Search results for: waste classification

Authors: Dike Felix Okechukwu

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Studies and reports from authoritative sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have stated that to effectively solve environmental sustainability challenges such as pollution, inappropriate waste disposal, and unsustainable consumption, there is a need for more research to seek solutions towards environmentally sustainable behavior. However, literature thus far reports only sporadic developments of TL in Environmental Sustainability because there are scarce reports showing the reliable process(es) to produce TL - for sustainability projects or otherwise. Nonetheless, a recently published article demonstrates how TL can be used to help young adults gain transformed mindsets and habits toward environmental sustainability behaviors and practices. This study, however, does not demonstrate, on a repeated basis, the dependability of the method or reliability of the procedures in using its proposed methodology to help young adults achieve transformed habits towards environmental sustainability behaviors, especially in diverse contexts. In this study, it is demonstrated, through repeated measures, a reliable process that can be used to achieve transformations in habits and mindsets toward environmental sustainability behaviors. To achieve this, the design adopted is multiple case studies and a thematic analysis techniques. Five cases in diverse contexts were used to analyze pieces of evidence of Transformative Learning Outcomes toward environmentally sustainable behaviors. Results from the study offer fresh perspectives on a reliable methodology that can be adopted to achieve Transformations in Habits and mindsets toward environmental sustainability behaviors.

Keywords: environmental sustainability, transformative learning, behaviour, learning, education

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Authors: Qingsong Xiong, Cheng Yuan, Qingzhao Kong, Haibei Xiong

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Deep-learning-driven approaches based on vibration responses have attracted larger attention in rapid structural condition assessment while obtaining sufficient measured training data with corresponding labels is relevantly costly and even inaccessible in practical engineering. This study proposes an integrated label propagation network for structural condition assessment, which is able to diffuse the labels from continuously-generating measurements by intact structure to those of missing labels of damage scenarios. The integrated network is embedded with damage-sensitive features extraction by deep autoencoder and pseudo-labels propagation by optimized fuzzy clustering, the architecture and mechanism which are elaborated. With a sophisticated network design and specified strategies for improving performance, the present network achieves to extends the superiority of self-supervised representation learning, unsupervised fuzzy clustering and supervised classification algorithms into an integration aiming at assessing damage conditions. Both numerical simulations and full-scale laboratory shaking table tests of a two-story building structure were conducted to validate its capability of detecting post-earthquake damage. The identifying accuracy of a present network was 0.95 in numerical validations and an average 0.86 in laboratory case studies, respectively. It should be noted that the whole training procedure of all involved models in the network stringently doesn’t rely upon any labeled data of damage scenarios but only several samples of intact structure, which indicates a significant superiority in model adaptability and feasible applicability in practice.

Keywords: autoencoder, condition assessment, fuzzy clustering, label propagation

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Authors: Ayu Dwi Hardiyanti, Bernardus Anggit Winahyu, I. Gusti Agung Ayu Sugita Sari, Lestari Sutra Simamora, I. Wayan Warmada

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The Penosogan Formation sandstone, that has Middle Miosen age, has been deemed as a reservoir potential based on sample data from sandstone outcrop in Kebakalan and Kedawung villages, Karangsambung sub-district, Kebumen Regency, Central Java. This research employs the following analytical methods; petrography, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and porosity test. Based on the presence of micritic sandstone, muddy micrite, and muddy sandstone, the Penosogan Formation sandstone has a fine-coarse granular size and middle-to-fine sorting. The composition of the sandstone is mostly made up of plagioclase, skeletal grain, and traces of micrite. The percentage of clay minerals based on petrographic analysis is 10% and appears to envelop grain, resulting enveloping grain which reduces the porosity of rocks. The porosity types as follows: interparticle, vuggy, channel, and shelter, with an equant form of cement. Moreover, the diagenesis process involves compaction, cementation, authigenic mineral growth, and dissolving due to feldspar alteration. The maturity of the reservoir can be seen through the X-ray diffraction analysis results, using ethylene glycol solution for clay minerals fraction transformed from smectite–illite. Porosity test analysis showed that the Penosogan Formation sandstones has a porosity value of 22% based on the Koeseomadinata classification, 1980. That shows high maturity is very influential for the quality of reservoirs sandstone of the Penosogan Formation.

Keywords: sandstone reservoir, Penosogan Formation, smectite, XRD

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Authors: S. Abdi Goudazri, R. Ziaie Moayed, A. Nazeri

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Loose soils normally are of weak bearing capacity due to their structural nature. Being exposed to heavy traffic loads, they would fail in most cases. To tackle the aforementioned issue, geotechnical engineers have come up with different approaches; one of which is making use of geosynthetic-reinforced soil-aggregate systems. As these polymeric reinforcements have highlighted economic and environmentally-friendly features, they have become widespread in practice during the last decades. The present research investigates the efficiency of four different types of these reinforcements in increasing the bearing capacity of two-layered soil sections using a series California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test. The studied sections are comprised of a 10 cm-thick layer of no. 161 Firouzkooh sand (weak subgrade) and a 10 cm-thick layer of compacted aggregate materials (base course) classified as SP and GW according to the United Soil Classification System (USCS), respectively. The aggregate layer was compacted to the relative density (Dr) of 95% at the optimum water content (Wopt) of 6.5%. The applied reinforcements were including two kinds of geocomposites (type A and B), a geotextile, and a geogrid that were embedded at the interface of the lower and the upper layers of the soil-aggregate system. As the standard CBR mold was not appropriate in height for this study, the mold used for soaked CBR tests were utilized. To make a comparison between the results of stress-settlement behavior in the studied specimens, CBR values pertinent to the penetrations of 2.5 mm and 5 mm were considered. The obtained results demonstrated 21% and 24.5% increments in the amount of CBR value in the presence of geocomposite type A and geogrid, respectively. On the other hand, the effect of both geotextile and geocomposite type B on CBR values was generally insignificant in this research.

Keywords: geosynthetics, geogrid, geotextile, CBR test, increasing bearing capacity

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Authors: Parul Johri, Mala Trivedi

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Major Intrinsic proteins (MIPs), actively involved in the passive transport of small polar molecules across the membranes of almost all living organisms. MIPs that specifically transport water molecules are named aquaporins (AQPs). The permeability of membranes is actively controlled by the regulation of the amount of different MIPs present but also in some cases by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of the channel. Based on sequence similarity, MIPs have been classified into many categories. All of the proteins are made up of the 20 amino acids, the only difference is there in their orientations. Again all the 20 amino acids are made up of the basic five elements namely: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur and nitrogen. These elements are responsible for giving the amino acids the properties of hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity which play an important role in protein interactions. The hydrophobic amino acids characteristically have greater number of carbon atoms as carbon is the main element which contributes to hydrophobic interactions in proteins. It is observed that the carbon level of proteins in different species is different. In the present work, we have taken a sample set of 150 aquaporins proteins from Uniprot database and a dynamic programming code was written to calculate the carbon percentage for each sequence. This carbon percentage was further used to barcode the aqauporins of animals and plants. The protein taken from Oryza sativa, Zea mays and Arabidopsis thaliana preferred to have carbon percentage of 31.8 to 35, whereas on the other hand sequences taken from Mus musculus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Homo sapiens, Bos Taurus, and Rattus norvegicus preferred to have carbon percentage of 31 to 33.7. This clearly demarks the carbon range in the aquaporin proteins from plant and animal origin. Hence the atom level analysis of protein sequences can provide us with better results as compared to the residue level comparison.

Keywords: aquaporins, carbon, dynamic prgramming, MIPs

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Authors: Javier Delgado-Gonzaga, Wilfrido Rivera, David Juárez-Romero

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Cooling and water purification are processes that have contributed to the economic and social development of the modern world. However, these processes require a significant amount of energy globally. Nowadays, absorption heat pumps have been studied with great interest since they are capable of producing cooling and/or purifying water from low-temperature energy sources such as industrial waste heat or renewable energy. In addition, absorption heat pumps require negligible amounts of electricity for their operation and generally use working fluids that do not represent a risk to the environment. The objective of this work is to evaluate a system that integrates an absorption heat transformer and an absorption cooling system to produce fresh water and cooling from a low-temperature heat source. Both cycles operate with the working pair LiBr-H2O. The integration is possible through the interaction of the LiBr-H2O solution streams between both cycles and also by recycling heat from the absorption heat transformer to the absorption cooling system. Mathematical models were developed to compare the performance of four different configurations. The results showed that the configuration in which the hottest streams of LiBr-H2O solution preheated the coldest streams in the economizers of both cycles was one that achieved the best performance. The interaction of the solution currents and the heat recycling analyzed in this work serves as a record of the possibilities of integration between absorption cycles for cogeneration.

Keywords: absorption heat transformer, absorption cooling system, water desalination, integrated system

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Authors: Abdul Walusansa

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The aim of this study was to assess the level of microbial pollution along Nakibiso stream. The study was carried out in polluted waters of Nakibiso stream, originating from Mbale municipality and running through ADRA Estates to Namatala Wetlands in Eastern Uganda. Four sites along the stream were selected basing on the activities of their vicinity. A total of 120 samples were collected in sterile bottles from the four sampling locations of the stream during the wet and dry seasons of the year 2011. The samples were taken to the National water and Sewerage Cooperation Laboratory for Analysis. Membrane filter technique was used to test for Erischerichia coli. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, pH, dissolved oxygen, electrical conductivity, total suspended solids, turbidity and temperature were also measured. Results for Nitrogen and Phosphorus for sites; 1, 2, 3 and 4 were 1.8, 8.8, 7.7 and 13.8 NH4-N mg/L; and 1.8, 2.1, 1.8 and 2.3 PO4-P mg/L respectively. Basing on these results, it was estimated that farmers use 115 and 24 Kg/acre of Nitrogen and Phosphorus respectively per month. Taking results for Nitrogen, the same amount of Nutrients in artificial fertilizers would cost $ 88. This shows that reuse of wastewater has a potential in terms of nutrients. The results for E. coli for sites 1, 2, 3 and 4 were 1.1 X 107, 9.1 X 105, 7.4 X 105, and 3.4 X 105 respectively. E. coli hence decreased downstream with statistically significant variations between sites 1 and 4. Site 1 had the highest mean E.coli counts. The bacterial contamination was significantly higher during the dry season when more water was needed for irrigation. Although the water had the potential for reuse in farming, bacterial contamination during both seasons was higher than 103 FC/100ml recommended by WHO for unrestricted Agriculture.

Keywords: E. coli, nitrogen, phosphorus, water reuse, waste water

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Authors: Ahmed Negm, George Aggidis, Xiandong Ma

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With the diverse nature of urban cities, customer demand patterns, landscape topologies or even seasonal weather trends; managing our water distribution networks (WDNs) has proved a complex task. These unpredictable circumstances manifest as pipe failures, intermittent supply and burst events thus adding to water loss, energy waste and increased carbon emissions. Whilst these events are unavoidable, advanced pressure management has proved an effective tool to control and mitigate them. Henceforth, water utilities have struggled with developing a real-time control method that is resilient when confronting the challenges of water distribution. In this paper we use deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms as a novel pressure control strategy to minimise pressure violations and leakage under both burst and background leakage conditions. Agents based on asynchronous actor critic (A2C) and recurrent proximal policy optimisation (Recurrent PPO) were trained and compared to benchmarked optimisation algorithms (differential evolution, particle swarm optimisation. A2C manages to minimise leakage by 32.48% under burst conditions and 67.17% under background conditions which was the highest performance in the DRL algorithms. A2C and Recurrent PPO performed well in comparison to the benchmarks with higher processing speed and lower computational effort.

Keywords: deep reinforcement learning, pressure management, water distribution networks, leakage management

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Authors: Şevket Evci, Mehmet Akif Karsli

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The aim of this study is to determine nutrient contents, in situ ruminal degradation kinetics and protein fractions of screenings bean (B), chick pea (ChP), red lentil (RL) and green lentil (GL) that is used as residue in grain legume packing industry. For this purpose, four samples of each legumes species-a total of 16 samples, collected from different parts of our country were utilized. Feedstuffs used in the experiment were incubated for 0, 2 4, 8, 12, 24, and 48 hours in the rumen of 3 ruminally cannulated Akkaraman rams as duplicate. The nutrient contents, in situ ruminal dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM) and crude protein (CP) degradabilities and fractions, and escape protein contents were evaluated. The highest OM and CP contents were observed in RL (P<0.05). Chick pea had the highest ether extract (EE) content and EE values were 3.47, 6.72, 2.26, 8.66 % for RL, B, GL and ChP, respectively (P<0.05). Crude fiber (CF), ADF, and NDF contents were the highest in RL and the lowest in ChP. CF values were 24.03, 10.80, 4.09 and 3.57 % for RL, GL, B and ChP (P<0.05). Acid detergent insoluble nitrogen content of samples did not differ. Escape protein content was the highest in RL and the lowest in B (P<0.05). After 48 h incubation, the lowest OM and CP degradabilities were observed in RL. While the highest OM degradability was seen in ChP the highest CP degradability was observed in B (P<0.05). The lowest water soluble OM and CP contents were observed in RL whereas the highest potentially degradable OM and CP contents were seen in B and ChP (P<0.05). Both rate of OM and CP degradations (k-1) did not differ among samples (P>0.05). In conclusion, it was noted that feedstuffs (GL, ChP and B) used in the experiment except RL had a greater ruminal degradibilities of both OM and CP and moreover, had a higher escape protein contents, except B. It was thought that these feedstuffs can be substituted with some of common protein sources used in animal nutrition.

Keywords: in situ, nutrient contents, ruminant, subsieve

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Authors: A. Sivakumar, S. S. Darun Prakash, P. Navaneethakrishnan

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In and around Erode District, it is estimated that more than 1250 chemical and allied textile processing fabric industries are affected, partially closed and shut off for various reasons such as poor management, poor supplier performance, lack of planning for productivity, fluctuation of output, poor investment, waste analysis, labor problems, capital/labor ratio, accumulation of stocks, poor maintenance of resources, deficiencies in the quality of fabric, low capacity utilization, age of plant and equipment, high investment and input but low throughput, poor research and development, lack of energy, workers’ fear of loss of jobs, work force mix and work ethic. The main objective of this work is to analyze the existing conditions in textile fabric sector, validate the break even of Total Productivity (TP), analyze, design and implement fuzzy sets and mathematical programming for improvement of productivity and quality dimensions in the fabric processing industry. It needs to be compatible with the reality of textile and fabric processing industries. The highly risk events from productivity and quality dimension were found by fuzzy systems and results are wrapped up among the textile fabric processing industry.

Keywords: break even point, fuzzy crisp data, fuzzy sets, productivity, productivity cycle, total productive maintenance

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Authors: S. A. H. Feghhi, Z. Gholamzadeh, Z. Alipoor, C. Tenreiro

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Currently, thorium fuel has been especially noticed because of its proliferation resistance than long half-life alpha emitter minor actinides, breeding capability in fast and thermal neutron flux and mono-isotopic naturally abundant. In recent years, efficiency of minor actinide burning up in PWRs has been investigated. Hence, a minor actinide-contained thorium based fuel matrix can confront both proliferation resistance and nuclear waste depletion aims. In the present work, minor actinide depletion rate in a CANDU-type nuclear core modeled using MCNP code has been investigated. The obtained effects of minor actinide load as mixture of thorium fuel matrix on the core neutronics has been studiedwith comparingpresence and non-presence of minor actinide component in the fuel matrix.Depletion rate of minor actinides in the MA-contained fuel has been calculated using different power loads.According to the obtained computational data, minor actinide loading in the modeled core results in more negative reactivity coefficients. The MA-contained fuel achieves less radial peaking factor in the modeled core. The obtained computational results showed 140 kg of 464 kg initial load of minor actinide has been depleted in during a 6-year burn up in 10 MW power.

Keywords: minor actinide burning, CANDU-type reactor, MCNPX code, neutronic parameters

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Authors: Silvija Šiljeg, Ivan Marić, Ante Šiljeg

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The accessibility of urban green spaces (UGS) is an integral element in the quality of life. Due to rapid urbanization, UGS studies have become a key element in urban planning. The potential benefits of space for its inhabitants are frequently analysed. A functional transport network system and the optimal spatial distribution of urban green surfaces are the prerequisites for maintaining the environmental equilibrium of the urban landscape. An accessibility analysis was conducted as part of the Urban Green Belts Project (UGB). The development of a GIS database for Zadar was the first step in generating the UGS accessibility indicator. Data were collected using the supervised classification method of multispectral LANDSAT images and manual vectorization of digital orthophoto images (DOF). An analysis of UGS accessibility according to the ANGst standard was conducted in the first phase of research. The accessibility indicator was generated on the basis of seven objective measurements, which included average UGS surface per capita and accessibility according to six functional levels of green surfaces. The generated indicator was compared with subjective measurements obtained by conducting a survey (718 respondents) within statistical units. The collected data reflected individual assessments and subjective evaluations of UGS accessibility. This study highlighted the importance of using objective and subjective measures in the process of understanding the accessibility of urban green surfaces. It may be concluded that when evaluating UGS accessibility, residents emphasize the immediate residential environment, ignoring higher UGS functional levels. It was also concluded that large areas of UGS within a city do not necessarily generate similar satisfaction with accessibility. The heterogeneity of output results may serve as guidelines for the further development of a functional UGS city network.

Keywords: urban green spaces (UGS), accessibility indicator, subjective and objective measurements, Zadar

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Authors: Magdalena Blachnio, Viktor Bogatyrov, Mariia Galaburda, Anna Derylo-Marczewska

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Agricultural waste materials from traditional oil mill and after extraction of natural raw materials in supercritical conditions were used for the preparation of carbon nanomaterials (activated carbons) by two various methods. Chemical activation using acetic acid and physical activation with a gaseous agent (carbon dioxide) were chosen as mild and environmentally friendly ones. The effect of influential factors: type of raw material, temperature and activation agent on the porous structure characteristics of the materials was discussed by using N₂ adsorption/desorption isotherms at 77 K. Furthermore scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to examine the physicochemical properties of the obtained sorbents. Selection of a raw material and an optimization of the conditions of the synthesis process, allowed to obtain the cheap sorbents with a targeted distribution of pores enabling effective adsorption of the model organic pollutants carried out in the multicomponent systems. Adsorption behavior (capacity and rate) of the chosen activated carbons was estimated by utilizing Crystal violet (CV), 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (4-CPA), 2.4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2.4-D) as the adsorbates. Both rate and adsorption capacity of the organics on the sorbents evidenced that the activated carbons could be effectively used in sewage treatment plants. The mechanisms of organics adsorption were studied and correlated with activated carbons properties.

Keywords: activated carbon, adsorption equilibrium, adsorption kinetics, organics adsorption

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Authors: K. P. Ganesh, T. Gomathi, L. Arul Pragasan

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Degradation of lake water quality is one of the serious environmental threats for the last few decades, particularly, the lakes situated in and around urban and industrial areas. The present study aimed to analyze the physicochemical and biological parameters, and metal elements to determine the water quality of Krishnampathi, Ukkadam, Kurichi, Sulur and Singanallur Lakes. Of the 23 physicochemical parameters analyzed in the five lakes, except TDS, Chloride and Total hardness values all the 20 parameters were found within the prescribed limit as recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). In case of biological parameter, both Total Coliform and Fecal Coliform bacteria (Escherichia coli) were identified. This indicates the contamination of lakes by fecal matter, and warns of potential of disease causing by viruses, bacteria and other organisms. Among the twelve metal elements (Al, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Mo, Cd and Pb) determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy, except Cd (for all lakes), and Pb (for Ukkadam, Kurichi, Sulur & Singanallur), all the elements were found above the prescribed limits of BIS. The results of the present study revealed that all the five major lakes of Coimbatore were contaminated. It is recommended that proper implementation of the new wetland waste management system and monitoring of water quality be of the urgent need to sustain the water bodies for future generations.

Keywords: heavy metals, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy, physicochemical and biological parameters, water quality

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Authors: Morteza Haghi, Cigdem Yilmazbas, Ayse Zeynep Uysal, Melisa Tepedelen, Gozde Turkoz Bakirci

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Today, the increase in plastic waste accumulation is an inescapable consequence of environmental pollution; the disposal of these wastes has caused a significant problem. Variable methods have been utilized; however, biodegradation is the most environmentally friendly and low-cost method. Accordingly, the present study aimed to isolate the bacteria capable of biodegradation of plastics. In doing so, we applied the liquid carbon-free basal medium (LCFBM) prepared with deionized water for the isolation of bacterial species obtained from soil samples taken from the Izmir Menemen region. Isolates forming biofilms on plastic were selected and named (PLB3, PLF1, PLB1B) and subjected to a degradation test. FTIR analysis, 16s rDNA amplification, sequencing, identification of isolates were performed. Finally, at the end of the process, a mass loss of 16.6% in PLB3 isolate and 25% in PLF1 isolate was observed, while no mass loss was detected in PLB1B isolate. Only PLF1 and PLB1B created transparent zones on plastic texture. Considering the FTIR result, PLB3 changed plastic structure by 13.6% and PLF1 by 17%, while PLB1B did not change the plastic texture. According to the 16s rDNA sequence analysis, FLP1, PLB1B, and PLB3 isolates were identified as Streptomyces albogriseolus, Enterobacter cloacae, and Klebsiella pneumoniae, respectively.

Keywords: polyethylene, biodegradation, bacteria, 16s rDNA, FTIR

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Authors: Li Chin Law, Epaminondas Mastorakos, Mohd Roslee Othman, Antonis Trakakis

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The paper introduces an alternative concept of carbon capture for shipping by using pre-combustion carbon capture technology (Pre-CCS), which was proven to be less energy intensive than post-combustion carbon capture from the engine exhaust. Energy assessment on amine-based post-combustion CCS on LNG-fuelled ships showed that the energy efficiency of CCS ships reduced from 48% to 36.6%. Then, an energy assessment was carried out to compare the power and heat requirements of the most used hydrogen production methods and carbon capture technologies. Steam methane reformer (SMR) was found to be 20% more energy efficient and achieved a higher methane conversion than auto thermal reaction and methane decomposition. Next, pressure swing adsorber (PSA) has shown a lower energy requirement than membrane separation, cryogenic separation, and amine absorption in pre-combustion carbon capture. Hence, an integrated system combining SMR and PSA (SMR-PSA) with waste heat integration (WHR) was proposed. This optimized SMR-based integrated system has achieved 65% of CO₂ reduction with less than 7-percentage point of energy penalty (41.7% of energy efficiency). Further integration of post-combustion CCS with the SMR-PSA integrated system improved carbon capture rate to 86.3% with 9-percentage points of energy penalty (39% energy efficiency). The proposed system was shown to be able to meet the carbon reduction targets set by International Maritime Organization (IMO) with certain energy penalties.

Keywords: shipping, decarbonisation, alternative fuels, low carbon, hydrogen, carbon capture

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Authors: Vinay Kumar, M. Kishor, Sathyanarayana Rao Ts

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Background: Growth of elderly people in the general population in recent years is termed as ‘greying of the world’ where there is a shift from high mortality & fertility to low mortality and fertility, resulting in an increased proportion of older people as seen in India. Improved health care promises longevity but socio-economic factors like poverty, joint families and poor services pose a psychological threat. Epidemiological data regarding the prevalence of mental disorders in geriatric population with physical illness is required for proper health planning. Methods: Sixty consecutive elderly patients aged 60 years or above of both sexes, reporting with physical illness to general outpatient registration counter of JSS Medical College and Hospital, Mysore, India, were considered for the Study. With informed consent, they were screened with General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and were further evaluated for diagnosing mental disorders according to WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) criteria. Results: Mental disorders were detected in 48.3%, predominantly depressive disorders, nicotine dependence, generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol dependence and least was dementia. Most common physical illness was cardiovascular disease followed by metabolic, respiratory and other diseases. Depressive disorders, substance dependence and dementia were more associated with cardiovascular disease compared to metabolic disease and respiratory diseases were more associated with nicotine dependence. Conclusions: Depression and Substance use disorders among elderly population is of concern, which needs to be further studied with larger population. Psychiatric morbidity will adversely have an impact on physical illness which needs proper assessment and management. This will enhance our understanding and prioritize our planning for future.

Keywords: Geriatric, mental disorders, physical illness, psychiatry

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Authors: A. Ribeiro, N. Pacheco, M. Soares, N. Valério, L. Nascimento, A. Silva, C. Vilarinho, J. Carvalho

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Hydrogen will play a key role in changing the current global energy paradigm, associated with the high use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases. This work intended to identify and quantify the potential of Solid Recovered Fuels (SFR) existing in Portugal and project the cost of hydrogen, produced through its steam gasification in different scenarios, associated with the size or capacity of the plant and the existence of carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems. Therefore, it was performed a techno-economic analysis simulation using an ASPEN base model, the H2A Hydrogen Production Model Version 3.2018. Regarding the production of SRF, it was possible to verify the annual production of more than 200 thousand tons of SRF in Portugal in 2019. The results of the techno-economic analysis simulations showed that in the scenarios containing a high (200,000 tons/year) and medium (40,000 tons/year) amount of SFR, the cost of hydrogen production was competitive concerning the current prices of hydrogen. The results indicate that scenarios 1 and 2, which use 200,000 tons of SRF per year, have lower hydrogen production values, 1.22 USD/kg H2 and 1.63 USD/kg H2, respectively. The cost of producing hydrogen without carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems in an average amount of SFR (40,000 tons/year) was 1.70 USD/kg H2. In turn, scenarios 5 (without CCS) and 6 (with CCS), which use only 683 tons of SFR from urban sources, have the highest costs, 6.54 USD/kg H2 and 908.97 USD/kg H2, respectively. Therefore, it was possible to conclude that there is a huge potential for the use of SRF for the production of hydrogen through steam gasification in Portugal.

Keywords: gasification, hydrogen, solid recovered fuels, techno-economic analysis, waste-to-energy

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Authors: Opeyemi Atiba-Oyewo, Maurice S. Onyango, Christian Wolkersdorfer

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Characterization and nanostructure formation of banana peels as sorbent material are described in this paper. The transformation of this agricultural waste via mechanical milling to enhance its properties such as changed in microstructure and surface area for water pollution control and other applications were studied. Mechanical milling was employed using planetary continuous milling machine with ethanol as a milling solvent and the samples were taken at time intervals between 10 h to 30 h to examine the structural changes. The samples were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Brunauer Emmett and teller (BET). Results revealed three typical structures with different deformation mechanisms and the grain-sizes within the range of (71-12 nm), nanostructure of the particles and fibres. The particle size decreased from 65µm to 15 nm as the milling progressed for a period of 30 h. The morphological properties of the materials indicated that the particle shapes becomes regular and uniform as the milling progresses. Furthermore, particles fracturing resulted in surface area increment from 1.0694-4.5547 m2/g. The functional groups responsible for the banana peels capacity to coordinate and remove metal ions, such as the carboxylic and amine groups were identified at absorption bands of 1730 and 889 cm-1, respectively. However, the choice of this sorbent material for the sorption or any application will depend on the composition of the pollutant to be eradicated.

Keywords: characterization, nanostructure, nanosorbent, eco-friendly, banana peels, mechanical milling, water quality

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Authors: Abbas Ghahremani

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One of the most fundamental management issues in organizations and companies is the recruiting of efficient staff and compiling exact and perfect criteria for testing the applicants,which is guided and practiced by the manager of human resources of the organization. Obviously, each part of the organization seeks special features and abilities in the people apart from common features among all the staff in all units,which are called principal duties and abilities,and we will study them more. This article is trying to find out how we can identify the most efficient people among the applicants of employment by using proper methods of testing appropriate for the needs of different of employment by using proper methods of testing appropriate for the needs of different units of the organization and recruit efficient staff. Acceptable method for recruiting is to closely identify their characters from various aspects such as ability to communicate, flexibility, stress management, risk acceptance, tolerance, vision to future, familiarity with the art, amount of creativity and different thinking and by raising proper questions related with the above named features and presenting a questionnaire, evaluate them from various aspect in order to gain the proper result. According to the above explanations, it can be concluded which aspects of abilities and characteristics of a person must be evaluated in order to reduce any mistake in recruitment and approach an ideal result and ultimately gain an organized system according to the standards and avoid waste of energy for unprofessional personnel which is a marginal issue in the organizations.

Keywords: human resources management, staff recuiting, employment factors, efficient staff

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Authors: Isaac K. E. Ampomah, Seong-Bae Park, Sang-Jo Lee

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Over the past decade, there have been promising developments in Natural Language Processing (NLP) with several investigations of approaches focusing on Recognizing Textual Entailment (RTE). These models include models based on lexical similarities, models based on formal reasoning, and most recently deep neural models. In this paper, we present a sentence encoding model that exploits the sentence-to-sentence relation information for RTE. In terms of sentence modeling, Convolutional neural network (CNN) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs) adopt different approaches. RNNs are known to be well suited for sequence modeling, whilst CNN is suited for the extraction of n-gram features through the filters and can learn ranges of relations via the pooling mechanism. We combine the strength of RNN and CNN as stated above to present a unified model for the RTE task. Our model basically combines relation vectors computed from the phrasal representation of each sentence and final encoded sentence representations. Firstly, we pass each sentence through a convolutional layer to extract a sequence of higher-level phrase representation for each sentence from which the first relation vector is computed. Secondly, the phrasal representation of each sentence from the convolutional layer is fed into a Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) to obtain the final sentence representations from which a second relation vector is computed. The relations vectors are combined and then used in then used in the same fashion as attention mechanism over the Bi-LSTM outputs to yield the final sentence representations for the classification. Experiment on the Stanford Natural Language Inference (SNLI) corpus suggests that this is a promising technique for RTE.

Keywords: deep neural models, natural language inference, recognizing textual entailment (RTE), sentence-to-sentence relation

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Authors: Wendu Pang, Yaxin Luo, Junhong Li, Yu Zhao, Danni Cheng, Yufang Rao, Minzi Mao, Ke Qiu, Yijun Dong, Fei Chen, Jun Liu, Jian Zou, Haiyang Wang, Wei Xu, Jianjun Ren

Abstract:

We aimed to compare the prognostic prediction value of positive lymph node number (PLNN) to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) tumor, lymph node, and metastasis (TNM) staging system for patients with hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HPSCC). A total of 826 patients with HPSCC from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (2004–2015) were identified and split into two independent cohorts: training (n=461) and validation (n=365). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the prognostic effects of PLNN in patients with HPSCC. We further applied six Cox regression models to compare the survival predictive values of the PLNN and AJCC TNM staging system. PLNN showed a significant association with overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) (P < 0.001) in both univariate and multivariable analyses, and was divided into three groups (PLNN 0, PLNN 1-5, and PLNN>5). In the training cohort, multivariate analysis revealed that the increased PLNN of HPSCC gave rise to significantly poor OS and CSS after adjusting for age, sex, tumor size, and cancer stage; this trend was also verified by the validation cohort. Additionally, the survival model incorporating a composite of PLNN and TNM classification (C-index, 0.705, 0.734) performed better than the PLNN and AJCC TNM models. PLNN can serve as a powerful survival predictor for patients with HPSCC and is a surrogate supplement for cancer staging systems.

Keywords: hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, positive lymph nodes number, prognosis, prediction models, survival predictive values

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Authors: Elina Brahma Hazarika, Jeuti Basumatary, Deepanka Saikia, Jaydeep Das, Micky Moni D'mary, Fungkha Basumatary

Abstract:

This study includes development of two varieties of biscuits incorporated with: the seeds of Jack fruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), which post-consumption of it’s pulp, is discarded as a waste, and Cassava (Manihot esculenta) tubers.The jack fruit seeds and cassava were first ground into flour and its proximate and physiochemical properties were studied. The biscuits that were developed incorporating them had 50% wheat flour and 50% jackfruit seed flour and 50% cassava flours as the major composition, apart from the other general ingredients use in making biscuits. Various trials of compositions were made for baking to get the overall desirable acceptability in biscuits through sensory evaluation. Finally, the best composition of ingredients was selected to make the biscuits, and hence studies were done accordingly to compare it with the properties of their respective raw flours. The results showed that the proximate composition of the biscuits fared better than that of their respective flours: There was a decrease in the Moisture content of both Jackfruit Seed Biscuits and Cassava Biscuits to 4.5% and 6.7% than that of their respective raw flours (8 and 12%). Post-baking, there is increase in the percentages of ash, protein, and fibre contents in both Jackfruit Seed Biscuits and Cassava Biscuits; the values being 3% and 3.8%, 13.2% and 3.3%, and 3.2 and 4.1% respectively. Also the total carbohydrate content in Jackfruit Seed Biscuits and Cassava Biscuits were 66.7% and 71.7% respectively. Their sensory evaluation and texture study also yielded a clear review that they have an overall good acceptability.

Keywords: baking, proximate, sensory, texture

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Authors: P. Massanyi, L. Kichi, T. Slanina, E. Kolesar, J. Danko, N. Lukac, E. Tvrda, R. Stawarz, A. Kolesarova

Abstract:

Target of this study was the analysis of the impact of crude glycerol on canine spermatozoa motility, morphology, viability, and membrane integrity. Experiments were realized in vitro. In the study, semen from 5 large dog breeds was used. They were typical representatives of large breeds, coming from healthy rearing, regularly vaccinated and integrated to the further breeding. Semen collections were realized at the owners of animals and in the veterinary clinic. Subsequently the experiments were realized at the Department of Animal Physiology of the SUA in Nitra. The spermatozoa motility was evaluated using CASA analyzer (SpermVisionTM, Minitub, Germany) at the temperature 5 and 37°C for 5 hours. In the study, 13 motility parameters were evaluated. Generally, crude glycerol has generally negative effect on spermatozoa motility. Morphological analysis was realized using Hancock staining and the preparations were evaluated at magnification 1000x using classification tables of morphologically changed spermatozoa. Data clearly detected the highest number of morphologically changed spermatozoa in the experimental groups (know twisted tails, tail torso and tail coiling). For acrosome alterations swelled acrosomes, removed acrosomes and acrosomes with undulated membrane were detected. In this study also the effect of crude glycerol on spermatozoa membrane integrity were analyzed. The highest crude glycerol concentration significantly affects spermatozoa integrity. Results of this study show that crude glycerol has effect of spermatozoa motility, viability, and membrane integrity. Detected changes are related to crude glycerol concentration, temperature, as well as time of incubation.

Keywords: dog, semen, spermatozoa, acrosome, glycerol, CASA, viability

Procedia PDF Downloads 295

Authors: K. P. Fasalu Rahman

Abstract:

The financial services industry of Islam include large number of institutions, such as investment banks and commercial banks, investment companies and mutual insurance companies. All types of these financial institutions should have to deal with many issues and risks in their field of work. Islamic banks should expect to face two types of risks: risks that are similar to those faced by conventional financial intermediaries and risks that are unique to the Islamic Banks due to their compliance with the Shariah. The use of financial services and products that comply with the Shariah principles cause special issues for supervision and risk management. Risks are uncertain future events that could influence the achievement of the bank’s objectives, including strategic, operational, financial and compliance objectives. In Islamic banks, effective risk management deserves special attention. As an operational problem, risk management is the classification and identification of methods, processes, and risks in banks to supervise, monitor and measure them. In comparison to conventional banks, Islamic banks face big difficulties in identifying and managing risks due to bigger complexities emerging from the profit loss sharing (PLS) concept and nature of particular risks of Islamic financing. As the developing of managing risks tool becomes very essential, especially in Islamic banking as most of the products are depending on PLS principle, identifying and measuring each type of risk is highly important and critical in any Islamic finance based systems. This paper highlights the special and general risks surrounding Islamic banking. And it investigates in detail the need for risk management in Islamic banks. In addition to analyzing the effectiveness of risk management strategies adopted by Islamic financial institutions at present, this research is also suggesting strategies for improving risk management process of Islamic banks in future.

Keywords: Islamic banking, management, risk, risk management

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Rian O. Miranda, Lidia V. de Sa, Julio C. Suita

Abstract:

The Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) is the main manufacturer of radiopharmaceuticals in Brazil. The Nuclear Engineering Institute (IEN), located at Rio de Janeiro, is one of its main centers of research and production, attending public and private hospitals in the state. This radiopharmaceutical production is used in diagnostic and therapy procedures and allows one and a half million nuclear medicine procedures annually. Despite this, the country is not self-sufficient to meet national demand, creating the need for importation and consequent dependence on other countries. However, IEN facilities were designed in the 60's, and today its structure is inadequate in relation to the good manufacturing practices established by sanitary regulator (ANVISA) and radiological protection leading to the need for a new project. In order to adapt and increase production in the country, a new plant will be built and integrated to the existing facilities with a new 30 MeV Cyclotron that is actually in project detailing process. Thus, it is proposed to survey current CNEN and ANVISA standards for radiopharmaceutical production facilities, as well as the radiological protection analysis of each area of the plant, following good manufacturing practices recommendations adopted nationally besides licensing exigencies for radioactive facilities. In this way, the main requirements for proper operation, equipment location, building materials, area classification, and maintenance program have been implemented. The access controls, interlocks, segregation zones and pass-through boxes integrated into the project were also analyzed. As a result, IEN will in future have the flexibility to produce all necessary radioisotopes for nuclear medicine application, more efficiently by simultaneously bombarding two targets, allowing the simultaneous production of two different radioisotopes, minimizing radiation exposure and saving operating costs.

Keywords: cyclotron, legislation, norms, production, radiopharmaceuticals

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: Sophie Mills, Leila L. Touil, Richard Sisson

Abstract:

Introduction: The TNM classification is the global standard for the staging of head and neck cancers. Accurate clinical-radiological staging of tumours (cTNM) is essential to predict prognosis, facilitate surgical planning and determine the need for other therapeutic modalities. This study aims to determine the accuracy of pre-operative cTNM staging using pathological TNM (pTNM) and consider possible causes of TNM stage migration, noting any variation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cohort study examined records of patients with surgical management of head and neck cancer at a tertiary head and neck centre from November 2019 to November 2020. Data was extracted from Somerset Cancer Registry and histopathology reports. cTNM and pTNM were compared before and during the first wave of COVID-19, as well as with other potential prognostic factors such as tumour site and tumour stage. Results: 119 cases were identified, of which 52.1% (n=62) were male, and 47.9% (n=57) were female with a mean age of 67 years. Clinical and pathological staging differed in 54.6% (n=65) of cases. Of the patients with stage migration, 40.4% (n=23) were up-staged and 59.6% (n=34) were down-staged compared with pTNM. There was no significant difference in the accuracy of cTNM staging compared with age, sex, or tumour site. There was a statistically highly significant (p < 0.001) correlation between cTNM accuracy and tumour stage, with the accuracy of cTNM staging decreasing with the advancement of pTNM staging. No statistically significant variation was noted between patients staged prior to and during COVID-19. Conclusions: Discrepancies in staging can impact management and outcomes for patients. This study found that the higher the pTNM, the more likely stage migration will occur. These findings are concordant with the oncology literature, which highlights the need to improve the accuracy of cTNM staging for more advanced tumours.

Keywords: COVID-19, head and neck cancer, stage migration, TNM staging

Procedia PDF Downloads 89

Authors: Balram Panjwani, Bernd Wittgens, Jan Erik Olsen, Stein Tore Johansen

Abstract:

The Norwegian ferroalloy industry is a world leader in sustainable production of ferrosilicon, silicon and manganese alloys with the lowest global specific energy consumption. One of the byproducts during the metal reduction process is energy rich off-gas and usually this energy is not harnessed. A novel concept for sustainable energy recovery from ferroalloy off-gas is discussed. The concept is founded on the idea of introducing a combustion chamber in the off-gas section in which energy rich off-gas mainly consisting of CO will be combusted. This will provide an additional degree of freedom for optimizing energy recovery. A well-controlled and high off-gas temperature will assure a significant increase in energy recovery and reduction of emissions to the atmosphere. Design and operation of the combustion chamber depend on many parameters, including the total power capacity of the combustion chamber, sufficient residence time for combusting the complex Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH), NOx, as well as converting other potential pollutants. The design criteria for the combustion chamber have been identified and discussed and sizing of the combustion chamber has been carried out considering these design criteria. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been utilized extensively for sizing the combustion chamber. The results from our CFD simulations of the flow in the combustion chamber and exploring different off-gas fuel composition are presented. In brief, the paper covers all aspect which impacts the sizing of the combustion chamber, including insulation thickness, choice of insulating material, heat transfer through extended surfaces, multi-staging and secondary air injection.

Keywords: CFD, combustion chamber, arc furnace, energy recovery

Procedia PDF Downloads 299

Authors: Janos Juhasz, Sandor Pongor, Balazs Ligeti

Abstract:

Next-generation sequencing, especially whole genome shotgun sequencing, is becoming a common approach to gain insight into the microbiomes in a culture-independent way, even in clinical practice. It does not only give us information about the species composition of an environmental sample but opens the possibility to detect antimicrobial resistance and novel, or currently unknown, pathogens. Accurately and reliably detecting the microbial strains is a challenging task. Here we present a sensitive approach for detecting pathogens in metagenomics samples with special regard to detecting novel variants of known pathogens. We have developed a pipeline that uses fast, short read aligner programs (i.e., Bowtie2/BWA) and comprehensive nucleotide databases. Taxonomic binning is based on the lowest common ancestor (LCA) principle; each read is assigned to a taxon, covering the most significantly hit taxa. This approach helps in balancing between sensitivity and running time. The program was tested both on experimental and synthetic data. The results implicate that our method performs as good as the state-of-the-art BLAST-based ones, furthermore, in some cases, it even proves to be better, while running two orders magnitude faster. It is sensitive and capable of identifying taxa being present only in small abundance. Moreover, it needs two orders of magnitude less reads to complete the identification than MetaPhLan2 does. We analyzed an experimental anthrax dataset (B. anthracis strain BA104). The majority of the reads (96.50%) was classified as Bacillus anthracis, a small portion, 1.2%, was classified as other species from the Bacillus genus. We demonstrate that the evaluation of high-throughput sequencing data is feasible in a reasonable time with good classification accuracy.

Keywords: metagenomics, taxonomy binning, pathogens, microbiome, B. anthracis

Procedia PDF Downloads 113

Authors: J. E. Oti, J. M. Kinuthia, R. Robinson, P. Davies

Abstract:

This work reports the potential of using Palm Kernel (PK) ash and shell as a partial substitute for Portland Cement (PC) and coarse aggregate in the development of mortar and concrete. PK ash and shell are agro-waste materials from palm oil mills, the disposal of PK ash and shell is an environmental problem of concern. The PK ash has pozzolanic properties that enables it as a partial replacement for cement and also plays an important role in the strength and durability of concrete, its use in concrete will alleviate the increasing challenges of scarcity and high cost of cement. In order to investigate the PC replacement potential of PK ash, three types of PK ash were produced at varying temperature (350-750 degrees) and they were used to replace up to 50% PC. The PK shell was used to replace up to 100% coarse aggregate in order to study its aggregate replacement potential. The testing programme included material characterisation, the determination of compressive strength, tensile splitting strength and chemical durability in aggressive sulfate-bearing exposure conditions. The 90 day compressive results showed a significant strength gain (up to 26.2 N/mm2). The Portland cement and conventional coarse aggregate has significantly higher influence in the strength gain compared to the equivalent PK ash and PK shell. The chemical durability results demonstrated that after a prolonged period of exposure, significant strength losses in all the concretes were observed. This phenomenon is explained, due to lower change in concrete morphology and inhibition of reaction species and the final disruption of the aggregate cement paste matrix.

Keywords: sustainability, concrete, mortar, palm kernel shell, compressive strength, consistency

Procedia PDF Downloads 370