The Controllable and Non- Controllable Hurdles and Pushers to Executing Green Supply Chain Management in the Lebanese Hospitality Sector- the Case of Tannoury

Purpose:  This study aims at determining the hurdles and pushers of green supply chain management in the Lebanese hospitality sector.   Theoretical framework: This study adopts institutional theory to understand environmentally friendly supply chain management in the Lebanese hospitality sector, its pushers, and hurdles. Certain factors and pushers may influence businesses in their business actions (Hirsch, 1975;  Lai et al., 2006).   Design/Methodology/Approach: This exploratory qualitative research utilizes the case study approach through a physical semi- structured interview with the owner of Tannoury restaurant.   Findings: It is found that there are two main controllable pushers mainly management mindset and green purchasing, one controllable hurdle namely employee resistance, and four non- controllable hurdles namely obscurity of GSCM awareness, lack of environmental awareness, absence of governmetal support and the Lebanese economic crisis.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  The results of such a study might be of great for the concerned Lebanese ministries and bodies to mandate the required legislation regarding green supply chain management. Such a study might be of great value for some non-governmental organizations and environmental associations, who may have a clearer view of the current green supply chain management situation in Lebanon.   Originality/Value: This study is original and contributes to the Lebanese context and to the supply chain industry as a whole  in as there exists no studies that tackled GSCM in the Lebanese hospitality sector

Social Media\u27s Impact on Mental Health in Children & Adolescents

https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1546/thumbnail.jp

Control and induction of tumor necrosis factor and its receptors on human lymphocytes: a critical structure for immune regulation

Type I diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease characterized by the destruction of insulin-producing β cells in the pancreas. Destruction of the body's own proteins, cells, and tissues is precipitated by the dysfunction of cytokine production, protein modification, and signaling pathways in immune cell subtypes. Tumor Necrosis Factor α (TNFα) and its receptors Tumor Necrosis Factor 1 (TNFR1) also known as p55 and TNFRSF1A, and Tumor Necrosis Factor 2 (TNFR2) also known as P75 and TNFRSF1B play a crucial role in this autoimmune process. TNFα has been shown to stimulate cell death through TNFR1 signaling by the caspase system, while promoting cell survival through TNFR2 signaling using the Nuclear Factor Kappa-Light-Chain-Enhancer of Activated B cells (NF-B) pathway. Recent findings show a defect in immuno-proteasomes found in autoreactive T cells in people with T1D. This defect causes improper signaling transduction when TNFα binds to TNFR2. The inability to save the cell by activating the NF-B pathway eventually leads instead to apoptosis using the caspase system. A decrease in TNFα or increase in soluble TNFα receptors might be an explanation for these autoreactive T cells to evade the host immune system, and allow them to cause destruction of the pancreas. We hypothesize that patients with T1D will show abnormal distribution of TNFα and its receptors at basal levels, as well as when stimulated with interleukins, cytokines, and bacteria such as interleukin-2 (IL-2), lipotechoic acid (LTA), granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). To test this hypothesis, we obtained peripheral blood from T1D patients (n=102) and controls (n=89) and performed in vitro stimulation assays. After a 48-hour incubation, tissue culture supernatants were collected and analyzed for TNF and its receptors production by ELISA, as well as densities of cell membrane receptors by flow cytometry. The data from this study showed significant differences in basal levels of TNFα, TNFR1, and TNFR2 on both the membrane and in the serum between patients and controls. Patients contained a greater percentage of CD4, 8, and 14 - TNFR2 and not TNFR1 double positive cells than their healthy control counterparts. Patient's sera also contained higher levels of all three markers, sTNFα, sTNFR1, and sTNFR2 than the controls. However, no significant differences were found between patient and controls when stimulated with the various compounds listed above

Utility and uncorrected refractive error

Purpose: To investigate utility (a preference-based quality of life [QoL] measure) associated with uncorrected refractive error (URE). Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants: A cohort of 341 consecutive patients 40 to 65 years of age with refractive error and no ocular disease impairing vision worse than 20/25 (0.1 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR] units) in the better eye. Without vision correction, 30 had no vision impairment, 65 had only distance vision impairment (DVI), 97 had only near vision impairment (NVI), 112 had moderate amounts of both distance and near vision impairment (DNVI), and 37 had severe impairment (distance or near worse than 20/200 [>1.0 logMAR]) in the better eye. Methods: All participants underwent a comprehensive eye examination with refraction, aided and unaided visual acuity (VA) at 6 m and 40 cm, and ocular health assessment. Utilities were elicited for a number of scenarios using a standardized, face-to-face time trade-off (TTO) interview method. Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome measure was TTO utility for the participant's own uncorrected vision state. Utilities ranged from 0 to 1, where 0 = death and 1 = perfect vision, and were scaled to account for comorbidities so that 1 = perfect health (adjusted utility). Results: Unaided VA was 0.50±0.24 logMAR at distance in the DVI group, 0.43±0.17 logMAR at near in the NVI group, and 0.72±0.36 and 0.56±0.29 at distance and near, respectively, in the DNVI group. Adjusted utilities for the 3 groups were 0.82±0.16 in the DVI group, 0.81±0.17 in the NVI group, and 0.68±0.25 in the DNVI group. The DVI and NVI group utilities (adjusted and unadjusted) did not differ significantly (P = 0.73 and P = 0.77, respectively). The DNVI utility was significantly worse than that of the DVI and NVI groups (adjusted and unadjusted, P<0.01). Conclusions: The URE is associated with measurable reductions in utility (and therefore QoL). Reductions are similar regardless of whether near or distance vision is impaired, but worse when both are impaired. The results underscore the significance of the effect of URE on QoL, particularly with respect to uncorrected presbyopia, which has been a relatively neglected area in research and policy. The utility figures in this study can be used as inputs for cost-effectiveness studies relating to URE to assist resource allocation decisions. Financial Disclosure(s): The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article. © 2013 American Academy of Ophthalmology

A WGFS Based Approach to Extract Factors Influencing the Marketing of Korean Language in GCC

This research proposed an approach that is intended to determine the minimal set of important factors that influence the desire of learning Korean language in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Those factors will then influence marketing of the Korean language in GCC by guiding interested people to increase their commercial abilities, improve their information about Korean drama, and prepare them to study or travel to Korea. A total of 500 responses out of 526 questionnaires were used for the analysis process. Merging the weight by SVM and the weight guided feature selection (WGFS) techniques were proposed to build a strong hybrid model of reduction for the investigated dataset. Five different classifiers were used to test the results. Empirical results have showed that the generated factors (the reduct) are very significant to test the ability/inability of learning the Korean language. SVM was shown as the best with accuracy value of 94%. This research contributed to the literature by highlighting the importance of the Korean language in the GCC and by presenting the important factors that influence learners of the Korean language: encouragements and obstacles. Moreover, current research presented the best classifier which yields to the high performance of classification

Systèmes de réécritures orthogonaux non effacants et linéaires droite : application au problème de Zantema

Projet EURECANous étudions les systèmes de réécriture orthogonaux, non effaçants et linéaires droite. On montre que si un terme clos est normalisable alors il est fortement normalisable et que toutes ses normalisations ont le même longueur. On définit ensuite la linéarité pour des redex internes et la sortie d'un redex interne, on montre que si telles sorties ont une taille bornée alors la linéarité pour des redex internes est équivalente à la linéarité. Ces résultats permettent de donner une preuve inductive et élémentaire la linéarité du système de Zantema. On montre, ensuite, par une technique de dichotomie par marquage en avant, la conjecture de Zantema à savoir que le système de Zantema a un facteur de linéarité 2

Anti-resonant based nested terahertz fiber design for illicit drugs detection

Anti-resonant hollow-core fibers (AR-HCFs) have gotten a lot of interest lately because of their potential uses in different medical sensing applications. In this work, an anti-resonant THz fiber (ATF) biosensor is implemented to check for illicit drugs and identify them at airport borders. Three different unlawful medicines have been chosen for the proposed design, Cocaine, Amphetamine, and Ketamine. A novel hollow-core anti-resonant fibers (HC-ARF) Matryoshka shape sensor has been designed for detecting the illegal drugs. The proposed design shows a robust sensitivity ranging from 99.8-99.9% and shallow confinement losses compared to other articles in the same field, as the higher losses are 9.3×10-4 dB/m with cocaine. Bending loss lessens as the bending radius rises while it is still below 1 dB/cm for radius more than 10 cm. The numerical simulation outcomes displayed that the designed HC-ARF has 0.0643±0.0238 ps/THz/cm flat dispersion at 0.6-2 THz. As the first application in this field, this work will be the first published in the literature

INFLUENCE OF AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC EXERCISE ON OXYGEN SATURATION

The aim of this study was to examine to acute effects of aerobic and anaerobic exercises on oxygen saturation. Twenty three sedentary male subjects were voluntarily participated in the study. Oxygen saturation was measured with four different trials such as before warming up, after warming up, after anaerobic exercise, and after aerobic exercise, acutely. Repeated measures one way ANOVA and LSD correction tests were used for statistical analysis. According to obtained data, oxygen saturation parameter showed statistically changes between trials (p&lt;0.05). Especially, after anaerobic trial, oxygen saturation showed significant changes. In conclusion, it could be considered that warm-up, and aerobic exercise does not affect oxygen saturation, however anaerobic exercise has significant effect on it.  Article visualizations

Modeling, Fabrication, and Analysis of Vertical Conduction Gallium Nitride Fin MOSFET

Gallium Nitride has seen much interest in the field of electronics due to its large bandgap and high mobility. In the field of power electronics, this combination leads to a low on-resistance for a given breakdown voltage. To take full advantage of this, vertical conduction transistors in GaN can give high breakdown voltages independent of chip area, leading to transistors with nominally low on resistance with high breakdown at a low cost.Acknowledging this, a vertical transistor design is presented with a small footprint area. This design utilizes a fin structure as a double gated insulated MESFET with electrons flowing from the top of the fin downward. The transistor’s characteristics and design is initially explored via simulation and modelling. In this modelling, it is found that the narrow dimension of the fin must be sub-micron to allow for the device to be turned off with no leakage current and have a positive threshold voltage.Several process modules are developed and integrated to fabricate the device. A smooth vertical etch leaving low damage to the surfaces is demonstrated and characterized, preventing micromasking during the GaN dry etch. Methods of removing damage from the dry etch are tested, including regrowth and wet etching. Several hard masks were developed to be used in conjunction with this GaN etch for various requirements of the process, such as material constraints and self-aligning a metal contact. Multiple techniques are tested to deposit and pattern the gate oxide and metal to ensure good contact with the channel without causing unwanted shorts.To achieve small fin dimensions, a self-aligned transistor process flow is presented allowing for smaller critical dimensions at increased fabrication tolerances by avoiding the use of lithographic steps that require alignments to very high accuracy. In the case of the device design presented, the fins are lithographically defined at the limit of i-line stepper system. From this single lithography, the sources are formed, fins are etched, and the gate insulator and metal are deposited.The first functional fabricated devices are presented, but exhibit a few differences from the model. A threshold voltage of -6 V, was measured, with an ID of 5 kA/cm2 at 3 V, and Ron of 0.6 mΩ/cm2. The current is limited by the Schottky nature of the top contacts and show a turn-on voltage as a result. These measurements are comparable to recently published GaN fin MOSFET data, whose devices were defined by e-beam lithography. This dissertation work sought to show that a vertical conduction fin MOSFET can be fabricated on GaN. Furthermore, it aimed to provide a self-aligned process that does not require e-beam lithography. With further development, such devices can be designed to hold large voltages while maintaining a small footprint

Improving Cryptographic Architectures by Adopting Efficient Adders in their Modular Multiplication Hardware VLSI

This work studies and compares different modular multiplication algorithms with emphases on the underlying binary adders. The method of interleaving multiplication and reduction, Montgomery’s method, and high-radix method were studied using the carry-save adder, carry-lookahead adder and carry-skip adder. Two recent implementations of the first two methods were modeled and synthesized for practical analysis. A modular multiplier following Koc’s implementation [6] based on carry-save adders and the use of carry-skip adders in the final addition step is expected to be of a fast speed with fair area requirement and reduced power consumption