Search results for: human machine interface

Authors: Muhammad Solikhudin Nafi, Wahyu Afif Mufida, Mita Erna Wati, Fitri Setyani Rokim, M. Al-Rizqi Dharma Fauzi

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High dose activity without any pre-exercise will impact Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). DOMS known as delayed pain post-exercise and induce skeletal injury which will decrease athletes’ performances. From now on, post-exercise muscle damage can be detected by measuring skeletal troponin I (sTnI) concentration in serum using ELISA but this method needs more time and cost. To prevent decreased athletes performances, screening need to be done rapidly. We want to introduce our new prototype to detect DOMS acutely. Rapid detection tests are based on immunological reaction between skeletal troponin I antibodies and sTnI in human serum or whole blood. Chemical methods that are used in the manufacture of diagnostic test is lateral flow immunoassay. The material used is rat monoclonal antibody sTnI, colloidal gold, anti-mouse IgG, nitrocellulose membrane, conjugate pad, sample pad, wick and backing card. The procedure are made conjugate (colloidal gold and mAb sTnI) and insert into the conjugate pad, gives spray sTnI mAb and anti-mouse IgG into nitrocellulose membrane, and assemble RDT. RDT had been evaluated by measuring the sensitivity of positive human serum (n = 30) and negative human serum (n = 30). Overall sensitivity value was 93% and specificity value was 90%. ADCOR as the first rapid detection test qualitatively showed antigen-antibody reaction and showed good overall performances for screening of muscle damage. Furthermore, these finding still need more improvements to get best results.

Keywords: DOMS, sTnI, rapid detection test, ELISA

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Authors: Alix Limoges, William Bruch, Christophe Yohia, Jacques Piazzola

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A number of questions arise concerning the long-term impact of the contribution of marine aerosol fluxes generated at the air-sea interface on the occurrence of intense events (storms, floods, etc.) in the coastal environment. To this end, knowledge is needed on sea-spray emission rates and the atmospheric dynamics of the corresponding particles. Our aim is to implement the mesoscale model MESO-NH on the study area using an accurate sea-spray source function to estimate heat fluxes and impact on the precipitations. Based on an original and complete sea-spray source function, which covers a large size spectrum since taking into consideration the sea-spray produced by both bubble bursting and surface tearing process, we propose a comparison between model simulations and experimental data obtained during an oceanic scientific cruise on board the navy ship Atalante. The results show the relevance of the sea-spray flux calculations as well as their impact on the heat fluxes and AOD.

Keywords: atmospheric models, sea-spray source, sea-spray dynamics, aerosols

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Authors: Rosa Figueroa, Christopher Flores

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Text categorization is the problem of assigning a new document to a set of predetermined categories, on the basis of a training set of free-text data that contains documents whose category membership is known. To train a classification model, it is necessary to extract characteristics in the form of tokens that facilitate the learning and classification process. In text categorization, the feature extraction process involves the use of word sequences also known as N-grams. In general, it is expected that documents belonging to the same category share similar features. The Smith-Waterman (SW) algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm that performs a local sequence alignment in order to determine similar regions between two strings or protein sequences. This work explores the use of SW algorithm as an alternative to feature extraction in text categorization. The dataset used for this purpose, contains 2,610 annotated documents with the classes Obese/Non-Obese. This dataset was represented in a matrix form using the Bag of Word approach. The score selected to represent the occurrence of the tokens in each document was the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF). In order to extract features for classification, four experiments were conducted: the first experiment used SW to extract features, the second one used unigrams (single word), the third one used bigrams (two word sequence) and the last experiment used a combination of unigrams and bigrams to extract features for classification. To test the effectiveness of the extracted feature set for the four experiments, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was tuned using 20% of the dataset. The remaining 80% of the dataset together with 5-Fold Cross Validation were used to evaluate and compare the performance of the four experiments of feature extraction. Results from the tuning process suggest that SW performs better than the N-gram based feature extraction. These results were confirmed by using the remaining 80% of the dataset, where SW performed the best (accuracy = 97.10%, weighted average F-measure = 97.07%). The second best was obtained by the combination of unigrams-bigrams (accuracy = 96.04, weighted average F-measure = 95.97) closely followed by the bigrams (accuracy = 94.56%, weighted average F-measure = 94.46%) and finally unigrams (accuracy = 92.96%, weighted average F-measure = 92.90%).

Keywords: comorbidities, machine learning, obesity, Smith-Waterman algorithm

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Authors: Siddegowda, Y. A. Sathish, G. Krishnegowda, T. M. Mohan Kumar

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Road accidents are a human tragedy. They involve high human suffering and monetary costs in terms of untimely death, injuries and social problems. India had earned the dubious distinction of having more number of fatalities due to road accidents in the world. Road safety is emerging as a major social concern around the world especially in India because of infrastructure project works. A case study was taken on NH – 07 which connects to various major cities and industries. The study shows that major cases of fatalities are due to bus, trucks and high speed vehicles. The main causes of accidents are due to high density, non-restriction of speed, use of mobile phones, lack of board signs on road parking, visibility restriction, improper geometric design, road use characteristics, environmental aspects, social aspects etc. Data analysis and preventive measures are enlightened in this paper.

Keywords: accidents, environmental aspects, fatalities, geometric design, road user characteristics

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Authors: A. Vani, M. N. Mamatha

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Visual signal processing in human beings occurs in the occipital lobe of the brain. The signals that are generated in the brain are universal for all the human beings and they are called Visual Evoked Potential (VEP). Generally, the visually impaired people lose sight because of severe damage to only the eyes natural photo sensors, but the occipital lobe will still be functioning. In this paper, a technique of artificially generating VEP is proposed to enhance the visual ability of the subject. The system uses the electrical photoreceptors to capture image, process the image, to detect and recognize the subject or object. This voltage is further processed and can transmit wirelessly to a BIOMEMS implanted into occipital lobe of the patient’s brain. The proposed BIOMEMS consists of array of electrodes that generate the neuron potential which is similar to VEP of normal people. Thus, the neurons get the visual data from the BioMEMS which helps in generating partial vision or sight for the visually challenged patient. 

Keywords: BioMEMS, neuro-prosthetic, openvibe, visual evoked potential

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Authors: Mrinal Kanti Bhowmik, Shawli Bardhan Jr., Debotosh Bhattacharjee

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Human skin containing temperature value more than absolute zero, discharges infrared radiation related to the frequency of the body temperature. The difference in infrared radiation from the skin surface reflects the abnormality present in human body. Considering the difference, detection and forecasting the temperature variation of the skin surface is the main objective of using Medical Infrared Thermography(MIT) as a diagnostic tool for pain detection. Medical Infrared Thermography(MIT) is a non-invasive imaging technique that records and monitors the temperature flow in the body by receiving the infrared radiated from the skin and represent it through thermogram. The intensity of the thermogram measures the inflammation from the skin surface related to pain in human body. Analysis of thermograms provides automated anomaly detection associated with suspicious pain regions by following several image processing steps. The paper represents a rigorous study based survey related to the processing and analysis of thermograms based on the previous works published in the area of infrared thermal imaging for detecting inflammatory pain diseases like arthritis, spondylosis, shoulder impingement, etc. The study also explores the performance analysis of thermogram processing accompanied by thermogram acquisition protocols, thermography camera specification and the types of pain detected by thermography in summarized tabular format. The tabular format provides a clear structural vision of the past works. The major contribution of the paper introduces a new thermogram acquisition standard associated with inflammatory pain detection in human body to enhance the performance rate. The FLIR T650sc infrared camera with high sensitivity and resolution is adopted to increase the accuracy of thermogram acquisition and analysis. The survey of previous research work highlights that intensity distribution based comparison of comparable and symmetric region of interest and their statistical analysis assigns adequate result in case of identifying and detecting physiological disorder related to inflammatory diseases.

Keywords: acquisition protocol, inflammatory pain detection, medical infrared thermography (MIT), statistical analysis

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Authors: Zafer Yüce, Paşa Yayla, Alev Taşkın

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There are heaps of analytical methods to estimate the crack growth life of a component. Soft computing methods have an increasing trend in predicting fatigue life. Their ability to build complex relationships and capability to handle huge amounts of data are motivating researchers and industry professionals to employ them for challenging problems. This study focuses on soft computing methods, especially random forest regressors and artificial neural networks with hyperparameter optimization algorithms such as grid search and random grid search, to estimate the crack growth life of an aircraft wing splice joint under variable amplitude loading. TensorFlow and Scikit-learn libraries of Python are used to build the machine learning models for this study. The material considered in this work is 7050-T7451 aluminum, which is commonly preferred as a structural element in the aerospace industry, and regarding the crack type; corner crack is used. A finite element model is built for the joint to calculate fastener loads and stresses on the structure. Since finite element model results are validated with analytical calculations, findings of the finite element model are fed to AFGROW software to calculate analytical crack growth lives. Based on Fighter Aircraft Loading Standard for Fatigue (FALSTAFF), 90 unique fatigue loading spectra are developed for various load levels, and then, these spectrums are utilized as inputs to the artificial neural network and random forest regression models for predicting crack growth life. Finally, the crack growth life predictions of the machine learning models are compared with analytical calculations. According to the findings, a good correlation is observed between analytical and predicted crack growth lives.

Keywords: aircraft, fatigue, joint, life, optimization, prediction.

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Authors: Murad Almadani, Khalil Abu-Hantash, Xinyu Wang, Herbert Jelinek, Kinda Khalaf

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Gait analysis is used by healthcare professionals as a tool to gain a better understanding of the movement impairment and track progress. In most circumstances, monitoring patients in their real-life environments with low-cost equipment such as cameras and wearable sensors is more important. Inertial sensors, on the other hand, cannot provide enough information on angular dynamics. This research offers a method for tracking 2D joint coordinates using cutting-edge vision algorithms and a single RGB camera. We provide an end-to-end comprehensive deep learning pipeline for marker-less gait parameter estimation, which, to our knowledge, has never been done before. To make our pipeline function in real-time for real-world applications, we leverage the AlphaPose human posture prediction model and a deep learning transformer. We tested our approach on the well-known GPJATK dataset, which produces promising results.

Keywords: gait analysis, human pose estimation, deep learning, real time gait estimation, AlphaPose, transformer

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Authors: Mahmoud Hassan, Walid Oueslati, Damien Rousseliere

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This paper explores the channels through which energy taxes may affect economic growth, using a simultaneous equations model for a balanced panel data of 31 OECD countries over the 1994–2013 period. The empirical results reveal a negative impact of energy taxes on physical investment in the short and long term. This impact is negatively sensitive to the existence and level of public debt. Additionally, the results show that energy taxes have an indirect effect on human capital through their impact on polluting emissions. The taxes on energy products are able to reduce both the flux and the stock of polluting emissions that have a negative impact on human capital skills in the short and long term. Finally, we found that energy taxes could encourage eco-innovation in the short and long term.

Keywords: energy taxes, economic growth, public debt, simultaneous equations model, multiple imputation

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Authors: Monapat Sasingha, Suttisak Soralump

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This research presents the behavior of slope of the road along the canal stabilized by short piles. In this investigation, the centrifuge machine was used, modelling the condition of the water levels in the canal. The centrifuge tests were performed at 35 g. To observe the movement of the soil, visual analysis was performed to evaluate the failure behavior. Conclusively, the use of short piles to stabilize the canal slope proved to be an effective solution. However, the certain amount of settlement was found behind the short pile rows.

Keywords: centrifuge test, slope failure, embankment, stability of slope

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Authors: Kiran Kumar Gellaboina, Padmaja Kaja

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Agricultural Education and Research in India needs a transformation to serve the needs of the farmers and that of the nation. The fact that Agriculture and allied activities act as main source of livelihood for more than 70% population of rural India reinforces its importance in administrative and policy arena. As per Census 2011 of India it provides employment to approximately 56.6 % of labour. India has achieved significant growth in agriculture, milk, fish, oilseeds and fruits and vegetables owing to green, white, blue and yellow revolutions which have brought prosperity to farmers. Many factors are responsible for these achievement viz conducive government policies, receptivity of the farmers and also establishment of higher agricultural education institutions. The new breed of skilled human resources were instrumental in generating new technologies, and in its assessment, refinement and finally its dissemination to the farming community through extension methods. In order to sustain, diversify and realize the potential of agriculture sectors, it is necessary to develop skilled human resources. Agricultural human resource development is a continuous process undertaken by agricultural universities. The Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) coordinates and promotes agricultural research & education in India. In India, agricultural universities were established on ‘land grant’ pattern of USA which helped incorporation of a number of diverse subjects in the courses as also provision of hands-on practical exposure to the student. The State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) established through the legislative acts of the respective states and with major financial support from them leading to administrative and policy controls. It has been observed that pace and quality of technology generation and human resource development in many of the SAUs has gone down. The reason for this slackening are inadequate state funding, reduced faculty strength, inadequate faculty development programmes, lack of modern infrastructure for education and research etc. Establishment of new state agricultural universities and new faculties/colleges without providing necessary financial and faculty support has aggrieved the problem. The present work highlights some of the key issues affecting agricultural education and research in India and the impact it would have on farm productivity and sustainability. Secondary data pertaining to budgetary spend on agricultural education and research will be analyzed. This paper will study the trends in public spending on agricultural education and research and the per capita income of farmers in India. This paper tries to suggest that agricultural education and research has a key role in equipping the human resources for enhanced agricultural productivity and sustainable use of natural resources. Further, a total re-orientation of agricultural education with emphasis on other agricultural related social sciences is needed for effective agricultural policy research.

Keywords: agriculture, challenges, education, research

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Authors: Smithinun Thairoongrojana

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This research is a qualitative research with three main purposes: (1) to develop the local tax map software system to be linked to the main Local Tax Map System (LTAX3000) system; (2) to design and develop a program for tax data fieldwork on wireless devices and link it to LTAX3000 database of Surat Thani Municipality; (3) to develop the human resource responsible for the fieldwork to be able to use the program and maintain the system and also to be able to work with the dynamic of technologies. In-depth interviews with the two groups of samples, the board of Surat Thani Municipality and operation staff responsible for observing and taxing fieldworks were conducted. The result of this study demonstrates the new developed fieldworks system that can be used both stand-alone usage and networking usage. The fieldworks system to collect and store the variety of taxing information within Surat Thani Municipality will be explained. Then the fieldwork operation process development and the replacement of transferring and storing the information via the network communication.

Keywords: Local tax map, software system development, wireless devices, human resource

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Authors: David Levy

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The newly released Distributed System Interface 3 (DSI3) Bus Standard specification defines 3 modulation levels from which 16 valid symbols are coded. This structure creates power consumption variations depending on the transmitted data of a factor of more than 2 between minimum and maximum. The power generation unit has to consider therefore the worst case maximum consumption all the time and be built accordingly. This paper proposes a method to reduce both the average current consumption and worst case current consumption. The transmitter randomizes the data using several pseudo-random sequences. It then estimates the energy consumption of the generated frames and selects to transmit the one which consumes the least. The transmitter also prepends the index of the pseudo-random sequence, which is not randomized, to allow the receiver to recover the original data using the correct sequence. We show that in the case that the frame occupies most of the DSI3 synchronization period, we achieve average power consumption reduction by up to 13% and the worst case power consumption is reduced by 17.7%.

Keywords: DSI3, energy, power consumption, randomization

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Authors: Abraham Addo-Bediako, Sophy Nukeri, Tebatso Mmako

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Many freshwater ecosystems have been subjected to prolonged and cumulative pollution as a result of human activities such as mining, agricultural, industrial and human settlements in their catchments. The objective of this study was to investigate spatial variability of heavy metal pollution of sediments and possible sources of pollutants in two streams of the Olifants River System, South Africa. Stream sediments were collected and analysed for Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Copper (Cu), Lead (Pb), Nickel (Ni) and Zinc (Zn) concentrations using inductively coupled plasma-mass mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In both rivers, As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn fell within the concentration ranges recommended by CCME and ANZECC, while the concentrations of Cr and Ni exceeded the standards; the results indicated that Cr and Ni in the sediments originated from human activities and not from natural geological background. The index of geo-accumulation (Igeo) was used to assess the degree of pollution. The results of the geo-accumulation index evaluation showed that Cr and Ni were present in the sediments of the rivers at moderately to extremely polluted levels, while As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn existed at unpolluted to moderately polluted levels. Generally, heavy metal concentrations increased along the gradient in the rivers. The high concentrations of Cr and Ni in both rivers are of great concern, as previously these two rivers were classified to be supplying the Olifants River with water of good quality. There is a critical need, therefore to monitor heavy metal concentrations and distributions, as well as a comprehensive plan to prevent health risks, especially those communities still reliant on untreated water from the rivers, as sediment pollution may pose a risk of secondary water pollution under sediment disturbance and/or changes in the geo-chemistry of sediments.

Keywords: geo-accumulation index, heavy metals, sediment pollution, water quality

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Authors: Peter Iyobosa Asemota

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This study on solid waste management practices addressed aspects of environmental and health impacts resulting from poor management of solid waste. The study was occasioned by the observed rate and volume of illegal and indiscriminate dumping of solid waste materials especially in informal settlements. The main focus of this study was to establish the impact of waste management practices on human health and the environment. The study, therefore, presents a critical analysis of the state of solid waste management in the study area and the implications for human health and the environment. The study was carried out in Kayamandi informal settlement within Stellenbosch municipality. The sustainable management of solid waste is very important in order to minimize the environmental and public health risks associated with improper solid waste management. There is no denying the fact that the problems of waste management will become critical as time goes on because of improper and inefficient waste management practices. Towns and cities exhibit the burdens of waste management which is a characteristics feature of most African cities. The study critically assess the implementation of waste management practices by the residents of the informal settlement; identify the factors affecting management issues in the operation of solid waste management system by the municipality; identify factors militating against the implementation of waste management policies and legislation. Furthermore, a waste assessment study was carried out to assess the generation; composition of the waste stream and also determine the attitudes and behavior of the residents with regard to waste management practices. Findings from the study revealed that Kayamandi is not different from other informal settlements with regards to waste management. People are of the opinion that solid waste management is the sole responsibility of municipal authorities and as such, the government should be responsible for bearing the cost of solid waste management.

Keywords: environment, waste, waste composition, waste stream, policy, waste categories, sanitary landfill, waste collection, integrated solid waste management

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Authors: Djehich Mohamed Yousri

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This research deals with an important issue in Islamic political thought, which is the relationship of ethics to the Islamic political system. This is done by following the legal politics books and analyzing their texts in order to reach the moral values on which the political system in Islam is based, starting from the concept of politics to the political principles and conditions of the ruler and the reasons for his removal and the conditions of those authorized to choose him, and ending with the ruler’s relationship with his people, and the relationship of the Islamic state with other countries. The research concluded that moral values are the basis of the political system in Islam, and the reason for this is due to the fact that Islam is a religion and a global and realistic human system that embraces morals and higher values in order to preserve its lofty message and calls for brotherhood, love, and justice and does not harm human morals. And if the reality of politics in the Islamic world today is not related to the moral values and the lofty message of Islam, this research tries to show the origins of political theory in Islam, and the purpose of the Islamic political system, towards the morality of politics.

Keywords: moral, politics, islam, political system, islamic political system

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Authors: Abdulatif Abdulsalam, Mohamed Shaban

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This paper introduces interfacing and replication of electronic tools based on the MATLAB/ SIMULINK mock-up package. Mock-up components contain dc-dc converters, power issue rectifiers, motivation machines, dc gear, synchronous gear, and more entire systems. Power issue rectifier model includes solid state device models. The tools are the clear-cut structure and mock-up of complex energetic systems connecting with power electronic machines.

Keywords: power electronics, machine, MATLAB, simulink

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Authors: Kumaran Narayanan, Andrew N. Osahor

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E. coli has been engineered by our group and by others as a vector to deliver DNA into cultured human and animal cells. However, so far conditions to improve gene delivery using this vector have not been investigated, resulting in a major gap in our understanding of the requirements for this vector to function optimally. Our group recently published novel data showing that simple addition of the DNA transfection reagent Lipofectamine increased the efficiency of the E. coli vector by almost 3-fold, providing the first strong evidence that further optimization of bactofection is possible. This presentation will discuss advances that demonstrate the effects of several intracellular strategies that improve the efficiency of this vector. Conditions that promote endosomal escape of internalized bacteria to evade lysosomal destruction after entry in the cell, a known obstacle limiting this vector, are elucidated. Further, treatments that increase bacterial lysis so that the vector can release its transgene into the mammalian environment for expression will be discussed. These experiments will provide valuable new insight to advance this E. coli system as an important class of vector technology for genetic correction of human disease models in cells and whole animals.

Keywords: DNA, E. coli, gene expression, vector

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Authors: Hoda Abugharsa

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In this paper we propose to design a sorter circuit using insertion sorting algorithm. The circuit will be designed using Algorithmic State Machines (ASM) method. That means converting the insertion sorting flowchart into an ASM chart. Then the ASM chart will be used to design the sorter circuit and the control unit.

Keywords: insert sorting algorithm, ASM chart, sorter circuit, state machine, control unit

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Authors: Aryo Bayu Tejokusumo, Ivan Hidayat, C. Steffany Yoland

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Wind velocity in Panjang Island, Serang, Banten, West Java, measured 10 m above sea level, is about 8 m/s. This wind velocity is potential for electricity generation using wind power. Using ten of Alstom-Haliade 150-6 W turbines, the placement of wind turbines has 7D for vertical distance and 4D for horizontal distance. Installation of the turbines is 100 m above sea level which is produces 98.64 MW per hour. This wind power generation has ecology impacts (the deaths of birds and bats and land exemption) and human impacts (aesthetics, human’s health, and potential disruption of electromagnetics interference), but it could be neglected totally, because of the position of the wind farm. The investment spent 73,819,710.00 IDR. Payback period is 2.23 years, and rate of return is 45.24%. This electricity generation using wind power in Panjang Island is suitable to install despite the high cost of investment since the profit is also high.

Keywords: wind turbine, Panjang island, renewable energy, Indonesia, offshore, power generation

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Authors: Melissa C. Monney

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Psychological testing has been of interest to researchers for many years as useful tools in assessing and diagnosing various disorders as well as to assist in understanding human behavior. However, for over 20 years now, researchers and laypersons alike have been interested in using them for other purposes, such as determining factors in employee selection, promotion, and even termination. In recent years, psychological assessments have been useful in facilitating workplace decision processing, regarding employee circulation within organizations. This literature review explores four of the most commonly used psychological tests in workplace environments, namely cognitive ability, emotional intelligence, integrity, and personality tests, as organizations have used these tests to assess different factors of human behavior as predictive measures of future employee behaviors. The findings suggest that while there is much controversy and debate regarding the validity and reliability of these tests in workplace settings as they were not originally designed for these purposes, the use of such assessments in the workplace has been useful in decreasing costs and employee turnover as well as increase job satisfaction by ensuring the right employees are selected for their roles.

Keywords: cognitive ability, personality testing, predictive validity, workplace behavior

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Authors: Essam Al Daoud

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Gradient boosting methods have been proven to be a very important strategy. Many successful machine learning solutions were developed using the XGBoost and its derivatives. The aim of this study is to investigate and compare the efficiency of three gradient methods. Home credit dataset is used in this work which contains 219 features and 356251 records. However, new features are generated and several techniques are used to rank and select the best features. The implementation indicates that the LightGBM is faster and more accurate than CatBoost and XGBoost using variant number of features and records.

Keywords: gradient boosting, XGBoost, LightGBM, CatBoost, home credit

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Authors: Sanjay Dhiraaj, Puneet Goyal, Aditya Kapoor, Gaurav Misra

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In electrocardiography, an ECG artefact is used to indicate something that is not heart-made. Although technological advancements have produced monitors with the potential of providing accurate information and reliable heart rate alarms, despite this, interference of the displayed electrocardiogram still occurs. These interferences can be from the various electrical gadgets present in the operating room or electrical signals from other parts of the body. Artefacts may also occur due to poor electrode contact with the body or due to machine malfunction. Knowing these artefacts is of utmost importance so as to avoid unnecessary and unwarranted diagnostic as well as interventional procedures. We report a case of ECG artefacts occurring due to patient warming blanket and its consequences. A 20-year-old male with a preoperative diagnosis of exstrophy epispadias complex was posted for surgery under epidural and general anaesthesia. Just after endotracheal intubation, we observed nonspecific ECG changes on the monitor. At a first glance, the monitor strip revealed broad QRs complexes suggesting a ventricular bigeminal rhythm. Closer analysis revealed these to be artefacts because although the complexes were looking broad on the first glance there was clear presence of normal sinus complexes which were immediately followed by 'broad complexes' or artefacts produced by some device or connection. These broad complexes were labeled as artefacts as they were originating in the absolute refractory period of the previous normal sinus beat. It would be physiologically impossible for the myocardium to depolarize so rapidly as to produce a second QRS complex. A search for the possible reason for the artefacts was made and after deepening the plane of anaesthesia, ruling out any possible electrolyte abnormalities, checking of ECG leads and its connections, changing monitors, checking all other monitoring connections, checking for proper grounding of anaesthesia machine and OT table, we found that after switching off the patient’s warming apparatus the rhythm returned to a normal sinus one and the 'broad complexes' or artefacts disappeared. As misdiagnosis of ECG artefacts may subject patients to unnecessary diagnostic and therapeutic interventions so a thorough knowledge of the patient and monitors allow for a quick interpretation and resolution of the problem.

Keywords: ECG artefacts, patient warming blanket, peri-operative arrhythmias, mobile messaging services

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Authors: Jianning Tang, Trevor Hocksun Kwan, Xiaofeng Wu

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With the increasing demand for space use in multiple sectors (navigation, telecommunication, imagery, etc.), the deployment and maintenance demand of satellites are growing. Considering the high launching cost and the restrictions on weight and size of the payload when using launch vehicle, the technique of on-orbit manufacturing has obtained more attention because of its significant potential to support future space missions. 3D printing is the most promising manufacturing technology that could be applied in space. However, due to the lack of autonomous quality assessment, the operation of conventional 3D printers still relies on human presence to supervise the printing process. This paper is proposed to develop an automatic 3D reconstruction system aiming at detecting failures on the 3D printed objects through application of point cloud technology. Based on the data obtained from the point cloud, the 3D printer could locate the failure and repair the failure. The system will increase automation and provide 3D printing with more feasibilities for space use without human interference.

Keywords: 3D printing, quality assessment, point cloud, on-orbit manufacturing

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Authors: Piyaporn Buaklang, Narisa Kengtrong Bordeerat

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The use of nanoparticles is increasing worldwide and there are many nanotech-based daily products available in the market. The toxicity of nanoparticles results from their extremely small size which can be transported easily into the blood stream and other organs. We aimed to study the genotoxicity of two nanoparticles, Titanium dioxide (TiO2-NPs) and Zinc oxide (ZnO-NPs), in TK6 cells by micronucleus assay. The cells were tested at 8, 24, and 48 hours after exposed to 0.10, 0.25, 0.50 and 1.00 µg/mL of TiO2-NPs particles size < 25 nm and < 100 nm and to ZnO-NPs at 1, 10, 50, and 100 µg/mL, particles size < 50 nm and < 100 nm. At 24 hours of incubation transmission electron microscope (TEM) revealed that the nanoparticles TiO2-NPs at 1.00 µg/mL and ZnO-NPs at 10 µg/mL were able to be taken into the cells and induced the production of increasing amount of micronucleus in dose-dependent manner. The effect of the two nanoparticles on chromosome aberration indicated that TiO2-NPs and ZnO-NPs are genotoxic. In addition, the toxicity of TiO2-NPs was found to be 10 times more toxic than ZnO-NPs after 24 hours exposure. Analysis showed that the TiO2-NPs induced formation of micronucleus was both time and dose dependent, whereas the genotoxicity of ZnO-NPs was only dose dependent. In conclusion, TiO2-NPs and ZnO-NPs were able to transport through the cells membrane and directly genotoxic to TK6 cells in dose-dependent manner.

Keywords: nanoparticles, genotoxicity, human lymphoblast cells (TK6), micronucleus

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Authors: Sara Rute Monteiro Silva Sousa

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Since the second half of the 20th century, environmental problems began to generate deep concern around the world. The harmful effects of human's irresponsible actions are increasingly evident, profoundly affecting biodiversity and even human health. Given the seriousness of this human footprint, governments, organizations, and civil society must all be more proactive and adopt more effective measures to solve environmental problems and promote sustainable development. This can be achieved through different tools, namely through a more efficient education that enables current and future generations to meet their needs in an integrated approach to the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In this context, schools play a key role, being responsible for educating today's students and tomorrow's leaders, decision makers, intellectuals, managers, politicians, employers, and parents. Aware of this crucial role of education and schools, the Foundation for Environmental Education created the Eco-Schools program in 1992, ensuring that schools develop a whole-school approach to environmental and sus-tainable education. This research aims to increase knowledge and information about the efficiency of the Eco-Schools program as a promoter of more sustainable schools and communities. This research study analyses a specific case of a Portuguese higher education institution in the area of management, accounting, and administration. A description, reflection, and discussion are made on some of the main measures implemented in the last academic year of 2021/22 within the scope of the Eco-Schools program, concluding that, despite some implementation difficulties, the program was successfully developed, involving the participation of students, teachers, staff, and outside school community members, being awarded with the Green Flag as a recognition of its key contribution to a more sustainable society.

Keywords: sustainable development, environmental education, eco-schools program, higher education institutions, portugal

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Authors: Thilini Hathurusinghe, Uthpalie Siriwardhana, W. M. Ediri Arachchi, Ranga Thudugala, Indeewari Herath, Gayani Senanayake

Abstract:

The foramen magnum is more prone to protect than other skeletal remains during high impact and severe disruptive injuries. Therefore, it is worthwhile to explore whether these measurements can be used to determine the human gender which is vital in forensic and anthropological studies. The idea was to find out the ability to use quantitative measurements of foramen magnum as an anatomical indicator for human gender estimation and to evaluate the gender-dependent variations of foramen magnum using quantitative measurements. Randomly selected 113 subjects who underwent CT head scans at Sri Jayawardhanapura General Hospital of Sri Lanka within a period of six months, were included in the study. The sample contained 58 males (48.76 ± 14.7 years old) and 55 females (47.04 ±15.9 years old). Maximum length of the foramen magnum (LFM), maximum width of the foramen magnum (WFM), minimum distance between occipital condyles (MnD) and maximum interior distance between occipital condyles (MxID) were measured. Further, AreaT and AreaR were also calculated. The gender was estimated using binomial logistic regression. The mean values of all explanatory variables (LFM, WFM, MnD, MxID, AreaT, and AreaR) were greater among male than female. All explanatory variables except MnD (p=0.669) were statistically significant (p < 0.05). Significant bivariate correlations were demonstrated by AreaT and AreaR with the explanatory variables. The results evidenced that WFM and MxID were the best measurements in predicting gender according to binomial logistic regression. The estimated model was: log (p/1-p) =10.391-0.136×MxID-0.231×WFM, where p is the probability of being a female. The classification accuracy given by the above model was 65.5%. The quantitative measurements of foramen magnum can be used as a reliable anatomical marker for human gender estimation in the Sri Lankan context.

Keywords: foramen magnum, forensic and anthropological studies, gender estimation, logistic regression

Procedia PDF Downloads 136

Authors: Kolesnikova Julia, Fakhrutdinova Elena, Zagidullina Venera, Kamasheva Anastasia

Abstract:

The article deals with the structure of intangible capital. A significant share of intangible capital is associated with a person as such and can be considered as human capital, which in turn also has a complex structure, including intellectual, social, organizational, client, reputational capital. We have allocated a separate category of intangible capital - unidentifiable capital, including a variety of synergistic interaction effects, etc. the structure of intangible capital. A significant share of intangible capital is associated with a person as such and can be considered as human capital, which in turn also has a complex structure, including intellectual, social, organizational, client, reputational capital. We have allocated unidentifiable capital as a separate category of intangible capital, including a variety of synergistic interaction effects and other.

Keywords: intangible capital, intangible property, object of intangible property, reputation capital

Procedia PDF Downloads 521

Authors: C. Boubechou, A. Bouchoucha, H. Zaidi

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to study the tribological behavior of a dynamic contact steel-brass couple with electric current. This study looks at a dry contact brass-steel couple where friction and wear are studied in terms of mechanical and electrical parameters. For this reason, a tribometer, pin-rotary disc is used in an atmospheric atmosphere. The test parameters are as follows: the normal load (5-30N), the sliding speed (0.1 to 0.5 m / s) and the electric current (3-10A). The duration of each test is 30 minutes. The experimental results show that these parameters have a significant effect on the tribological behavior of the couple studied. The discussion of results is based on observations, using an optical microscope, MEB and a profilometer, worn surfaces and interface phenomena resulting from the process of sliding contact.

Keywords: brass-steel couple, dry friction, electrical current, morphology, normal load, sliding speeds, wear

Procedia PDF Downloads 255

Authors: Salma I. Dwidar, Amal A. Abdel-Sattar

Abstract:

The window openings are the key to the relationship between the inside and the outside of any building. It is the eye that sees from, the lunges of the construction, and the ear to hear. The success of the building, as well as the comfort of the uses, depends mainly on this relationship. Usually, windows are affected by human factors like religious, social, political and economic factors as well as environmental factors like climatic, aesthetic and functional factors. In Islamic architecture, the windows were one of the most important elements of physiological and psychological comfort to the users of the buildings. Windows considered one of the main parameters in designing internal and external facade, where the window openings occupied a big part of the formation of the external facade of the buildings. This paper discusses the importance of the window openings and its relationship to residential buildings in the Islamic architecture. It addresses the rules that have been followed in the design of windows in Islamic architecture to achieve privacy and thermal comfort while there are no technological elements within the dwellings. Also, it demonstrates the effects of windows on the building form and identity and how it gives a distinctive fingerprint of the architecture buildings.

Keywords: window openings, thermal comfort, residential buildings, the Islamic architecture, human considerations

Procedia PDF Downloads 208