Search results for: moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS)

Authors: Chew Zhao Hong

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Since the transition of power in 2018, the Malaysian political landscape has experienced substantial shifts and complexities. The decline of the longstanding ruling party, United Malays National Organization (UMNO), following the party rotation, has given rise to splinter parties such as the Indigenous Unity Party (Bersatu), along with the enduring presence of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) in the northern region of the Malay Peninsula. However, the "Sheraton Move" in 2020 led to the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government and the emergence of Perikatan Nasional, signifying the ascent of a third political force. The 2022 general elections marked Malaysia's entry into a hung parliament, culminating in an intricate negotiation that resulted in a coalition government formed by Pakatan Harapan, Barisan Nasional, and the Sarawak parties alliance (GPS), collectively governing the Malaysian federal administration. During the 2023 state elections, Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional formed an unprecedented alliance, yet the media framing benefited Perikatan Nasional, even securing substantial support from UMNO's traditional constituencies. In the era of converging new media, Malaysia’s democratization faces new challenges: first, political leaders leveraging media to cultivate unfiltered personas risk inducing populism; second, under the influence of agenda-setting and two-step flow theories, media contributes to polarization; lastly, Malaysia's multi-party system is no longer effectively moderate extreme ideologies into the political center. This study examines the role of media framing and its impact on the democratization process within Malaysia's consociational democracy under a multi-party system and analyzes media discourse before and after the 2023 Malaysian state elections to explore how different parties shape public opinion and political discourse, and how political messages may be amplified or distorted in the process.

Keywords: multi-party system, democratization, elections, political polarization, Malaysia, media framing

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Authors: Solomon Yokamo, Dianjun Lu, Xiaoqin Chen, Huoyan Wang

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The current ‘high input-high output’ nutrient management model based on homogenous spreading over the entire soil surface remains a key challenge in China’s farming systems, leading to low fertilizer use efficiency and environmental pollution. Localized placement of fertilizer (LPF) to crop root zones has been proposed as a viable approach to boost crop production while protecting environmental pollution. To assess the potential benefits of LPF on three major crops—wheat, rice, and maize—a comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted, encompassing 85 field studies published from 2002-2023. We further validated the practicability and feasibility of one-time root zone N management based on LPF for the three field crops. The meta-analysis revealed that LPF significantly increased the yields of the selected crops (13.62%) and nitrogen recovery efficiency (REN) (33.09%) while reducing cumulative nitrous oxide (N₂O) emission (17.37%) and ammonia (NH₃) volatilization (60.14%) compared to the conventional surface application (CSA). Higher grain yield and REN were achieved with an optimal fertilization depth (FD) of 5-15 cm, moderate N rates, combined NPK application, one-time deep fertilization, and coarse-textured and slightly acidic soils. Field validation experiments showed that localized one-time root zone N management without topdressing increased maize (6.2%), rice (34.6%), and wheat (2.9%) yields while saving N fertilizer (3%) and also increased the net economic benefits (23.71%) compared to CSA. A soil incubation study further proved the potential of LPF to enhance the retention and availability of mineral N in the root zone over an extended period. Thus, LPF could be an important fertilizer management strategy and should be extended to other less-developed and developing regions to win the triple benefit of food security, environmental quality, and economic gains.

Keywords: grain yield, LPF, NH₃ volatilization, N₂O emission, N recovery efficiency

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Authors: Varun A Baheti, Sanjay Kashyap, Kamanio Chattopadhyay, Praveen Kumar, Aloke Paul

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Ni–Sn system finds applications in the microelectronics industry, especially with respect to flip–chip or direct chip, attach technology. Here the region of interest is under bump metallization (UBM), and solder bump (Sn) interface due to the formation of brittle intermetallic phases there. Understanding the growth of these phases at UBM/Sn interface is important, as in many cases it controls the electro–mechanical properties of the product. Cu and Ni are the commonly used UBM materials. Cu is used for good bonding because of fast reaction with solder and Ni often acts as a diffusion barrier layer due to its inherently slower reaction kinetics with Sn–based solders. Investigation on the growth kinetics of phases in Ni–Sn system is reported in this study. Just for simplicity, Sn being major solder constituent is chosen. Ni–Sn electroplated diffusion couples are prepared by electroplating pure Sn on Ni substrate. Bulk diffusion couples prepared by the conventional method are also studied along with Ni–Sn electroplated diffusion couples. Diffusion couples are annealed for 25–1000 h at 50–215°C to study the phase evolutions and growth kinetics of various phases. The interdiffusion zone was analysed using field emission gun equipped scanning electron microscope (FE–SEM) for imaging. Indexing of selected area diffraction (SAD) patterns obtained from transmission electron microscope (TEM) and composition measurements done in electron probe micro−analyser (FE–EPMA) confirms the presence of various product phases grown across the interdiffusion zone. Time-dependent experiments indicate diffusion controlled growth of the product phase. The estimated activation energy in the temperature range 125–215°C for parabolic growth constants (and hence integrated interdiffusion coefficients) of the Ni₃Sn₄ phase shed light on the growth mechanism of the phase; whether its grain boundary controlled or lattice controlled diffusion. The location of the Kirkendall marker plane indicates that the Ni₃Sn₄ phase grows mainly by diffusion of Sn in the binary Ni–Sn system.

Keywords: diffusion, equilibrium phase, metastable phase, the Ni-Sn system

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Authors: S. K. Thind, Aparjot Kaur

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Heat stress is one of the major environmental factors drastically reducing wheat production. Crop heat tolerance can be enhanced by preconditioning of plants by exogenous application of osmoprotectants. Presently, the effect of trehalose pretreatment (at 1 mM, and 1.5 nM) under heat stress of 35±2˚C (moderate) and 40±2˚ (severe) for four and eight hour was conducted in wheat (Tricticum aestivum L.) genotypes viz. HD2967, PBW 175, PBW 343, PBW 621, and PBW 590. Heat stress affects wide spectrum of physiological processes within plants that are irreversibly damaged by stress. Membrane thermal stability (MTS) and cell viability was significantly decreased under heat stress for eight hours. Pretreatment with trehalose improved MTS and cell viability under stress and this effect was more promotory with higher concentration. Thermal stability of photosynthetic apparatus differed markedly between genotypes and Hill reaction activity was recorded more in PBW621 followed by C306 as compared with others. In all genotypes photolysis of water showed decline with increase in temperature stress. Trehalose pretreatment helped in sustaining Hill reaction activity probably by stabilizing the photosynthetic apparatus against heat-induced photo inhibition. Both plant growth and development were affected by temperature in both shoot and root under heat stress. The reduction was compensated partially by trehalose (1.5 mM) application. Adaption to heat stress is associated with the metabolic adjustment which led to accumulation of soluble sugars including non-reducing and reducing for their role in adaptive mechanism. Higher acid invertase activity in shoot of tolerant genotypes appeared to be a characteristic for stress tolerance. As sucrose synthase play central role in sink strength and in studied wheat genotype was positively related to dry matter accumulation. The duration of heat stress for eight hours had more severe effect on these parameters and trehalose application at 1.5 mM ameliorated it to certain extent.

Keywords: heat stress, Triticum aestivum, trehalose, membrane thermal stability, triphenyl tetrazolium chloride, reduction test, growth, sugar metabolism

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Authors: Kavian Khosravinia, Mohd Khair Hassan, Ribhan Zafira Abdul Rahman, Syed Abdul Rahman Al-Haddad

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The CAN (controller area network) bus is introduced as a multi-master, message broadcast system. The messages sent on the CAN are used to communicate state information, referred as a signal between different ECUs, which provides data consistency in every node of the system. OBD-II Dongles that are based on request and response method is the wide-spread solution for extracting sensor data from cars among researchers. Unfortunately, most of the past researches do not consider resolution and quantity of their input data extracted through OBD-II technology. The maximum feasible scan rate is only 9 queries per second which provide 8 data points per second with using ELM327 as well-known OBD-II dongle. This study aims to develop and design a programmable, and latency-sensitive vehicle data acquisition system that improves the modularity and flexibility to extract exact, trustworthy, and fresh car sensor data with higher frequency rates. Furthermore, the researcher must break apart, thoroughly inspect, and observe the internal network of the vehicle, which may cause severe damages to the expensive ECUs of the vehicle due to intrinsic vulnerabilities of the CAN bus during initial research. Desired sensors data were collected from various vehicles utilizing Raspberry Pi3 as computing and processing unit with using OBD (request-response) and direct CAN method at the same time. Two types of data were collected for this study. The first, CAN bus frame data that illustrates data collected for each line of hex data sent from an ECU and the second type is the OBD data that represents some limited data that is requested from ECU under standard condition. The proposed system is reconfigurable, human-readable and multi-task telematics device that can be fitted into any vehicle with minimum effort and minimum time lag in the data extraction process. The standard operational procedure experimental vehicle network test bench is developed and can be used for future vehicle network testing experiment.

Keywords: CAN bus, OBD-II, vehicle data acquisition, connected cars, telemetry, Raspberry Pi3

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Authors: O’Day Luke

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Purpose: To validate virtual non-contrast reconstructions generated from dual-layer spectral computed tomography (DL-CT) data as an alternative for the acquisition of a dedicated true non-contrast dataset during multiphase contrast studies. Material and methods: Thirty-three patients underwent a routine multiphase clinical CT examination, using Dual-Layer Spectral CT, from March to August 2021. True non-contrast (TNC) and virtual non-contrast (VNC) datasets, generated from both portal venous and arterial phase imaging were evaluated. For every patient in both true and virtual non-contrast datasets, a region-of-interest (ROI) was defined in aorta, liver, fluid (i.e. gallbladder, urinary bladder), kidney, muscle, fat and spongious bone, resulting in 693 ROIs. Differences in attenuation for VNC and TNV images were compared, both separately and combined. Consistency between VNC reconstructions obtained from the arterial and portal venous phase was evaluated. Results: Comparison of CT density (HU) on the VNC and TNC images showed a high correlation. The mean difference between TNC and VNC images (excluding bone results) was 5.5 ± 9.1 HU and > 90% of all comparisons showed a difference of less than 15 HU. For all tissues but spongious bone, the mean absolute difference between TNC and VNC images was below 10 HU. VNC images derived from the arterial and the portal venous phase showed a good correlation in most tissue types. The aortic attenuation was somewhat dependent however on which dataset was used for reconstruction. Bone evaluation with VNC datasets continues to be a problem, as spectral CT algorithms are currently poor in differentiating bone and iodine. Conclusion: Given the increasing availability of DL-CT and proven accuracy of virtual non-contrast processing, VNC is a promising tool for generating additional data during routine contrast-enhanced studies. This study shows the utility of virtual non-contrast scans as an alternative for true non-contrast studies during multiphase CT, with potential for dose reduction, without loss of diagnostic information.

Keywords: dual-layer spectral computed tomography, virtual non-contrast, true non-contrast, clinical comparison

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Authors: Waqas Ahmed Khan Afridi, Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay, Bandita Mainali

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The research paper presents a unique approach to evapotranspiration (ET) prediction using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning algorithm. The study leverages real-time sensor node data to develop an accurate and adaptable prediction model, addressing the inherent challenges of traditional ET estimation methods. The integration of the SVM algorithm with real-time sensor node data offers great potential to improve spatial and temporal resolution in ET predictions. In the model development, key input features are measured and computed using mathematical equations such as Penman-Monteith (FAO56) and soil water balance (SWB), which include soil-environmental parameters such as; solar radiation (Rs), air temperature (T), atmospheric pressure (P), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (u2), rain (R), deep percolation (DP), soil temperature (ST), and change in soil moisture (∆SM). The one-year field data are split into combinations of three proportions i.e. train, test, and validation sets. While kernel functions with tuning hyperparameters have been used to train and improve the accuracy of the prediction model with multiple iterations. This paper also outlines the existing methods and the machine learning techniques to determine Evapotranspiration, data collection and preprocessing, model construction, and evaluation metrics, highlighting the significance of SVM in advancing the field of ET prediction. The results demonstrate the robustness and high predictability of the developed model on the basis of performance evaluation metrics (R2, RMSE, MAE). The effectiveness of the proposed model in capturing complex relationships within soil and environmental parameters provide insights into its potential applications for water resource management and hydrological ecosystem.

Keywords: evapotranspiration, FAO56, KNIME, machine learning, RStudio, SVM, sensors

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Authors: Tanvi P. Medshinge, Prasad Vaidya, Monisha E. Royan

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In India, cooling loads in residential sector is a major contributor to its total energy consumption. Due to the increasing cooling need, the market penetration of air-conditioners is further expected to rise. Natural Ventilation (NV), however, possesses great potential to save significant energy consumption especially for residential buildings in moderate climates. As multifamily residential apartment buildings are designed by repetitive use of prototype designs, deriving individual NV based design prototype solutions for a combination of different wind incidence angles and orientations would provide significant opportunity to address the rise in cooling loads by residential sector. This paper presents the results of NV performance of a selected prototype apartment design with a cluster of four units in Pune, India, and an attempt to improve the NV performance through design modifications. The water table apparatus, a physical modelling tool, is used to study the flow patterns and simulate wind-induced NV performance. Quantification of NV performance is done by post processing images captured from video recordings in terms of percentage of area with good and poor access to ventilation. NV performance of the existing design for eight wind incidence angles showed that of the cluster of four units, the windward units showed good access to ventilation for all rooms, and the leeward units had lower access to ventilation with the bedrooms in the leeward units having the least access. The results showed improved performance in all the units for all wind incidence angles to more than 80% good access to ventilation. Some units showed an additional improvement to more than 90% good access to ventilation. This process of design and performance evaluation improved some individual units from 0% to 100% for good access to ventilation. The results demonstrate the ease of use and the power of the water table apparatus for performance-based design to simulate wind induced NV.  

Keywords: fluid dynamics, prototype design, natural ventilation, simulations, water table apparatus, wind incidence angles

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Authors: Ali Fuad Ashour

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Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, progressive and degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). MS has been described to result in the debilitating symptom of the disease. It is reported to have a negative impact on the patient’s mental activities, brings a lower quality of life, leads to unemployment, causes distress and psychological disorders, generates low levels of motivation and self-esteem, and result in disability and neurological impairment. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of MS on patients from Britain and Kuwait. Methodology: A questionnaire was distributed to 200 individuals with MS (100 Kuwaiti and 100 British). The questionnaire consists of three parts; 1. General demographics, 2. Disease-specific data (symptoms, severity levels, relapse frequency, and support system), and 3. Attitudes towards physical exercise. Results: A response rate of 62% from the British sample and 50% from the Kuwaiti sample was achieved. 84% of the sample (n=52) were 41 years old or over. The duration of the disease was less than 10 years in 43.4% of British and 68% of Kuwaiti respondents. The majority of British respondents (56.5%) reported the disease severity to be moderate, while the majority of Kuwaitis was mild (72%). The annual relapse rates in Kuwait were relatively low, with 82% of the Kuwaiti sample had one relapse per year, compared to the 64.5% of British. The most common symptoms reported by British respondents were balance (75.8%), fatigue (74.2%), and weakness (71%), and by Kuwaiti respondents were fatigue (86%), balance (76%), and weakness (66%). The help and support for MS were by far more diverse for the British than Kuwaiti respondents. Discussion: The results unveiled marked differences between two groups of British and Kuwaiti MS patients in terms of patients’ age and disease duration, and severity. The overwhelming majority of Kuwaiti patients are young individuals who have been with the disease for a relatively short period of time, and their MS in most cases was mild. On the other hand, British patients were relatively older, many have been with the disease for a long period of time, and their average MS condition was more serious than that of their Kuwaiti counterparts. The main support in Kuwait comes from the neurologist, who primarily prescribe medications and advise patients to try to be active. The Kuwaiti respondents thought that lack of encouragement was the main reason for them not to engage in social activities.

Keywords: multiple sclerosis, Kuwait, exercise, demographic

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Authors: Ruben Peralta, Sam Thomas, Nazia Hirani, Ayman El-Menyar, Hassan Al-Thani, Mohammed Al-Thani, Mohammed Al-Hajjaj, Rafael Consunji

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Moderate to severe work-related injuries [WRI's] are a leading cause of trauma admission in Qatar but information on risk factors for their incidence are lacking. This study aims to document and analyze the predictive characteristics for WRI to inform the creation of targeted interventions to improve worker safety in Qatar. This study was conducted as part of the NPRP grant # 7 - 1120 - 3 - 288, titled "A Unified Registry for Occupational Injury Prevention in Qatar”. 266 workers were interviewed using a standard questionnaire, during ‘World Day for Safety and Health at Work’, a Ministry of Public Health event, none refused interview. Nurses and doctors from the Hamad Trauma Center conducted the interviews. Questions were translated into the worker’s native language when it was deemed necessary. Standard information on epidemiologic characteristics and incidence of work-related injury were collected and compared between nationalities and those injured versus those not injured. 262 males and 4 females were interviewed. 17 [6.4%] reported a WRI in the last 24 months. More than half of the injured worked in construction [59%] followed by water supply [11.8%]. Factors significantly associated with recent injury were: Working for a company with > 500 employees and speaking Hindi. Protective characteristics included: Being from the Philippines or Sri Lanka, speaking Arabic, working in healthcare, an office or trading and company size between 100-500 employees. Years of schooling and working in Qatar were not predictive factor for WRI. The findings from this survey should guide future research that will better define worker populations at an increased risk for WRI and inform recruiters and sending countries. A focus on worker language skills, interventions in the construction industry and occupational safety in large companies is needed.

Keywords: occupational injury, prevention, safety, trauma, work related injury

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Authors: Andrew R. Willis, Kevin Brink, Kathleen Dipple

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This article describes a software package called ROS-georegistration intended for use with the robot operating system (ROS) and the Gazebo 3D simulation environment. ROSgeoregistration provides tools for the simulation, test, and deployment of aerial georegistration algorithms and is available at github.com/uncc-visionlab/rosgeoregistration. A model creation package is provided which downloads multi-spectral images from the Google Earth Engine database and, if necessary, incorporates these images into a single, possibly very large, reference image. Additionally a Gazebo plugin which uses the real-time sensor pose and image formation model to generate simulated imagery using the specified reference image is provided along with related plugins for UAV relevant data. The novelty of this work is threefold: (1) this is the first system to link the massive multi-spectral imaging database of Google’s Earth Engine to the Gazebo simulator, (2) this is the first example of a system that can simulate geospatially and radiometrically accurate imagery from multiple sensor views of the same terrain region, and (3) integration with other UAS tools creates a new holistic UAS simulation environment to support UAS system and subsystem development where real-world testing would generally be prohibitive. Sensed imagery and ground truth registration information is published to client applications which can receive imagery synchronously with telemetry from other payload sensors, e.g., IMU, GPS/GNSS, barometer, and windspeed sensor data. To highlight functionality, we demonstrate ROSgeoregistration for simulating Electro-Optical (EO) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image sensors and an example use case for developing and evaluating image-based UAS position feedback, i.e., pose for image-based Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) applications.

Keywords: EO-to-EO, EO-to-SAR, flight simulation, georegistration, image generation, robot operating system, vision-based navigation

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Authors: Yung-Chung Chuang

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The cultural layers of archaeological sites are mainly affected by surface land use, land cover, and root system of surface vegetation. For this reason, continuous monitoring of land use and land cover change is important for archaeological sites protection and management. However, in actual operation, on-site investigation and orthogonal photograph interpretation require a lot of time and manpower. For this reason, it is necessary to perform a good alternative for surface vegetation survey in an automated or semi-automated manner. In this study, we applied semi-automatic digital aerial survey technology and canopy characters classification with very high-resolution aerial photographs for surface vegetation interpretation of archaeological sites. The main idea is based on different landscape or forest type can easily be distinguished with canopy characters (e.g., specific texture distribution, shadow effects and gap characters) extracted by semi-automatic image classification. A novel methodology to classify the shape of canopy characters using landscape indices and multivariate statistics was also proposed. Non-hierarchical cluster analysis was used to assess the optimal number of canopy character clusters and canonical discriminant analysis was used to generate the discriminant functions for canopy character classification (seven categories). Therefore, people could easily predict the forest type and vegetation land cover by corresponding to the specific canopy character category. The results showed that the semi-automatic classification could effectively extract the canopy characters of forest and vegetation land cover. As for forest type and vegetation type prediction, the average prediction accuracy reached 80.3%~91.7% with different sizes of test frame. It represented this technology is useful for archaeological site survey, and can improve the classification efficiency and data update rate.

Keywords: digital aerial survey, canopy characters classification, archaeological sites, multivariate statistics

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Authors: Claire Baudry, Jessica Pearson, Laura-Emilie Savage, George Tarbulsy

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Introduction: Over the last decade, researchers have implemented attachment-based interventions to promote parental interactive sensitivity and child development among vulnerable families. In the context of the present study, these interventions have been shown to be effective to enhance cognitive development when child outcome was measured shortly after the intervention. Objectives: The goal of the study was to investigate the effects of an attachment-based intervention on child cognitive development one year post-intervention. Methods: Thirty-five mother-child dyads referred by Child Protective Services in the province of Québec, Canada, were included in this study: 21 dyads who received 6 to 8 intervention sessions and 14 dyads not exposed to the intervention and matched for the following variables: duration of child protective services, reason for involvement with child protection, age, sex and family status. Child cognitive development was measured using the WPPSI-IV, 12 months after the end of the intervention when the average age of children was 54 months old. Findings: An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the scores obtained on the WPPSI-IV for the two groups. In general, no differences were observed between the two groups. There was a significant difference on the fluid reasoning scale between children exposed to the intervention (M = 95,13, SD = 16,67) and children not exposed (M = 81, SD = 9,90). T (23) = -2,657; p= .014 (IC :-25.13;3.12). This difference was found only for children aged between 48 and 92 months old. Other results did not show any significant difference between the two groups (Global IQ or subscales). Conclusions: This first set of analyses suggest that relatively little effects of attachment-based intervention remain on the level of cognitive functioning 12-months post-intervention. It is possible that the significant findings concerning fluid reasoning may be pertinent in that fluid reasoning is linked to the capacity to analyse, to solve problems, and remember information, which may be important for promoting school readiness. As the study is completed and as more information is gained from other assessments of cognitive and socioemotional outcome, a clearer picture of the potential moderate-term impact of attachment-based intervention will emerge.

Keywords: attachment-based intervention, child development, child protective services, cognitive development

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Authors: Emejeamara Francis

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The future of potentials wind energy applications within suburban/urban areas are currently faced with various problems. These include insufficient assessment of urban wind resource, and the effectiveness of commercial gust control solutions as well as unavailability of effective and cheaper valuable tools for scoping the potentials of urban wind applications within built-up environments. In order to achieve effective assessment of the potentials of urban wind installations, an estimation of the total energy that would be available to them were effective control systems to be used, and evaluating the potential power to be generated by the wind system is required. This paper presents a methodology of predicting the power generated by a wind system operating within an urban wind resource. This method was developed by using high temporal resolution wind measurements from eight potential sites within the urban and suburban environment as inputs to a vertical axis wind turbine multiple stream tube model. A relationship between the unsteady performance coefficient obtained from the stream tube model results and turbulence intensity was demonstrated. Hence, an analytical methodology for estimating the unsteady power coefficient at a potential turbine site is proposed. This is combined with analytical models that were developed to predict the wind speed and the excess energy (EEC) available in estimating the potential power generated by wind systems at different heights within a built environment. Estimates of turbulence intensities, wind speed, EEC and turbine performance based on the current methodology allow a more complete assessment of available wind resource and potential urban wind projects. This methodology is applied to four major UK cities namely Leeds, Manchester, London and Edinburgh and the potential to map the turbine performance at different heights within a typical urban city is demonstrated.

Keywords: small-scale wind, turbine power, urban wind energy, turbulence intensity, excess energy content

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Authors: Shane Theunissen, Rob Grandy

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Historically and we would fairly conventionally within our formal schooling systems, we have convergent testing where all the students are expected to converge on the same answer, and that answer has been determined by an external authority that is reproducing knowledge of the hegemon. Many youths may not embody the cultural capital that's rewarded in formal schooling contexts as they aren't able to converge on the required answer that's being determined by the classroom teacher or the administrators. In this paper, we explore divergent processes that promote creative problem-solving. We embody this divergent process in our measurement of fundamental growth needs. To this end, we utilize the Mosaic Approach as a method for implementing the Outcomes That Matter framework. Outcomes That Matter is the name of the measurement tool built around the Circle of Courage framework, which is a way of identifying fundamental growth needs for young people. The Circle of Courage was developed by Martin-Broken-Leg and colleagues as a way to connect indigenous child-rearing philosophies with contemporary resilience and positive psychology research. The Outcomes that Matter framework puts forward four categories of growth needs for young people. These are: Belonging, which on a macro scale is acceptance into the greater community of practice, Mastery which includes a constellation of concepts including confidence, motivation, self-actualization, and self-determination, Independence refers to a sense of personal power into autonomy within a context where creativity and problem solving, and a personal voice can begin to emerge, and finally Generosity which includes interpersonal things like conflict resolution and teamwork. Outcomes of Matter puts these four domains into a measurement tool that facilitates collaborative assessment between the youth, teachers, and recreation therapists that allows for youth-led narratives pertaining to their fundamental growth outcomes. This application of the Outcomes That Matter framework is unique as it may be the first application of this framework in an educational boatbuilding context.

Keywords: collaboration, empowerment, outcomes that matter, mosaic approach, boat building

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Authors: Gul Jan

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It is the first quantitative ethno-botanical analysis and conservation issues of medicinal flora of Alpine and Sub-alpine, Hindikush region of Pakistan. The objective of the study aims to report, compare the uses and highlight the ethno-Botanical significance of medicinal plants for treatment of various diseases. A total of 250 (242 males and 8 females) local informants including 10 Local Traditional Healers were interviewed. Information was collected through semi-structured interviews, analyzed and compared by quantitative ethno-botanical indices such as Jaccard index (JI), Informant Consensus Factor (ICF), use value (UV) and Relative frequency of citation (RFC).Thorough survey indicated that 57 medicinal plants belongs to 43 families were investigated to treat various illnesses. The highest ICF is recorded for digestive system (0.69%), Circolatory system (0.61%), urinary tract system, (0.53%) and respiratory system (0.52%). Used value indicated that, Achillea mellefolium (UV = 0.68), Aconitum violaceum (UV = 0.69), Valeriana jatamansi (UV = 0.63), Berberis lyceum (UV = 0.65) and are exceedingly medicinal plant species used in the region. In comparison, highest similarity index is recorded in these studies with JI 17.72 followed by 16.41. According to DMR output, Pinus williciana ranked first due to multipurpose uses among all species and was found most threatened with higher market value. Unwise used of natural assets pooled with unsuitable harvesting practices have exaggerated pressure on plant species of the research region. The main issues causative to natural variety loss found were over grazing of animals, forest violation, wild animal hunting, fodder, plant collection as medicine, fuel wood, forest fire, and invasive species negatively affect the natural resources. For viable utilization, in situ and ex situ conservation, skillful collecting, and reforestation project may be the resolution. Further wide field management research is required.

Keywords: quantitative analysis, conservations issues, medicinal flora, alpine and sub-alpine, Hindukush region

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Authors: Adi Gielgun-Katz, Alina S. Rusu

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In the last two decades, education systems worldwide have integrated new pedagogical methods and strategies in lesson plans, such as innovative technologies, social-emotional learning (SEL), gamification, mixed learning, multiple literacies, and many others. Visual language, such as photographs, is known to transcend cultures and languages, and it is commonly used by youth to express positions and affective states in social networks. Therefore, visual language needs more educational attention as a linguistic and communicative component that can create connectedness among the students and their teachers. Nowadays, when SEL is gaining more and more space and meaning in the area of academic improvement in relation to social well-being, and taking and sharing pictures is part of the everyday life of the majority of people, it becomes natural to add the visual language to SEL approach as a reinforcement strategy for connecting education to the contemporary culture and language of the youth. This article presents a program conducted in a high school class in Israel, which combines the five SEL with photography techniques, i.e., Social-Emotional Learning Visual Empowerments (SELVEs) program (experimental group). Another class of students from the same institution represents the control group, which is participating in the SEL program without the photography component. The SEL component of the programs addresses skills such as: troubleshooting, uncertainty, personal strengths and collaboration, accepting others, control of impulses, communication, self-perception, and conflict resolution. The aim of the study is to examine the effects of programs on the level of the five SEL aspects in the two groups of high school students: Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, Responsible Decision Making, and Relationship Skills. The study presents a quantitative assessment of the SEL programs’ impact on the students. The main hypothesis is that the students’ questionnaires' analysis will reveal a better understanding and improvement of the five aspects of the SEL in the group of students involved in the photography-enhanced SEL program.

Keywords: social-emotional learning, photography, education program, adolescents

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Authors: Hatem K. Hamed, Mohamed S. Hrouda

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The Middle Paleocene Lower Beda Formation was deposited in a ramp system with local shoaling. The main constituent is limestone, with subordinate dolomites and Shales. Reservoir quality is largely influenced by depositional environments and diagenesis processes. Generally the reservoir quality of Lower Beda Formation is low risk on the Inferred Horst and in the Southern Shelf where the Lower Beda formation comprises mainly of calcarenties. In the vicinity of the well GG1 the Lower Beda comprise mainly of argillaceous calcilutites and shale. The reservoir quality gradually improves from high risk to moderate risk towards KK1, LL1 and NN1 wells. The average gross thickness of Lower Beda Formation is about 300 ft. The net thickness varies from about 270 ft. in the E1-71 well to about 30 ft. in the vicinity of GG1-71 well. The net thickest of Lower Beda form a NNW-SSW trend with an average of 250 ft. the change in facies is due to change in the depositional environment, from lagoonal to shoal barrier to open marine affected the reservoir quality. The Upper Cretaceous Sirte Shale is the main source rock. It is developed within the three troughs surrounding the study area. S-Marada Trough to the N- E, Gerad Trough to the N N-W, and Abu Tummym Sub-basin to the S-W of the Inferred Horst. Sirte shale reaches 1000ft, of organically rich section. It has good organic contents over large area 2% to 3%. Hydrocarbon shows were encountered in several wells in Beda Formation this is an indication of vertical and lateral migration of hydrocarbon. The overlying Upper Paleocene Khalifa Formation is a transgressive shale, it is an effective regional top seal. Lithofacies variations in Khalifa Shale, from shales to limestones in the southern shelf in R1-71 well approximately 50-75% of the secession is limestone. About 47 million barrel of hydrocarbon recoverable reserves is expected to be trapped in structural and stratigraphic traps in Beda Formation in the study area.

Keywords: Sirte basin, Beda formation, concession 71, petroleum play fairway analysis

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Authors: Abduladim Maitieg, Mark Johnson

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Developing a coastal oil spill management plan for the Misratah coast is the motivating factor for building a database for coastal and marine systems and energy resources. Wind direction and speed, currents, bathymetry, coastal topography and offshore dynamics influence oil spill deposition in coastal water. Therefore, oceanographic and climatological data can be used to understand oil slick movement and potential oil deposits on shoreline area and the behaviour of oil spill trajectories on the sea surface. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the coastal and marine physical factors under strong wave conditions and various bathymetric and coastal topography gradients in the western coastal area of Libya on the movement of oil slicks. The movement of oil slicks was computed using a GNOME simulation model based on current and wind speed/direction. The results in this paper show that (1) Oil slick might reach the Misratah shoreline area in two days in the summer and winter. Seasons. (2 ) The North coast of Misratah is the potential oil deposit area on the Misratah coast. (3) Tarball pollution was observed along the North coast of Misratah. (4) Two scenarios for the summer and the winter season were run, along the western coast of Libya . (5) The eastern coast is at a lower potential risk due to the influence of wind and current energy in the Gulf of Sidra. (6) The Misratah coastline is more vulnerable to oil spill movement in the summer than in winter seasons. (7) Oil slick takes from 2 to 5 days to reach the saltmarsh in the eastern Misratah coast. (8) Oil slick moves 300 km in 30 days from the spill resource location near the Libyan western border to the Misratah coast.(9) Bathymetric features have a profound effect on oil spill movement. (9)Oil dispersion simulations using GNOME are carried out taking into account high-resolution wind and current data.

Keywords: oil spill movement, coastal and marine physical factors, coast area, Libyan

Procedia PDF Downloads 227

Authors: Vistorina Amputu, Katja Tielboerger, Nichola Knox

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Primary productivity in dry savannahs is constraint by moisture availability and under increasing anthropogenic pressure. Thus, considering climate change and the unprecedented pace and scale of rangeland deterioration, methods for assessing the status of such rangelands should be easy to apply, yield reliable and repeatable results that can be applied over large spatial scales. Global and local scale monitoring of rangelands through satellite data and labor-intensive field measurements respectively, are limited in accurately assessing the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of vegetation dynamics to provide crucial information that detects degradation in its early stages. Fortunately, newly emerging techniques such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), associated miniaturized sensors and improving digital photogrammetric software provide an opportunity to transcend these limitations. Yet, they have not been extensively calibrated in natural systems to encompass their complexities if they are to be integrated for long-term monitoring. Limited research using drone technology has been conducted in arid savannas, for example to assess the health status of this dynamic two-layer vegetation ecosystem. In our study, we fill this gap by testing the relationship between UAV-estimated cover of rangeland functional attributes and field data collected in discrete sample plots in a Namibian dryland savannah along a degradation gradient. The first results are based on a supervised classification performed on the ultra-high resolution multispectral imagery to distinguish between rangeland functional attributes (bare, non-woody, and woody), with a relatively good match to the field observations. Integrating UAV-based observations to improve rangeland monitoring could greatly assist in climate-adapted rangeland management.

Keywords: arid savannah, degradation gradient, field observations, narrow-band sensor, supervised classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 134

Authors: Supriya Gupta, Paresh Chokshi

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Polymer-particle interactions can be effectively utilized to produce composites that possess physicochemical properties superior to that of neat polymer. The incorporation of fillers with dimensions comparable to polymer chain size produces composites with extra-ordinary properties owing to very high surface to volume ratio. The dispersion of nanoparticles is achieved by inducing steric repulsion realized by grafting particles with polymeric chains. A comprehensive understanding of the interparticle interaction between these functionalized nanoparticles plays an important role in the synthesis of a stable polymer nanocomposite. With the focus on incorporation of clay sheets in a polymer matrix, we theoretically construct the polymer mediated interparticle potential for two nanosheets grafted with polymeric chains. The self-consistent field theory (SCFT) is employed to obtain the inhomogeneous composition field under equilibrium. Unlike the continuum models, SCFT is built from the microscopic description taking in to account the molecular interactions contributed by both intra- and inter-chain potentials. We present the results of SCFT calculations of the interaction potential curve for two grafted nanosheets immersed in the matrix of polymeric chains of dissimilar chemistry to that of the grafted chains. The interaction potential is repulsive at short separation and shows depletion attraction for moderate separations induced by high grafting density. It is found that the strength of attraction well can be tuned by altering the compatibility between the grafted and the mobile chains. Further, we construct the interaction potential between two nanosheets grafted with diblock copolymers with one of the blocks being chemically identical to the free polymeric chains. The interplay between the enthalpic interaction between the dissimilar species and the entropy of the free chains gives rise to a rich behavior in interaction potential curve obtained for two separate cases of free chains being chemically similar to either the grafted block or the free block of the grafted diblock chains.

Keywords: clay nanosheets, polymer brush, polymer nanocomposites, self-consistent field theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 252

Authors: Amna Imtiaz

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Aims: To correlate serum ferritin with left ventricular function in beta thalassemia major patients with increased transfusion dependence and to find out whether echocardiography can be used to assess pre clinical cardiac disease in these patients. Methods: The cross sectional study was conducted at Department of Pathology, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad. 60 patients of beta thalassemia major with increased transfusion dependence were enrolled in this study. Serum ferritin levels of all patients were measured by using indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Echocardiography was performed on all patients by a consultant cardiologist by linking conventional echocardiography with tissue Doppler imaging. Ejection fraction and E/A ratio were measured in all patients to assess left ventricular systolic and diastolic function. Results: On the basis of serum ferritin level, patients were divided into three groups. Group I consisted of patients having serum ferritin level equal to or less than 2500 ng/ml. A total of 25 patients were placed in this group. Group II included patients having serum ferritin level between 2500 to 5000 ng/ml. A total of 22 patients were placed in this group. Group III included patients having serum ferritin level more than 5000 ng/ml. This group consisted of 13 patients. All patients having serum ferritin below 2500ng/ml had normal systolic function, and only 16% of the patients in this group had diastolic dysfunction as reflected by abnormal E/A ratio. In group II, 27% of the patients had systolic dysfunction reflected by subnormal ejection fraction while 40% of the patients had diastolic dysfunction. In group III, 62% of the patients had abnormal systolic and diastolic function. Pearson correlation was used to find a correlation between serum ferritin and left ventricular function. A strong negative correlation was found which is reflected by a p value of less than 0.05 which is significant. Chi square test is used to correlate serum ferritin with E/A ratio. P value came out to be less than 0.05 which is significant.

Keywords: beta thalassemia major, left ventricular function, serum ferritin, transfusion dependence

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Mohammed M. Mahdy Tawfeek

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Objective: The aim of this work is to compare the outcome of photoactivated chromophore for keratitis-cross linking (PACK-CXL) window absorption (WA) alone with combined PACK-CXL WA and standard anti-microbial therapy (SAT) for the treatment of infectious keratitis. Patients and Methods: This is a randomized prospective comparative clinical trial. Thirty eyes with clinically suspected infectious keratitis were randomly assigned into two equal groups of 15 eyes each: Group (A) was treated by PACK-CXL WA alone and group (B) was treated by PACK-CXL WA combined with SAT. Identification of organisms was made by lab study before treatment. Corneal healing was evaluated by corneal examination and anterior segment OCT (AS-OCT). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants and the study was approved by the research ethics committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University. The work has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for studies involving humans. Results: Complete healing and resolution (Successful treatment) were observed in 10 eyes (66.7%) of a group (A) and 14 eyes (93.3%) of group (B) and failure was observed in 5 eyes (33.3%) of a group (A) and one eye (6.67%) of group (B). They were statistically significant (P =0.042 and 0.003) in a comparison between both groups regarding success and failure of treatment, respectively. Complete corneal healing was reported in the third month postoperatively in 10 eyes (66.7%) of group (A) and 14 eyes (93.3%) of group (B). Complications were absent in 12 patients (80%) in group (A) and 14 patients (93.3%) of group (B); however, perforation and impending perforation were found in 3 patients of group (A) and only one patient of group (B). Conclusion: PACK-CXL is a promising, non-invasive treatment option for infectious keratitis, especially when performed with the window absorption (WA) technique, either alone or combined with SAT. It has a synergistic effect with a standard antimicrobial treatment that gives good outcome results in the treatment of infectious keratitis. Also, it avoids the antibiotics resistance that has become rapidly spreading worldwide.

Keywords: corneal cross linking, infectious keratitis, PACK-CXL, window absorption

Procedia PDF Downloads 140

Authors: Ekaterina Sánchez Romero, Emily Gabriela Aguirre Herrera, Sandra Luz Espinoza Esquerra, Jorge García Campos

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Female, 7 months old, daughter of a mother with anemia during pregnancy, with no history of atopy in the family, since birth she presents with recurrent dermatological and gastrointestinal infections, chronically treated for recurrent diaper dermatitis. At 6 months of age, she begins with generalized pallor, hyperpigmentation in hands and feet, smooth tongue, psychomotor retardation with lack of head support, sedation, and hypoactivity. She was referred to our hospital for a fever of 38°C, severe diaper rash, and pancytopenia with HB 9.3, platelets 38000, neutrophils 0.39 MCV: 86.80 high for her age. The approach was initiated to rule out myeloproliferative syndrome, with negative immunohistochemical results of bone marrow aspirate; during her stay, she presented neurological regression, lack of sucking, and focal seizures. CT scan showed cortical atrophy. The patient was diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency due to history; gamma globulin was administered without improvement with normal results of immunoglobulins and metabolic screening. When dermatological and neurological diagnoses were ruled out as the primary cause, a nutritional factor was evaluated, and a therapeutic trial was started with the administration of vitamin B12 and zinc, presenting clinical neurological improvement and resolution of pancytopenia in 2 months. It was decided to continue outpatient management. Discussion: We present a patient with neurological, dermatological involvement, and pancytopenia, so the most common differential diagnoses in this population were ruled out. Vitamin B12 deficiency is an uncommon entity. Due to maternal and clinical history, a therapeutic trial was started resulting in an improvement. Conclusion: VitaminB12 deficiency should be considered one of the differential diagnoses in the approach to pancytopenia with megaloblastic anemia associated with dermatologic and neurologic manifestations. Early treatment can reduce irreversible damage in these patients.

Keywords: vitamin B12 deficiency, pediatrics, pancytopenia, diaper dermatitis

Procedia PDF Downloads 98

Authors: Anand Malik

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The Himalayas with high tectonic activities poses a great threat to human life and property. Climate change is another reason which triggering extreme events multiple fold effect on high mountain glacial environment, rock falls, landslides, debris flows, flash flood and snow avalanches. One such extreme event of cloud burst along with breach of moraine dammed Chorabri Lake occurred from June 14 to June 17, 2013, triggered flooding of Saraswati and Mandakini rivers in the Kedarnath Valley of Rudraprayag district of Uttrakhand state of India. As a result, huge volume of water with its high velocity created a catastrophe of the century, which resulted into loss of large number of human/animals, pilgrimage, tourism, agriculture and property. Thus a comprehensive assessment of debris flow hazards requires GIS-based modeling using numerical methods. The aim of present study is to focus on analysis and mapping of debris flow movements using geospatial data with flow-r (developed by team at IGAR, University of Lausanne). The model is based on combined probabilistic and energetic algorithms for the assessment of spreading of flow with maximum run out distances. Aster Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with 30m x 30m cell size (resolution) is used as main geospatial data for preparing the run out assessment, while Landsat data is used to analyze land use land cover change in the study area. The results of the study area show that model can be applied with great accuracy as the model is very useful in determining debris flow areas. The results are compared with existing available landslides/debris flow maps. ArcGIS software is used in preparing run out susceptibility maps which can be used in debris flow mitigation and future land use planning.

Keywords: debris flow, geospatial data, GIS based modeling, flow-R

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Haiming Wen, Isabella J. Van Rooyen

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Tristructural isotropic (TRISO)-coated fuel particles are designed as nuclear fuel for high-temperature gas reactors. TRISO coating consists of layers of carbon buffer, inner pyrolytic carbon (IPyC), SiC, and outer pyrolytic carbon. The TRISO coating, especially the SiC layer, acts as a containment system for fission products produced in the kernel. However, release of certain metallic fission products across intact TRISO coatings has been observed for decades. Despite numerous studies, mechanisms by which fission products migrate across the coating layers remain poorly understood. In this study, scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) were used to examine the distribution, composition and structure of fission products in a TRISO coated particle neutron irradiated to 3.6 x 1021 n/cm² fast fluence at 1040 ⁰C. Precession electron diffraction was used to investigate characters of grain boundaries where specific fission product precipitates are located. The retention fraction of 110mAg in the investigated TRISO particle was estimated to be 0.19. A high density of nanoscale fission product precipitates was observed in the SiC layer close to the SiC-IPyC interface, most of which are rich in Pd, while Ag was not identified. Some Pd-rich precipitates contain U. Precipitates tend to have complex structure and composition. Although a precipitate appears to have uniform contrast in STEM, EDS indicated that there may be composition variations throughout the precipitate, and HRTEM suggested that the precipitate may have several parts different in crystal structure or orientation. Attempts were made to measure charge states of precipitates using EELS and study their possible effect on precipitate transport.

Keywords: TRISO particle, fission product, nuclear fuel, electron microscopy, neutron irradiation

Procedia PDF Downloads 265

Authors: Yasemin Akar, Jan G. Wissink, Herlina Herlina

Abstract:

The effect of various levels of contamination on the interfacial air–water gas transfer velocity is studied by Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). The interfacial gas transfer is driven by isotropic turbulence, introduced at the bottom of the computational domain, diffusing upwards. The isotropic turbulence is generated in a separate, concurrently running the large-eddy simulation (LES). The flow fields in the main DNS and the LES are solved using fourth-order discretisations of convection and diffusion. To solve the transport of dissolved gases in water, a fifth-order-accurate WENO scheme is used for scalar convection combined with a fourth-order central discretisation for scalar diffusion. The damping effect of the surfactant contamination on the near surface (horizontal) velocities in the DNS is modelled using horizontal gradients of the surfactant concentration. An important parameter in this model, which corresponds to the level of contamination, is ReMa⁄We, where Re is the Reynolds number, Ma is the Marangoni number, and We is the Weber number. It was previously found that even small levels of contamination (ReMa⁄We small) lead to a significant drop in the interfacial gas transfer velocity KL. It is known that KL depends on both the Schmidt number Sc (ratio of the kinematic viscosity and the gas diffusivity in water) and the surface divergence β, i.e. K_L∝√(β⁄Sc). Previously it has been shown that this relation works well for surfaces with low to moderate contamination. However, it will break down for β close to zero. To study the validity of this dependence in the presence of surface contamination, simulations were carried out for ReMa⁄We=0,0.12,0.6,1.2,6,30 and Sc = 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. First, it will be shown that the scaling of KL with Sc remains valid also for larger ReMa⁄We. This is an important result that indicates that - for various levels of contamination - the numerical results obtained at low Schmidt numbers are also valid for significantly higher and more realistic Sc. Subsequently, it will be shown that - with increasing levels of ReMa⁄We - the dependency of KL on β begins to break down as the increased damping of near surface fluctuations results in an increased damping of β. Especially for large levels of contamination, this damping is so severe that KL is found to be underestimated significantly.

Keywords: contamination, gas transfer, surfactants, turbulence

Procedia PDF Downloads 300

Authors: Muhammad Dildar Gogi, Muhammad Jalal Arif, Muhammad Junaid Nisar, Mubashir Iqbal, Waleed Afzal Naveed, Muhammad Ahsan Khan, Ahmad Nawaz, Muhammad Sufian, Muhammad Arshad, Amna Jalal

Abstract:

Fruit flies of Bactrocera genus cause heavy losses in fruits and vegetables globally and insecticide-application for their control creates issues of ecological backlash, environmental pollution, and food safety. There is need to explore alternatives and food-baits application is considered safe for the environment and effective for fruit fly management. Present experiment was carried out to assess the attractancy of five phagostimulant-Mixtures (PHS-Mix) prepared by mixing banana-squash, mulberry, protein-hydrolysate and molasses with some phagostimulant-lure sources including beef extract, fish extract, yeast, starch, rose oil, casein and cedar oil in five different ratios i.e., PHS-Mix-1 (1 part of all ingredients), PHS-Mix-2 (1 part of banana with 0.75 parts of all other ingredients), PHS-Mix-3 (1 part of banana with 0.5 parts of all other ingredients), PHS-Mix-4 (1 part of banana with 0.25 parts of all other ingredients) and PHS-Mix-5 (1 part of banana with 0.125 parts of all other ingredients). These were evaluated in comparison with a standard (GF-120). PHS-Mix-4 demonstrated 40.5±1.3-46.2±1.6% AI for satiated flies (class-II i.e., moderately attractive) and 59.5±2.0-68.6±3.0% AI for starved flies (class-III i.e., highly attractive) for both B. dorsalis and B. zonata in olfactometric study while the same exhibited 51.2±0.53% AI (class-III i.e., highly attractive) for B. zonata and 45.4±0.89% AI (class-II i.e., moderately attractive) for B. dorsalis in field study. PHS-Mix-1 proved non-attractive (class-I) and moderately attractive (class-II) phagostimulant in olfactometer and field studies, respectively. PHS-Mix-2 exhibited moderate attractiveness for starved lots in olfactometer and field-lot in field studies. PHS-Mix-5 proved non-attractive to starved and satiated lots of B. zonata and B. dorsalis females in olfactometer and field studies. Overall PHS-Mix-4 proved better phagostimulant-mixture followed by PHS-Mix-3 which was categorized as class-II (moderately attractive) phagostimulant for starved and satiated lots of female flies of both species in olfactometer and field studies; hence these can be exploited for fruit fly management.

Keywords: attractive index, field conditions, olfactometer, Tephritid flies

Procedia PDF Downloads 249

Authors: N. Tochukwu, M. Mukhopadhyay, A. Mohamed

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It is no new that Nigeria faces a continual power shortage problem due to its vast population power demand and heavy reliance on nonrenewable forms of energy such as thermal power or fossil fuel. Many researchers have recommended using geothermal energy as an alternative; however, Past studies focus on the geophysical & geochemical investigation of this energy in the sedimentary and basement complex; only a few studies incorporated the remote sensing methods. Therefore, in this study, the preliminary examination of geothermal resources in the Middle Benue was carried out using satellite imagery in ArcMap. Landsat 8 scene (TIR, NIR, Red spectral bands) was used to estimate the Land Surface Temperature (LST). The Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) technique was used to classify sites with very low, low, moderate, and high LST. The intermediate and high classification happens to be possible geothermal zones, and they occupy 49% of the study area (38077km2). Riverline were superimposed on the LST layer, and the identification tool was used to locate high temperate sites. Streams that overlap on the selected sites were regarded as geothermal springs as. Surprisingly, the LST results show lower temperatures (<36°C) at the famous thermal springs (Awe & Wukari) than some unknown rivers/streams found in Kwande (38°C), Ussa, (38°C), Gwer East (37°C), Yola Cross & Ogoja (36°C). Studies have revealed that temperature increases with depth. However, this result shows excellent geothermal resources potential as it is expected to exceed the minimum geothermal gradient of 25.47 with an increase in depth. Therefore, further investigation is required to estimate the depth of the causative body, geothermal gradients, and the sustainability of the reservoirs by geophysical and field exploration. This method has proven to be cost-effective in locating geothermal resources in the study area. Consequently, the same procedure is recommended to be applied in other regions of the Precambrian basement complex and the sedimentary basins in Nigeria to save a preliminary field survey cost.

Keywords: ArcMap, geothermal resources, Landsat 8, LST, thermal springs, MLC

Procedia PDF Downloads 190

Authors: Kathryn L. Duncan, Charles A. Kuntz, James O. Simcock

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A surgical approach to the cranium for treatment of frontal lobe and olfactory bulb neoplasia in dogs is described in this report, which provided excellent access for visualisation and removal of gross neoplastic tissue. An 8-year-old spayed female Shih Tzu crossbreed dog (dog 1) and a 13-year-old neutered male Miniature Fox Terrier (dog 2) were evaluated for removal of neoplasms involving both the frontal lobe and olfactory bulb. Both dogs presented with abnormal neurological clinical signs, decreased menace responses, and behavioural changes. Additionally, dog 2 presented with compulsive circling and generalized tonic-clonic seizure activity. Computed tomography was performed in both dogs, and MRI was also performed in dog 1. Imaging was consistent with frontal lobe and olfactory bulb neoplasia. A transorbital frontal bone craniectomy, with orbital ligament desmotomy and ventrolateral retraction of the globe, was performed in both cases without complication. Dog 1 had a focal area of lysis in the frontal bone adjacent to the neoplasm in the frontal lobe. The presence of the bone defect provided part of the impetus for this approach, as it would permit resection of the lytic bone. In addition, the neoplasms would be surgically accessible without encountering interposed brain parenchyma, reducing the risk of iatrogenic injury. Both dogs were discharged from the hospital within 72 hours post-operatively, both with normal mentation. Case 1 had a histopathologic diagnosis of malignant anaplastic neoplasm. The tumour recurred 101d postoperatively, and the patient was euthanized. Case 2 was diagnosed with a meningioma and was neurologically normal at 294d postoperatively. This transorbital surgical approach allowed successful removal of the intracranial frontal lobe and olfactory bulb neoplasms in 2 dogs. This approach should be considered for dogs with lateralized frontal lobe and olfactory bulb neoplasms that are closely associated with the suborbital region of the frontal bone.

Keywords: neurosurgery, small animal surgery, surgical oncology, veterinary neurology

Procedia PDF Downloads 152