Natural dilution and distribution of ammonia of groundwater in Kuta Alam sub-district, Banda Aceh city 16 years post tsunami

The 2004 earthquake off the west coast of Aceh caused a catastrophic tsunami. The massive influx of seawater into the land affected the environment, especially groundwater. Kuta Alam was one of the sub-districts worst affected by the tsunami. In 2005 and 2006, the quality of groundwater degraded due to, among others, the content of ammonia compounds. Increasing the population density after city reconstruction became a problem for the environment as domestic waste also pollutes the groundwater. This study proved that while 2 of the 3 research samples showed a decrease in the level of ammonia compounds in groundwater. One sampling in a densely populated area showed an increase of ammonia concentration. In areas that are not densely populated, ammonia compounds have diluted to an acceptable level, but an increase was found in densely populated areas. This indicated that the pollution was most likely occur around high population area. Proofing through a simple linear regression analysis showed a strong correlation between the content of ammonia compounds and population density.

Impact of Outsourcing on Effectiveness of Call Center Services

Call center is the frontline of communicating with customers. This paper reports the findings of a survey on service effectiveness of call center operations of mobile communication service providers in Turkey that either use in-house or outsourcing method. The primary objective of this paper is to explore how the customers of mobile communications service provider companies perceive the inbound call center processes for speed, easiness of use, first call resolution, effective inquiry and in doing that what qualities they display. For this purpose a survey was conducted with the customers who use call centers either to make an inquiry or to complain about the services. The aims were: to specify the typical behavior of mobile communications service users; how the firms handle inquiries or complaints; if they solve the problems for good and in what time or how long it takes to get an answer practically useful; to reveal the speed and timeliness of the processes. The survey was conducted with the mobile phone users in a highly populated area of Istanbul.

Factors Affecting on Consumer Desire: Challenges of Mobile Phone Operators Bangladesh

Bangladesh, being a highly-populated area, begets a remunerative market for the telecommunication sector. Huge consumer probability attracts foreign investors provoking market competition higher entering new companies creating accrual in national GDP. To endure in the intensely competitive market, mobile telecommunication service provider companies are conscious about customer expectations and trying to compensate consumer demand offering quality services. This study elucidates the strategies of mobile phone companies to provide services to a satisfactory level, such as segmented marketing paves the way of focused marketing program which allows the companies to provide the expected services to the specific segment of consumers. This research also analyzes information collected about consumer expectations and unearths the factors affecting the volition of an operator and sketches some recommendations to the mobile phone operators.

Federated Reinforcement Learning Based AANs with LEO Satellites and UAVs

Supported by the advances in rocket technology, companies like SpaceX and Amazon competitively have entered the satellite Internet business. These companies said that they could provide Internet service sufficiently to users using their communication resources. However, the Internet service might not be provided in densely populated areas, as the satellites coverage is broad but its resource capacity is limited. To offload the traffic of the densely populated area, we present an adaptable aerial access network (AAN), composed of low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and federated reinforcement learning (FRL)-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Using the proposed system, UAVs could operate with relatively low computation resources than centralized coverage management systems. Furthermore, by utilizing FRL, the system could continuously learn from various environments and perform better with the longer operation times. Based on our proposed design, we implemented FRL, constructed the UAV-aided AAN simulator, and evaluated the proposed system. Base on the evaluation result, we validated that the FRL enabled UAV-aided AAN could operate efficiently in densely populated areas where the satellites cannot provide sufficient Internet services, which improves network performances. In the evaluations, our proposed AAN system provided about 3.25 times more communication resources and had 5.1% lower latency than the satellite-only AAN.

The Armenian Factor in the Formation of a Yezidi Identity, or: Who Is “Inventing” the Yezidis?

The article deals with the problems of ethnic and religious identity of the Yezidis who have been traditionally classified as Kurds but have increasingly disassociated themselves from them in recent years. This development was reflected in post-Soviet censuses in Russia, Georgia, and Armenia, where the vast majority of Yezidis defined their ethnic identity as Yezidi rather than Kurdish. In Kurdish studies, the process of separating Yezidis from Kurds has also traditionally been associated exclusively with the policies of the Armenian authorities, particularly in the context of the national and ideological role of Armenian scholars in the Armenian-Kurdish discourse. However, the article shows that the ethnicization of the Yezidis is a general trend in the Yezidi community, regardless of the factor of Armenia. The author claims that it is the attitude of the Kurdish-Muslim community towards the Yezidis in their historical homeland—in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan—that is a predictor of the Yezidi identity. This was most clearly seen after the ISIS attack on the Yezidi populated area in Sinjar (Northern Iraq) in August 2014, as a result of which thousands of Yezidi men were executed, and the captured Yezidi women enslaved. These events are understood by the Yezidis within the framework of the Yezidi-Kurdish relations, since the Kurdish armed forces—which had guaranteed the security of the Yezidis and protection from ISIS—unexpectedly withdrew their troops from Sinjar shortly before the terrorist attacks. This led to an increase in anti-Kurdish sentiments in the Yezidi community.

PkM Masyarakat Sehat dan Berkarakter di Kampung Sidotopo Kedungsari Magelang

Sidotopo Village, Kedungsari Village, North Magelang, Magelang City is a densely populated area and a wide variety of people live in the area. The characteristics of the people who live in the area are diverse in their occupations and education, some residents do not receive formal education and some residents also work odd jobs, ranging from garbage collectors, food sellers and others. Awareness of a clean, healthy and characterized life seems to be lacking in local residents, as evidenced by the fact that there are still people who throw garbage in the river, do not recognize the importance of exercise and food intake with good nutrition, and lack of understanding of national character in terms of defending the country. Mentoring/socialization about clean, healthy and character living is a solution in forming a healthy and characterized society. The assistance provided to the community is an understanding of clean living, an understanding of the importance of maintaining health by exercising, and the importance of having a strong national character. So there is great hope to add insight to the community to be able to live healthy and have character in Sidotopo Village. Keywords: Clean Living, Healthy Exercise, Love for the Motherland.Kampung Sidotopo Kelurahan Kedungsari Magelang Utara Kota Magelang merupakan daerah yang padat penduduk dan beraneka ragam masyarakat yang tinggal di daerah tersebut. Karakteristik masyarakat yang tinggal di daerah tersebut beraneka ragam pekerjaan dan pendidikanya, beberapa penduduk ada yang tidak mengenyam pendidikan secara formal dan beberapa penduduk juga ada yang bekerja serabutan, mulai dari pengepul rongsok, penjual makanan dan lain-lain. Kesadaran akan hidup bersih, sehat dan berkarakter nampaknya kurang dirasakan oleh penduduk sekitar, terbukti dengan masih adanya masyarakat yang membuang sampah di kali, tidak mengenalnya pentingnya olahraga dan asupan makanan dengan gizi yang baik, serta kurangnya pemahaman tentang karakter kebangsaan dalam hal bela negara. Pendampingan/sosialisasi tentang hidup bersih, sehat dan berkarakter merupakan solusi dalam membentuk masyarakat sehat dan berkarakter. Pendampingan yangh diberikan kepada masyarakat yaitu pemahaman akan hidup bersih, pemahaman pentingnya menjaga kesehatan dengan berolahraga, serta pentingnya memiliki karakter kebangsaan yang kuat. Sehingga besar harapan menambah wawasan masyarakat untuk dapat hidup sehat dan berkarakter di kampung sidotopo. Kata kunci: Hidup Bersih, Sehat Berolahraga, Cinta Tanah Air.

Slow Sand Filter untuk Pengolahan Air di Desa Pekauman Ulu, Kalimantan Selatan

Pekauman Ulu Village is one of the villages crossed by the Martapura river, where the water is used by the people of this village for their daily activities. Pekauman Ulu Village is a densely populated area which is flooded every year. The water is very turbid with an unpleasant smell, and consuming this water often makes some people get diarrhea. Thus, a simple technology is needed to treat this river water into clean water. This activity aims to build Slow Sand Filter (SSF) units as a means of providing clean water for people in Pekauman Ulu Village. The activity is conducted in three parts: initial dissemination, training, and evaluation. Based on the survey done to the people joining the training, 95.25% of the people said that they were satisfied with the water being treated by SSF. As for the performance of the SSF itself, turbidity measurement of water samples showed that the turbidity of water filtered by the SSF unit reduced from an average of 41.7 NTU to 2.3 NTU. It can be concluded that this community development program has successfully addressed the need for clean water for people in Pekauman Ulu Village.

Optimal Attitude Maneuvering Analyses for Imaging at Squint Staring and Sliding Spotlight Modes of SAR Satellite

In this study, we analyzed the imaging maneuver time, retargeting maneuver time, and attitude maneuvering characteristics in the imaging section (Phase 1) and retargeting maneuver section (Phase 2) when taking multiple-target images in squint spotlight mode in a single pass of a passive SAR satellite. In particular, the synthetic aperture time and attitude maneuvering characteristics in the staring and sliding spotlight modes that can image the wider swath width while maintaining high resolution were compared and analyzed. In the sliding spotlight mode, the rotation center was located below the ground surface when the satellite was maneuvering towards the target. Steering and sliding maneuvers were performed when targeting, and the synthetic aperture time of the sliding spotlight was longer than that of the staring spotlight because overlapping imaging was performed on the point target. The satellite maneuvering during imaging can be considered as a time-fixed problem, because it was performed within synthetic aperture time according to resolution, incidence angle, swath width, etc., by minimizing the Doppler centroid variation. In order to optimize the retargeting maneuver time, an optimal analysis of the attitude maneuvering was carried out and the validity of the optimal analysis algorithm was confirmed. Finally, the scenario was analyzed by assuming a problem of imaging four targets with 5 × 5 km swath width in a 20 km × 20 km densely populated area. It was confirmed that if a squint angle of ±12 degrees is provided in a single pass, four high resolution images of 5 km × 5 km can be imaged in the sliding spotlight mode.