vocabulary called Human Phenotype Ontology and subsequently differential diagnosis is done using those terms. Differential diagnosis process is achieved by measuring ontology based semantic similarity by combining information theory and fuzzy relational theory. The system is capable of diagnosing the probability of occurrence of five complex diseases namely Lymphedema-Distichiasis Syndrome, Cornelia de Lange syndrome-me, Popliteal pterygium syndrome, Cohen Syndrome and Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome.We evaluate our system by comparing the results obtained from our system with domain expert’s diagnosis. Pre-diagnosed set of real Cornelia de Lange syndrome patients’ data were used in this attempt. According to the results, our system diagnoses Cornelia de Lange Syndrome with an average probability of 78.32%, Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome has 61.35% probability and other three diseases with very low probability values. This thesaurus based approach which considers a correlation of phenotypes and genotype of a patient can be used by a physician to make a better diagnosis of a disease
Explicating Curiosity via Uncertainty and Interest, Augmented with Open-Mindedness
No full textThe objective of this paper is to raise a challenge to Ilhan Inan’s claim (2013) that an agent’s curiosity ceases when the agent is firmly certain about the object of curiosity that is of interest to him, and to supplement his account by appealing to an aspect of curiosity that Inan overlooks substantively: open-mindedness. To achieve this objective, I first provide a brief summary of Inan’s claim that an agent’s curiosity is directly proportional to his interest and uncertainty, and inversely proportional to evidence and belief. Second, I discuss my objection to an aspect of Inan’s claim that firm certainty and (high) interest yields no curiosity. In ordinary enquiries or cases of propositional curiosity (e.g., whether questions), Inan’s claim that firm certainty extinguishes curiosity is convincing. However, there can be objectual curiosity cases (e.g., what questions) where Inan’s claim may not be sufficient.  Moreover, in many academic enquiries, a scientist may remain motivated to expend extra epistemic and cognitive capital, despite his firm certainty about his once imaginable aspects of the object of curiosity, for the sake of unimaginable possibilities. Fueled by his continued curiosity, it is not uncommon for a scientist to take self-initiatives and reconsider propositions he was once certain about.  Based on his past experiences, he might have learned that certainty is generally impermanent and does not always last forever, which could keep his curiosity and hence the possibility of discovering more truths alive. Third, I present a number of rebuttals to my objection and show how they fall short of supporting Inan’s account including the role of other feelings such as fear and anxiety about losing face, and knowing but being subjectively uncertain, which may motivate continued curiosity even when the agent is firmly certain. Fourth, I suggest an alternative view by adding open-mindedness to Inan’s curiosity formulation that could help exculpate my objection. Instead of Inan’s proposition, I suggest that one can remain curious about an objective he is interested in, despite being certain about it, when he is open-minded.  (Baehr, 2012) Open-mindedness is a facilitating virtue and an activity that is a cognitive moving beyond or transcending of the person’s doxastic commitments, thus facilitating curiosity. Open-mindedness assists in keeping the agent’s interest and uncertainty alive, and helps freeing the mind beyond default beliefs and binds of certainty
Excessive Game-Playing and Children's Academic Performance in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
No full textPeople are uncertain about the role of excessive electronic game-playing on children's academic performance. It is on this premise that this study examines the effects of excessive electronic game-playing on children's academic performance in Port Harcourt. The study use survey and quasi-experiment to sample 371 students of Junior Secondary school 1-3 who are within the age brackets of 10-12. Based on the problem and objectives of the study, research questions were formulated. Research question one to know the extent of excessive game-playing among the children, while research question two sought ascertain the relationship between excessive game-playing and the academic performance of children. A null hypothesis was also formulated and tested with the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient with the level of significance tested at 0.5 level of significance. The findings showed that a proportion of the sampled population met the criterion of addiction and the majority of the children were still non-frequent gamers. The result also showed that there is a negative correlation between excessive game-playing and academic performance as the majority of the very high scorers in tests administered on the children were from the category labelled as non-frequent and low frequent gamers. The null hypothesis that said 'there is no significant relationship between extent of excessive play and academic performance was rejected, as the r-value was -0.27. Based on these findings, it was recommended that parents should monitor their children's gaming habits and that governments should control the importation of entertainment games and encourage more of educational games
Iterative Solution of Boundary Integral Equations for Shallow Water Waves
No full textThe motion of shallow water, unlike deep water, is influenced by the bottom topology. In order to obtain the velocity potential at any given point of the surface at any given time, we apply boundary integral techniques and solve a system of two integral equations, one expresses the velocity potential at the free surface and on the bottom, the other expresses the streamfunction at the free surface and on the bottom. Boundary integrals can produce very accurate results for shallow water equations but they are too complex to solve analytically and must be solved numerically. In this paper, we use three different numerical methods to compute the solutions to these integral equations: by Gaussian elimination which has high compuational cost; by iteration to construct the Neumann series which converges; and by a preconditioned version of the iteration which effectively lowers the total computation cost
Nonlinear Piecewise-defined Difference Equations with Reciprocal and Cubic Terms
No full textIn this paper we consider the several types of piecewisedefined sequences. We prove some results concerning thebehavior of the sequence. In some cases we prove that the terms repeat themselves in certain patterns, and we prove in other cases that the terms grow monotonically after few terms and approaches infinity
The Influence of Internal Service Quality toward Patient's Behavioral Intention in Inpatient Unit at the Type C General Hospitals in East Java, Indonesia
Get PDFThe research aims to examine the influence of internal service quality toward patient’s behavioral interest through nurse job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, service quality of episode of care, and patient satisfaction in inpatient unit at type C general hospitals in East Java. Quantitative approach is used in this research and the unit of analysis is some type C hospitals in East Java. The result of research shows that: (1) internal service quality has a significant influence toward nurse job satisfaction; (2) nurse job satisfaction has a significant influence toward organizational citizenship behavior; (3) nurse job satisfaction has a significant influence toward service quality of episode of care; (4) organizational citizenship behavior has no significant influence toward service quality of episode of care; (5) organizational citizenship behavior has no significant influence toward patient satisfaction; (6) service quality of episode of care has a significant influence towards patient satisfaction, and (7) patient satisfaction has a significant influence toward patient’s behavioral intention
A Brief Learning Experience Designed to Increase Nursing Students’Knowledge of and Attitudes Toward LGBT Health Care
Get PDFThis study examined the effect of a brief learning experience on nursing students’ knowledge of and attitudes toward providing care to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals. The Nursing Students’ Knowledge of and Attitudes toward LGBT Healthcare (NKALH) survey was administered to a convenience sample of 41 senior nursing students enrolled in a community health course. At pretest, there were significant knowledge deficits (20% of the questions were answered correctly) and low attitude scores toward LGBT healthcare needs existed. At posttest, students’ knowledge scores increased to 84%; attitude scores increased slightly, but not significantly (p = 0.07). Among the students who participated in the study, none felt they would be unable to care for an LGBT individual
Nurse Practice Environment and Quality of Care in a Multigenerational Workforce
Get PDFIn recent years, the nurse practice environment included nurses from multigenerational [1, 2, 3, 4] presenting organizational hurdles as they collaborate on nursing teams [5, 6] that affected the quality of care they render. Thus, the present study was conducted to ascertain the relationship of nurse practice environment (NPE) and quality of care (QoC) in a multigenerational workforce. The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI; Lake, 2002) and Karen-Personnel Instrument (Lindgren & Andersson, 2010) were employed to measure the NPE and QoC, respectively. Data from randomly selected staff nurses (N=213) from two (2) private tertiary hospitals in Metro Manila were analyzed using Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). Results indicated that multigenerational workforce does not influence nurse practice environment and quality of care (β=0.004; p>0.05). Nonetheless, findings of this study could expectedly yield valuable insights that would assist nursing leaders to further examine the nurse practice environment so that nurses could function at the highest scope of clinical practice