Higher Capacity Levels Research Articles

Social Vulnerability and Regional Capacity of The Cilegon City and Serang Regency from Tsunami Hazard

Resilience is the social ability for adaptation, which is determined by the extent to which the social system can learn from past disasters to better protect itself in the future and improve risk reduction measures. Historically, the Cilegon City and Serang Regency experienced several tsunami events with innumerable losses, which may indicate low resiliency. The research locations focused on five districts in the Cilegon City and Serang Regency, there are 30 villages, and the village area is used as a unit of analysis. Quantitative data analysis using scoring and weighting factors measures social vulnerability and regional capacity. A classification scheme was conducted to distinguish social vulnerabilities and capacities among the villages, namely low, moderate, and high. The results show that Citangkil Village has the highest social vulnerability score (0.899), while Mangunreja Village has the lowest (0.054). The Argawana Village achieved the highest score of regional capacity (0.965), and the Samang Raya Village had the lowest (0.540). This study shows that a high level of social vulnerability is directly affected by population density. Meanwhile, a high level of regional capacity is strongly influenced by disaster preparedness, disaster prevention, and mitigation.

In vitro Comparative Studies of the Leaf Extracts of Four Different Types of Calamus Species

The leaf extracts of Calamus tenius, Calamus viminalis, Calamus guruba and Calamus erectus possessed various phytochemicals including alkaloids, carbohydrates, saponins, phenols, tannins, flavonoids, glycosides, fixed oils and steroids. The point of the present investigation was to compare the antioxidant profile of different leaf extracts of these species. In the present study, methanol, ethanol and chloroform extract of leaf of C. tenius, C. viminalis, C. guruba and C. erectus were explored for in-vitro thrombolytic activity, membrane stabilizing activity by using hypotonic solution-induced & heat-induced hemolysis and antioxidant profile. Ethanol extracts of all plant species demonstrated the highest percentage of clot lysis. During hypotonic solution-induced hemolysis, methanol extract of C. erectus inhibited 59.74% whereas during heat induced condition ethanol extracts of all plant species demonstrated the highest percentage inhibition of hemolysis of RBCs. The screenings of the plants revealed that leaf extracts contain phenolic and flavonoid contents in great amount with the high level of antioxidant capacity. The chloroform extract of C. tenius (2.45 μg/ml) and methanol extract of C. erectus (1.74 μg/ml) leaf showed potent DPPH and H2O2 scavenging activity, respectively. The nitric oxide scavenging activity was not significantly different for methanol, ethanol and chloroform extracts. Methanol, ethanol and chloroform extracts of these four plants showed medium to moderate reducing power and cupric reducing capacity in comparison to standard. A strong relationship was found between the antioxidant activity of the extracts with their total phenolic and flavonoid contents. Dhaka Univ. J. Pharm. Sci. 21(2): 173-181, 2022 (December)

Simple and Rapid Synthesis of Organically Modified Natural Acid Clay for the Adsorption of Anionic and Cationic Dyes

A simple method for organically modifying a natural acid clay (Japanese acid clay) rapidly with alkylamine has been developed. Japanese acid clay mainly consists of acidic montmorillonite and was successfully modified with decylamine in water at room temperature for a short time period (10 min) using an ultrasonic bath without any pretreatments. The structure of the modified clay changed from exterior surface modification to intercalation with an increase in the decylamine content. The equilibrium adsorption capacity for the anionic dye methyl orange (MO) increased with increasing decylamine content. The adsorption kinetics and isotherm were well described by the pseudo-second-order and Langmuir models, respectively. Better MO adsorption was obtained under the conditions of high dosage, low pH value, and low temperature. The adsorbent was also found to have good adsorption for not only MO but also other anionic dyes (Congo red and eosin Y) and cationic dyes (methylene blue, crystal violet, and rhodamine B). In particular, the decylamine-intercalated clay adsorbent exhibited a high level of adsorption capacity for Congo red and crystal violet. The results demonstrate that the synthesis process can provide a simple and cost-effective organoclay as an adsorbent with high performance for the removal of anionic and cationic dyes.

Medical physiological perspective to biochemical assays and GC-MS results of corn tassel

Corn tassel (Zea may L.) is rich in phenolic compounds including flavonoids and anthocyanins. The aim of this study is to consider the results of the contents of phenolics (TPC), flavonoids (TFC), flavonol (TF), anthocyanins (TAC), alfa-amylase inhibitory activity, and antioxidant activity including FRAP and metal chelating capabilities (MCC) as potential Antiviral and anti-Rheumatoid arthritis. Significantly high levels of antioxidant capacity, total flavonol and alfa-amylase inhibition were found in ethanolic extracts of corn tassels. It was found that their concentrations are TPC= 40 mg GA/g, TFC= 13 mg QE/g, TF= 45 mg R/g, and TAC= 8 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside/g based on dry extract. Additionally, the extracts showed relatively higher antioxidant activities due to metal chelating capabilities (MCC) were found to be 217 mg Fe2+/g dry extract. From the GC-MS analysis, corn tassel was found to be good source of arctigenin that has antiviral and anti- rheumatic properties. Further, the extracts of corn tassels showed significantly higher α-amylase inhibitory activity up to 90 %. Thus, it was concluded that extracts of corn tassels may be considered as pharmacological potential in rheumatoid and antiviral treatment.

ARE INTRINSIC CAPACITY AND MULTIMORBIDITY ASSOCIATED TO FRIED’S FRAILTY REVERSIBILITY?

Abstract Our objective was to characterize older adults with reversible frailty in their baseline intrinsic capacity and multimorbidity status. MethodsWe used data from the most recent waves of the SAGE Mexico study (3 and 4), representative of older adults at a national level. Study n=749.We objectively measured gait speed and grip strength based on Fried's frailty criteria. Weight loss exhaustion was self-reported and physical activity (using the IPAQ).Reversible frailty was defined as going from frailty to pre-frail or robust and from pre-frail to robust. Worsening and stable frailty were coded similarly. Intrinsic capacity was measured using a summary index (0-100) based on five domains: cognition, locomotion, sensory, nutrition, and psychological. Multimorbidity was coded yes/no if the participant self-reported two or more chronic conditions. We compared the odds of being in the reverse group versus not in it according to baseline intrinsic capacity score and multimorbidity status, adjusting for age, sex, rural/urban, and wealth. ResultsReversible frailty=33% of those pre-frail or robust at baseline. Intrinsic capacity was higher in the reverse group than in those with worsening frailty but not significantly higher than those with stable frailty.Having multimorbidity significantly decreased the chances of frailty reversibility, adjusting for covariates. ConclusionsAs an expression of lifecourse damage to the physiological reserve, multimorbidity limits the chances of reversible frailty in Mexican older adults. High levels of intrinsic capacity did not characterize frailty reversibility in our study. Yet, low intrinsic capacity levels are a marker for older adults prone to frailty worsening.

Capital Structure, Financial Capacity and Financial Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in the Buganda Region, Uganda

Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are drivers of economic growth in developed and emerging economies like Uganda. Although they constitute a large proportion of businesses, the SMEs’ financial performance has been unstable over the years, and in extant literature this issue has been attributed to capital structure and other financing decisions. Empirical evidence indicates that more than 50% of SMEs in Uganda cease their operations within the first three years of operation, citing financial capacity issues such as inadequate liquidity. Hence, the aim of this work was to determine the mediating effect of financial capacity in the relationship between SME capital structure and financial performance. The study design was anchored in the agency, free cash flow, and stakeholder theories and the relevant data were gathered via a cross-sectional survey. A stratified sampling method was used to identify SMEs operating in the target area, and one respondent was purposively selected from every chosen SME. Although questionnaires were sent to 453 SMEs, only 423 valid questionnaires were obtained and were subjected to further analyses. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis. The mediation test results indicate a partial but statistically significant mediation effect of financial capacity in the capital structure−financial performance relationship. We thus conclude that high levels of financial capacity strengthen the effect of capital structure on the financial performance of SMEs. Consequently, we recommend that SMEs maintain optimal levels of liquidity as well as financial solvency to optimize financial performance.

Smart Energy System Control Laboratory – a fully-automated and user-oriented research infrastructure for controlling and operating smart energy systems

Abstract In the present paper, we introduce the Smart Energy System Control Laboratory (SESCL) as a fully-automated and user-oriented research infrastructure for controlling and operating smart energy systems in the context of a microgrid-under-test setting. SESCL’s high level of automation and capacity to fully function in a grid-decoupled way allow for the study and evaluation of yet-to-be-developed tools and algorithms for energy technologies and grid control strategies on the edge of system stability, but in a safe environment. In the context of various European Smart Grid Laboratories, the new concept and specifications of SESCL are outlined in depth. The key advantages of SESCL are highlighted as (i) the provisioning of a fully-automated busbar matrix to provide a very flexible and adjustable microgrid topology; (ii) the capability of load shedding or integration of grid participants, as well as changing the microgrid topology on demand; (iii) and the possibility to control and modify setpoints and operating parameters of grid participants during runtime. Inspired by real-world events in island grids, the islanding of a microgrid is utilized as a use case to illustrate the capabilities of the SESCL research infrastructure.

Psychological first aid intervention: rescue from psychological distress and improving the pre-licensure nursing students’ resilience amidst COVID-19 crisis and beyond

BackgroundThe public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in mental and psychological ramifications on the healthcare professionals. The pre-licensure nursing students found themselves not only fighting against the baneful virus but also weak ego resilience. At this point, enriching the pre-licensure nursing students with psychological first aid (PFA) could help them to recover from the feeling of psychological distress and improve their resilience capacity to encounter any upcoming outbreaks. MethodsA quasi-experimental two groups, a pre-post-test study was used in which sixty-four pre-licensure nursing students completed a baseline survey which revealed high levels of psychological distress and low resilience capacity due to the COVID-19 crisis. The study group engaged in the Psychological First- aid Intervention (PFA) at the end of the clinical practicum course period, while the comparison group received routine psychological support. ResultsA significant reduction in the psychological distress levels among students in the PFA group (FET=7.83, P = 0. 001). Likewise, significant improvements in the students' resilience capacity level immediately after the intervention (FET=3.34, P = 0.019) and during the two-month follow-up (FET=12.94, P = 0. 001). The implementation of PFA enhanced the pre-licensure nursing students' psychological health status and resilience capacity levels after their clinical training amid the ambiance of the COVID-19 crisis. ConclusionThe PFA effectively fostered the pre-licensure nursing students’ recovery from the COVID-19 related- psychological distress and improve their resilience capacity. The application of RAPID model is recommended to reduce stress and prevent burnout among novice and future nurses who show signs of psychological exhaustion.

A Study on the Evaluation of the Public Health Governance in Countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Social resilience for public health is a new theoretical framework for understanding public health risk governance capacity. This study identifies 18 indicators from the publicly available database and adopts the method of multivariable analysis to evaluate the level of social resilience for public health in 73 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The study finds that the main influencing factors of social resilience for public health are institutional resilience, physical resilience, and participation resilience. The capacity of public health risk governance in countries along the BRI is classified into three levels: high, medium, and low. A high level of public health risk governance capacity is mainly shown in developed European countries such as Italy, rich Southwestern Asian countries such as the United Arab Emirates, and East Asian countries represented by Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The middle-level countries are mainly distributed at the junction of Eurasia, which Russia represents. The low-level countries are primarily distributed in South Asia, Africa, and the war zones. In general, countries along the BRI have polarized the capacity of public health risk governance and structural inequalities, mainly manifested in large differences in the organizational capacity and mobilization capacity between countries in response to public health risk events, and the gap between the rich and the poor within a country. Under such circumstances, the building of a Community of Common Health is required to be accelerated.

Preliminary results indicate that regular training induces high protection against oxidative stress in basketball players compared to soccer

In elite athlete several metabolic changes occur during regular training. These modifications are associated with changes in blood metabolic profile and can lead to adaptive mechanisms aimed at establish a new dynamic equilibrium, which guarantees better performance. The goal of this study was to characterize the plasma metabolic profile and redox homeostasis, in athletes practicing two different team sports such as soccer and basketball in order to identify potential metabolic pathways underlying the differences in training programs. A cohort of 30 male, 20 professional players (10 soccer and 10 basketballs) and 10 sedentary males as control were enrolled in the study. Plasma redox balance, metabolites and adiponectin were determined. The results show low levels of oxidative species (25.5%), with both high antioxidant capacity (17.6%) and adiponectin level (64.4%) in plasma from basketball players, in comparison to soccer players. Metabolic analysis indicates in basketball players a significant high plasma level of amino acids Valine and Ornithine both involved in redox homeostasis and anti-inflammatory metabolism.

The policy effect on photovoltaic technology innovation with regional heterogeneity in China

This paper examines the policy effect on photovoltaic technology innovation by considering regional heterogeneity. We first evaluated regional heterogeneity by using a range-adjusted measure model, based on which a total of 238 prefecture-level cities in China were classified into four categories. The impact of supply-side, environmental-side, and demand-side policy instruments on PV technology innovation were assessed for each type of cities. The results show significant differences in the policy effects across different types of cities. Specifically, only the direct government subsidy in the supply-side and the feed-in tariff in the environmental-side had a clear incentive for PV technology innovation in all type of cities. The non-direct subsidy instruments in the supply-side were not conducive to PV technology innovation in cities with low levels of economic development and innovation capacity. In addition, the environmental-side regulatory policy instrument favored PV technology innovation in cities with high levels of economic development, population size, and innovation capacity, but goal-oriented instrument had the opposite effect. Moreover, the government purchase in the demand-side had a significantly positive effect on technology innovation in cities with abundant solar energy resources, and average levels of economic development and innovation capacity.

The Promise and Limitations of Information Technology for Tax Mobilization

Abstract Tax revenue in many low- and middle-income countries is inadequate for funding investments in public goods and human capital. With high levels of informality and limited state capacity, many tax authorities have difficulty determining the true tax base and collecting taxes efficiently and equitably. Tax authorities are increasingly adopting new technologies to improve administrative processes, reduce taxpayer compliance costs, and enhance their overall effectiveness. This paper reviews the recent literature on the use of technology for tax administration. It highlights the potential of technology to improve tax collection by helping to identify the tax base, monitor compliance, and facilitate compliance. It also identifies possible limitations to the use of technology arising from inadequate infrastructure and connectivity, lack of adoption or resistance by taxpayers and tax collectors, lack of institutional mainstreaming, and an unsupportive regulatory environment.

Assessment of Potential Conflict Detection by the ATCo

The main goal of this article is to analyse the probability of detecting potential conflicts by the Air Traffic Controller (ATCo). The ATCo ensures the safety of aircraft and one of its main functions is collision avoidance. Collision avoidance is known as separation provision and this term means assuring the safe distance between each aircraft by sides, vertical and longitudinal minimums of separation. The air traffic controller must ensure a high level of airspace capacity. The work performance is related to high demands on individual characteristics, knowledge, skills and, of course, air traffic characteristics. In addition to analysing the probability of detecting potential conflicts, the study of the most influential factors on this safety event is considered of special relevance since the ATCo represents the last executive section of the air traffic control system and failure to detect potential conflicts could lead to a possible infringement of the minimum separation distances between aircraft or even a collision. In order to carry out this approach, Bayesian Networks will be used due to their high predictive capacity. In addition, a dual approach based on knowledge and real operational data provided by an ANSP will be used. These data are one of the great advantages of this study compared to those included in the current literature.

The Psychosocial Risk Factors Evaluation and Management of Shift Personnel at Forest Harvesting

The study describes psychosocial risk factors at work in relation to the general functional state of a body, working capacity and stress among shift workers at a logging enterprise in the Far North. The study involved 153 loggers with a 14-day shift period. Research methods included the psychophysiological instrumental method (variocardiointervalometry) used to assess the general functional state of a body, M. Luscher’s color test to assess working capacity and stress and QNordic to assess psychosocial factors. Statistical analysis was performed using multiple stepwise regression analysis and frequency analysis. It was found that 71.1% of employees have a favorable general functional state of the body, 28.9%—unfavorable; the forest loggers who took part in the survey have a high level of working capacity and a low level of stress. It was substantiated that the general functional state of a body, stress and working capacity, measured by objective and subjective methods, are differentially interconnected with psychosocial factors at work. The general functional state of forest harvesting workers is influenced by factors of labor content, intensity and organization. The relationships with the immediate supervisor are important in order to increase the working capacity and efficiency of employees as well as their involvement in work.

A Physiological Profile Of Male And Female Division I Collegiate Tennis Players

Tennis requires high levels of reaction time, muscular power, and aerobic capacity. Assessments of these physiological parameters can aid in making decisions on training priorities, adaptations, and overall readiness. PURPOSE: The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate physiological and performance characteristics of male and female tennis players and identify relationships between metrics. METHODS: Collegiate tennis players (male [M]: n = 7, age = 20.7 ± 1.3 y, height = 186 ± 4 cm, body mass = 82.2 ± 4.5 kg; female [F]: n = 10, age = 19.6 ± 1.3 y, height = 166 ± 5 cm, mass = 65.3 ± 9.2 kg) participated in preseason testing to assess body composition, reaction time, muscular power, and aerobic capacity. First, body composition (body fat percentage [%BF], fat-free mass [FFM]) was measured by air-displacement plethysmography (BODPOD), followed by simple (Dynavision D2) and whole-body dynamic (Trazer) reaction time (RT), muscular power via maximal countermovement vertical jump with hands on hips (CMJ), and aerobic capacity (VO2max) via maximal graded exercise testing. Descriptive statistics are presented as mean ± standard deviation, and relationships between metrics were assessed using Pearson’s correlations (r) with an alpha-level of 0.05. RESULTS: Average %BF and FFM were 10.8 ± 4.0% and 73.3 ± 3.6 kg for M and 21.6 ± 6.2% and 51.7 ± 6.7 kg for F. Simple RT was 0.7 ± 0.1 s for both M and F, and dynamic RT was 0.5 ± 0.0 s for M and F. CMJ height was 56.4 ± 6.2 cm for M and 41.9 ± 4.4 cm for F. VO2max was 57.1 ± 5.1 mL/kg/min for M and 47.3 ± 5.8 mL/kg/min for F. %BF was inversely related to both CMJ (r = -0.72; P < 0.01) and VO2max (r = -0.77; P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, this sample was relatively lean, though M met the “Good-Excellent” category while F met the “Fair” category according to ACSM standards. Both measures of RT were consistent across M and F, though M had higher CMJ. VO2max was also higher in M, but both teams were considered “Excellent.” Correlational findings suggest increased BF% may negatively impact both anaerobic and aerobic performance, as athletes with higher BF% had lower CMJ heights and cardiovascular fitness. Future research should assess how these measures, particularly reaction time metrics, relate to on-court tennis performance.

Policy education in South Korea and Japan: similar beginnings but different directions?

ABSTRACT Examining the evolution of public administration and policy education in South Korea and Japan, this study analyzes how such education in the two countries has developed in response to social needs as well as socioeconomic and political changes. In both South Korea and Japan, public administration and policy education originated as a type of law education, but policy education in Korea has developed as a subdiscipline of social science that focuses on improving the ability of social problem-solving, while policy education in Japan evolved under the umbrella of law education longer than Korea and focuses mainly on training elite bureaucrats with a high level of management ability and capacity. The results of this diachronic comparative study of professional and institutional development as well as academic characteristics (i.e., curriculum and students) indicate that different political and social environments as well as educational backgrounds of faculty members have been primary drivers of the divergence of policy education in the two countries.

A New Robust and Secure 3-Level Digital Image Watermarking Method Based on G-BAT Hybrid Optimization

This contribution applies tools from the information theory and soft computing (SC) paradigms to the embedding and extraction of watermarks in aerial remote sensing (RS) images to protect copyright. By the time 5G came along, Internet usage had already grown exponentially. Regarding copyright protection, the most important responsibility of the digital image watermarking (DIW) approach is to provide authentication and security for digital content. In this paper, our main goal is to provide authentication and security to aerial RS images transmitted over the Internet by the proposal of a hybrid approach using both the redundant discrete wavelet transform (RDWT) and the singular value decomposition (SVD) schemes for DIW. Specifically, SC is adopted in this work for the numerical optimization of critical parameters. Moreover, 1-level RDWT and SVD are applied on digital cover image and singular matrices of LH and HL sub-bands are selected for watermark embedding. Further selected singular matrices SLH and SHL are split into 3×3 non-overlapping blocks, and diagonal positions are used for watermark embedding. Three-level symmetric encryption with low computational cost is used to ensure higher watermark security. A hybrid grasshopper–BAT (G-BAT) SC-based optimization algorithm is also proposed in order to achieve high quality DIW outcomes, and a broad comparison against other methods in the state-of-the-art is provided. The experimental results have demonstrated that our proposal provides high levels of imperceptibility, robustness, embedding capacity and security when dealing with DIW of aerial RS images, even higher than the state-of-the-art methods.

Temperamental and physiological regulatory capacity in infancy: Links with toddler behavior problems

Although correlates of temperamental regulatory processes in childhood have been well established, there is considerably less work examining correlates and moderators of rudimentary forms of temperamental regulation in infancy. We examined whether infants’ physiological regulation indexed via changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) across phases of the Still-Face Paradigm moderated the association between maternal-reported infant regulatory capacity at 8 months (N = 50, Mage = 8.51 months, SDage = 0.28 months, 25 girls) and behavior problems at 14 months. We found that cardiac vagal regulation from baseline to still-face moderated the relation between infant regulatory capacity at 8 months and behavior problems at 14 months. Among infants who displayed relatively high cardiac vagal regulation from baseline to still-face, regulatory capacity was negatively associated with behavior problems. There was no relation between regulatory capacity and behavior problems among infants who displayed average or relatively low cardiac vagal regulation. We speculate that high levels of regulatory capacity and cardiac vagal regulation may allow infants to focus their attention outward and cope with emotionally evocative environmental demands as they arise even in the absence of external regulation provided by their caregivers.

Carbon performance and firm value of the World's most sustainable companies

This study examines how carbon performance affects a firm's market value. It also studies how this effect is driven by leadership, gender diversity and innovation capacity. This study used a panel of the world's most sustainable companies ranked according to Corporate Knights between 2013 and 2019. The results revealed that carbon performance positively influenced firm market value, thereby indicating that investors rewarded firms with low levels of carbon emissions. This positive effect was more prevalent in firms with a high level of gender diversity and innovation capacity. The findings also demonstrate that rank-up and high-polluting firms continually increased their efforts to be sustainable, which increased the positive effect of carbon performance on firm value. Our results are robust to alternative measures and concerns about endogeneity.

A comprehensive comparative study on methylene blue removal from aqueous solution using biochars produced from rapeseed, whitewood, and seaweed via different thermal conversion technologies

This paper presents, for the first time, a comprehensive comparative analysis of the potential of using biochars from three distinctly different UK-sourced biomass feedstocks, produced via three different thermal processing techniques, to adsorb methylene blue dye. Biochars were made from rapeseed, whitewood, and seaweed (Laminaria Digitata), produced via hydrothermal conversion, pyrolysis, and torrefaction. Adsorption kinetic models were developed for each biochar at different temperatures, pH and initial dye concentrations. Relatively high levels of methylene blue adsorption capacity were achieved by seaweed-based biochars (∼150 mg/g), with reasonable levels for rapeseed-based biochars (∼60 mg/g), whilst adsorption levels were found to be relatively low for whitewood-based biochars (<30 mg/g). A Pseudo-second-order kinetic model provided the best fit with experimental results. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm showed a better fit for seaweed biochars, while the Freundlich adsorption isotherm was a better fit for the rapeseed-based biochars. The Langmuir adsorption isotherms showed relatively high maximum adsorption capacity (Qo) for seaweed-based biochars; ∼175 mg/g for seaweed-Torrefaction and ∼ 117 mg/g for seaweed-Pyrolysis. Negative Gibbs free energy (ΔG°) values were observed for the seaweed-Torrefaction < seaweed-Pyrolysis < 0, which indicates that the methylene blue removal could be a thermodynamically favourable process due to the spontaneous nature of the adsorption. Our investigation has shown that the removal of methylene blue from wastewater could be a potential application for seaweed-based biochars as part of a holistic whole life cycle valorisation pathway. However, it is not suitable for all types of biomasses which emphasises the need for tailoring unique valorisation pathways for different types of biomasses.