Search results for: estimating of trajectory

Authors: Pornsiri Kaewpradit, Chalisa Pourneaw

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Temperature control improvement of a membrane reactor with exothermic and reversible esterification reaction is studied in this work. It is well known that a batch membrane reactor requires different control strategies from a continuous one due to the fact that it is operated dynamically. Due to the effect of the operating temperature, the suitable control scheme has to be designed based reliable predictive model to achieve a desired objective. In the study, the optimization framework has been preliminary formulated in order to determine an optimal temperature trajectory for maximizing a desired product. In model predictive control scheme, a set of predictive models have been initially developed corresponding to the possible operating points of the system. The multiple predictive control moves have been further calculated on-line using the developed models corresponding to current operating point. It is obviously seen in the simulation results that the temperature control has been improved compared to the performance obtained by the conventional predictive controller. Further robustness tests have also been investigated in this study.

Keywords: model predictive control, batch reactor, temperature control, membrane reactor

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Authors: Langhit Kurar, Loren Charles

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Introduction: In light of recent BOAST 12 (August 2016) published guidance on management of ankle fractures, the project aimed to highlight key discrepancies throughout the care trajectory from admission to point of discharge at a district general hospital. Wide breadth of data covering three key domains: accident and emergency, radiology, and orthopaedic surgery were subsequently stratified and recommendations on note documentation, and outpatient follow up were made. Methods: A retrospective twelve month audit was conducted reviewing results of ankle fracture management in 37 patients. Inclusion criterion involved all patients seen at Darent Valley Hospital (DVH) emergency department with radiographic evidence of an ankle fracture. Exclusion criterion involved all patients managed solely by nursing staff or having sustained purely ligamentous injury. Medical notes, including discharge summaries and the PACS online radiographic tool were used for data extraction. Results: Cross-examination of the A & E domain revealed limited awareness of the BOAST 12 recent publication including requirements to document skin integrity and neurovascular assessment. This had direct implications as this would have changed the surgical plan for acutely compromised patients. The majority of results obtained from the radiographic domain were satisfactory with appropriate X-rays taken in over 95% of cases. However, due to time pressures within A & E, patients were often left without a post manipulation XRAY in a backslab. Poorly reduced fractures were subsequently left for a long period resulting in swollen ankles and a time-dependent lag to surgical intervention. This had knocked on implications for prolonged inpatient stay resulting in hospital-acquired co-morbidity including pressure sores. Discussion: The audit has highlighted several areas of improvement throughout the disease trajectory from review in the emergency department to follow up as an outpatient. This has prompted the creation of an algorithm to ensure patients with significant fractures presenting to the emergency department are seen promptly and treatment expedited as per recent guidance. This includes timing for X-rays taken in A & E. Re-audit has shown significant improvement in both documentation at time of presentation and appropriate follow-up strategies. Within the orthopedic domain, we are in the process of creating an ankle fracture pathway to ensure imaging and weight bearing status are made clear to the consulting clinicians in an outpatient setting. Significance/Clinical Relevance: As a result of the ankle fracture algorithm we have adapted the BOAST 12 guidance to shape an intrinsic pathway to not only improve patient management within the emergency department but also create a standardised format for follow up.

Keywords: ankle, fracture, BOAST, radiology

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Authors: Danilo López, Johana Hernández, Edwin Rivas

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The use of the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Networks (MLPNN) technique is presented to estimate the future state of use of a licensed channel by primary users (PUs); this will be useful at the spectral decision stage in cognitive radio networks (CRN) to determine approximately in which time instants of future may secondary users (SUs) opportunistically use the spectral bandwidth to send data through the primary wireless network. To validate the results, sequences of occupancy data of channel were generated by simulation. The results show that the prediction percentage is greater than 60% in some of the tests carried out.

Keywords: cognitive radio, neural network, prediction, primary user

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Authors: Eunji Choi, Borang Park, Youngjae Choi, Jinwoo Moon

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In this study, a predictive model for estimating the metabolism (MET) of human body was developed for the optimal control of indoor thermal environment. Human body images for indoor activities and human body joint coordinated values were collected as data sets, which are used in predictive model. A deep learning algorithm was used in an initial model, and its number of hidden layers and hidden neurons were optimized. Lastly, the model prediction performance was analyzed after the model being trained through collected data. In conclusion, the possibility of MET prediction was confirmed, and the direction of the future study was proposed as developing various data and the predictive model.

Keywords: deep learning, indoor quality, metabolism, predictive model

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Authors: Richard Sogah

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The significance of transport infrastructure investments for economic growth and development has been central to the World Bank’s strategy for poverty reduction. Among the conventional surface transport infrastructures, road infrastructure is significant in facilitating the movement of human capital goods and services. When transport projects (i.e., roads, super-highways) are implemented, they come along with some negative social values (costs), such as increased noise and air pollution for local residents living near these facilities, displaced individuals, etc. However, these projects also facilitate better utilization of existing capital stock and generate other observable benefits that can be easily quantified. For example, the improvement or construction of roads creates employment, stimulates revenue generation (toll), reduces vehicle operating costs and accidents, increases accessibility, trade expansion, safety improvement, etc. Aside from these benefits, travel time savings (TTSs) which are the major economic benefits of urban and inter-urban transport projects and therefore integral in the economic assessment of transport projects, are often overlooked and omitted when estimating the benefits of transport projects, especially in developing countries. The absence of current and reliable domestic travel data and the inability of replicated models from the developed world to capture the actual value of travel time savings due to the large unemployment, underemployment, and other labor-induced distortions has contributed to the failure to assign value to travel time savings when estimating the benefits of transport schemes in developing countries. This omission of the value of travel time savings from the benefits of transport projects in developing countries poses problems for investors and stakeholders to either accept or dismiss projects based on schemes that favor reduced vehicular operating costs and other parameters rather than those that ease congestion, increase average speed, facilitate walking and handloading, and thus save travel time. Given the complex reality in the estimation of the value of travel time savings and the presence of widespread informal labour activities in Sub-Saharan Africa, we construct a “nationally ranked distribution of time values” and estimate the value of travel time savings based on the area beneath the distribution. Compared with other approaches, our method captures both formal sector workers and individuals/people who work outside the formal sector and hence changes in their time allocation occur in the informal economy and household production activities. The dataset for the estimations is sourced from the World Bank, the International Labour Organization, etc.

Keywords: road infrastructure, transport projects, travel time savings, congestion, Sub-Sahara Africa

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Authors: Sadegh Abebi

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There are problems with estimating time of product process of products, especially when there is variable serving time, like control stage. These problems will cause overestimation of process time. Layout constraints, reworking constraints and inflexible product schedule in multi product lines, needs a precise planning to reduce volume in particular situation of line stock. In this article, by analyzing real queue systems with layout constraints and by using concepts and principles of Markov chain in queue theory, a hybrid model has been presented. This model can be a base to assess queue systems with probable parameters of service. Here by presenting a case study, the proposed model will be described. so, production lines of a home application manufacturer will be analyzed.

Keywords: Queuing theory, Markov Chain, layout, line balance

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Authors: M. H. Korayem, Sh. Ameri, N. Yousefi Lademakhi

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To ensure the stability of closed-loop nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) within a finite horizon, there is a need for appropriate design terminal ingredients, which can be a time-consuming and challenging effort. Otherwise, in order to ensure the stability of the control system, it is necessary to consider an infinite predictive horizon. Increasing the prediction horizon increases computational demand and slows down the implementation of the method. In this study, a new technique has been proposed to ensure system stability without terminal ingredients. This technique has been employed in the design of the NMPC algorithm, leading to a reduction in the computational complexity of designing terminal ingredients and computational burden. The studied system is a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) subjected to non-holonomic constraints. Simulation has been investigated for two problems: trajectory tracking and adjustment mode.

Keywords: wheeled mobile robot, nonlinear model predictive control, stability, without terminal ingredients

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Authors: Z. Sadeghi, M. R. Omidkhah, M. E. Masoomi

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The purpose of this paper is to examine gas transport behavior of mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) combined with porous particles. Main existing models are categorized in two main groups; two-phase (ideal contact) and three-phase (non-ideal contact). A new coefficient, J, was obtained to express equations for estimating effect of the particle porosity in two-phase and three-phase models. Modified models evaluates with existing models and experimental data using Matlab software. Comparison of gas permeability of proposed modified models with existing models in different MMMs shows a better prediction of gas permeability in MMMs.

Keywords: mixed matrix membrane, permeation models, porous particles, porosity

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Authors: Ashwani Kumar

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GPS plays an important role in everyday life for safe and convenient transportation. While pedestrians use hand held devices to know their position in a city, vehicles in intelligent transport systems use relatively sophisticated GPS receivers for estimating their current position. However, in urban areas where the GPS satellites are occluded by tall buildings, trees and reflections of GPS signals from nearby vehicles, GPS position estimation becomes poor. In this work, an exhaustive GPS data is collected at a single point in urban area under different times of day and under dynamic environmental conditions. The data is analyzed and statistical refinement methods are used to obtain optimal position estimate among all the measured positions. The results obtained are compared with publically available datasets and obtained position estimation refinement results are promising.

Keywords: global positioning system, statistical approach, intelligent transport systems, least squares estimation

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Authors: Mohammed Farag, Mina Attari, S. Andrew Gadsden, Saeid R. Habibi

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Battery state of charge (SOC) estimation is an important parameter as it measures the total amount of electrical energy stored at a current time. The SOC percentage acts as a fuel gauge if it is compared with a conventional vehicle. Estimating the SOC is, therefore, essential for monitoring the amount of useful life remaining in the battery system. This paper looks at the implementation of three nonlinear estimation strategies for Li-Ion battery SOC estimation. One of the most common behavioral battery models is the one state hysteresis (OSH) model. The extended Kalman filter (EKF), the smooth variable structure filter (SVSF), and the time-varying smoothing boundary layer SVSF are applied on this model, and the results are compared.

Keywords: state of charge estimation, battery modeling, one-state hysteresis, filtering and estimation

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Authors: Abbasi Fakhrossadat, Moharreri Mohammadamir, Shadmanmahani Mohammadjavad

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The development of cities can be influenced by various factors, including air pollution. In this study, the focus is on the city of Mashhad, which has four large power plants operating. The emission of pollutants from these power plants can have a significant impact on the quality of life and health of the city's residents. Therefore, modeling and analyzing the emission pattern of pollutants can provide useful information for urban decision-makers and help in estimating the urban development model. The aim of this research is to determine the direction of city development based on the modeling of pollutant emissions (NOX, CO, and PM10) from power plants in Mashhad. By using the AERMOD software, the release of these pollutants will be modeled and analyzed.

Keywords: emission of air pollution, thermal power plant, urban development, AERMOD

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Authors: T. Sanches, K. Bousson

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As part of the development of a 4D autopilot system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), i.e. a time-dependent robust trajectory generation and control algorithm, this work addresses the problem of optimal path control based on the flight sensors data output that may be unreliable due to noise on data acquisition and/or transmission under certain circumstances. Although several filtering methods, such as the Kalman-Bucy filter or the Linear Quadratic Gaussian/Loop Transfer Recover Control (LQG/LTR), are available, the utter complexity of the control system, together with the robustness and reliability required of such a system on a UAV for airworthiness certifiable autonomous flight, required the development of a proper robust filter for a nonlinear system, as a way of further mitigate errors propagation to the control system and improve its ,performance. As such, a nonlinear algorithm based upon the LQG/LTR, is validated through computational simulation testing, is proposed on this paper.

Keywords: autonomous flight, LQG/LTR, nonlinear state estimator, robust flight control

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Authors: Diana F. Lopes, Jorge Simoes, José Martins, Eduardo Castro

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Health professionals are the keystone of any health system, by delivering health services to the population. Given the time and cost involved in training new health professionals, the planning process of the health workforce is particularly important as it ensures a proper balance between the supply and demand of these professionals and it plays a central role on the Health 2020 policy. In the past 40 years, the planning of the health workforce in Portugal has been conducted in a reactive way lacking a prospective vision based on an integrated, comprehensive and valid analysis. This situation may compromise not only the productivity and the overall socio-economic development but the quality of the healthcare services delivered to patients. This is even more critical given the expected shortage of the health workforce in the future. Furthermore, Portugal is facing an aging context of some professional classes (physicians and nurses). In 2015, 54% of physicians in Portugal were over 50 years old, and 30% of all members were over 60 years old. This phenomenon associated to an increasing emigration of young health professionals and a change in the citizens’ illness profiles and expectations must be considered when planning resources in healthcare. The perspective of sudden retirement of large groups of professionals in a short time is also a major problem to address. Another challenge to embrace is the health workforce imbalances, in which Portugal has one of the lowest nurse to physician ratio, 1.5, below the European Region and the OECD averages (2.2 and 2.8, respectively). Within the scope of the HEALTH 2040 project – which aims to estimate the ‘Future needs of human health resources in Portugal till 2040’ – the present study intends to get a comprehensive dynamic approach of the problem, by (i) estimating the needs of physicians and nurses in Portugal, by specialties and by quinquenium till 2040; (ii) identifying the training needs of physicians and nurses, in medium and long term, till 2040, and (iii) estimating the number of students that must be admitted into medicine and nursing training systems, each year, considering the different categories of specialties. The development of such approach is significantly more critical in the context of limited budget resources and changing health care needs. In this context, this study presents the drivers of the healthcare needs’ evolution (such as the demographic and technological evolution, the future expectations of the users of the health systems) and it proposes a Bayesian methodology, combining the best available data with experts opinion, to model such evolution. Preliminary results considering different plausible scenarios are presented. The proposed methodology will be integrated in a user-friendly decision support system so it can be used by politicians, with the potential to measure the impact of health policies, both at the regional and the national level.

Keywords: bayesian estimation, health economics, health workforce planning, human health resources planning

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Authors: Luis F. Recalde, Daniela A. Bastidas, Dayana E. Gallegos, Patricia N. Constante, Victor H. Andaluz

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This article presents a non-immersive virtual lab-oratory to emulate the behavior of the Mitsubishi Melfa RV 2SDB robotic arm, allowing students and users to acquire skills and experience related to real robots, augmenting the access and learning of robotics in Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas (ESPE). It was developed using the mathematical model of the robotic arm, thus defining the parameters for virtual recreation. The environment, interaction, and behavior of the robotic arm were developed in a graphic engine (Unity3D) to emulate learning tasks such as in a robotics laboratory. In the virtual system, four inputs were developed for the movement of the robot arm; further, to program the robot, a user interface was created where the user selects the trajectory such as point to point, line, arc, or circle. Finally, the hypothesis of the industrial robotic learning process is validated through the level of knowledge acquired after using the system.

Keywords: virtual learning, robot arm, non-immersive reality, mathematical model

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Authors: Majid Zargar, Frank Bullen, Ron Ayers

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One of the important factors in the design of asphalt concrete mixes is the accurate measurement of air voids and their variable distribution. Both can have significant impact on long and short term fatigue and creep behaviour under traffic. While some simple methods exist for overall evaluation of air voids, measuring air void distribution in asphalt concrete is very complex, involving expensive techniques such as X-ray methodologies. The research reported in the paper investigated the use of non-destructive ultrasonic techniques as an alternative to estimate the amount of air voids and their distribution within asphalt samples. Seventy-four Standard AC–14 asphalt samples made with three types of bitumen; Multigrade, PMB and C320 were analysed using ultrasonic techniques. The results have illustrated that ultrasonic testing has the potential of being a rapid, accurate and cost-effective method of estimating air void distribution in asphalt.

Keywords: asphalt concrete, air voids, ultrasonic, mechanical behaviour

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Authors: M. Jahanandish, Gh. Sadeghian, M. H. Daneshvar, M. H. Jahanandish

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The amount of resistance of a particular medium like soil to the moving objects is the interest of many areas in science. These include soil mechanics, geotechnical engineering, powder mechanics etc. Knowledge of drag force is also used for estimating the amount of momentum of fired objects like bullets. This paper focuses on measurement of drag force of sand on a cone when it moves at a low constant speed. A 30-degree apex angle cone has been used for this purpose. The study consisted of both loose and dense conditions of the soil. The applied speed has been in the range of 0.1 to 10 mm/min. The results indicate that the required force is basically independent of the cone speed; but, it is very dependent on the material densification and confining stress.

Keywords: drag force, sand, moving speed, friction angle, densification, confining stress

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Authors: Bader Alkandari, Jamal Y. Madouh, Ahmad M. Alkandari, Anwar A. Alnaqi

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A new formulation of fuzzy linear estimation problem is presented. It is formulated as a linear programming problem. The objective is to minimize the spread of the data points, taking into consideration the type of the membership function of the fuzzy parameters to satisfy the constraints on each measurement point and to insure that the original membership is included in the estimated membership. Different models are developed for a fuzzy triangular membership. The proposed models are applied to different examples from the area of fuzzy linear regression and finally to different examples for estimating the electrical load on a busbar. It had been found that the proposed technique is more suited for electrical load estimation, since the nature of the load is characterized by the uncertainty and vagueness.

Keywords: fuzzy regression, load estimation, fuzzy linear parameters, electrical load estimation

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Authors: Thuvanan Borvornvitchotikarn, Werasak Kurutach

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Mutual information (MI) is widely used in medical image registration. In the different medical images analysis, it is difficult to choose an optimal bins size number for calculating the probability distributions in MI. As the result, this paper presents a new adaptive bins number selection approach that named a hybrid EMPCA-Scott approach. This work combines an expectation maximization principal component analysis (EMPCA) and the modified Scott’s rule. The proposed approach solves the binning problem from the various intensity values in medical images. Experimental results of this work show the lower registration errors compared to other adaptive binning approaches.

Keywords: mutual information, EMPCA, Scott, probability distributions

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Authors: C. V. Pietreanu, S. E. Zaharia, C. Dinu

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Hazard assessment and risks quantification are key components for estimating the impact of existing regulations. But since regulatory compliance cannot cover all risks in aviation, the authors point out that by studying causal factors and eliminating uncertainty, an accurate analysis can be outlined. The research debuts by making delimitations on notions, as confusion on the terms over time has reflected in less rigorous analysis. Throughout this paper, it will be emphasized the fact that the variation in human performance and organizational factors represent the biggest threat from an operational perspective. Therefore, advanced risk assessment methods analyzed by the authors aim to understand vulnerabilities of the system given by a nonlinear behavior. Ultimately, the mathematical modeling of existing hazards and risks by eliminating uncertainty implies establishing an optimal solution (i.e. risk minimization).

Keywords: control, human factor, optimization, risk management, uncertainty

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Authors: C. Gebauer, C. Henke, R. Vossen

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Within the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) 2020, a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is used to capture intruder drones by physical interaction. The challenge is motivated by UAV safety. The purpose of this work is to investigate the agility of a quadcopter being controlled visually. The aim is to track and follow a highly dynamic target, e.g., an intruder quadcopter. The following is realized in close range and the opponent has a velocity of up to 10 m/s. Additional limitations are given by the hardware itself, where only monocular vision is present, and no additional knowledge about the targets state is available. An image based visual servoing (IBVS) approach is applied in combination with a Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). The IBVS is integrated into the LQR and an optimal trajectory is computed within the projected three-dimensional image-space. The approach has been evaluated on real quadcopter systems in different flight scenarios to demonstrate the system's stability.

Keywords: image based visual servoing, quadcopter, dynamic object tracking, linear-quadratic regulator

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Authors: Tatsuya Kato, Masanobu Nagata, Hidetoshi Nakashima, Kazunori Matsuo

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Localization of mobile robots are important tasks for developing autonomous mobile robots. This paper proposes a method to estimate positions of a mobile robot using an omnidirectional camera on the robot. Landmarks for points of references are set up on a field where the robot works. The omnidirectional camera which can obtain 360 [deg] around images takes photographs of these landmarks. The positions of the robots are estimated from directions of these landmarks that are extracted from the images by image processing. This method can obtain the robot positions without accumulative position errors. Accuracy of the estimated robot positions by the proposed method are evaluated through some experiments. The results show that it can obtain the positions with small standard deviations. Therefore the method has possibilities of more accurate localization by tuning of appropriate offset parameters.

Keywords: mobile robots, localization, omnidirectional camera, estimating positions

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Authors: Jether Gomes, Thiago M. R. Dias, Gray F. Moita

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The production and publication of scientific works have increased significantly in the last years, being the Internet the main factor of access and diffusion of these. In view of this, researchers from several areas of knowledge have carried out several studies on scientific production data in order to analyze phenomena and trends about science. The understanding of how research has evolved can, for example, serve as a basis for building scientific policies for further advances in science and stimulating research groups to become more productive. In this context, the objective of this work is to analyze the main research topics investigated along the trajectory of the Brazilian science of researchers working in the areas of engineering, in order to map scientific knowledge and identify topics in highlights. To this end, studies are carried out on the frequency and relationship of the keywords of the set of scientific articles registered in the existing curricula in the Lattes Platform of each one of the selected researchers, counting with the aid of bibliometric analysis features.

Keywords: research topics, bibliometrics, topics of interest, Lattes Platform

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Authors: Abdullah M. Almeshal, Mohammad R. Alenezi, Muhammad Moaz

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In this paper, we discuss the performance of applying hybrid spiral dynamic bacterial chemotaxis (HSDBC) optimisation algorithm on an intelligent controller for a differential drive robot. A unicycle class of differential drive robot is utilised to serve as a basis application to evaluate the performance of the HSDBC algorithm. A hybrid fuzzy logic controller is developed and implemented for the unicycle robot to follow a predefined trajectory. Trajectories of various frictional profiles and levels were simulated to evaluate the performance of the robot at different operating conditions. Controller gains and scaling factors were optimised using HSDBC and the performance is evaluated in comparison to previously adopted optimisation algorithms. The HSDBC has proven its feasibility in achieving a faster convergence toward the optimal gains and resulted in a superior performance.

Keywords: differential drive robot, hybrid fuzzy controller, optimization, path tracking, unicycle robot

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Authors: Faisal Zaman, Ya Ping Wong, Boon Yian Ng

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Point cloud source data for surface reconstruction is usually contaminated with noise and outliers. To overcome this, we present a novel approach using modified kernel density estimation (KDE) technique with bilateral filtering to remove noisy points and outliers. First we present a method for estimating optimal bandwidth of multivariate KDE using particle swarm optimization technique which ensures the robust performance of density estimation. Then we use mean-shift algorithm to find the local maxima of the density estimation which gives the centroid of the clusters. Then we compute the distance of a certain point from the centroid. Points belong to outliers then removed by automatic thresholding scheme which yields an accurate and economical point surface. The experimental results show that our approach comparably robust and efficient.

Keywords: point preprocessing, outlier removal, surface reconstruction, kernel density estimation

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Authors: Jian-Jun Shu

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The statistical properties of CRMs are explored by estimating similar-word set occurrence distribution. It is observed that CRMs tend to have a fat-tail distribution for similar-word set occurrence. Thus, the fat-tail test with two fatness coefficients is proposed to distinguish CRMs from non-CRMs, especially from exons. For the first fatness coefficient, the separation accuracy between CRMs and exons is increased as compared with the existing content-based CRM prediction method – fluffy-tail test. For the second fatness coefficient, the computing time is reduced as compared with fluffy-tail test, making it very suitable for long sequences and large data-base analysis in the post-genome time. Moreover, these indexes may be used to predict the CRMs which have not yet been observed experimentally. This can serve as a valuable filtering process for experiment.

Keywords: statistical approach, transcription factor binding sites, cis-regulatory modules, DNA sequences

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Authors: Arash Ahmadi, Amirreza Kavousizadeh, Sanaz Heidarzadeh

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Stage-discharge curve is one of the conventional methods for continuous river flow measurement. In this paper, an innovative approach is proposed for predicting the stage-discharge relationship using the application of isovel contours. Using the proposed method, it is possible to estimate the stage-discharge curve in the whole section with only using discharge information from just one arbitrary water level. For this purpose, multivariate relationships are used to determine the mean velocity in a cross-section. The unknown exponents of the proposed relationship have been obtained by using the second version of the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA2), and the appropriate equation was selected by applying the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preferences by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) approach. Results showed a close agreement between the estimated and observed data in the different cross-sections.

Keywords: rating curves, SPEA2, natural rivers, bed roughness distribution

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Authors: Sujeet Kumar, Arun Prasad

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The present work investigates the effect of multiple parameters on the unconfined compressive strength of the bauxite residue-lime mix. A number of unconfined compressive strength tests considering various curing time, lime content, dry density and moisture content were carried out. The results show that an empirical correlation may be successfully developed using volumetric lime content, porosity, moisture content, curing time unconfined compressive strength for the range of the bauxite residue-lime mix studied. The proposed empirical correlations efficiently predict the strength of bauxite residue-lime mix, and it can be used as a generalized empirical equation to estimate unconfined compressive strength.

Keywords: bauxite residue, curing time, porosity/volumetric lime ratio, unconfined compressive strength

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Authors: Laura Kahn, Paul Rodrigues, Onur Savas, Shannon Hahn

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An empirical understanding of an individual's personality expression can have a profound impact on organizations seeking to strengthen team performance and improve employee retention. A team's personality composition can impact overall performance. Creating a tiered information framework that leverages proxies for a user's social context and lexical and linguistic content provides insight into location-specific personality expression. We leverage the layered framework to examine domain-specific, psychological, and lexical cues within social media posts. We apply DistilBERT natural language transfer learning models with real world data to examine the relationship between Big Five personality expressions of people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.

Keywords: big five, personality expression, social media analysis, workforce development

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Authors: A. S. Vidyashree, C. M. Kalleshwaraswamy, R. Asokan, H. M. Mahadevaswamy

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Termites are very vital ecological thespians in tropical ecosystem, having been designated as “ecosystem engineers”, due to their significant role in providing soil ecosystem services. Despite their importance, our understanding of a number of their basic biological processes in termites is extremely limited. Developing a better understanding of termite biology is closely dependent upon consistent species identification. At present, identification of termites is relied on soldier castes. But for many species, soldier caste is not reported, that creates confusion in identification. The use of molecular markers may be helpful in estimating phylogenetic relatedness between the termite species and estimating genetic differentiation among local populations within each species. To understand this, termites samples were collected from various places of Western Ghats covering four states namely Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra during 2013-15. Termite samples were identified based on their morphological characteristics, molecular characteristics, or both. Survey on the termite fauna in Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu indicated the presence of a 16 species belongs to 4 subfamilies under two families viz., Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae. Termititidae was the dominant family which was belonging to 4 genera and four subfamilies viz., Macrotermitinae, Amitermitinae, Nasutitermitinae and Termitinae. Amitermitinae had three species namely, Microcerotermes fletcheri, M. pakistanicus and Speculitermes sinhalensis. Macrotermitinae had the highest number of species belonging two genera, namely Microtermes and Odontotermes. Microtermes genus was with only one species i.e., Microtermes obesi. The genus Odontotermes was represented by the highest number of species (07), namely, O. obesus was the dominant (41 per cent) and the most widely distributed species in Karnataka, Karala, Maharashtra and Tamil nadu followed by O. feae (19 per cent), O.assmuthi (11 per cent) and others like O. bellahunisensis O. horni O. redemanni, O. yadevi. Nasutitermitinae was represented by two genera namely Nasutitermes anamalaiensis and Trinervitermes biformis. Termitinae subfamily was represented by Labiocapritermes distortus. Rhinotermitidae was represented by single subfamily Heterotermetinae. In Heterotermetinae, two species namely Heterotermes balwanthi and H. malabaricus were recorded. Genetic relationship among termites collected from various locations of Western Ghats of India was characterized based on mitochondrial DNA sequences (12S, 16S, and COII). Sequence analysis and divergence among the species was assessed. These results suggest that the use of both molecular and morphological approaches is crucial in ensuring accurate species identification. Efforts were made to understand their evolution and to address the ambiguities in morphological taxonomy. The implication of the study in revising the taxonomy of Indian termites, their characterization and molecular comparisons between the sequences are discussed.

Keywords: isoptera, mitochondrial DNA sequences, rhinotermitidae, termitidae, Western ghats

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Authors: Maritsa Kurashvili, George Adamia, Tamar Ananiashvili, Lia Amiranasvili, Tamar Varazi, Marina Pruidze, Marlen Gordeziani, Gia Khatisashvili

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The goal of presented work is the development phytoremediation method targeted to cleaning environment polluted with organochlorine pesticides, based on joint application of plants and microorganisms. For this aim the selection of plants and microorganisms with corresponding capabilities towards three organochlorine pesticides (Lindane, DDT and PCP) has been carried out. The tolerance of plants to tested pesticides and induction degree of plant detoxification enzymes by these compounds have been used as main criteria for estimating the applicability of plants in proposed technology. Obtained results show that alfalfa, maize and soybean among tested six plant species have highest tolerance to pesticides. As a result of screening, more than 30 strains from genera Pseudomonas have been selected. As a result of GC analysis of incubation area, 11 active cultures for investigated pesticides are carefully chosen.

Keywords: DDT, Lindane, organochlorine pesticides, PCP, phytoremediation

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