Search results for: speed estimation

Authors: Alaa Hamed Salama, Rehab Nabil Shamma

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Introduction: Polymeric micelles that can deliver drug to intended sites of the eye have attracted much scientific attention recently. The aim of this study was to review the aqueous-based formulation of drug-loaded polymeric micelles that hold significant promise for ophthalmic drug delivery. This study investigated the synergistic performance of mixed polymeric micelles made of linear and branched poly (ethylene oxide)-poly (propylene oxide) for the more effective encapsulation of Lornoxicam (LX) as a hydrophobic model drug. Methods: The co-micellization process of 10% binary systems combining different weight ratios of the highly hydrophilic poloxamers; Synperonic® PE/P84, and Synperonic® PE/F127 and the hydrophobic poloxamine counterpart (Tetronic® T701) was investigated by means of photon correlation spectroscopy and cloud point. The drug-loaded micelles were tested for their solubilizing capacity towards LX. Results: Results showed a sharp solubility increase from 0.46 mg/ml up to more than 4.34 mg/ml, representing about 136-fold increase. Optimized formulation was selected to achieve maximum drug solubilizing power and clarity with lowest possible particle size. The optimized formulation was characterized by 1HNMR analysis which revealed complete encapsulation of the drug within the micelles. Further investigations by histopathological and confocal laser studies revealed the non-irritant nature and good corneal penetrating power of the proposed nano-formulation. Conclusion: LX-loaded polymeric nanomicellar formulation was fabricated allowing easy application of the drug in the form of clear eye drops that do not cause blurred vision or discomfort, thus achieving high patient compliance.

Keywords: confocal laser scanning microscopy, Histopathological studies, Lornoxicam, micellar solubilization

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Authors: Erfan Niazi, Marianne Fenech

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Red Blood Cells (RBCs) or erythrocytes tend to form chain-like aggregates under low shear rate called rouleaux. This is a reversible process and rouleaux disaggregate in high shear rates. Therefore, RBCs aggregation occurs in the microcirculation where low shear rates are present but does not occur under normal physiological conditions in large arteries. Numerical modeling of RBCs interactions is fundamental in analytical models of a blood flow in microcirculation. Population Balance Modeling (PBM) is particularly useful for studying problems where particles agglomerate and break in a two phase flow systems to find flow characteristics. In this method, the elementary particles lose their individual identity due to continuous destructions and recreations by break-up and agglomeration. The aim of this study is to find RBCs aggregation in a dynamic situation. Simplified PBM was used previously to find the aggregation rate on a static observation of the RBCs aggregation in a drop of blood under the microscope. To find aggregation rate in a dynamic situation we propose an experimental set up testing RBCs sedimentation. In this test, RBCs interact and aggregate to form rouleaux. In this configuration, disaggregation can be neglected due to low shear stress. A high-speed camera is used to acquire video-microscopic pictures of the process. The sizes of the aggregates and velocity of sedimentation are extracted using an image processing techniques. Based on the data collection from 5 healthy human blood samples, the aggregation rate was estimated as 2.7x10³(±0.3 x10³) 1/s.

Keywords: red blood cell, rouleaux, microfluidics, image processing, population balance modeling

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Authors: Berger Aida

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Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an active area of practice and research within the last three decades and has called for a focus on Social Entrepreneurship innovation. Areas such as academics, practitioners , institutions or governments have placed Social Entrepreneurship on the priority list of reflexion and action. It has been accepted that Social entrepreneurship (SE) shares large similarities with its parent, Traditional Entrepreneurship (TE). SE has grown over the past ten years exploring entrepreneurial cognition and the analysis of the ways of thinking of entrepreneurs. The research community believes that value exists in grounding entrepreneurship in neuroscience and notes that SE, like Traditional Entrepreneurship, needs to undergo efforts in clarification, definition and differentiation. Moreover, gaps in SE research call for integrative multistage and multilevel framework for further research. The cognitive processes underpinning entrepreneurial action are similar for SE and TE even if Social Entrepreneurship orientation shows an increased empathy value. Theoretically, there is a need to develop sound models of how to process functions and how to work more effectively as entrepreneurs and research on efficiency improvement calls for the analysis of the most common practices in entrepreneurship. Multitasking has been recognized as a daily and unavoidable habit of entrepreneurs. Hence, we believe in the need of analyzing the multiple task phenomena as a methodology for skill acquisition. We will conduct our paper including Social Entrepreneurship within the wider spectrum of Traditional Entrepreneurship, for the purpose of simplifying the neuroscientific lecture of the entrepreneurial cognition. A question to be inquired is to know if there is a way of developing multitasking habits in order to improve entrepreneurial skills such as speed of information processing , creativity and adaptability . Nevertheless, the direct link between the neuroscientific approach to multitasking and entrepreneurship effectiveness is yet to be uncovered. That is why an extensive Literature Review on Multitasking is a propos.

Keywords: cognitive, entrepreneurial, empathy, multitasking

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Authors: Agoston Restas

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Introduction: This paper describes many initiatives and shows also practical examples which happened recently using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to support disaster management. Since the operation of manned aircraft at disasters is usually not only expensive but often impossible to use as well, in many cases managers fail to use the aerial activity. UAS can be an alternative moreover cost-effective solution for supporting disaster management. Methods: This article uses thematic division of UAS applications; it is based on two key elements, one of them is the time flow of managing disasters, other is its tactical requirements. Logically UAS can be used like pre-disaster activity, activity immediately after the occurrence of a disaster and the activity after the primary disaster elimination. Paper faces different disasters, like dangerous material releases, floods, earthquakes, forest fires and human-induced disasters. Research used function analysis, practical experiments, mathematical formulas, economic analysis and also expert estimation. Author gathered international examples and used own experiences in this field as well. Results and discussion: An earthquake is a rapid escalating disaster, where, many times, there is no other way for a rapid damage assessment than aerial reconnaissance. For special rescue teams, the UAS application can help much in a rapid location selection, where enough place remained to survive for victims. Floods are typical for a slow onset disaster. In contrast, managing floods is a very complex and difficult task. It requires continuous monitoring of dykes, flooded and threatened areas. UAS can help managers largely keeping an area under observation. Forest fires are disasters, where the tactical application of UAS is already well developed. It can be used for fire detection, intervention monitoring and also for post-fire monitoring. In case of nuclear accident or hazardous material leakage, UAS is also a very effective or can be the only one tool for supporting disaster management. Paper shows some efforts using UAS to avoid human-induced disasters in low-income countries as part of health cooperation.

Keywords: disaster management, floods, forest fires, Unmanned Aerial Systems

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Authors: Hernán A. Perez, Luis J. Armando, Néstor H. García

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Background and aims Cardiovascular disease rates are very high in patients with renal failure (CRF), but the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. Traditional cardiovascular risk factors do not explain the increased risk, and observational studies have observed paradoxical or absent associations between classical risk factors and mortality in dialysis patients. A large randomized controlled trial, the 4D Study, the AURORA and the ALERT study found that statin therapy in CRF do not reduce cardiovascular events. These results may be the results of ‘accelerated atherosclerosis’ observed on these patients. The objective of this study was to investigate if carotid total plaque area (TPA), a measure of carotid plaque burden growth is increased at progressively lower creatinine clearance in patients with CRF. We studied a cohort of patients with CRF not on dialysis, reasoning that risk factor associations might be more easily discerned before end stage renal disease. Methods: The Blossom DMO Argentina ethics committee approved the study and informed consent from each participant was obtained. We performed a cohort study in 412 patients with Stage 1, 2 and 3 CRF. Clinical and laboratory data were obtained. TPA was determined using bilateral carotid ultrasonography. Modification of Diet in Renal Disease estimation formula was used to determine renal function. ANOVA was used when appropriate. Results: Stage 1 CRF group (n= 16, 43±2yo) had a blood pressure of 123±2/78±2 mmHg, BMI 30±1, LDL col 145±10 mg/dl, HbA1c 5.8±0.4% and had the lowest TPA 25.8±6.9 mm2. Stage 2 CRF (n=231, 50±1 yo) had a blood pressure of 132±1/81±1 mmHg, LDL col 125±2 mg/dl, HbA1c 6±0.1% and TPA 48±10mm2 ( p< 0.05 vs CRF stage 1) while Stage 3 CRF (n=165, 59±1 yo) had a blood pressure of 134±1/81±1, LDL col 125±3 mg/dl, HbA1c 6±0.1% and TPA 71±6mm2 (p < 0.05 vs CRF stage 1 and 2). Conclusion: Our data indicate that TPA increases along the renal function deterioration, and it is not related with the LDL cholesterol and triglycerides levels. We suggest that mechanisms other than the classics are responsible for the observed excess of cardiovascular disease in CKD patients and finally, determination of total plaque area should be used to measure effects of antiatherosclerotic therapy.

Keywords: hypertension, chronic renal failure, atherosclerosis, cholesterol

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Authors: Peifei Zhu, Zisheng Li, Yasuki Kakishita, Mayumi Suzuki, Tomoaki Chono

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Segmentation of left ventricle (LV) from cardiac ultrasound images provides a quantitative functional analysis of the heart to diagnose disease. Active Shape Model (ASM) is a widely used approach for LV segmentation but suffers from the drawback that initialization of the shape model is not sufficiently close to the target, especially when dealing with abnormal shapes in disease. In this work, a two-step framework is proposed to improve the accuracy and speed of the model-based segmentation. Firstly, a robust and efficient detector based on Hough forest is proposed to localize cardiac feature points, and such points are used to predict the initial fitting of the LV shape model. Secondly, to achieve more accurate and detailed segmentation, ASM is applied to further fit the LV shape model to the cardiac ultrasound image. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on a dataset of 800 cardiac ultrasound images that are mostly of abnormal shapes. The proposed method is compared to several combinations of ASM and existing initialization methods. The experiment results demonstrate that the accuracy of feature point detection for initialization was improved by 40% compared to the existing methods. Moreover, the proposed method significantly reduces the number of necessary ASM fitting loops, thus speeding up the whole segmentation process. Therefore, the proposed method is able to achieve more accurate and efficient segmentation results and is applicable to unusual shapes of heart with cardiac diseases, such as left atrial enlargement.

Keywords: hough forest, active shape model, segmentation, cardiac left ventricle

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Authors: Jean Berger, Nassirou Lo, Martin Noel

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Perfectly suited for natural or man-made emergency and disaster management situations such as flood, earthquakes, tornadoes, or tsunami, multi-target search path planning for a team of rescue agents is known to be computationally hard, and most techniques developed so far come short to successfully estimate optimality gap. A novel mixed-integer linear programming (MIP) formulation is proposed to optimally solve the multi-target multi-agent discrete search and rescue (SAR) path planning problem. Aimed at maximizing cumulative probability of successful target detection, it captures anticipated feedback information associated with possible observation outcomes resulting from projected path execution, while modeling agent discrete actions over all possible moving directions. Problem modeling further takes advantage of network representation to encompass decision variables, expedite compact constraint specification, and lead to substantial problem-solving speed-up. The proposed MIP approach uses CPLEX optimization machinery, efficiently computing near-optimal solutions for practical size problems, while giving a robust upper bound obtained from Lagrangean integrality constraint relaxation. Should eventually a target be positively detected during plan execution, a new problem instance would simply be reformulated from the current state, and then solved over the next decision cycle. A computational experiment shows the feasibility and the value of the proposed approach.

Keywords: search path planning, search and rescue, multi-agent, mixed-integer linear programming, optimization

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Authors: Tuba Zahra, Aakash Parekh

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Hyperspectral remote sensing refers to imaging of objects or materials in narrow conspicuous spectral bands. Hyperspectral images (HSI) enable the extraction of spectral signatures for objects or materials observed. These images contain information about the reflectance of each pixel across the electromagnetic spectrum. It enables the acquisition of data simultaneously in hundreds of spectral bands with narrow bandwidths and can provide detailed contiguous spectral curves that traditional multispectral sensors cannot offer. The contiguous, narrow bandwidth of hyperspectral data facilitates the detailed surveying of Earth's surface features. This would otherwise not be possible with the relatively coarse bandwidths acquired by other types of imaging sensors. Hyperspectral imaging provides significantly higher spectral and spatial resolution. There are several use cases that represent the commercial applications of hyperspectral remote sensing. Each use case represents just one of the ways that hyperspectral satellite imagery can support operational efficiency in the respective vertical. There are some use cases that are specific to VNIR bands, while others are specific to SWIR bands. This paper discusses the different commercially viable use cases that are significant for HSI application areas, such as agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment, and climate, to name a few. Theoretically, there is n number of use cases for each of the application areas, but an attempt has been made to streamline the use cases depending upon economic feasibility and commercial viability and present a review of literature from this perspective. Some of the specific use cases with respect to agriculture are crop species (sub variety) detection, soil health mapping, pre-symptomatic crop disease detection, invasive species detection, crop condition optimization, yield estimation, and supply chain monitoring at scale. Similarly, each of the industry verticals has a specific commercially viable use case that is discussed in the paper in detail.

Keywords: agriculture, mining, oil and gas, defense, environment and climate, hyperspectral, VNIR, SWIR

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Authors: Mehdi Razeghi

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Background: The purpose of this case series was to quantify gait to study muscular dystrophy disease. In this research, the quantitative differences between normal and waddling gaits were assessed by force plate analysis. Methods: Nineteen myopathy patients and twenty normal subjects serving as the control group participated in this research. In this study, quantitative analyses of gait have been used to investigate the differences between the mobility of normal subjects and myopathy patients. This study was carried out at the Iranian Muscular Dystrophy Association in Boali Hospital, Tehran, Iran, from October 2015 to July 2020. Patient data were collected from Iranian Muscular Dystrophy Association members. individuals signed an informed consent form approved by the ethics committee of the Azad University. All of the gait tests were performed using a Kistler force platform. Participants walked at a self-selected speed, barefoot, independently, and without assistive devices. Results: Our findings indicate that there were no significant differences between the patients and the control group in the anterior-posterior components of the ground reaction forces; however, there were considerable differences in the force components between the groups in the medial-lateral and vertical directions of the ground reaction force. In addition, there were significant differences in the time parameters between the groups in the vertical and medial-lateral directions.

Keywords: biomechanics, force plate analysis, gait disorder, ground reaction force, kinetic analysis, myopathy disease, rehabilitation engineering

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Authors: Lucian Capitanu, Virgil Florescu

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Often for the laboratory studies, modeling of specific tribological processes raises special problems. One such problem is the modeling of some temperatures and extremely high contact pressures, allowing modeling of temperatures and pressures at which the injection or extrusion processing of thermoplastic materials takes place. Tribological problems occur mainly in thermoplastics materials reinforced with glass fibers. They produce an advanced wear to the barrels and screws of processing machines, in short time. Obtaining temperatures around 210 °C and higher, as well as pressures around 100 MPa is very difficult in the laboratory. This paper reports a simple and convenient solution to get these conditions, using friction sliding couples with linear contact, cylindrical liner plastic filled with glass fibers on plate steel samples, polished and super-finished. C120 steel, which is a steel for moulds and Rp3 steel, high speed steel for tools, were used. Obtaining the pressure was achieved by continuous request of the liner in rotational movement up to its elasticity limits, when the dry friction coefficient reaches or exceeds the hardness value of 0.5 HB. By dissipation of the power lost by friction on flat steel sample, are reached contact temperatures at the metal surface that reach and exceed 230 °C, being placed in the range temperature values of the injection. Contact pressures (in load and materials conditions used) ranging from 16.3-36.4 MPa were obtained depending on the plastic material used and the glass fibers content.

Keywords: plastics with glass fibers, dry friction, linear contact, contact temperature, contact pressure, experimental simulation

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Authors: Shao Bo Cheng, Yong-Jin Han, Se Young Park, Seong-Bae Park

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Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-commerce has been growing at a very high speed in recent years. Since identical or nearly-same kinds of products compete one another by relying on keyword search in C2C E-commerce, some sellers describe their products with spam keywords that are popular but are not related to their products. Though such products get more chances to be retrieved and selected by consumers than those without spam keywords, the spam keywords mislead the consumers and waste their time. This problem has been reported in many commercial services like e-bay and taobao, but there have been little research to solve this problem. As a solution to this problem, this paper proposes a method to classify whether keywords of a product are spam or not. The proposed method assumes that a keyword for a given product is more reliable if the keyword is observed commonly in specifications of products which are the same or the same kind as the given product. This is because that a hierarchical category of a product in general determined precisely by a seller of the product and so is the specification of the product. Since higher layers of the hierarchical category represent more general kinds of products, a reliable degree is differently determined according to the layers. Hence, reliable degrees from different layers of a hierarchical category become features for keywords and they are used together with features only from specifications for classification of the keywords. Support Vector Machines are adopted as a basic classifier using the features, since it is powerful, and widely used in many classification tasks. In the experiments, the proposed method is evaluated with a golden standard dataset from Yi-han-wang, a Chinese C2C e-commerce, and is compared with a baseline method that does not consider the hierarchical category. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the baseline in F1-measure, which proves that spam keywords are effectively identified by a hierarchical category in C2C e-commerce.

Keywords: spam keyword, e-commerce, keyword features, spam filtering

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Authors: E. Yarar, E. A. Guven, S. Karabay

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In this study, a comprehensive simulation was made for the cold tube drawing with fixed plug. The cold tube drawing process is preferred due to its high surface quality and the high mechanical properties. In drawing processes applied to materials with low plastic deformability, cracks can occur on the surfaces and the process efficiency decreases. The aim of the work is to investigate the effects of different drawing parameters on drawing forces and stresses. In the simulations, optimum conditions were investigated for four different materials, Ti64Al4V, AA5052, AISI4140, and C365. One of the most important parameters for the cold drawing process is the die angle. Three dies were designed for the analysis with semi die angles of 5°, 10°, and 15°. Three different parameters were used for the friction coefficient between die and the material. In the simulations, reduction of area and the drawing speed is kept constant. Drawing is done in one pass. According to the simulation results, the highest drawing forces were obtained in Ti64Al4V. As the semi die angle increases, the drawing forces decrease. The change in semi die angle was most effective on Ti64Al4V. Increasing the coefficient of friction is another effect that increases the drawing forces. The increase in the friction coefficient has also increased in drawing stresses. The increase in die angle also increased the drawing stress distribution for the other three materials outside C365. According to the results of the analysis, it is found that the designed drawing die is suitable for drawing. The lowest drawing stress distribution and drawing forces were obtained for AA5052. Drawing die parameters have a direct effect on the results. In addition, lubricants used for drawing have a significant effect on drawing forces.

Keywords: cold tube drawing, drawing force, drawing stress, semi die angle

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Authors: Songul Cinaroglu

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Regional planning in health has gained speed for developing countries in recent years. In Turkey, 89 different Public Hospital Unions (PHUs) were conducted based on provincial levels. In this study technical efficiencies of 89 PHUs were examined by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and machine learning techniques by dividing them into two clusters in terms of similarities of input and output indicators. Number of beds, physicians and nurses determined as input variables and number of outpatients, inpatients and surgical operations determined as output indicators. Before performing DEA, PHUs were grouped into two clusters. It is seen that the first cluster represents PHUs which have higher population, demand and service density than the others. The difference between clusters was statistically significant in terms of all study variables (p ˂ 0.001). After clustering, DEA was performed for general and for two clusters separately. It was found that 11% of PHUs were efficient in general, additionally 21% and 17% of them were efficient for the first and second clusters respectively. It is seen that PHUs, which are representing urban parts of the country and have higher population and service density, are more efficient than others. Random forest decision tree graph shows that number of inpatients is a determinative factor of efficiency of PHUs, which is a measure of service density. It is advisable for public health policy makers to use statistical learning methods in resource planning decisions to improve efficiency in health care.

Keywords: public hospital unions, efficiency, data envelopment analysis, random forest

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Authors: Zahra Ahmadi, Fazlollah Adibnia

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Scheduling of tasks and the optimal allocation of resources in the cloud are based on the dynamic nature of tasks and the heterogeneity of resources. Applications that are based on the scientific workflow are among the most widely used applications in this field, which are characterized by high processing power and storage capacity. In order to increase their efficiency, it is necessary to plan the tasks properly and select the best virtual machine in the cloud. The goals of the system are effective factors in scheduling tasks and resource selection, which depend on various criteria such as time, cost, current workload and processing power. Multi-criteria decision-making methods are a good choice in this field. In this research, a new method of work planning and resource allocation in a heterogeneous environment based on the modified AHP algorithm is proposed. In this method, the scheduling of input tasks is based on two criteria of execution time and size. Resource allocation is also a combination of the AHP algorithm and the first-input method of the first client. Resource prioritization is done with the criteria of main memory size, processor speed and bandwidth. What is considered in this system to modify the AHP algorithm Linear Max-Min and Linear Max normalization methods are the best choice for the mentioned algorithm, which have a great impact on the ranking. The simulation results show a decrease in the average response time, return time and execution time of input tasks in the proposed method compared to similar methods (basic methods).

Keywords: hierarchical analytical process, work prioritization, normalization, heterogeneous resource allocation, scientific workflow

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Authors: Ahmed Mozamel, Kemal Yildizli

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Due to mechanical energy losses and a competitive of minimizing these losses and increases the machine efficiency, the need for contactless gearing system has raised. In this work, one stage of mechanical planetary gear transmission system integrated with one stage of magnetic planetary gear system is designed as a two-stage hybrid gearbox system. The permanent magnets internal energy in the form of the magnetic field is used to create meshing between contactless magnetic rotors in order to provide self-system protection against overloading and decrease the mechanical loss of the transmission system by eliminating the friction losses. Classical methods, such as analytical, tabular method and the theory of elasticity are used to calculate the planetary gear design parameters. The finite element method (ANSYS Maxwell) is used to predict the behaviors of a magnetic gearing system. The concentric magnetic gearing system has been modeled and analyzed by using 2D finite element method (ANSYS Maxwell). In addition to that, design and manufacturing processes of prototype components (a planetary gear, concentric magnetic gear, shafts and the bearings selection) of a gearbox system are investigated. The output force, the output moment, the output power and efficiency of the hybrid gearbox system are experimentally evaluated. The viability of applying a magnetic force to transmit mechanical power through a non-contact gearing system is presented. The experimental test results show that the system is capable to operate continuously within the range of speed from 400 rpm to 3000 rpm with the reduction ratio of 2:1 and maximum efficiency of 91%.

Keywords: hybrid gearbox, mechanical gearboxes, magnetic gears, magnetic torque

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Authors: Mohamed Moheyeldin Mahmoud

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Various Islamic, Coptic and Jewish archeological places are located in many Egyptian neighborhoods such as Alsayeda zainab, Aldarb Alahmar, Algammaleya and many other in which they are daily exposed to a great traffic intensity causing vibrations. Vibrations could be stated as one of the most important challenges that face the archeological buildings and threaten their survival. The impact of vibrations varies according to the nature of the soil, nature and building conditions, how far the source of vibration is and the period of exposure. Traffic vibrations could be also stated as one of the most common types of vibrations having the greatest impact on buildings and archaeological installations. These vibrations result from the way that the vehicles act with different types of roads which vary according to the shape, nature, and type of obstacles. Other elements concerning the vehicle itself such as speed, weight, and load have a direct impact on the vibrations resulting from the vehicle movement that couldn't be neglected. The research aims to determine some of the requirements that must be observed when designing the public means of transport operating in the archaeological areas, in order to preserve the archaeological nature of the place. The research concludes that light weight slow motion vehicles should be used (25-50 km/h at maximum) having a multi-leaf steel spring suspension system instead of having an air-bag one should be used in order to reduce generated vibrations that could destroy the archeological buildings. Isolation layers could be used in the engine chamber in order to reduce the resulting noise causing vibrations. Electrically operated engines that use solar photovoltaic cells as a source of electricity could be used instead of gas ones in order to reduce the resulting engine noise.

Keywords: archeological, design, isolation layers, suspension, vibrations

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Authors: M. Akhlaque Ahmed, Sidra A. Shaikh, Maliha Afshan Siddiqui

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Solar radiation studies of Sindh province have been studied to evaluate the solar energy potential of the area. Global and diffuse solar radiation on horizontal surface over five cities namely Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Chore and Padidan of Sindh province were carried out using sun shine hour data of the area to assess the feasibility of solar energy utilization. The result obtained shows a large variation of direct and diffuse component of solar radiation in winter and summer months. 50% direct and 50% diffuse solar radiation for Karachi and Hyderabad were observed and for Chore in summer month July and August the diffuse radiation is about 33 to 39%. For other areas of Sindh such as Nawabshah and Patidan the contribution of direct solar radiation is high throughout the year. The Kt values for Nawabshah and Patidan indicates a clear sky almost throughout the year. In Nawabshah area the percentage of diffuse radiation does not exceed more than 29%. The appearance of cloud is rare even in the monsoon months July and August whereas Karachi and Hyderabad and Chore has low solar potential during the monsoon months. During the monsoon period Karachi and Hyderabad can utilize hybrid system with wind power as wind speed is higher. From the point of view of power generation the estimated values indicate that Karachi and Hyderabad and chore has low solar potential for July and August while Nawabshah, and Padidan has high solar potential Throughout the year.

Keywords: global and diffuse solar radiation, province of Sindh, solar energy potential, solar radiation studies for power generation

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Authors: Alireza Barari, Maryam Firoozi, Maryam Ebrahimzadeh, Romina Roohan Ardeshiri, Maryam Kamarloeei

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Background: The The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of six-week aerobic training and taxol consumption on interleukin 8 and Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) in mice with cervical cancer. Material and method: In this experimental study, 40 female C57 mice, eight weeks old, were randomly divided into 4 groups: cancer, cancer-taxol complement, cancer-training and cancer-training - taxol complement with 10 mice in each group. The implantation of cancerous tumors was performed under the skin of the upper pelvis. The training group completed the endurance training protocol, which included 3 sessions per week, 50 minutes per session, at a speed of 14-18 m/s for six weeks. A dose of 60 mg/ kg/day, a pure extract of Taxol was injected peritoneal Data were analyzed by t-test, One-way ANOVA and post hoc Bonferron's at the significant level P<0. 05. Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between mean values of interleukin-8 (P < 0.05, F = 12.25) and the plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (P < 0.05, P=0.10737) in four groups. A significance level of less than 0.05 in Tukey test for both variables also showed a significant difference between the "control" group and the complementary "exercise" group. Namely, six weeks of aerobic training, along with taxol, have a significant effect on the level of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 and interleukin-8 mice with cervical cancer. Conclusion: Considering the effect of training on these variables, this type of exercise can be used as a complementary therapeutic approach along with other therapies for cervical cancer.

Keywords: cervical cancer, taxol, endurance training, interleukin 8, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1

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Authors: M. Miljkovic, A. Urakpo, M. Simic-Koumoutsaris

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Benefit-risk assessment (BRA) is a valuable tool that takes place in multiple stages during a medicine's lifecycle, and this assessment can be conducted in a variety of ways. The aim was to summarize current BRA methods used during approval decisions and in post-approval settings and to see possible future directions. Relevant reviews, recommendations, and guidelines published in medical literature and through regulatory agencies over the past five years have been examined. BRA implies the review of two dimensions: the dimension of benefits (determined mainly by the therapeutic efficacy) and the dimension of risks (comprises the safety profile of a drug). Regulators, industry, and academia have developed various approaches, ranging from descriptive textual (qualitative) to decision-analytic (quantitative) models, to facilitate the BRA of medicines during the product lifecycle (from Phase I trials, to authorization procedure, post-marketing surveillance and health technology assessment for inclusion in public formularies). These approaches can be classified into the following categories: stepwise structured approaches (frameworks); measures for benefits and risks that are usually endpoint specific (metrics), simulation techniques and meta-analysis (estimation techniques), and utility survey techniques to elicit stakeholders’ preferences (utilities). All these approaches share the following two common goals: to assist this analysis and to improve the communication of decisions, but each is subject to its own specific strengths and limitations. Before using any method, its utility, complexity, the extent to which it is established, and the ease of results interpretation should be considered. Despite widespread and long-time use, BRA is subject to debate, suffers from a number of limitations, and currently is still under development. The use of formal, systematic structured approaches to BRA for regulatory decision-making and quantitative methods to support BRA during the product lifecycle is a standard practice in medicine that is subject to continuous improvement and modernization, not only in methodology but also in cooperation between organizations.

Keywords: benefit-risk assessment, benefit-risk profile, product lifecycle, quantitative methods, structured approaches

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: Sikiru Oluwarotimi Ismail, Hom Nath Dhakal, Anish Roy, Dong Wang, Ivan Popov

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The ultrasonically-assisted drilling (UAD) is a non-traditional technique which involves the superimposition of a high frequency and low amplitude vibration, usually greater than 18kHz and less than 20µm respectively, on a drill bit along the feed direction. UAD has remarkable advantages over the conventional drilling (CD), especially the high drilling-force reduction. Force reduction improves the quality of the drilled holes, reduces power consumption rate and cost of production. Nevertheless, in addition to the setbacks of UAD including expensiveness of set-up, unpredicted results and chipping effects, this paper presents the problems of insignificant force reduction and poor surface quality during UAD of hemp fibre-reinforced composites (HFRCs), a natural composite, with polycaprolactone (PCL) matrix. The experimental results obtained depict that HFRCs/PCL samples have more burnt chip-materials attached on the drilled holes during UAD than CD. This effect produced a very high surface roughness (Ra), up to 13µm. In a bid to reduce these challenges, different drilling parameters (feed rates and cutting speeds, frequencies and amplitudes for UAD), conditions (dry machining and airflow cooling) and diameters of drill bits (3mm and 6mm of high speed steel), as well as HFRCs/PCL samples of various fibre aspect ratios, including 0 (neat), 19, 26, 30 and 38 have been used. However, the setbacks still persisted. Evidently, the benefits of UAD are not obtainable for the drilling of the HFRCs/PCL laminates. These problems occurred due to the 60 °C melting temperature of PCL, quite lower than 56-90.2 °C and 265–290.8 °C composite-tool interface temperature during CD and UAD respectively.

Keywords: force reduction, hemp fibre-reinforced composites, ultrasonically-assisted drilling, surface quality

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Authors: M. P. Tripathi, Priti Tiwari

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Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a distributed parameter continuous time model and was tested on daily and fortnightly basis for a small agricultural watershed (Dhangaon) of Chhattisgarh state in India. The SWAT model recently interfaced with ArcGIS and called as ArcSWAT. The watershed and sub-watershed boundaries, drainage networks, slope and texture maps were generated in the environment of ArcGIS of ArcSWAT. Supervised classification method was used for land use/cover classification from satellite imageries of the years 2009 and 2012. Manning's roughness coefficient 'n' for overland flow and channel flow and Fraction of Field Capacity (FFC) were calibrated for monsoon season of the years 2009 and 2010. The model was validated on a daily basis for the years 2011 and 2012 by using the observed daily rainfall and temperature data. Calibration and validation results revealed that the model was predicting the daily surface runoff and sediment yield satisfactorily. Sensitivity analysis showed that the annual sediment yield was inversely proportional to the overland and channel 'n' values whereas; annual runoff and sediment yields were directly proportional to the FFC. The model was also tested (calibrated and validated) for the fortnightly runoff and sediment yield for the year 2009-10 and 2011-12, respectively. Simulated values of fortnightly runoff and sediment yield for the calibration and validation years compared well with their observed counterparts. The calibration and validation results revealed that the ArcSWAT model could be used for identification of critical sub-watershed and for developing management scenarios for the Dhangaon watershed. Further, the model should be tested for simulating the surface runoff and sediment yield using generated rainfall and temperature before applying it for developing the management scenario for the critical or priority sub-watersheds.

Keywords: watershed, hydrologic and water quality, ArcSWAT model, remote sensing, GIS, runoff and sediment yield

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Authors: Roengchai Tansuchat, Woraphon Yamaka, Paravee Maneejuk

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From the past recent, the global financial crisis, economic instability, and large fluctuation in agricultural commodity price have led to increased concerns about the volatility transmission among them. The problem is further exacerbated by commodities volatility caused by other commodity price fluctuations, hence the decision on hedging strategy has become both costly and useless. Thus, this paper is conducted to analysis the volatility spillover effect among major agriculture including corn, soybeans, wheat and rice, to help the commodity suppliers hedge their portfolios, and manage the risk and co-volatility of them. We provide a switching regime approach to analyzing the issue of volatility spillovers in different economic conditions, namely upturn and downturn economic. In particular, we investigate relationships and volatility transmissions between these commodities in different economic conditions. We purposed a Copula-based multivariate Markov Switching GARCH model with two regimes that depend on an economic conditions and perform simulation study to check the accuracy of our proposed model. In this study, the correlation term in the cross-hedge ratio is obtained from six copula families – two elliptical copulas (Gaussian and Student-t) and four Archimedean copulas (Clayton, Gumbel, Frank, and Joe). We use one-step maximum likelihood estimation techniques to estimate our models and compare the performance of these copula using Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criteria (BIC). In the application study of agriculture commodities, the weekly data used are conducted from 4 January 2005 to 1 September 2016, covering 612 observations. The empirical results indicate that the volatility spillover effects among cereal futures are different, as response of different economic condition. In addition, the results of hedge effectiveness will also suggest the optimal cross hedge strategies in different economic condition especially upturn and downturn economic.

Keywords: agricultural commodity futures, cereal, cross-hedge, spillover effect, switching regime approach

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Authors: S. Vadivukkarasi, K. Karthi, M. Karthick, C. Dinesh, S. Santhosh, A. Yogaraj

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The appointment system was designed to minimize patient’s idle time overlooking patients waiting time in hospitals. This is no longer valid in today’s consumer oriented society. Long waiting times for treatment in the outpatient department followed by short consultations has long been a complaint. Nowadays, customers use waiting time as a decisive factor in choosing a service provider. Queuing theory constitutes a very powerful tool because queuing models require relatively little data and are simple and fast to use. Because of this simplicity and speed, modelers can be used to quickly evaluate and compare various alternatives for providing service. The application of queuing models in the analysis of health care systems is increasingly accepted by health care decision makers. Timely access to care is a key component of high-quality health care. However, patient delays are prevalent throughout health care systems, resulting in dissatisfaction and adverse clinical consequences for patients as well as potentially higher costs and wasted capacity for providers. Arguably, the most critical delays for health care are the ones associated with health care emergencies. The allocation of resources can be divided into three general areas: bed management, staff management, and room facility management. Effective and efficient patient flow is indicated by high patient throughput, low patient waiting times, a short length of stay at the hospital and overtime, while simultaneously maintaining adequate staff utilization rates and low patient’s idle times.

Keywords: appointment system, patient scheduling, bed management, queueing calculation, system analysis

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Authors: Marzieh Khedmati, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt

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Vegetative Filter Strips (VFS) are used for controlling the volume of runoff and decreasing contaminant concentrations in runoff before entering water bodies. Many studies have investigated the role of VFS in sediment and nutrient removal, but little is known about their efficiency for the removal of emerging contaminants such as antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs). Vegetative Filter Strip Modeling System (VFSMOD) was used to simulate the efficiency of VFS in this regard. Several studies demonstrated the ability of VFSMOD to predict reductions in runoff volume and sediment concentration moving through the filters. The objectives of this study were to calibrate the VFSMOD with experimental data and assess the efficiency of the model in simulating the filter behavior in removing ARGs (ermB) and tylosin. The experimental data were obtained from a prior study conducted at the University of Nebraska (UNL) Rogers Memorial Farm. Three treatment factors were tested in the experiments, including manure amendment, narrow grass hedges and rainfall events. Sediment Delivery Ratio (SDR) was defined as the filter efficiency and the related experimental and model values were compared to each other. The VFS Model generally agreed with the experimental results and as a result, the model was used for predicting filter efficiencies when the runoff data are not available. Narrow Grass Hedges (NGH) were shown to be effective in reducing tylosin and ARGs concentration. The simulation showed that the filter efficiency in removing ARGs is different for different soil types and filter lengths. There is an optimum length for the filter strip that produces minimum runoff volume. Based on the model results increasing the length of the filter by 1-meter leads to higher efficiency but widening beyond that decreases the efficiency. The VFSMOD, which was proved to work well in estimation of VFS trapping efficiency, showed confirming results for ARG removal.

Keywords: antimicrobial resistance genes, emerging contaminants, narrow grass hedges, vegetative filter strips, vegetative filter strip modeling system

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Authors: Shahrzad Zolfagharnassab, Abdul Rashid Mohamed Shariff, Reza Ehsani, Hawa Ze Jaffar, Ishak Aris

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Ripeness estimation of oil palm fresh fruit is important processes that affect the profitableness and salability of oil palm fruits. The adulthood or ripeness of the oil palm fruits influences the quality of oil palm. Conventional procedure includes physical grading of Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) maturity by calculating the number of loose fruits per bunch. This physical classification of oil palm FFB is costly, time consuming and the results may have human error. Hence, many researchers try to develop the methods for ascertaining the maturity of oil palm fruits and thereby, deviously the oil content of distinct palm fruits without the need for exhausting oil extraction and analysis. This research investigates the potential of infrared images (Thermal Images) as a predictor to classify the oil palm FFB ripeness. A total of 270 oil palm fresh fruit bunches from most common cultivar of oil palm bunches Nigresens according to three maturity categories: under ripe, ripe and over ripe were collected. Each sample was scanned by the thermal imaging cameras FLIR E60 and FLIR T440. The average temperature of each bunches were calculated by using image processing in FLIR Tools and FLIR ThermaCAM researcher pro 2.10 environment software. The results show that temperature content decreased from immature to over mature oil palm FFBs. An overall analysis-of-variance (ANOVA) test was proved that this predictor gave significant difference between underripe, ripe and overripe maturity categories. This shows that the temperature as predictors can be good indicators to classify oil palm FFB. Classification analysis was performed by using the temperature of the FFB as predictors through Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Mahalanobis Discriminant Analysis (MDA), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and K- Nearest Neighbor (KNN) methods. The highest overall classification accuracy was 88.2% by using Artificial Neural Network. This research proves that thermal imaging and neural network method can be used as predictors of oil palm maturity classification.

Keywords: artificial neural network, maturity classification, oil palm FFB, thermal imaging

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Authors: Luis Alvarado, Victor Poblete, Isaac Gonzalez, Yetzabeth Gonzalez

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In MIREX 2016 (http://www.music-ir.org/mirex), the deep neural network (DNN)-Deep Chroma Extractor, proposed by Korzeniowski and Wiedmer, reached the highest score in an audio chord recognition task. In the present paper, this tool is assessed under acoustic reverberant environments and distinct source-microphone distances. The evaluation dataset comprises The Beatles and Queen datasets. These datasets are sequentially re-recorded with a single microphone in a real reverberant chamber at four reverberation times (0 -anechoic-, 1, 2, and 3 s, approximately), as well as four source-microphone distances (32, 64, 128, and 256 cm). It is expected that the performance of the trained DNN will dramatically decrease under these acoustic conditions with signals degraded by room reverberation and distance to the source. Recently, the effect of the bio-inspired Locally-Normalized Cepstral Coefficients (LNCC), has been assessed in a text independent speaker verification task using speech signals degraded by additive noise at different signal-to-noise ratios with variations of recording distance, and it has also been assessed under reverberant conditions with variations of recording distance. LNCC showed a performance so high as the state-of-the-art Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient filters. Based on these results, this paper proposes a variation of locally-normalized triangular filters called Locally-Normalized Quarter Tone (LNQT) filters. By using the LNQT spectrogram, robustness improvements of the trained Deep Chroma Extractor are expected, compared with classical triangular filters, and thus compensating the music signal degradation improving the accuracy of the chord recognition system.

Keywords: chord recognition, deep neural networks, feature extraction, music information retrieval

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Authors: Sheetal Sharma

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Runoff,decreasing water levels and recharge in urban areas have been a complex issue now a days pointing defective urban design and increasing demography as cause. Very less has been discussed or analysed for water sensitive Urban Master Plans or local area plans. Land use planning deals with land transformation from natural areas into developed ones, which lead to changes in natural environment. Elaborated knowledge of relationship between the existing patterns of land use-land cover and recharge with respect to prevailing soil below is less as compared to speed of development. The parameters of incompatibility between urban functions and the functions of the natural environment are becoming various. Changes in land patterns due to built up, pavements, roads and similar land cover affects surface water flow seriously. It also changes permeability and absorption characteristics of the soil. Urban planners need to know natural processes along with modern means and best technologies available,as there is a huge gap between basic knowledge of natural processes and its requirement for balanced development planning leading to minimum impact on water recharge. The present paper analyzes the variations in land use land cover and their impacts on surface flows and sub-surface recharge in study area. The methodology adopted was to analyse the changes in land use and land cover using GIS and Civil 3d auto cad. The variations were used in  computer modeling using Storm-water Management Model to find out the runoff for various soil groups and resulting recharge observing water levels in POW data for last 40 years of the study area. Results were anlayzed again to find best correlations for sustainable recharge in urban areas.

Keywords: geology, runoff, urban planning, land use-land cover

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Authors: Sanjay Singh, Karunanithi Priyanka, Ramoji Kosuru, Raju Prasad Sharma

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Herbal drugs are well known for their mixed pharmacological activities with the benefit of no harmful side effects. The use of herbal drugs is limited because of their higher dose requirement, frequent drug administration, poor bioavailability of phytochemicals and delayed onset of action. Ficus religiosa, a potent anti-oxidant plant useful in the treatment of diabetes and cancer was selected for the study. Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) of Ficus religiosa extract was developed for the enhancement in oral bioavailability of stigmasterol and β-sitosterol-d-glucoside, principal components present in the extract. Hot homogenization followed by ultrasonication method was used to develop extract loaded SLN. Developed extract loaded SLN were characterized for particle size, PDI, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, in vitro drug release and kinetics, fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, powder X-ray diffractrometry and stability studies. Entrapment efficiency of optimized extract loaded SLN was found to be 68.46 % (56.13 % of stigmasterol and 12.33 % of β-sitosteryl-d-glucoside, respectively). RP HPLC method development was done for simultaneous estimation of stigmasterol and β-sitosterol-d-glucoside in Ficus religiosa extract in rat plasma. Bioavailability studies were carried out for extract in suspension form and optimized extract loaded SLN. AUC of stigmasterol and β-sitosterol-d-glucoside were increased by 6.7-folds by 9.2-folds, respectively in rats treated with extract loaded SLN compared to extract suspension. Also, Cmax of stigmasterol and β-sitosterol-d-glucoside were increased by 4.3-folds by 3.9-folds, respectively in rats treated with extract loaded SLN compared to extract suspension. Mean residence times (MRT) for stigmasterol were found to be 12.3 ± 0.67 hours from extract and 7.4 ± 2.1 hours from SLN and for β-sitosterol-d-glucoside, 10.49 ± 2.9 hours from extract and 6.4 ± 0.3 hours from SLN. Hence, it was concluded that SLN enhanced the bioavailability and reduced the MRT of stigmasterol and β-sitosterol-d-glucoside in Ficus religiosa extract which in turn may lead to reduction in dose of Ficus religiosa extract, prolonged duration of action and also enhanced therapeutic efficacy.

Keywords: Ficus religiosa, phytosterolins, bioavailability, solid lipid nanoparticles, stigmasterol and β-sitosteryl-d-glucoside

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Authors: Eric Dede, Marcus Tindall, John W. Cherrie, Steve Hankin, Christopher Collins

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Current exposure models used in contaminated land risk assessment are highly conservative. Use of these models may lead to over-estimation of actual exposures, possibly resulting in negative financial implications due to un-necessary remediation. Thus, we are carrying out a study seeking to improve our understanding of human exposure to selected toxic elements in soil: arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), and lead (Pb) resulting from allotment land-use. The study employs biomonitoring and physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling to quantify human exposure to these elements. We recruited 37 allotment users (adults > 18 years old) in Scotland, UK, to participate in the study. Concentrations of the elements (and their bioaccessibility) were measured in allotment samples (soil and allotment produce). Amount of produce consumed by the participants and participants’ biological samples (urine and blood) were collected for up to 12 consecutive months. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Reading Research Ethics Committee. PBPK models (coded in MATLAB) were used to estimate the distribution and accumulation of the elements in key body compartments, thus indicating the internal body burden. Simulating low element intake (based on estimated ‘doses’ from produce consumption records), predictive models suggested that detection of these elements in urine and blood was possible within a given period of time following exposure. This information was used in planning biomonitoring, and is currently being used in the interpretation of test results from biological samples. Evaluation of the models is being carried out using biomonitoring data, by comparing model predicted concentrations and measured biomarker concentrations. The PBPK models will be used to generate bioavailability values, which could be incorporated in contaminated land exposure models. Thus, the findings from this study will promote a more sustainable approach to contaminated land management.

Keywords: biomonitoring, exposure, PBPK modelling, toxic elements

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Authors: Manendra Singh Parihar, Sandip Ghosh Chowdhury

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Austenitic stainless steels are widely used and give a good combination of properties. When this steel is plastically deformed, a phase transformation of the metastable Face Centred Cubic Austenite to the stable Body Centred Cubic (α’) or to the Hexagonal close packed (ԑ) martensite may occur, leading to the enhancement in the mechanical properties like strength. The work was based on variant selection and corresponding texture analysis for the strain induced martensitic transformation during deformation of the parent austenite FCC phase to form the product HCP and the BCC martensite phases separately, obeying their respective orientation relationships. The automated method for reconstruction of the parent phase orientation using the EBSD data of the product phase orientation is done using the MATLAB and TSL-OIM software. The method of triplets was used which involves the formation of a triplet of neighboring product grains having a common variant and linking them using a misorientation-based criterion. This led to the proper reconstruction of the pre-transformation phase orientation data and thus to its microstructure and texture. The computational speed of current method is better compared to the previously used methods of reconstruction. The reconstruction of austenite from ԑ and α’ martensite was carried out for multiple samples and their IPF images, pole figures, inverse pole figures and ODFs were compared. Similar type of results was observed for all samples. The comparison gives the idea for estimating the correct sequence of the transformation i.e. γ → ε → α’ or γ → α’, during deformation of AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel.

Keywords: variant selection, reconstruction, EBSD, austenitic stainless steel, martensitic transformation

Procedia PDF Downloads 483