Toronto Metropolitan University Open Journals
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A Comparative Study on Thermal Analysis of Latent Heat Energy Storage Systems Using Phase Change Materials
No full textLatent heat energy storage systems utilizing phase change materials (PCMs) have gained significant attention in recent years due to their potential to address energy storage challenges and promote sustainability in various applications. This study presents comprehensive thermal analyses conducted on PCM-based latent heat energy storage systems to assess their charging and discharging operating conditions. In this study Dodecanoic acid serves as the phase change material (PCM). Two copper tube have fins which increase the thermal performance of the LHESS. This leads to better understanding of the melting and solidification processes in order to optimize future LHESS design. CFD model simulations are carried out with COMSOL Multiphysics 6.1 with Time-dependent solver configuration. Results indicate that PCM-based systems exhibit efficient thermal energy storage and release capabilities, with notable improvements in energy efficiency and thermal stability compared to conventional storage methods. In the discussion section of the article, challenges addressed by simulations are presented
Matlab code for I-V curve analysis of CIGS solar cells
No full textThe article presents the results of using one diode model for analysis a large number of the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of solar cells (SC) with CuIn1-хGax(Se)2 (CIGS) absorption layer. Comparison of the model results with experimental curves showed the match of simulated and experimental IV curves with determination coefficients of more than 0.95. The developed model makes it possible to quickly process experimental data, i.e. I-V curves, and comparison of saturation current, ideality factor, proportional and series resistance, short circuit current, open circuit voltage, fill factor and efficiency from each curve before and after the experiments
Navigating the nexus of LMIC healthcare facilities, nurses\u27 welfare, nurse shortage and migration to greener pastures: A narrative literature review
No full textBackground & Aim: This review explores the intricate interplay between healthcare facilities, nurses\u27 welfare, and the dynamics of shortage and migration in LMICs. Through a comprehensive global lens, the analysis delves into the multifaceted challenges and implications inherent in nurse migration, offering insights into developing effective strategies for a sustainable and equitable healthcare workforce. Methods & Materials: This narrative literature review was conducted from 2012 to present across PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EmCare, British Nursing Index, Hinari, APA PsycINFO, ProQuest, and EMBASE. Google Scholar was also searched for grey literature and the reference lists of the included articles were examined to identify additional relevant studies. A comprehensive analysis was conducted, employing descriptive theoretical frameworks to examine the association of nurses’ welfare, shortage, and migration with specific emphasis on elucidating its global implications. The analysis identified healthcare facilities in LMICs, nurses\u27 welfare in LMICs and its significance, global nurse shortage and its consequence, and nurses’ migration as a response to challenges. These themes provided a framework for understanding the phenomenon under review. Results: The migration of nurses in search of greener pastures has not entirely resolved the challenges faced by both migrating nurses and the recruiting countries. The persistently unfavourable conditions in the nurses’ home countries regarded as the push factors continue to worsen while the anticipated gain referred to as pulls, in the recruiting countries are often found to be imperfect and ultimately insufficient to fulfil the expectations of the migrating nurses.Conclusion: Individual countries must internally formulate or adapt policies to address these issues, taking cognizance of the importance of a global perspective when designing interventions, to prevent inadvertently exacerbating gaps in other nations while addressing local healthcare challenges
Internationally educated nurses’ workplace acculturation and strategies for integration: Application of the Fourfold Model of Acculturation Theory (FMAT)
No full textIntroduction. Internationally educated nurses (IENs) bring diverse skills, experiences, and cultural perspectives to healthcare institutions in the host country. However, their integration involves multiple adjustments encompassing physical, sociocultural, linguistic, psychological, and economic changes. Aims. This paper aims to explore the acculturation processes experienced by IENs and create strategies to support them as they adjust to their new workplace environment. Methods. The Fourfold Model of Acculturation Theory (FMAT) was utilized to develop effective strategies to improve professional, psychosocial, cultural, and organizational outcomes for IENs. Findings. Poor IEN integration stemming from cultural disparities leads to acculturation stress. This stress involves physical health issues, mental exhaustion, identity confusion, social isolation, and marginalization by their colleagues. Implications. The successful integration of IENs requires the involvement of stakeholders at the host workplace. Two-way workplace integration requires efforts from and partnership between stakeholders and IENs. Conclusion. The Fourfold Model of Acculturation Theory underscores that IENs who embrace both their native and dominant cultures are better integrated into their new workplace environments. Such integration positively impacts the individual, institutional, and societal domains. Stakeholders, policymakers, program planners, and healthcare institutions must foster a pluralistic culture and provide support to domestic and international nurses in understanding their professional roles and practices
Impacts of large-scale seaweed farming trends on the local environment and community
No full textSeaweed farming has been growing globally as a sustainable food production method and by expanding applications for human health to agricultural and industrial materials. Recent literatures published within ten years were examined with some keywords including “large-scale seaweed farming” and “seaweed industrialization.” This comprehensive literature review on large-scale seaweed farming suggested that there are both concerns and opportunities regarding ecological-environmental and socio-economical perspectives brought by such current growing trend. While negative impact on other concurrent natural organisms, pollution, and disease and pest outbreaks, are concerning, seaweed farming can also contribute to water quality and carbon sequestration. Moreover, seaweed farming needs to consider producers’ economical conditions and health, as well as potential environmental burden by suboptimal farming conditions. There are technological challenges to meet the growing demand, while seaweed farming has potential value in food security and women empowerment. Considering these multiple impacts generated by upscaling seaweed farming, global actions to maximize benefits and mitigate negative consequences is necessary. It is crucial to enhance capacities and develop technologies for production and processing. The insufficient coverage of existing international and regional frameworks for biosecurity of aquaculture requires improvement of disease monitoring and surveillance mechanism along with increasing investments in research and capacity building. They also need consistent terminology and optimized local-level practices to address multiple challenges including social and human aspects, which can provide valuable knowledge for sustainable development
Transmedia Stories and Practice: Shaping the Entanglements between the Internal and External Margins of Society.
No full textSince 2019, the research group Imagis Lab (Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano) has been conducting action-research activities inside prisons in Milan (Seconda Casa di Reclusione di Bollate and Casa Circondariale\u27 Francesco di Cataldo\u27, carcere di San Vittore), experimenting with the role of communication design as a relational process, and storytelling as both a tool to activate listening processes and a collaborative practice to investigate and build new imaginaries.
This paper focuses on the current activities within Off Campus San Vittore (www.polisocial.polimi.it/en/off-campus-3/), a space of the university within the San Vittore jail, the third one opened by Polisocial - The social engagement and responsibility programme at Politecnico di Milano in marginal places of the city identified in collaboration with the Milan Municipality. According to a multidisciplinary and in-field research approach, Off Campus San Vittore aims to build new knowledge about places of detention and bring the prison closer to the city and vice versa. The specific goal of Imagis Lab\u27s activities within Off Campus San Vittore is the production of participatory narratives and multimedia content, developing a communication system to connect the inside world with the outside world.
Prison is a separate world only inmates, prison officers, and sanitary and pedagogical operators know, affected by complex and slow internal dynamics. On the one hand, it is a physical space in the neighbourhood, but citizens mostly ignore it. On the other hand, it is a social space inhabited by people; it is a "hidden neighbourhood" in the San Vittore neighbourhood.
This paper presents a design education activity that Imagis Lab is conducting to support the transformation of the public opinion\u27s imaginary of the prison, involving 40 students enrolled in the Final Design Studio course of the MSc in Communication Design (School of Design, Politecnico di Milano).
The project goal is to give new meanings to the prison, creating a more comprehensive and layered narrative of the neighbourhood in which San Vittore prison could no longer be perceived as an invisible space but as an integrated reality through:
The inclusion of the \u27hidden neighbourhood\u27: including the prison in people\u27s imagination;
The construction of a new mind: creating a new perception of the prison and the space it occupies in the neighbourhood by building new meanings;
The generation of a polyphonic narrative: telling the prison through different points of view;
The construction of a different relationship between the neighbourhood and the San Vittore prison: engaging neighbourhood citizens through the design of multi-channel communication systems.
The paper presents the process and analyses the transmedia projects: design teams met and listened to stakeholders dealing with the complex challenges of prison and its social groups. They jumped into the stakeholders\u27 shoes and provided different viewpoints. The transmedia practice activated new societal connections and students\u27 awareness about the system of values and conflicts and stimulated their own agency. Building transmedia projects based on fictional and/or factual plots, they shape entanglements at the relational and narrative levels. They elicit discourses as transformation and engagement projects towards cultural change
Poetic Futurity: Envisioning Trans Narratives as Technopoetic Utopia
No full textThis study embarks on an exploratory journey into the intricate landscape of transgender identities in Kerala, focusing on transfeminine experiences. Employing a methodological approach that intertwines poetic inquiry with qualitative analysis, this study draws upon data from Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with transfeminine participants delving into their experiences with self-acceptance, incidents of hostility, repudiation, agency, and relationships. We then transform this text into data poems, creating a reflective and emotive exploration of the participants\u27 experiences unpacking collaborative poetics approach. This article details the process and impact of this engagement, illustrating how the integration of poetry enabled a profound exploration of participants\u27 experiences. Further to this, we tested the purported ability of the state-of -the art Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, and Deep Learning algorithm; Chapt GPT Plus to generate Trans-poetic experiences from raw data. From the algorithmic samples (n=13), all poems were chosen (Human-out-of-the loop) and matched with human-written poems. In an incentivized version of the Turing Test, reactions of the focus group upon exposure were assessed in a separate experiment, giving evidence that participants succeeded to reliably detect the algorithmically generated poems. We discuss what these results convey about the performance of NLP algorithms to produce human-like text and propose methodologies to study such learning algorithms in human-agent experimental settings. The collaborative effort in crafting and reflecting upon these poems provided a novel avenue for both researchers and participants to investigate and confront issues of discrimination and marginalization. We also seek to bridge the cultural and technopoetic divides that exist between accounts of regional poetry in the Indian literary landscape
AR Cité Imagine if the City Could Speak: Unconver the Hidden Augmented Realities Embedded within our Cityscape
No full textAR Cité is an augmented reality (AR) mobile app that accompanies users on an expedition through Montreal\u27s Shaughnessy Village. Created by students, the gamified experience integrates the city\u27s past into its contemporary landscape bringing to life historical depictions, personal stories, critical observations and artistic interpretations.
The apps, with English and French versions, are available for iOS and Android devices and currently boast over 20 locations and 40 media vignettes, with more currently in production.
The neighbourhood around Dawson College, where most of the AR experiences take place, is one of Canada’s most densely populated inner-city areas. It is steeped in history, controversial legacies and ongoing gentrification injustices. As students learn about the realities of their surroundings, they are inspired to bring creative reflections into the public sphere through augmented reality vignettes.
Examples of the vignettes include an interview with Abanaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, the Joe Rose story (a local LGBTQ activist who was murdered), the gentrification of the iconic Montreal Forum hockey arena, and dozens more. AR Cité guides users through pivotal milestones, gentrified structures, and transformative politics that have defined Montreal\u27s identity.
Beyond the colourful interface of this interactive game, AR Cité serves as a dynamic educational tool, igniting curiosity and fostering a deeper appreciation for our collective heritage through the innovative lens of augmented reality. What conclusions might be drawn about our communities, about how time changes narratives, obfuscates politics and the impact of historical events and how entangled actors can influence our collective memory.
As a research-creation project, AR Cité continues to be a rich learning experience, bringing together diverse teams from a wide-range of disciplines. Producing works for the app has fostered a community of media producers as well as the now hundreds of intrepid users; teachers and students who are embarking on the AR Cité experience.
But it has not all been smooth sailing, and the project team has learned much about the nature of producing location-based media as well as the impact of the app on its users. We continue to reflect on our experiences and adjust as production continues and a new cohort of students help to bring the project to the wider community
Heat Transfer Characteristics of Draining Film Flow
No full textAn accurate and comprehensive numerical solution to the parabolic free boundary problem arising from thin film flow with both velocity and temperature distribution at large Reynolds numbers is obtained using a modified Keller box method. A detailed numerical solution scheme is presented to establish the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the draining film flow. A solution is obtained for selecting representative values for the basic parameters of heat transfer in the flow of a cold two-dimensional draining sheet over a hot horizontal cylinder. These indicate the underlying features of developing film thickness, velocity, and temperature distribution. Good agreement with the approximations is obtained, providing basic confirmation of the validity of the numerical results presented. Numerical solutions, supplemented with parameter values associated with specified configurations and operating conditions, can be readily invoked to establish the details of engineering practice
Some Applications of Qualitative Theory of Differential Equations
No full textThis article is devoted to the dеscription of the qualitative theory of differential equations and its applications. The article considers the solution of issues related to biology, medicine and other sciences using the methods of qualitative theory of differential equations. At the same time, the advantage of qualitative theory methоds of differential equatiоns in solving problems related to biology, medicine, physics, electro-energy and other fields is also shown