ABSTRACT:
A flow channel with a micro-pattern of ridge lines of a scaffold has been designed to study quantitatively the effect of flow on an oriented cell in vitro. The lines of parallel micro ridges (0.001 mm height, 0.003 mm width, and 0.003 mm interval) are made by the lithography technique on the lower surface of the channel as the scaffold to make orientation of each cell. Variation is made about the angle between the longitudinal direction of the ridge line and the direction of the flow: zero, 0.79 and 1.6 rad. The suspension of C2C12 (mouse myoblast cell line) was injected to the channel, and incubated for two hours on the micro ridges before the flow test for four hours. The flow rate of < 36 cm³/hour is controlled by a syringe pump to make variation of the wall shear stress of < 3 Pa. The action of each cell adhered on the micro pattern was analyzed at the time lapse images. The experimental results show that both the migration and the deformation of each myoblast along the micro ridge are restricted by the wall shear stress higher than 3 Pa.

ABSTRACT:
The Nexus-PORTAL-DOORS System (NPDS) has been designed with the Hierarchically Distributed Mobile Metadata (HDMM) architectural style to provide an infrastructure system for managing both lexical and semantic metadata about both virtual and physical entities. We describe here how compatibility between version 0.9 of the NPDS schema, the new NPDS-interfacing ontologies, and the domain-specific concept-validating hypothesis-exploring ontologies allows NPDS to bootstrap the semantic web onto the more developed lexical web. We then describe how this system will serve as the foundation of a planned platform for automated meta-analysis.

ABSTRACT:
Fostering Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is the next big step in the methodological teaching of Science. This is the solution towards an open classroom and innovation system of learning. The school science teaching needs to become more engaging. Science education should be an essential component of a learning continuum not only in classroom, but also for all, from pre- school to active engaged citizenship.

“The Learning Science Through Theatre” Initiative creates a network of knowledge and collaboration between different communities by learning about science through other disciplines and learning about other disciplines through science. Forty Three (43) theatrical performances during the school years 2014-2016 were organized by secondary school students (2000 subjects) which embed both scientific concepts and cultural/ social elements which are expressed by embodied, verbal interaction and analogies. The methodology constitutes a merging of qualitative, quantitative and grounded theory analysis. The data were classified into categories and they were cross- checked by registrations forms, filled by the teachers. Results show that the acquisition of knowledge is successful with the co- existence of multiple semiotic systems and the theatrical performances are compatible with the principles of RRI.

ABSTRACT:
This study uses data collected at two National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI) programs in Connecticut and Mississippi to investigate high school students’ perceptions and preferences about education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Family background has a significant impact on a high school student's interest in STEM, as shown during the student recruitment stage and by the analysis of the students' college education plans prepared upon graduation from the two NSTI programs. The building exercise and competition instrument is the most effective among the few examined, while passive learning is not what young people prefer when briefly introduced in the two NSTI programs.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of the paper is to examine the meaning of ‘lifelong learning to be’ as the essence of lifelong education, which has been implied in the thoughts of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900). This will be approached from the perspectives of ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’, ‘learning to live together’ and ‘learning to be’, which are the four pillars of education in UNESCO’s 1996 Delors Report. Despite Friedrich Nietzsche being one of the most influential scholars of the nineteenth century, few types of research have been carried out concerning his philosophy and its impact on lifelong education. This article, first and foremost, seeks to argue that Nietzsche is a significantly prominent lifelong educator whose philosophy contains significant implications on lifelong learning in today’s period of uncertainty. Secondly, we will discuss the ‘learning to be’ as the pillar of lifelong learning suggested in both Faure and Delors Report. In the final part, the article explores the implications of Nietzsche’s idea on the four pillars of lifelong learning.

ABSTRACT:
The paper presents the findings of research conducted to determine the main barriers to social innovation in Latvia and explore the ways they are overcome. The analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data collected while interviewing social innovation projects revealed eight barriers to social innovation. Lack of financing, passivity in the society and administrative and bureaucratic barriers are most frequently faced here. The qualitative content analysis disclosed nine means for overcoming the barriers to social innovation. Three of them: promotional activities, external financial support and external support are most common. Each barrier to social innovation was analyzed also in regard with the means utilized for overcoming it. It showed that there is no universal way to overcome a certain barrier. There could be different combinations of means and actions undertaken. However, the most powerful mean in overcoming barriers to social innovation in Latvia turned out to be promotional activities defined as a set of activities aimed to: educate the society, encourage stakeholders to participate in the project, raise awareness about the topicality of the problem and share information about solutions with the project’s target group.

ABSTRACT:
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones have many applications and they are a current trend across many industries. They can be used for delivery, sports, surveillance, professional photography, cinematography, military combat, natural disaster assistance, security, and the list grows every day. Programming opens an avenue to automate many processes of daily life and with the drone as aerial programmable eyes, security and surveillance can become more efficient and cost effective. At Barry University, parking is becoming an issue as the number of people visiting the school greatly outnumbers the convenient parking locations. This has caused a multitude of hazards in parking lots due to people illegally parking, as well as unregistered vehicles parking in reserved areas. In this paper, we explain how automated drone surveillance is utilized to detect unauthorized parking at Barry University. The automated process is incorporated into Java application and completed in three steps: collecting visual data, processing data automatically, and sending automated responses and queues to the operator of the system.

ABSTRACT:
Arabic dialectology has a long history and achieved significant progress in collecting and analyzing linguistic data and its classification. The present paper analyses modern trends in the linguistic situation in the Arab world and defines the topics essential for the Arabic dialectology, which require an urgent solution. During the last century, several attempts have been undertaken to create dialectal atlases of different regions of the Arab world. Besides this, considerable work also has been done on synchronous descriptions of modern and ancient Arabic dialects.

Meanwhile these researches do not always reflect fully and adequately the current state of the dialectal continuum, which underwent significant transformations as a result of social and economic changes in the region, development of new technologies. Globalization and leveling of dialectal differences, spread of languages of international communication will lead to disappearance of small dialectal groups and vernaculars, among them those that are not sufficiently described or are little known at all, which presupposes their urgent investigation.

In recent years digital methods of research open new horizons for scholars and put on the agenda the task of building of the dialectal atlas of the Arab world basing on the previous experience and data collected as well as application of ICT.

ABSTRACT:
The purpose of the research was to investigate the relationship between information technology (IT) operations risk management (ORM) and small to medium enterprises’ (SMEs) performance. Following a review of the literature, a questionnaire was developed with the aim of addressing the research purpose. A simple random sampling technique was used to sample 107 respondents in a financial SME. In order to determine the percentage contribution of some of the identified significant predictors of challenges posed by ORM solutions, multiple regression analysis was used. The percentage distribution revealed that only one variable made a significant contribution: “The way in which end-users deal with the implementation of IT projects”. The results additionally revealed that the variable contributed approximately 88.4% of the variations in the level of variables that enhance SMEs’ performance. The analysis of variance also revealed that the regression coefficients were real and did not occur by chance. The recommendation of the study is that SMEs should improve the way they deal with the implementation of IT projects in order to address ORM.

ABSTRACT:
Interest among software professionals in the possibility of adapting software to user requirements has grown as a result of the evolution of software analysis, design and implementation thinking and the growth in the number of software systems users. Moving away from the traditional approach where the user has to settle for the options offered by software systems, different factors (e.g. user needs, aspirations, preferences, knowledge level, goals) have to be taken into account for this purpose. Technically, this possibility is referred to as adaptiveness, and it requires user data. It is these data (user model) that determine the adaptiveness conditions. Our aim is to build a user model for adaptive systems applied to nutritional requirements, modelling user characteristics that affect their diets and help to improve their health. To build the user model, we apply the user profile usability technique. In order to validate our proposal, we analyse and design a preliminary prototype of an adaptive system capable of making food recommendations to satisfy specific user needs. This study revealed that diet is a propitious field for the development of adaptive systems and that user modelling is a good choice for design of this type of systems.

ABSTRACT:
Higher education and research institutions (HERI) are facing new challenges due to substantial changes in the business environment, as well as increasing regulatory impact by local and European Union (EU) legislation. Accordingly, strategic management process is becoming more complex. Regulatory compliance governance (RCG) as a holistic element of strategic management function is a relatively new phenomenon. It is even less discussed in research area of higher education and research management. The aim of the study and paper is to reveal how RCG functions are managed in HERI in Latvia and evaluate the role of RCG in strategic management of these institutions.

The research is developed by applying the triangulation method. The theoretical background is formed on state of the art literature review. The authors perform field research on the impact of local and EU legislation, as well as higher education institutions strategic management paying particular attention to one part of it - regulatory compliance management.

The results of research exposed the tools and extent to which local and EU legislation impacts HEI in Latvia. Further research can be performed to synthesize the most successful strategic management models that involve dedicated RCG resource on strategic decision level and strengthen competitive capabilities of HERI.

ABSTRACT:
Volatility is a measurement of the risk of financial products. A stock will hit new highs and lows over time and if these highs and lows fluctuate wildly, then it is considered a high volatile stock. Such a stock is considered riskier than a stock whose volatility is low. Although highly volatile stocks are riskier, the returns that they generate for investors can be quite high. Of course, with a riskier stock also comes the chance of losing money and yielding negative returns. In this project, we will use historic stock data to help us forecast volatility. Since the financial industry usually uses S&P 500 as the indicator of the market, we will use S&P 500 as a benchmark to compute the risk. We will also use artificial neural networks as a tool to predict volatilities for a specific time frame that will be set when we configure this neural network. There have been reports that neural networks with different numbers of layers and different numbers of hidden nodes may generate varying results. In fact, we may be able to find the best configuration of a neural network to compute volatilities. We will implement this system using the parallel approach. The system can be used as a tool for investors to allocating and hedging assets.

ABSTRACT:
This work is approached through the lens of compliant security by drawing on the concepts of neutralization theory, a prominent postulation in the criminology domain and the ‘big five’ personality construct. This research is conducted based on a case study of ISO/IEC27001 Standard certified banks, to empirically evaluate the link between cybersecurity protocols violation and how employees rationalise security behaviour. We propose that compliance-based security has the propensity for a heightened sense of false security and vulnerability perception; by showing that systemic security violation in compliance-based security models can be explained by the level of linkages from the personality construct and the neutralization theory. Building on the survey responses from banking organization employees and the application of partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SME) analysis to test the hypotheses and validate survey samples, we draw a strong inference to support the importance of individual security scenario effect as a vital complementary element of compliance-based security. Based on our initial findings, conceptual principles and practical guidelines for reducing insider threats and improving employees’ compliance is presented. We then suggest how information security protocol violations can be addressed in that context.

ABSTRACT:
This study unites researchers from the fields of psychology, occupational therapy, and engineering to improve the holistic physical and psychological well-being of persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) by using assistive devices (i.e., wheelchairs) and mobile technology (i.e., cell phone and network). These technologies are used to bring persons with SCI through the difficult period of rehabilitation and to return them to their daily life in school or the working environment. First, a SpinoAid Application (APP) is developed to motivate persons with SCI to participate in the community after their injury. Second, we integrate mobile technology with a mobility assistive device to design a smart wheelchair, which is innovated by transforming the pushrim of a manually driven wheelchair into a rim motor. After the rim motor is combined with a battery, a brake, and a controller to become a power wheel, two power wheels are installed on both sides of the wheelchair to become a powered wheelchair. Third, a SmartChair APP is developed with the main functions of reminding persons with SCI to perform exercises, recording the physical condition and the wheelchair using status, and building up a social network for information sharing to increase their exercise habit, prevent cumulative injuries or discomfort of the upper extremities, and enhance their health and quality of life.

ABSTRACT:
Enterprise Level Security (ELS) is an architecture for enabling information sharing with strong security guarantees. It is built upon basic tenets and concepts that shape its component technologies and implementation. One challenge in sharing information is that the source and recipient of the information may use different units, protocols, data formats, or tools to process information. As a result, a transformation of the data is needed before the recipient can use the information. These conversions introduce potential security weaknesses into an ELS system, so an approach for enterprise-wide mediation is required. Methods in common use today, such as a man-in-the-middle (MITM) translation and an online mediation service, do not preserve the basic ELS tenets and concepts. This paper examines these existing approaches and compares them with two new approaches designed to preserve ELS security. It looks at the complete picture of security, performance, and ease of implementation, offering a framework for choosing the best mediation approach based on the data sharing context.