• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.201-208
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• 2023

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic poses disastrous effects on human lives and hinders global efforts to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. The study examined the effects of the pandemic on unemployment toward realizing the SDGs. The downsizing and collapse of businesses have forcibly left many unfortunate Malaysians jobless and without income. The situation may directly influence government efforts to achieve SDG 8 'Decent work and economic growth', which indirectly affects SDG 1 'No poverty', SDG 2 'Zero hunger', and SDG 3 'Good health and well-being'. Pre-and post-pandemic assessments on unemployment and retrenchment level by sector were performed by adopting observation and data comparison methods. Critical findings revealed that the unemployment rate has risen among males and females and the youth, as well as the number of retrenchments. The services sector, specifically the wholesale, retail, trade, and hotel industry showed the highest number of retrenchments. Some important unemployment issues were also covered in this study, including the demand for employment, the role of government and business, and the effect of the gig economy on the current employment landscape. The avenue for future studies can focus on additional societal effects that could prevent the country from attaining the SDGs by 2030.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.273-283
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• 2024

The digital domain has witnessed unprecedented growth, reshaping the way we interact, work, and even perceive reality. The internet has evolved into a vast ecosystem of interconnected virtual worlds, giving birth to the concept of the Metaverse. The Metaverse, often envisioned as a collective virtual shared space, is created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and interactive digital spaces. Within this Metaverse space, the concept of ownership, identity, and authenticity takes on new dimensions, necessitating innovative solutions to safeguard individual rights. The digital transformation through Metaverse has also brought forth challenges, especially in copyright protection. As the lines between the virtual and physical blur, the traditional notions of ownership and rights are being tested. The Metaverse, with its multitude of user-generated content, poses unique challenges. The primary objective of this research is multifaceted. Firstly, there's a pressing need to understand the strategies employed by non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces within the Metaverse to strengthen security and prevent copyright violations. As these platforms become centers for digital transactions, ensuring the authenticity and security of each trade becomes paramount. Secondly, the study aims to delve deep into the foundational technologies underpinning NFTs, from the workings of blockchain to the mechanics of smart contracts, to understand how they collectively ensure copyright protection. Thus, in this paper, we propose a quantum based NFT solution that can secure Metaverse and copyright contents in an advanced manner.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.109-115
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• 2024

Overleaf is a cloud-based LaTeX editor, allowing users to easily create and collaborate on documents without the need for separate LaTeX installation or configuration. Thanks to this convenience, users from various fields worldwide are writing, editing, and collaborating on academic papers, reports, and more via web browsers. However, the caching that occurs during the process of converting documents written on Overleaf to PDF format poses risks of exposing sensitive information. This could potentially lead to the exposure of users' work to others, necessitating the implementation of security measures and vigilance to caution against such incidents. This paper delves into an in-depth analysis of Overleaf's security vulnerabilities and proposes various measures to enhance the protection of intellectual property.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.329-342
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• 2024

The exponential increase in nitrate pollution of river water poses an immediate threat to public health and the environment. This contamination is primarily due to various human activities, which include the overuse of nitrogenous fertilizers in agriculture and the discharge of nitrate-rich industrial effluents into rivers. As a result, the accurate prediction and identification of contaminated areas has become a crucial and challenging task for researchers. To solve these problems, this work leads to the prediction of nitrate contamination using machine learning approaches. This paper presents a novel approach known as Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) based on the Stacked Ensemble approach for predicting nitrate pollution in the Cauvery Delta region of Tamilnadu, India. The proposed method is evaluated using a Cauvery River dataset from the Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board. The proposed method shows excellent performance, achieving an accuracy of 93.31%, a precision of 93%, a sensitivity of 97.53%, a specificity of 94.28%, an F1-score of 95.23%, and an ROC score of 95%. These impressive results underline the demonstration of the proposed method in accurately predicting nitrate pollution in river water and ultimately help to make informed decisions to tackle these critical environmental problems.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.171-191
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• 2024

Wind Driven Rain (WDR) poses a significant threat to the building environment, especially in hurricane prone regions by causing interior and content damage during tropical storms and hurricanes. The damage due to rain intrusion depends on the total amount of water that enters the building; however, owing to the use of inadequate empirical methods, the amount of water intrusion is difficult to estimate accurately. Hence, the need to achieve full-scale testing capable of realistically simulating rain intrusion is widely recognized. This paper presents results of a full-scale experimental simulation at the NHERI Wall of Wind Experimental Facility (WOW EF) aimed at obtaining realistic rain characteristics as experienced by structures during tropical storms and hurricanes. A full-scale simulation of rain in strong winds would allow testing WDR intrusion through typical building components. A study of rain intrusion through a sliding glass door is presented, which accounted for the effects of multiple wind directions, test durations and wind speeds; configurations with and without shuttering systems were also considered. The study showed that significant levels of water intrusion can occur during conditions well below current design levels. The knowledge gained through this work may enhance risk modeling pertaining to loss estimates due to WDR intrusion in buildings, and it may help quantify the potential reduction of losses due to the additional protection from shuttering systems on sliding glass doors during winds.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.262-265
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• 2020

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) poses an important occupational health risk to health workers (HWs) that has attracted global scrutiny. To date, several thousand HWs globally have been reported as infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus that causes the disease. It is therefore a public health priority for policymakers to understand risk factors for this vulnerable group to avert occupational transmission. A rapid review was carried out on 20 April 2020 on Covid-19 risk factors among HWs in PubMed, Google Scholar, and EBSCOHost Web (Academic Search Complete, CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE with Full Text, CINAHL with Full Text, APA PsycInfo, Health Source-Consumer Edition, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition) and WHO Global Database. We also searched for preprints on the medRxiv database. We searched for reports, reviews, and primary observational studies (case control, case cross-over, cross-sectional, and cohort). The review included studies conducted among HWs with Covid-19 that reported risk factors irrespective of their sample size. Eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Lack of personal protective equipment, exposure to infected patients, work overload, poor infection control, and preexisting medical conditions were identified as risk factors for Covid-19 among HWs. In the context of Covid-19, HWs face an unprecedented occupational risk of morbidity and mortality. There is need for rapid development of sustainable measures that protect HWs from the pandemic.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.05a
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• pp.52-57
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• 1996

Mixing is most important for developing an electric washer which transforms angular momentum from rotating solid wall to laundry clothes inside it. For magnification of this mixing effect, some inventions are introduced to washing machine system, i. e., washing plate, washing rod, and even for washing cap in a model of a Korean manufacture. However, the previous efforts show dissatisfaction up till now. In this paper, a triumph to enhance mixing effects to increase washing performance is presented and verified by numerical investigation. The present model to simulate a washing tub is the simple circular cylinder with two endwall disks which is completely filled with a viscous liquid. The present improvement is to change mounting position of a bottom disk of the model cylinder. Therefore, the aim of this work just proposes a new idea, which is numerically inspected, to a producer of washing machine, In detail, this invention is alternating the mounting position of a rotating bottom disk. Actually skewed pulsator is placed in steady of a flat disk, so the two endwall disks at top and bottom are not in parallel. The angle between an inclined bottom disk and the horizontal plane is fixed as 5 degree and physical domain to consider poses a sliced cylinder. Flow fields in both a right circular cylinder and the present improved model are fully depicted by numerical integration on a body fitted nonorthogonal regular uniform grid system. Numerical data to explain flow structure are plotted for understanding of the effects of the inclined disk. Also enhanced mixing effects by the inclined rotating disk are gauged by accurate numerical data used in this work.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.283-288
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• 2014

Among all serious diseases globally, diabetes (type 1 and type 2) still poses a major challenge to the world population. Several target proteins have been identified, and the etiology causing diabetes has been reasonably well studied. But, there is still a gap in deciding on the choice of a drug, especially when the target is mutated. Mutations in the KCNJ11 gene, encoding the kir6.2 channel, are reported to be associated with congenital hyperinsulinism, having a major impact in causing type 1 diabetes, and due to the lack of its 3D structure, an attempt has been made to predict the structure of kir6.2, applying fold recognition methods. The current work is intended to investigate the affinity of four phytochemicals namely, curcumin (Curcuma longa), genistein (Genista tinctoria), piperine (Piper nigrum), and pterostilbene (Vitis vinifera) in a normal as well as in a mutant kir6.2 model by adopting a molecular docking methodology. The phytochemicals were docked in both wild and mutated kir6.2 models in two rounds: blind docking followed by ATP-binding pocket-specific docking. From the binding pockets, the common interacting amino acid residues participating strongly within the binding pocket were identified and compared. From the study, we conclude that these phytochemicals have strong affinity in both the normal and mutant kir6.2 model. This work would be helpful for further study of the phytochemicals above for the treatment of type 1 diabetes by targeting the kir6.2 channel.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.58 no.5
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• pp.903-941
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• 2012

This essay examines Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism focusing on the concepts of 'culture,' 'empire,' and 'nation'. The approach is critical, theoretical, and historical rather than explicatory. Consequently, the range of the essay is not limited to Said's own explanation and argument about Western imperialism and its culture presented in the book. In doing this, this essay finally purposes to be a discursive resistance to the current global empire, the United States, via a critical reading of Said's work. Said's notion of culture is set upon to disclose the function of culture as an apparatus of ideological consent of the dominated to the dominant. When applied to imperial practice, Western culture functions to subject the colonized to the colonizer. Said's geographical approach to imperialism complements the historical understanding of imperialism. Imperialism is not only the practice of Western-centered historicism but also the spatially mutual interaction between the West and the rest of the world. Along with European imperialism, Said poses the current global empire of the United States as his main target of criticism. Said's problem is that he takes the United States as a nation-state. When examined, the United States is not a nation-state, but today's empire. The empire in the appearance of the nation-state United States does not work for the interest of the American nation, that is, the American people. The empire is the transnational and postnational political and economic institution that works for the interest of global capital. In order to resist the current global empire, this essay suggests that the building or restoration of nation-states with its basic principle of people's sovereignty is in need.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.13-27
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• 2000

The background of single animal figures was originated from those northern mounted nomadic groups, which was Scythe style Culture. The art of the nomads working in the Scythian idiom was small in size and essentially decorative in intention, yet practically every object which can be associated with any unit in this group of people possesses many of the attributes essential to a real work of art. Clarity of conception, purity of form, co-ordination of rhythm and balance, and not least, an understanding and respect for the material employed were triumphantly blended by the Eurasian nomads to produce a distinctive style. In Scythian art the multitude of animal representations well illustrates the reoccupation of this nomadic people with animals in their environment. Usually only wild animals are represented. Commonly depicted are: stags and deer, lions or other large cats, eagles, birds heads (perhaps of ravens), griffins, snakes, hares, fish, goats, rams, boars, moose (elk), yak, sheep and bears. The occasional exception to the wild animal rule is domesticated horses-important because the Scythians were horse bleeders and their whole culture revolved around their dependence on the horse. The nomads had little reason to create object in honour of gods or men, but they had an instinct for beauty and the wish to surround themselves with the animal forms in which they had come to delight The Scytians tried to combine in a single rendering all the salient points of the animal they were delineating. They archived considerable success in the difficult task of showing in a single image the various and often incompatible poses assumed by a single animal in the course of its life. Zoomorphic motifs were used not simple for decorative effect, but to trim the object into amulets, with magical power to assist in hunting, and to protect the owner from harm.