AsTAR: Sustainable Energy Harvesting for the Internet of Things through Adaptive Task Scheduling

Battery-free Internet-of-Things devices equipped with energy harvesting hold the promise of extended operational lifetime, reduced maintenance costs, and lower environmental impact. Despite this clear potential, it remains complex to develop applications that deliver sustainable operation in the face of variable energy availability and dynamic energy demands. This article aims to reduce this complexity by introducing AsTAR, an energy-aware task scheduler that automatically adapts task execution rates to match available environmental energy. AsTAR enables the developer to prioritize tasks based upon their importance, energy consumption, or a weighted combination thereof. In contrast to prior approaches, AsTAR is autonomous and self-adaptive, requiring no a priori modeling of the environment or hardware platforms. We evaluate AsTAR based on its capability to efficiently deliver sustainable operation for multiple tasks on heterogeneous platforms under dynamic environmental conditions. Our evaluation shows that (1) comparing to conventional approaches, AsTAR guarantees Sustainability by maintaining a user-defined optimum level of charge, and (2) AsTAR reacts quickly to environmental and platform changes, and achieves Efficiency by allocating all the surplus resources following the developer-specified task priorities. (3) Last, the benefits of AsTAR are achieved with minimal performance overhead in terms of memory, computation, and energy.

Importance of Distributive Justice, Procedural Justice and Fairness in Workplace

Employees are an important asset to any organization. Their dedication, hard work and commitment play a vital part in the success of an organization. If employees are expected to give their best at work and be efficient at the optimum level, then they need to be treated fairly, equally and with respect. The main objective of this research is to study and understand Distributive Justice, Procedural Justice and Fairness at workplace and to study its impact on the efficiency of the employees. Distributive and Procedural Justice have an impact in all kinds of institutions, such as hospitals, educational institutions, factories etc. This study aims to cover all these areas under a single term of “workplace” which applies to all kind of institutions, organizations, corporations, etc. Analytical Research Design has been employed to carry out research in the present study with the help of secondary data. To understand Distributive Justice thoroughly, the researcher has explained different approaches to distributive justice, such as John Rawl’s Theory, Utilitarianism, Egalitarianism and Libertarianism. The four important pillars on which Procedural Justice is based are discussed in this study. The thin line that distinguishes distributive justice from procedural justice has been included in this research. The present study explains the importance of Fair treatment in the workplace and the behavioral attitude of employees towards unfair treatment. The difference between equity and equality in a workplace has been explained in the present study. The implication of distributive justice, procedural justice and fair treatment of employees at workplace has also been discussed by the researcher.

Metal Ions, Metal Chelators and Metal Chelating Assay as Antioxidant Method

Heavy metals are essential for a wide range of biological processes, including the growth and reproduction of cells, synthesis of biomolecules, many enzymatic reactions, and the body’s immunity, but their excessive intake is harmful. Specifically, they cause oxidative stress (OS) and generate free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in metabolism. In addition, the accumulation of heavy metals in humans can cause serious damage to different organs, especially respiratory, nervous and reproductive and digestive systems. Biologically, metal chelation therapy is often used to treat metal toxicity. This process occurs through the interaction between the ligand and a central metal atom, forming a complex ring-like structure. After metals are chelated with appropriate chelating agents, their damage in metabolism can be prevented and efficiently removed from the body. On the other hand, heavy metals, including Zn, Fe and Cu, are necessary for the suitable functioning of different proteins including enzymes in metabolism. However, when the same metals accumulate at levels higher than the optimum level, they can easily become toxic and have harmful effects toward biomolecules. In this case, it induces the formation of ROS and nitrogen species (RNS) resulting in peroxidation of biological molecules such as lipids in the plasma membrane. Antioxidants have an increasing interest in many fields due to their protective effects, especially in food and pharmaceutical products. Screening of antioxidant properties of compounds needs appropriate methods including metal chelating assay. In this study, a general approach to the bonding and chelating properties of metals is described. For this purpose, the basic principles and chemical principles of metal chelation methods, both in vivo and in vitro, are outlined and discussed. Hence, in the main sections of this review, the descriptions related to metal ions, metal chelating, antioxidants, importance of metal chelating in biological system and definitions of metal chelating assays as widely used methods to determine antioxidant ability of compounds are provided. In addition, some chemical properties, technical and critical details of the used chelation methods are given.

Design and Development of a Hybrid DC-DC Converter for Solar-Battery-Based Standalone Milk Vending Machine

Dairying has become a major secondary source of income for several rural families. The easily perishable nature of milk increases the spoilage of the product and reduces the dairy farms' productivity in rural areas due to power supply shortage issues. In order to overcome the inaccessibility of proper preservation strategies, this chapter proposed a hybrid DC-DC converter for a solar battery-powered milk vending machine. This proposed system can work continuously and provides an uninterrupted power supply to maintain the milk quality at an optimum level. Moreover, the proposed system utilized a novel converter to reduce the number of power conversion stages and compact the system. Besides, the proposed converter can achieve a higher gain ratio with fewer components. Furthermore, a proper algorithmic-based control scheme has been implemented to maintain effective power flow management. Finally, to verify the feasibility and performance of the system, detailed results are obtained at different dynamic conditions, and various case studies are presented in this chapter.

Leisure and Wellness Perceptions of Tourism Workers in Work-Life Balance

In this study, the concepts related to leisure and wellness perceptions will be discussed in order to provide the work-life balance of tourism workers. With a descriptive analysis, it will be discussed how leisure time evaluation and wellness perception contribute to the work-life balance of tourism employees as strategies to cope with work and non-work problems. The fact that the work-life balance of tourism employees is at an optimum level is of great importance for the tourism industry where business factor and service quality are critical. Factors such as uncertainty environment, low labor morale, and high turnover rate constitute the general business life characteristics of tourism employees. As a result, the effect of leisure and wellness perceptions of tourism employees on coping with these factors and establishing work-life balance will be discussed in the light of related literature.

An evaluation of the productivity change in public transport sector using DEA-based model

This study aims to build a framework for measuring the productivity in the public transport sector through a data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique. This paper extends the Malmquist productivity index (MP1) and Luenberger productivity indicator (I.P1) evaluation with the concept of an input-oriented new slack model (NSM). NSM model measures the efficiency with the effect of slacks and satisfies unit invariance, radial and translation invariance properties. In particular, the purpose of the proposed extension is to obtain the overall productivity change in terms of technical change (Frontier Shift) and technical efficiency change (Catch-up Effect) for Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC) bus depots from 2008 to 2019. For this purpose, the number of buses, number of employers, fuel consumption and route distance arc are considered input variables, while passenger-kilometres occupied and vehicle utilisation are output variables. Finally, the result demonstrates that the average total factor productivity (TFP) growth of 46 depots using MPI and LPI over the study period is 1.956% and 1.409%, respectively. This study enables policy-maker and managers to evaluate the input to reach consistent output up to an optimum level and understand the process of improving the productivity level for the bus depots.

Rubber bark dust-zeolite composite improved mechanic strength of soft paddy soil through improved microstructure

<p>Soft paddy soils are not a stable soil structure that leads to the decline of rice production in Kedah, Malaysia. The soil had high compressibility and water content, and low soil strength thus the agricultural machines could not be operated above this soil. Therefore, this study was conducted to improve the mechanical strength of soft soils in paddy fields using an organic amendment. The organic amendment used in this study was made from amended materials comprising clinoptilolite, kieserite, humic acid, and rubber bark dust. The study was carried out in the paddy field area of Alor Pudak district, Kedah, Malaysia, and it was divided into five treatments of amendment dose, i.e: 0 kg (control or P0), 125 kg (P1), 250 kg (P2), 375 kg (P3) and 500 kg (P4) with each plot size about 0.20 ha. The soil samples were then analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and the unconsolidated undrained triaxial compression test (UU-test) to characterize their amended properties. The XRD results clearly exhibited changes in the mineralogical composition of all treated plots with an increasing smectite content (1200 to 1300 intensity). Furthermore, the SEM results showed that clay particles in the treated plots have been flocculated to form close-knit, more stable soil structures. After the organic amendment application, the mechanical strength of the treated plots increased to an optimum level (50 kPa in P2) for resisting mechanical pressure from agricultural machinery. Overall, this study of the efficacy of organic amendment offers new insight into a soft paddy soil remediation method that is more effective and economical than the conventional method.</p>

Efektivitas Pembuatan Kompos Dengan Aktivator EM4 dan MOL

A complicated problem for big city governments today is the increasing volume of solid waste, due to population growth and mobility so that the waste load will also increase, especially in metropolitan cities such as Makassar City. To reduce the rate of organic waste generation, which is 60%, is to use organic waste as compost, both liquid and solid. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of composting with EM4 and MOL activators. The results of the study with the addition of EM4 activator, MOL activator and without the addition of activator from the first day to the fourteenth day the compost structure was different. The addition of MOL produces a slightly coarser structure compared to the addition of EM4, while the compost without activator still smells like wet waste. The quality (C/N) of compost, the addition of 100 ml of EM4 was in the optimum level, while the addition of 100 ml of MOL was less than optimum.

The effect of chitosan levels in feed on the growth and daily feed consumption of giant gourami (Osphronemus goramy)

Chitosan is an ingredient that can be used as a feed additive. In aquaculture, chitosan can be used as an antimicrobial, antifungal, antioxidant growth-promoting and immunostimulant. This study aims to determine the optimum addition of chitosan to feed to increase growth and daily feed consumption of giant gourami. The method used in this research is an experimental method using a completely randomized design (CRD), which consists of five treatments and three replications. The treatments used were (A) without chitosan (control), (B) 2.5 g/kg feed, (C) 5 g/kg feed, (D) 7.5 g/kg feed, and (E) giving chitosan of 10 g/kg feed. The test fish used were giant gourami with a 6 – 8 cm length and a weight of 8 – 10 g. The container used was hapa measuring 1 x 1 x 1 m3 with a density of 15 fish per treatment and 42 days of maintenance. The feeding rate was 3% of the fish biomass. Data from observations of length and weight were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with a 95% confidence level; if there was a significant difference, Duncan's multiple distance test was performed. The results showed that addition of chitosan 7.5 g/kg feed was effective in improving growth on giant gourami. During maintenance, absolute length growth was 2.90 ± 0.10 cm, absolute weight growth was 15.33 ± 1.19 g, daily growth was 36.51 ± 2.84%, feed conversion ratio was 1.69 ± 0.06, and survival rate was 100 ± 0.00%. This research concluded that the optimum level of addition of chitosan to increase growth and daily feed consumption of giant gourami was 7.5 g/kg feed.Keywords:ChitosanFeed additiveGiant gouramiGrowth

Interventions promoting family involvement with care homes following placement of a relative with dementia: A systematic review

There is a wealth of literature investigating the role of family involvement within care homes following placement of a relative with dementia. This review summarises how family involvement is measured and aims to address two questions: (1) which interventions concerning family involvement have been evaluated? And (2) does family involvement within care homes have a positive effect on a resident’s quality of life and behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia? After searching and screening on the three major databases PsycINFO, MEDLINE and CINAHL Plus for papers published between January 2005 and May 2021, 22 papers were included for synthesis and appraisal due to their relevance to family involvement interventions and or family involvement with resident outcomes. Results show that in 11 interventions designed to enhance at least one type of family involvement, most found positive changes in communication and family–staff relationships. Improvement in resident behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia was reported in two randomised controlled trials promoting partnership. Visit frequency was associated with a reduction of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia for residents with moderate dementia. Family involvement was related to positive quality of life benefits for residents. Contrasting results and methodological weaknesses in some studies made definitive conclusions difficult. Few interventions to specifically promote family involvement within care homes following placement of a relative with dementia have been evaluated. Many proposals for further research made over a decade ago by Gaugler (2005) have yet to be extensively pursued. Uncertainty remains about how best to facilitate an optimum level and type of family involvement to ensure significant quality of life and behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia benefits for residents with dementia.