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The purpose of this paper is to characterize and identify the existing studies on the relationship between technological media and development

The authors conducted a systematic mapping study to identify and analyze the related literature. The authors identified 196 primary studies, dated from 2000 to 2017 and categorized them with respect to research focus, types of research and research method.

A total of 97 studies were identified and mapped, synthesizing the available evidence on the relationship between technological media and development. “Social development” with 54 articles and “communication” with 34 articles were the dominant research focus. Regarding the research type, “Solution proposal” is the most frequently employed research type. “Case study,” “discussion paper” and “interview,” respectively were the most used research methods. However, “SNA,” “focus group” and “time series” were used less often. “Solution proposal” was the most common research type between 2015 and 2017, and after that “philosophical paper” was the dominant research paper type. Further, the number of publications has increased between 2006 and 2017.

This mapping study is the first systematic exploration of the state-of-art on technological media-development nexus. The existing body of knowledge is limited to a few high quality studies.

There is some evidence that suggest a higher dietary total antioxidant capacity (DTAC) is associated with a lower risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS). Considering the conflicting results in this field, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive summary of studies on the association of DTAC and components of MetS.

A systematic review of articles indexed in PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar, published from inception to September 2018, with defined keywords, was done. Duplicate or irrelevant reports were screened out and data were extracted through critical analysis. Finally, among the 353 articles, 19 articles met the inclusion criteria.

The included cohort studies revealed that higher DTAC was associated with reduced risk of MetS. Also, the association between DTAC and mortality risk of MetS was insignificant in these studies. The case–control studies showed high DTAC is inversely associated with MetS, its components and complications. The randomized controlled trials found that changes in DTAC were negatively correlated with oxidized low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and there was a positive association between DTAC and subjects’ weight and body mass index. Finally, results from the cross-sectional studies were inconsistence in this regard.

The assessed relationship between MetS or its components with DTAC is inconsistent in the included studies. Different sample size, dietary assessment tools, DTAC index values and geographical location may justify the observed inconsistencies. It seems that further studies are needed to reveal more confident and reliable findings.

Design of small disc-type permanent magnet (PM) brushed DC motors for servomechanisms is challenging. The purpose of this paper is to propose a special coreless double-sided structure. This easy to manufacture motor has two set of shifted concentrated windings on both sides of the rotor. All of the coils in each winding are simply connected in series. A simple arcless commutator, which shares the features of both the usual commutators and slip rings, is connected to each winding at only two points.

By replacing the PMs with an equivalent current density, main design equations of the motor have been derived through the solving of scalar Poisson equation. A radial division technique has been used to take the radial variations into account. This provides the ability of considering various shapes of coils and PMs. A novel iterative algorithm has been proposed to design a motor with high torque capability, compared to other coreless counterparts. Some design variables are obtained based on an independent optimization problem, which maximizes the active portion of windings. The other variables are calculated in such a way that the design requirements are satisfied.

The feasibility and capability of the new structure have been proved by prototyping a sample motor. Comparing the design outputs with the results of the 3D finite element analysis and experimental tests shows a good agreement. This verifies the accuracy of the proposed design method.

A new structure for PM brushed DC motors and a novel algorithm for its design has been developed.

Food insecurity exists when access to nutritionally sufficient and secure foods or the ability to obtain admissible foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncertain. Food insecurity is most likely associated with chronic disease. However, research into the possible relationship between food insecurity and cancer, the world’s second leading cause of death, is limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of food insecurity as well as the associated socioeconomic characteristics among cancer patients.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on 240 cancer patients in Iran. The socioeconomic and 18-item U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Security Questionnaires were used to measure general and socioeconomic characteristics, as well as food security status.

The prevalence of food insecurity was 25.4% in the form of hunger and 52.5% in the form of hidden hunger. Only 22.1% of the patients were food secure. The results of the logistic regression analysis revealed that having children under 18 years old (P = 0.035), economic status (P < 0.001), age of the patient (P = 0.001), educational level of household’s head and his spouse (P = 0.044 and P = 0.045, respectively, had statistically significant relationships with food insecurity.

Cancer patients have a high rate of food insecurity. Considering the importance of food security for effective cancer treatment, the health system’s attention to this issue, particularly by policymakers, appears to be required.

The enrichment of bread with non-digestible prebiotic ingredients may exert health-promoting effects and provide healthier food choices for those suffering from metabolic diseases, including obesity and diabetes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ß-glucan and resistant starch incorporation on the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of white bread.

Seven different formulations of prebiotic bread were produced using different proportions of ß-glucan (0.8, 1 and 1.2 per cent), resistant starch (5.5, 8 and 10.5 per cent) and the combination of resistant starch and ß-glucan in a ratio of 4:0.5.

The GI and GL of the prebiotic bread prepared with 1 per cent ß-glucan (w/w) were 55.7 and 7.8, respectively, whereas those of the prebiotic bread prepared with 8 per cent resistant starch (w/w) were 64.8 and 8.42, respectively, with both breads having significantly lower GI and GL values than the control (P < 0.05). It was concluded that the incorporation of 1 per cent ß-glucan may be beneficial in producing prebiotic bread with both low GI and low GL.

Although white bread is a main food source in human diet, its high GI and GL make it an unhealthy food choice. The incorporation of ingredients with prebiotic effects, such as ß-glucan and resistant starch, can improve the nutritional value of this product by lowering its GI and GL.

Images taken from construction site interiors often suffer from low illumination and poor natural colors, which restrict their application for high-level site management purposes. The state-of-the-art low-light image enhancement method provides promising image enhancement results. However, they generally require a longer execution time to complete the enhancement. This study aims to develop a refined image enhancement approach to improve execution efficiency and performance accuracy.

To develop the refined illumination enhancement algorithm named enhanced illumination quality (EIQ), a quadratic expression was first added to the initial illumination map. Subsequently, an adjusted weight matrix was added to improve the smoothness of the illumination map. A coordinated descent optimization algorithm was then applied to minimize the processing time. Gamma correction was also applied to further enhance the illumination map. Finally, a frame comparing and averaging method was used to identify interior site progress.

The proposed refined approach took around 4.36–4.52 s to achieve the expected results while outperforming the current low-light image enhancement method. EIQ demonstrated a lower lightness-order error and provided higher object resolution in enhanced images. EIQ also has a higher structural similarity index and peak-signal-to-noise ratio, which indicated better image reconstruction performance.

The proposed approach provides an alternative to shorten the execution time, improve equalization of the illumination map and provide a better image reconstruction. The approach could be applied to low-light video enhancement tasks and other dark or poor jobsite images for object detection processes.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a factorization‐based control system design procedure to design of auto‐pilot systems.

The design approach is based on a previously developed factorization‐based control system design procedure. The design approach requires a stable coprime factorization of the plant, a set of stable coprime factors that are solutions to the Bezout identity, the linear model of a desired response, and the desired frequency range of interest. When all this information is provided, the developed automated software outputs a candidate auto‐pilot whose performance should be verified.

For a specific class of aerospace vehicles, it is found that the described factorization‐based auto‐pilot design procedure may replace the presently complicated auto‐pilot design procedures. The final design is simpler than other techniques that are based on classical, robust, adaptive, QFT, gain scheduling, or interpolation techniques, and the total required man hours for the design loop is less than the mentioned alternative approaches.

There are two basic limitations – time variations of plant parameters must not be very large as is the case with the agile aerospace vehicles, and specification of the desired closed‐loop system behavior is not systematic.

The major outcome of this research is that complicated autopilots of a class of aerospace vehicles may be replaced by simpler systems with competitive performance.

This is the first paper in the area of autopilot design that is based on the application of a simple factorization‐based design procedure.

With a history of social and political marginalisation, mobile populations are most deprived of access to adequate health service provision. While they have undergone sociopolitical changes that bring them closer to mainstream health provision, their perception of the available health provision is still rarely sought by policy makers. This paper addresses these gaps by exploring the perceptions that Bedouin women have of reproductive health services in the Bekaa valley of Lebanon. Historically at the margins of health policy making, Bedouin populations in Lebanon have recently been facing significant sociopolitical changes to their ways of life that affect their perceptions of access and use of health services. In the past 40 years, the Bedouin have gradually settled in informal permanent or quasi‐permanent settlements and engaged with modernised sedentary modes of living overlapping with their own. Their entitlements to social provision and political participation were also renegotiated in the post‐conflict political era (post‐1990) through an inconsistent naturalisation process managed by dominant political players. These changes have been significant in reshaping the positioning of the Bedouin as a social group in the broader Lebanese society. Against this backdrop, the paper asks the following question: How do women negotiate their reproductive health issues in relation to the dominant Lebanese mixed‐provider health model? The paper argues that Bedouin women's perceptions of, and engagement with, the health system are hindered more by the inconsistencies and shortfalls of the health system than by any specific barriers stemming from their ways of life. Their access and use of health services are underpinned by institutional discrimination against their ethnic group at various levels of health provision.

This study investigates and explores sustainable fashion based on social attitudes toward culture and sustainable fashion effects in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), based on environmental knowledge and consumer satisfaction initiatives. It explicates sustainable fashion on the sustainable development agenda in addressing the gap of cultural value, environmental knowledge and sustainable fashion in SSA.

Using a quantitative approach, the study employed a web-based online cross-sectional survey to extract tangible information from 620 participants from SSA. The study integrated theory of planned behaviors (TPB) model and hypotheses. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test all proposed hypotheses.

The results show that low environmental knowledge, influenced by geographical and cultural differences, affected fashion value, as which is predictively significant for sustainable fashion. However, attitude and cultural value results found statistical significance for consumer satisfaction in sustainable fashion. Furthermore, mediation was attained between consumer behavioral and environmental knowledge of sustainable fashion. The study recommends government policies on educational awareness and textile regulations for environmental garbage disposal possible harmful effects of climate change and finally, designing innovative initiatives for environmentally friendly fashion.

This study examines the environmental and social attitudes as well as behavioral effects, of an ecosystem that would most likely have a short life period, eliminate disposal dumps and foster an environmental control policy. Consequently, the study’s conceptual model and extended TPB contribute to how sustainable fashion supports environmental knowledge, consumer attitudes and cultural behaviors in fashion among Sub-Saharan Africans.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an evaluation methodology for employee profiles that will provide feedback to the training decision makers. Employee profiles play a crucial role in the evaluation process to improve the training process performance. This paper focuses on the clustering of the employees based on their profiles into specific categories that represent the employees’ characteristics. The employees are classified into following categories: necessary training, required training, and no training. The work may answer the question of how to spend the budget of training for the employees. This investigation presents the use of fuzzy optimization and clustering hybrid model (data mining approaches) as a fuzzy imperialistic competitive algorithm (FICA) and k-means to find the employees’ categories and predict their training requirements.

Prior research that served as an impetus for this paper is discussed. The approach is to apply evolutionary algorithms and clustering hybrid model to improve the training decision system directions.

This paper focuses on how to find a good model for the evaluation of employee profiles. The paper introduces the use of artificial intelligence methods (fuzzy optimization (FICA) and clustering techniques (K-means)) in management. The suggestion and the recommendations were constructed based on the clustering results that represent the employee profiles and reflect their requirements during the training courses. Finally, the paper proved the ability of fuzzy optimization technique and clustering hybrid model in predicting the employee’s training requirements.

This paper evaluates employee profiles based on new directions and expands the implication of clustering view in solving organizational challenges (in TCT for the first time).