The Effects of Creative Arts Therapies on the Traumatic Stress Symptoms of Refugee Minors

Background: The experiences of refugees are often characterized by traumatic stressors including loss and violence. Minors of these target populations are particularly sensitive to traumatic stress due to the nature of their developmental state. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based research on the efficacy of Creative Arts Therapies (CATs) as interventions to reduce traumatic stress symptoms of refugee minors. Study Purpose: The purpose of this integrative literature review is to evaluate the current research to determine the efficacy of CATs as therapeutic interventions for refugee minors by comparing their traumatic stress symptoms before and after participating in CATs interventions. Method: An integrative literature review was utilized to answer the main research question. This review provided a comprehensive summary of the literature and its findings. The literature search with exclusion and inclusion criteria applied resulted in a total of six studies selected for review. Results: Three major themes highlighting the benefits of cats were identified in this study. These themes included: social engagement and connection; self-esteem and self-efficacy; and coping and relaxation. Additionally, the empirical evidence from four of the six studies indicated the decrease in traumatic stress symptoms including maladaptive grief, depression, and anxiety to be statistically significant post-CATs interventions. Significance determined by p-values for the two other studies weren’t established. However, the results still suggest the potential benefits that couldn’t be measured from a deficit-based approach. Conclusion: CATs have been indicated as possible early interventions for refugee minors who undergo traumatic forced migration. Three major themes that relates to the positive growth and development of refugee children during CATs interventions were identified. The empirical findings also resulted towards positive and protective effects of CATs when measuring its efficacy. More research is required to establish the benefits of CATs as culturally and contextually relevant interventions for a growing vulnerable population

Investigating Peptide/RNA binding in Anti-HIV research by molecular simulations: electrostatic recognition and accelerated sampling

Studying protein/RNA binding is of great biological and pharmaceutical importance. In the past two decades, RNA has gained growing attention in biomedical and pharmaceutical research due to its key roles in gene replication and expression [1, 2]. From a pharmaceutical point of view, the advantages of targeting RNA over the conventional protein targets include slower drug-resistance development, more selective inhibition, and lower cytotoxicity. Targeting RNA is, however, more challenging than targeting proteins. Designing RNA-binding drugs is limited by the lack of medicinal chemistry studies on RNA and the poor understanding of ligand/RNA molecular recognition mechanisms..

An investigation into practices and determinants of the circular economy in the food by-product management using multiple case research design

Food waste is one of the biggest global challenges in our modern time due to its serious environmental, economic, social and ethical implications. There is a pressing concern to address this challenge globally, which prompts governments, industries and academia alike to rethink the food system and take actions to reduce and manage the waste issues effectively. A circular economy that drifts away from the linear take-make-dispose model is touted as a practical solution to not only enable dual goals of wealth generation and GHG mitigation but also radically transform the way we look at and manage food waste. However, little is known about how the circular economy can be properly translated and executed in food by- product valorisation. This is intensified by a lack of genuine interest from practitioners as a result of enormous and systemic changes required in the circular economy concept. The practitioners are still struggling to grasp a consistent understanding of the concept for onward implementation. Coupled with a response to calls to move the attention to food by-product management, this study was undertaken to understand the nature of the circular transition with the view to shed light on its implementations in the food by-product management and the associated determinants along the transition process in the UK context. For the explorative purpose, a multiple case study research method following an abductive qualitative research approach was adopted. The last decade has witnessed interesting dynamics in food by-product management in the UK. For example, anaerobic digestions continue to take off in volume and efficiency, yet other types of innovations continue to exhibit in the valorisation of the food by-products. Therefore, six cases of small and medium-sized food by-product processors were theoretically sampled to elucidate these innovative efforts. The cases have direct involvement in processing food by-products in the UK. This enabled the researcher to explore and gain insights into the phenomenon of circular innovations in the contemporary context of food waste management. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews, triangulated with evidence from other sources, including observations from site visits and exclusively accessed and publicly available documents.The findings yielded critical themes concerning three research questions. The circular practice specifies the types of innovation practices employed in each case that centre on the operations and technologies, by-product procurement, output products and their markets. A list of 11 drivers and 13 barriers is yielded and aggregated into six themes, regulatory, social, cognitive, economic, supply chain, and technological sources. Interestingly, the technological factor is not listed in the list of drivers. The nexus of circular practices, drivers and barriers is then elaborated on the theoretical anchor of an integrated institutional theory with an institutional logic add-on. Overall, the finding indicates that weak momentum for the circular engagement is due to deep uncertainty perceived in such engagement. Finally, theoretical, methodological and practical contributions are discerned while future research directions are suggested

Liste complémentaire des poissons marins de Nha-trang

This commented inventory of 310 fishes of Nhatrang Bay (Vietnam) completed the previous list compiled by P. Chevey, P. Chabanaud, J. Durand et Quang

THE STRUCTURE OF GRAPHS ON n VERTICES WITH THE DEGREE SUM OF ANY TWO NONADJACENT VERTICES EQUAL TO n-2

Let G be an undirected simple graph on n vertices and sigma2(G)=n-2 (degree sum of any two non-adjacent vertices in G is equal to n-2) and alpha(G) be the cardinality of an maximum independent set of G. In G, a vertex of degree (n-1) is called total vertex. We show that, for n>=3 is an odd number then alpha(G)=2 and G is a disconnected graph; for n>=4 is an even number then 2=<alpha(G)<=(n+2)/2, where if  alpha(G)=2 then G is a disconnected graph, otherwise  G is a connected graph, G contains  k total vertices and n-k vertices of degree delta=(n-2)/2, where 0<=k<=(n-2)/2. In particular, when k=0 then G is an (n-2)/2-Regular graph

Development of surface roughness model in turning process of 3X13 steel using TiAlN coated carbide insert

Surface roughness that is one of the most important parameters is used to evaluate the quality of a machining process. Improving the accuracy of the surface roughness model will contribute to ensure an accurate assessment of the machining quality. This study aims to improve the accuracy of the surface roughness model in a machnining process. In this study, Johnson and Box-Cox transformations were successfully applied to improve the accuracy of surface roughness model when turning 3X13 steel using TiAlN insert. Four input parameters that were used in experimental process were cutting velocity, feed rate, depth of cut, and insert-nose radius. The experimental matrix was designed using Central Composite Design (CCD) with 29 experiments. By analyzing the experimental data, the influence of input parameters on surface roughness was investigated. A quadratic model was built to explain the relationship of surface roughness and the input parameters. Box-Cox and Johnson transformations were applied to develop two new models of surface roughness. The accuracy of three surface roughness models showed that the surface roughness model using Johnson transformation had the highest accuracy. The second one model of surface roughness is the model using Box-Cox transformation. And surface roughness model without transformation had the smallest accuracy. Using the Johnson transformation, the determination coefficient of surface roughness model increased from 80.43 % to 84.09 %, and mean absolute error reduced from 19.94 % to 16.64 %. Johnson and Box-Cox transformations could be applied to improve the acuaracy of the surface roughness prediction in turning process of 3X13 steel and can be extended with other materials and other machining processe

CONDITIONS FOR GRAPHS ON n VERTICES WITH THE SUM OF DEGREES OF ANY TWO NONADJACENT VERTICES EQUAL TO n-2 TO BE A HAMILTONIAN GRAPH

Let G be an undirected simple graph on  $n \geq 3$ vertices with the degree sum of any two nonadjacent vertices in G equal to $n - 2$.  We determine the condition for G to be a Hamiltonian graph

Genetic Algorithms and Particle Filtering for Calibrating Water Demands and Locating Partially Closed Valves in Water Distribution Systems

Water distribution systems are constructed to supply water for domestic, industrial and commercial consumers. The design, operation and management of these distribution systems is usually supported by the application of hydraulic models, which are built to replicate the behavior of real systems. Conventional demand driven models simulate flows and pressures of a water distribution system requiring assumptions of known demands and known valve statuses. Due to the stochastic behavior of the water demands as well as the complexity of the piping network, these assumptions usually lead to an inadequate understanding of the full range of operational states in the water system. Installation of sensor devices in a network can provide information about some components in the system. However, calibration of the water demands and identification of valve statuses is either still not feasible or very difficult being attributable to the usual limited number of available measurement devices in most real water networks. This dissertation addresses three main issues of water distribution modelling, which include: (1) calibration of water demands under ill-posed conditions where the number of measurements is less than the number of parameter variables, (2) estimation of water demands under uncertainty in a near real-time context, and (3) calibration and localization of unknown partially/fully closed valves in a water network. The solutions for these problems, which are the main contributions of the research, are described by three journal papers included in this dissertation. The first journal paper presents a novel approach to calibration of the water demand multipliers under ill-posed (i.e. underdetermined) conditions by the multiple runs of a Genetic Algorithm model. The results from three case studies show that the average values of multiple runs of the Genetic Algorithm model can deliver very good estimates of the water demand multipliers, the flow rates and nodal heads at non-measured locations with a limited number of the measurements. In addition, the effects of the location and the number of measurement sites to the output of the demand calibration model are also analysed in the paper. The second journal paper introduces a predictor-corrector approach for the online (near real-time) estimation of demand multipliers. A conventional particle filter and an improved particle filter method, which incorporates an evolutionary scheme from Genetic Algorithms into the resampling process to prevent particle degeneracy, impoverishment and convergence problems, are investigated to implement the predictor-corrector approach. Furthermore, the paper proposes a first order approximation method to quantify the uncertainties of the model outputs caused by measurement errors. Two case studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed particle filter model. The third journal paper proposes an innovative methodology for the identification of unknown partially/fully closed valves in a water distribution network. Three sequentially applied methods are proposed in the methodology, which include: a local sensitivity analysis, an application of Genetic Algorithms and an application of the Levenberg- Marquardt algorithm. In the first method, the sensitivity of the flow rates and nodal heads at measurement locations with respect to the change in the minor losses of the valves is computed. This computation is used to identify the valves that are unable to be localized by the measurement data. The second method applies a Genetic Algorithm in an extended period simulation in order to preliminarily identify the locations of the partially/fully closed valves and their setting values, i.e. the degree of opening of the valve. Finally, the application of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm to a steady state simulation is implemented to correct the results from the Genetic Algorithm model. This research has made significant contributions to the body of knowledge. Two novel methodologies have been developed for calibration of demands in water distribution systems. The impact of the location and number of measurement sites on the output of the demand calibration models has been evaluated in detail. In addition, a novel methodology for the calibration of unknown valve statuses has also been proposed. Results from realistic-size case studies have shown that the proposed methodologies are capable of solving real world problems, which enhances calibration approaches for water distribution system models.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, 201