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To gain a better understanding of the impact of students’ home languages and cultural experiences on reading and writing instruction, the instructional methods and materials that best supported these students’ emerging bilingualism, and the contributions of their families in their utilization of their home languages and cultural experiences in a school setting. Mixed methods provided data on the literacy development in both home and school languages of three first-grade Latino students who were non-native English speakers enrolled in a school literacy intervention program for 12 to 20 weeks. The students’ confidence and motivation within their reading and writing instruction improved greatly with the encouragement of the use of their home languages and cultural experiences. All three students showed gains in speaking, reading, and writing in both their home and school languages. They made solid and useful connections between the languages and the texts, and drew upon their cultural experiences, which strengthened their reading and writing strategies in both languages. Involving the children’s families in lessons and in activities at school, and supporting their use of reading and writing at home, helped build relationships among the participants, families, and school faculty. This contributed to the beginnings of new understandings on the part of the school’s teachers and administration. Students need to have the space to use their home languages and cultural experiences in school, and I describe how educators in varied educational settings can replicate the same kinds of methods, materials, and support I offered to these students. I also describe suggested ways that teachers and administrators could include the knowledge of emergent bilingual families within the life of the school to further expand all students’ learning and promote social justice in the classroom setting.

This study aims to determine the physicochemical and fatty acids composition of Serra da Estrela cheese (SEC), as well as health-related lipid indices, like the atherogenic and thrombogenic indices, and to evaluate the influence of producer, geographical origin and production date.

All 24 SEC produced between November 2017 and March 2018 were collected at selected certified producers and analyzed by NIR spectrophotometer and by GC. Data were statistically evaluated by chemometric tools.

In all evaluated SEC, 23 fatty acids were quantified. Cheese origin influenced nutritional and health-related lipid indices). The cheeses were characterized by a relative high abundance of saturated fatty acids (67-76%), followed by a medium content of monounsaturated fatty acids (17-25%) and by low level of polyunsaturated fatty acids (5-7%). A putative positive association between cheese consumption and healthy lipid indices could be reached.

The contents of some medium and long chain fatty acids as well as of nutritional and health indices were influenced by cheese producer, geographical origin and production date pointing out the need for standardizing production procedures.

The SEC plays a key role in the local economy, being an endogenous product with unique sensory characteristics and nutritional potential, for which the knowledge of the lipids profile and health indices is of utmost relevance.

SEC is an iconic Portuguese cheese with Protected Designation of Origin. Based on the results, like health-related lipid indices, evaluated for the first time, a positive association between cheese consumption and healthy lipid indices could be envisaged.

In the reliability assessment of composite laminate structures with multiple components, the uncertainty space defined around design solutions easily becomes over-dimensioned, and not all of the random variables are relevant. The purpose of this study is to implement the importance analysis theory of Sobol’ to reduce the dimension of the uncertainty space, improving the efficiency toward global convergence of evolutionary-based reliability assessment.

Sobol’ indices are formulated analytically for implicit structural response functions, following the theory of propagation of moments and without violating the fundamental principles presented by Sobol’. An evolutionary algorithm capable of global convergence in reliability assessment is instrumented with the Sobol’ indices. A threshold parameter is introduced to identify the important variables. A set of optimal designs of a multi-laminate composite structure is evaluated.

Importance analysis shows that uncertainty is concentrated in the laminate where the critical stress state is found. Still, it may also be reasonable in other points of the structure. An accurate and controlled reduction of the uncertainty space significantly improves the convergence rate, while maintaining the quality of the reliability assessment.

The theoretical developments assume independent random variables.

Applying Sobol’ indices as an analytical dimension reduction technique is a novelty. The proposed formulation only requires one adjoint system of equilibrium equations to be solved once. Although a local estimate of a global measure, this analytical formulation still holds because, in structural design, uncertainty is concentrated around the mean-values.

A numerical method for shape optimisation in forging is presented. The goal of the optimisation is to eliminate work‐piece defects that may arise during the forging process. A two‐dimensional finite element code has been developed for the simulation of the mechanical process. The material is incompressible and it follows the Norton‐Hoff law. To deal with contact constraint the velocity projection algorithm is used. The optimisation process is conducted using a genetic algorithm supported by an elitist strategy. A new genetic operator called adaptive mutation has been developed to increase the efficiency of the search. The developed scheme is used to design optimal preform shapes for several axisymmetric examples. Continuous and discrete design variables are considered. The objective function of the optimisation problem is associated with the quality of the final product. Comparing the obtained optimal results with the literature validates the proposed optimisation method.

The performance of the building envelope of a large-scale public building significantly influences the energy consumption of such a building. This study aims to determine the best strategy for the envelope by examining the engineering design of the building in Nanchang University. The building shape coefficient, sun-shading strategies, window–wall ratio, roof, and walls were studied through a method involving multilayer feed-forward neural network model simulations. Results show that the optimum shape coefficient value is 0.32. The combination of interior and exterior blinds and electrochromic glass is the ideal option to reduce the increase in the energy consumption of the architecture caused by solar radiation. Maintaining the window–wall ratio at 0.4 is ideal. A green roof exerts a minimal effect on building energy consumption decrease (only 0.4%). Applying the strategy of vertical greening to the external wall can reduce cooling energy consumption by as much as 5.4%. Adopting the best envelope strategy combination can further decrease energy consumption by 20.8%. This strategy is also applicable to the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River in China, which flow through Nanchang and have a climate similar to that of the said area. Future research should be directed toward applying artificial neural networks to quantitatively evaluate the effects of a design strategy and produce the best design strategy combination.

A new design framework for crossover operator is proposed based on the commonality concept. In the reproduction process the resulting hybrid crossover operator includes a local search scheme aiming to improve the genetic characteristics of the offspring. Commonality suggests that search should be driven in the neighbourhood of parents, and local optimisers can drive this search. The ranking of the offspring candidates is based on a local fitness function using approximations and appropriated heuristics linked to the structural optimisation problem. The goal of this approach is to identify and preserve the common schema of the two parents responsible for their high‐observed fitness. The proposed hybrid crossover operator is embedded into a genetic algorithm supported by an elitist strategy and its performance is compared with the parametrised uniform crossover.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

Surface roughness is an important parameter in manufacturing engineering with significant influence on the performance of mechanical parts. Failures, sometimes catastrophic failures, leading to high costs, have been imputed to a component's surface roughness. Owing to the need for improvement of machining parameters in order to obtain a prescribed surface roughness, new developments have been recently investigated. This work aims to report on a study of an optimisation model based on genetic algorithms (GAs).

The developed algorithm considers a machining parameter data population obtained from experimental tests. The exchange of structured information based on natural selection principles and “survival‐of‐the‐fittest” allows the combination of solutions in a sequence of generations leading to the best solution.

Over standard experimental design methodologies the proposed GA approach shows advantages in finding the optimal conditions under the imposed constraints. Indeed the quality of the produced surface roughness cannot be evaluated using only a criterion. This GA method determines the combined effects of the input parameters to the optimal machining parameter.

A new methodology for determining optimal machining parameters in dry turning based on the measurement of the surface roughness is proposed. The numerical and experimental developed model can be used with success on further applications with industrial interest.

The purpose of this chapter is to conduct a structured literature review to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and emotional intelligence in academic settings as well as the current entrepreneurship pedagogy for flexible, innovative and creative graduates. One hundred and twenty-eight peer-reviewed papers were analysed based on Webster’s and Watson’s (2002) methodology. Papers classified into three topics and a content analysis was implemented to discuss about the publication year, journals, authors, frequency of keywords and research method adopted. The contribution of this chapter is twofold. It is a bibliometric study which provides a macropicture of a research field, its evolution and connections among studies, in order to be a starting point for future researchers who are already studying entrepreneurial education or entrepreneurship-related scientific areas. Also, this chapter helps academics to improve educational programmes and curriculum to increase students’ entrepreneurial intention taking into account the factors that affect it.

An optimisation method for design of intermediate die shapes needed in some forging operations is presented. The basic problem consists of finding an optimal two‐step forging sequence by automatically designing the shape of the preforming tools. The optimisation problem is defined based on an inverse formulation. The objective function of the optimisation problem is a function describing the quality of the obtained part by measuring the die underfill. The finite element method is used to simulate the forging problem. The optimisation method is based on a modified sequential unconstrained minimisation technique and a gradient method. The sensitivity‐dependent algorithm requires computing the derivatives of the objective function with respect to the design variables defining the preform shapes. A direct differentiation method has been developed for this purpose. The optimisation scheme is demonstrated with two axisymmetric forging examples in which optimal preform dies are obtained.