Search results for: initial cost

Authors: Rajaramamohanarao Chennu, S. Sudhakara Reddy, Gurudev T, Maroti

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With the invent of recent available technology and cost optimization, the switchgear assemblies are becoming more compact and designed to operate at critical levels of thermal and dielectric stress. At the same time, the switchgear assemblies shall be designed for protection of persons, met in the event of internal arc for specified installation conditions, according to the latest available national/international standards. These standards are revising regularly for better product design and personal safety. The switchgear assemblies design shall be modified in accordance with the change in requirements in the latest edition of the standards. This paper presents the signifying changes brought in the latest edition of 62271-200:2021 and effect of these changes and the necessitated design improvements for meeting internal arc test requirements is presented by carrying out the internal arc testing experiments on the switchgear assemblies at High Power Laboratory, Central Power Research Institute, Bangalore, India.

Keywords: internal arc, switchgear assembly, high speed videography, IEC 62271-200

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Authors: Molla Tadesse Lakew

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Researchers tried to find out the socio-economic and supply-side constraint factors to adoption. However, they overlooked the role of social networks and relationships among the community. Therefore, the aims of this review were to review the roles and negative effects of social capital. Based on its contents, relevancy, and time duration, only 121 (journals, books, and paper reports) were selected. It concludes that social capital has an indispensable role in facilitating cooperation and connection between members of the farmers' community, informal and experiential knowledge sharing, and access to research-based knowledge and contributes to reducing the transaction cost of adoption. On the contrary, inside the black box of social capital, the negative effects include the exclusion of outsider’s knowledge and experiences, excessive claims on group members, and restrictions on individual freedom.

Keywords: social capital, local institutions, adoption, Ethiopia

Procedia PDF Downloads 88

Authors: Brenda O. Mazzola, Adriel Larsen, Romina P. Ollier, Leandro N. Ludueña, Vera A. Alvarez, Jimena S. Gonzalez

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Seaweed is a natural renewable resource with great potential that is not being used by the domestic industry. Here, it was used a kind of invasive algae U. Pinnatifida that causes serious ecological damage on the Argentinian coasts. Alginate is one of the most widely used materials for encapsulation, and has the advantage that is a natural polysaccharide derived from a marine plant. It can form thermally stable hydrogel in the presence of calcium cation. In addition, the hydrogel can be easily produced into particulate form by using simple and gentle method. The aim of this work was to obtain and to characterize novel compounds (alginate/seaweed powder) for the soil nutrition. Alginate water solutions were prepared by concentrations of 20, 30, 40 and 50 g/L, in those solutions 10g/L of seaweed powder was added. Then the dispersions were transferred from a beaker to the atomizer by a peristaltic pump (with 0.05 to 0.1 L/h flow). A tank was filled with 1 L of calcium chloride solution (4 g/L), and the solution was agitated with a magnetic stirrer. The beads were analyzed by means TGA, FTIR and swelling determinations. In addition, the improvements in the soil were qualitative measured. It was obtained beads with different diameters depend on the initial concentration and the flow used. A better dispersions of seaweed and optimal diameter for the plant nutrition applications were obtained for 40g/L concentration and 0.1 L/h flow. The beads show thermal stability and high swelling degree. It can be successfully obtained alginate beads with seaweed powder with a novelty application as plant nutrient.

Keywords: biodegradable, characterization, hydrogel, plant nutrition, seaweed

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Authors: Iris Vural Gursel, Andrea Ramirez

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Effective utilization of lignin is an important mean for developing economically profitable biorefineries. Current literature suggests that large amounts of lignin will become available in second generation biorefineries. New conversion technologies will, therefore, be needed to carry lignin transformation well beyond combustion to produce energy, but towards high-value products such as chemicals and transportation fuels. In recent years, significant progress on catalysis has been made to improve transformation of lignin, and new catalytic processes are emerging. In this work, a techno-economic assessment of two of these novel conversion routes and comparison with more established lignin pyrolysis route were made. The aim is to provide insights into the potential performance and potential hotspots in order to guide the experimental research and ease the commercialization by early identifying cost drivers, strengths, and challenges. The lignin conversion routes selected for detailed assessment were: (non-catalytic) lignin pyrolysis as the benchmark, direct hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) of lignin and hydrothermal lignin depolymerisation. Products generated were mixed oxygenated aromatic monomers (MOAMON), light organics, heavy organics, and char. For the technical assessment, a basis design followed by process modelling in Aspen was done using experimental yields. A design capacity of 200 kt/year lignin feed was chosen that is equivalent to a 1 Mt/y scale lignocellulosic biorefinery. The downstream equipment was modelled to achieve the separation of the product streams defined. For determining external utility requirement, heat integration was considered and when possible gasses were combusted to cover heating demand. The models made were used in generating necessary data on material and energy flows. Next, an economic assessment was carried out by estimating operating and capital costs. Return on investment (ROI) and payback period (PBP) were used as indicators. The results of the process modelling indicate that series of separation steps are required. The downstream processing was found especially demanding in the hydrothermal upgrading process due to the presence of significant amount of unconverted lignin (34%) and water. Also, external utility requirements were found to be high. Due to the complex separations, hydrothermal upgrading process showed the highest capital cost (50 M€ more than benchmark). Whereas operating costs were found the highest for the direct HDO process (20 M€/year more than benchmark) due to the use of hydrogen. Because of high yields to valuable heavy organics (32%) and MOAMON (24%), direct HDO process showed the highest ROI (12%) and the shortest PBP (5 years). This process is found feasible with a positive net present value. However, it is very sensitive to the prices used in the calculation. The assessments at this stage are associated with large uncertainties. Nevertheless, they are useful for comparing alternatives and identifying whether a certain process should be given further consideration. Among the three processes investigated here, the direct HDO process was seen to be the most promising.

Keywords: biorefinery, economic assessment, lignin conversion, process design

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Authors: D. M. El-Tanbouly, R. M. Abdelsalam, A. S. Attia, M. T. Abdel-Aziz

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Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) endotoxin, a component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, is involved in the pathogenesis of sepsis. LPS administration induces systemic inflammation that mimics many of the initial clinical features of sepsis and has deleterious effects on several organs including the liver and eventually leading to septic shock and death. The present study aimed to investigate the protective effect of magnesium, a well-known cofactor in many enzymatic reactions and a critical component of the antioxidant system, on hepatic damage associated with LPS induced- endotoxima in mice. Mg (20 and 40 mg/kg, po) was administered for 7 consecutive days. Systemic inflammation was induced one hour after the last dose of Mg by a single dose of LPS (2 mg/kg, ip) and three hours thereafter plasma was separated, animals were sacrificed and their livers were isolated. LPS-treated mice suffered from hepatic dysfunction revealed by histological observation, elevation in plasma transaminases activities, C-reactive protein content and caspase-3, a critical marker of apoptosis. Liver inflammation was evident by elevation in liver cytokines contents (TNF-α and IL-10) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity. Additionally, oxidative stress was manifested by increased liver lipoperoxidation, glutathione depletion, elevated total nitrate/nitrite (NOx) content and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity. Pretreatment with Mg largely mitigated these alternations through its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potentials. Mg, therefore, could be regarded as an effective strategy for prevention of liver damage associated with septicemia.

Keywords: LPS, liver damage, magnesium, septicemia

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Authors: Viliam Makis, Farnoosh Naderkhani, Leila Jafari

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In this paper, we present a model and an algorithm for the calculation of the optimal control limit, average cost, sample size, and the sampling interval for an optimal Bayesian chart to control the proportion of defective items produced using a semi-Markov decision process approach. Traditional p-chart has been widely used for controlling the proportion of defectives in various kinds of production processes for many years. It is well known that traditional non-Bayesian charts are not optimal, but very few optimal Bayesian control charts have been developed in the literature, mostly considering finite horizon. The objective of this paper is to develop a fast computational algorithm to obtain the optimal parameters of a Bayesian p-chart. The decision problem is formulated in the partially observable framework and the developed algorithm is illustrated by a numerical example.

Keywords: Bayesian control chart, semi-Markov decision process, quality control, partially observable process

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Authors: Shoji Matsumoto

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Friction Stir Welding (FSW) has been widely used in the automotive, aerospace, and high-tech industries due to its superior mechanical properties after welding. However, when it becomes a matter to perform a high-quality joint using FSW, it is necessary to secure an advanced tilt angle (usually 1 to 5 degrees) using a dedicated FSW machine and to use a joint structure and a restraining jig that can withstand the tool pressure applied during the jointing process using a highly rigid processing machine. One issue that has become a challenge in this process is ‘productivity and versatility’. To solve this problem, we have conducted research and development of multi-functioning machines and robotics with FSW tools, which combine cutting/milling and FSW functions as one in recent years. However, the narrow process window makes it prone to welding defects and lacks repeatability, which makes a limitation for FSW its use in the fields where precisions required. Another reason why FSW machines are not widely used in the world is because of the matter of very high cost of ownership.

Keywords: synchronized, stir, welding, friction, traveling speed, synchronized stir welding, friction stir welding

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Authors: Daniel Tscharnuter, Eliza Truszkiewicz, Gerald Pinter

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High-quality surfaces of plastic parts can be achieved in a very cost-effective manner using in-mold processes, where e.g. scratch resistant or high gloss polymer films are pre-formed and subsequently receive their support structure by injection molding. The pre-forming may be done by high-pressure forming. In this process, a polymer sheet is heated and subsequently formed into the mold by pressurized air. Due to the heat transfer to the cooled mold the polymer temperature drops below its glass transition temperature. This ensures that the deformed microstructure is retained after depressurizing, giving the sheet its final formed shape. The development of a forming process relies heavily on the experience of engineers and trial-and-error procedures. Repeated mold design and testing cycles are however both time- and cost-intensive. It is, therefore, desirable to study the process using reliable computer simulations. Through simulations, the construction of the mold and the effect of various process parameters, e.g. temperature levels, non-uniform heating or timing and magnitude of pressure, on the deformation of the polymer sheet can be analyzed. Detailed knowledge of the deformation is particularly important in the forming of polymer films with integrated electro-optical functions. Care must be taken in the placement of devices, sensors and electrical and optical paths, which are far more sensitive to deformation than the polymers. Reliable numerical prediction of the deformation of the polymer sheets requires sophisticated material models. Polymer films are often either transversely isotropic or orthotropic due to molecular orientations induced during manufacturing. The anisotropic behavior affects the resulting strain field in the deformed film. For example, parts of the same shape but different strain fields may be created by varying the orientation of the film with respect to the mold. The numerical simulation of the high-pressure forming of such films thus requires material models that can capture the nonlinear anisotropic mechanical behavior. There are numerous commercial polymer grades for the engineers to choose from when developing a new part. The effort required for comprehensive material characterization may be prohibitive, especially when several materials are candidates for a specific application. We, therefore, propose a class of models for compressible hyperelasticity, which may be determined from basic experimental data and which can capture key features of the mechanical response. Invariant-based hyperelastic models with a reduced number of invariants are formulated in a semi-numerical way, such that the models are determined from a single uniaxial tensile tests for isotropic materials, or two tensile tests in the principal directions for transversely isotropic or orthotropic materials. The simulation of the high pressure forming of an orthotropic polymer film is finally done using an orthotropic formulation of the hyperelastic model.

Keywords: hyperelastic, anisotropic, polymer film, thermoforming

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Authors: Brajesh Tiwari, Yuvraj Dangi, Abhishek Jain, Ashok Jain

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The purpose of the investigation was to evaluate the potential of sphingosomes as nanoscale drug delivery units for site-specific delivery of anti-cancer agents. Doxorubicin Hydrochloride (DOX) was selected as a model anti-cancer agent. Sphingosomes were prepared and loaded with DOX and optimized for size and drug loading. The formulations were characterized by Malvern zeta-seizer and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) studies. Sphingosomal formulations were further evaluated for in-vitro drug release study under various pH profiles. The in-vitro drug release study showed an initial rapid release of the drug followed by a slow controlled release. In vivo studies of optimized formulations and free drug were performed on albino rats for comparison of drug plasma concentration. The in- vivo study revealed that the prepared system enabled DOX to have had enhanced circulation time, longer half-life and lower elimination rate kinetics as compared to free drug. Further, it can be interpreted that the formulation would selectively enter highly porous mass of tumor cells and at the same time spare normal tissues. To summarize, the use of sphingosomes as carriers of anti-cancer drugs may prove to be a fascinating approach that would selectively localize in the tumor mass, increasing the therapeutic margin of safety while reducing the side effects associated with anti-cancer agents.

Keywords: sphingosomes, anti-cancer, doxorubicin, formulation

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Authors: F. O. Oboite, P. G. Comeau

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Advance regeneration is present in many lodgepole pine stands in Alberta. When the overstory pine canopy is killed by Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) the growth of this advance is likely to increase. Understanding the growth response of these understory tree species is needed to improve mid-term timber supply projections and management decisions. To quantify the growth (diameter, height, height/diameter ratio) responses of black spruce and white spruce to lodgepole pine mortality, sample trees of black and white spruce advance regeneration were selected from 7 lodgepole pine dominated stands (5 attacked; 2 control) in the Foothills Region of western Alberta. Measurements were collected 7-8 years after MPB attack across a wide range of spruce height and stand densities. Analysis was done using mixed model linear regression. Result indicates that there was an increase in both diameter and height growth after MPB attack; however, this increase in growth was delayed for about four years. Both spruce species had similar height response and their height/diameter ratio decreased after release, partly as a result of increased understory light associated with loss of needles in the pine canopy. In addition, the diameter and height growth responses of both spruce species were strongly related to density, prerelease growth and initial size.

Keywords: mountain pine beetle, forest regeneration, lodgepole pine, growth response

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Authors: Tomas Trainys, Algimantas Venckauskas

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Application of biometric features to the cryptography for human identification and authentication is widely studied and promising area of the development of high-reliability cryptosystems. Biometric cryptosystems typically are designed for patterns recognition, which allows biometric data acquisition from an individual, extracts feature sets, compares the feature set against the set stored in the vault and gives a result of the comparison. Preprocessing and fusion of biometric data are the most important phases in generating a feature vector for key generation or authentication. Fusion of biometric features is critical for achieving a higher level of security and prevents from possible spoofing attacks. The paper focuses on the tasks of initial processing and fusion of multiple representations of finger vein modality patterns. These tasks are solved by applying conventional image preprocessing methods and machine learning techniques, Convolutional Neural Network (SVM) method for image segmentation and feature extraction. An article presents a method for generating sets of biometric features from a finger vein network using several instances of the same modality. Extracted features sets were fused at the feature level. The proposed method was tested and compared with the performance and accuracy results of other authors.

Keywords: bio-cryptography, biometrics, cryptographic key generation, data fusion, information security, SVM, pattern recognition, finger vein method.

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Authors: Tahir Majeed, Michael Handschuh, René Meier

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Rheumatoid arthritis patients have swelling and pain at the joints of the hand. The regions where the patient feels pain also show increased body temperature. Thermal cameras can be used to detect the rise in temperature of the affected regions. To monitor the disease progression of rheumatoid arthritis patients, they must visit the clinic regularly for scanning and examination. After scanning and evaluation, the dosage of the medicine is regulated accordingly. To monitor the disease progression over time, the correlation between the images between different visits must be established. It has been observed that by using low-cost thermal cameras, the thermal measurements do not remain the same over time, even within a single scanning. In some situations, temperatures can vary as much as 2°C within the same scanning sequence. In this paper, it has been shown that although the absolute temperature varies over time, the relative difference between the different regions remains similar. Results have been computed over four scanning sequences and are presented.

Keywords: relative thermal difference, rheumatoid arthritis, thermal imaging, thermal sensors

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Authors: Kazuma Mizukoshi

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Are electoral politics in contemporary Brazil still local in organization and focus? The importance of this question lies in its paradoxical trajectories. First, often coupled with institutional and sociological ‘barriers’ (e.g. the selection and election of candidates relatively loyal to the local party leadership, the predominance of territorialized electoral campaigns, and the resilience of political clientelism), the regionalization of electoral politics has been a viable and practical solution especially for pragmatic politicians in some Latin American countries. On the other hand, some leftist parties that once served as minor opposition forces at the time of foundational or initial elections have certainly expanded vote shares. Some were eventually capable of holding most (if not a majority) legislative seats since the 1990s. Though not yet rigorously demonstrated, theoretically implicit in the rise of leftist parties in legislative elections is the gradual (if not complete) nationalization of electoral support—meaning the growing equality of a party’s vote share across electoral districts and its change over time. This study will develop four hypotheses to explain the dynamics of party nationalization in contemporary Brazil: district magnitude, ethnic and class fractionalization of each district, voting intentions in federal and state executive elections, and finally the left-right stances of electorates. The study will demonstrate these hypotheses by closely working with the Brazilian Electoral Study (2002-2014).

Keywords: party nationalization, presidential coattails, Left, Brazil

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Authors: Juan Ignacio Arango, Andres Diaz, Giacomo Barbieri

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In soilless culture, the definition of efficient fertigation strategies is fundamental for the growth of crops. Flexible test-benches able to independently manage groups of crops are key for investigating efficient fertigation practices through experimentation. These test-benches must be able to provide nutrient solution (NS) in a precise, uniform and repeatable way in order to effectively implement and compare different fertigation strategies. This article describes a distribution module for investigating fertigation practices able to control the fertigation dose and frequency. The proposed solution is characterized in terms of precision, uniformity and repeatability since these parameters are fundamental in the implementation of effective experiments for the investigation of fertigation practices. After a calibration process, the implemented system reaches a precision of 1mL, a uniformity of 98.5% at a total cost of 735USD.

Keywords: recision horticulture, test-bench, fertigation strategy, automation, flexibility

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Authors: P. Brinks, O. Kornadt, R. Oly

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This research focuses on the optimization of glazed surfaces and the assessment of possible solar gains in industrial buildings. Existing window rating methods for single windows were evaluated and a new method for a simple analysis of energy gains and losses by single windows was introduced. Furthermore extensive transient building simulations were carried out to appraise the performance of low cost polycarbonate multi-cell sheets in interaction with typical buildings for industrial applications. Mainly, energy-saving potential was determined by optimizing the orientation and area of such glazing systems in dependency on their thermal qualities. Moreover the impact on critical aspects such as summer overheating and daylight illumination was considered to ensure the user comfort and avoid additional energy demand for lighting or cooling. Hereby the simulated heating demand could be reduced by up to 1/3 compared to traditional architecture of industrial halls using mainly skylights.

Keywords: solar architecture, Passive Solar Building Design, glazing, Low-Energy Buildings, industrial buildings

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Authors: Jisoo Kim, Min Su Lee, Sunmook Lee

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Durability assessment of nanocomposite-based bone fixation device was performed by flexural fatigue tests, for which the changes in the life cycles of nanocomposite samples synthesized by blending bioabsorbable polymer (PLGA) and ceramic nanoparticles (β-TCP) with different ratios were monitored. The nanocomposite samples were kept in a constant temperature/humidity chamber at 37°C/50%RH for varied incubation periods for the degradation of nanocomposite samples under the temperature/humidity stress. It was found that the life cycles were increasing as the incubation time in the chamber were increasing in the initial stage irrespective of sample compositions, which was due to the annealing effect of the polymer. However, the life cycle was getting shorter as the incubation time increased afterward, which was due to the overall degradation of nanocomposites. It was found that the life cycle of the nanocomposite sample with high ceramic content was shorter than the one with low ceramic content, which was attributed to the increased brittleness of the composite with high ceramic content. The changes in chemical properties were also monitored by FT-IR, which indicated that the degradation of the biodegradable polymer could be confirmed by the increased intensities of carboxyl groups and hydroxyl groups since the hydrolysis of ester bonds connecting two successive monomers yielded carboxyl end groups and hydroxyl groups.

Keywords: bioabsorbable polymer, bone fixation device, ceramic nanoparticles, durability assessment, fatigue test

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Authors: Rajesh Mehra, Bharti Thakur

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In this paper, an IIR filter has been designed and simulated on an FPGA. The implementation is based on MAC algorithm which uses multiply-and-accumulate operations IIR filter design implementation. Parallel Pipelined structure is used to implement the proposed IIR Filter taking optimal advantage of the look up table of the FPGA device. The designed filter has been synthesized on DSP slice based FPGA to perform multiplier function of MAC unit. The DSP slices are useful to enhance the speed performance. The developed IIR filter is designed and simulated with Matlab and synthesized with Xilinx Synthesis Tool (XST), and implemented on Virtex 5 and Spartan 3 ADSP FPGA devices. The IIR filter implemented on Virtex 5 FPGA can operate at an estimated frequency of 81.5 MHz as compared to 40.5 MHz in case of Spartan 3 ADSP FPGA. The Virtex 5 based implementation also consumes less slices and slice flip flops of target FPGA in comparison to Spartan 3 ADSP based implementation to provide cost effective solution for signal processing applications.

Keywords: Butterworth filter, DSP, IIR, MAC, FPGA

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Authors: Pelin Altay, Ahmed El-Shafei, Peter J. Hauser, Nevin Cigdem Gursoy

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Exceedingly high temperatures are used (around 95 °C) to perform hydrogen peroxide bleaching of cotton fabrics in textile industry, which results in high energy consumption and also gives rise to significant fiber damage. Activated bleach systems have the potential to produce more efficient bleaching through increased oxidation rates with reducing energy cost, saving time and causing less fiber damage as compared to conventional hot peroxide bleaching. In this study, a cationic bleach activator was synthesized using caprolactam as a leaving group and triethylamine as a cationic group to establish an activated peroxide system for low temperature bleaching. Cationic bleach activator was characterized by FTIR, 1H NMR and mass spectrometry. The bleaching performance of the prototype cationic bleach activator was evaluated and optimizing the bleach recipe was performed.

Keywords: bleach activator, cotton bleaching, hydrogen peroxide bleaching, low temperature bleaching

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Authors: Amir Taghizadeh Vahed, Adithya Thaduri

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Shovels are the main components in the mining transportation system. The productivity of the mines depends on the availability of shovels due to its high capital and operating costs. The unplanned failure/shutdowns of a shovel results in higher repair costs, increase in downtime, as well as increasing indirect cost (i.e. loss of production and company’s reputation). In order to mitigate these failures, predictive maintenance can be useful approach using failure prediction. The modern mining machinery or shovels collect huge datasets automatically; it consists of reliability and maintenance data. However, the gathered datasets are useless until the information and knowledge of data are extracted. Machine learning as well as data mining, which has a major role in recent studies, has been used for the knowledge discovery process. In this study, data mining and machine learning approaches are implemented to detect not only anomalies but also patterns from a dataset and further detection of failures.

Keywords: maintenance, machine learning, shovel, conditional based monitoring

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Authors: Leo Nnamdi Ozurumba-Dwight

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Single-cell genomic analytical systems have proved to be a platform to isolate bulk cells into selected single cells for genomic, proteomic, and related metabolomic studies. This is enabling systematic investigations of the level of heterogeneity in a diverse and wide pool of cell populations. Single cell technologies, embracing techniques such as high parameter flow cytometry, single-cell sequencing, and high-resolution images are playing vital roles in these investigations on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) molecules and related gene expressions in tracking the nature and course of disease conditions. This entails targeted molecular investigations on unit cells that help us understand cell behavoiur and expressions, which can be examined for their health implications on the health state of patients. One of the vital good sides of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA seq) is its probing capacity to detect deranged or abnormal cell populations present within homogenously perceived pooled cells, which would have evaded cursory screening on the pooled cell populations of biological samples obtained as part of diagnostic procedures. Despite conduction of just single-cell transcriptome analysis, scRNAseq now permits comparison of the transcriptome of the individual cells, which can be evaluated for gene expressional patterns that depict areas of heterogeneity with pharmaceutical drug discovery and clinical treatment applications. It is vital to strictly work through the tools of investigations from wet lab to bioinformatics and computational tooled analyses. In the precise steps for scRNAseq, it is critical to do thorough and effective isolation of viable single cells from the tissues of interest using dependable techniques (such as FACS) before proceeding to lysis, as this enhances the appropriate picking of quality mRNA molecules for subsequent sequencing (such as by the use of Polymerase Chain Reaction machine). Interestingly, scRNAseq can be deployed to analyze various types of biological samples such as embryos, nervous systems, tumour cells, stem cells, lymphocytes, and haematopoietic cells. In haematopoietic cells, it can be used to stratify acute myeloid leukemia patterns in patients, sorting them out into cohorts that enable re-modeling of treatment regimens based on stratified presentations. In immunotherapy, it can furnish specialist clinician-immunologist with tools to re-model treatment for each patient, an attribute of precision medicine. Finally, the good predictive attribute of scRNAseq can help reduce the cost of treatment for patients, thus attracting more patients who would have otherwise been discouraged from seeking quality clinical consultation help due to perceived high cost. This is a positive paradigm shift for patients’ attitudes primed towards seeking treatment.

Keywords: immunotherapy, transcriptome, re-modeling, mRNA, scRNA-seq

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Authors: Ki-Ro Kim, Seung-Jun Yu, Hyoung-Kyu Song

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Recently, the wireless communication systems are required to have high quality and provide high bit rate data services. Researchers have studied various multiple antenna scheme to meet the demand. In practical application, it is difficult to deploy multiple antennas for limited size and cost. Cooperative diversity techniques are proposed to overcome the limitations. Cooperative communications have been widely investigated to improve performance of wireless communication. Among diversity schemes, space-time block code has been widely studied for cooperative communication systems. In this paper, we propose a new cooperative scheme using pre-coding and space-time block code. The proposed cooperative scheme provides improved error performance than a conventional cooperative scheme using space-time block coding scheme.

Keywords: cooperative communication, space-time block coding, pre-coding

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Authors: Ming-Wei Wu, Zih-Jie Lin

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Liquid phase sintering (LPS) is a feasible means for decreasing the porosity of powder metallurgy (PM) Fe-based material without substantially increase the production cost. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 0.6 wt% boron on the densification of PM 304L stainless steel by LPS. The results indicated that the increase in the sintered density of 304L+0.6B steel is obvious after 1250 ºC sintering, and eutectic structures with borides are observed at the interfaces of the raw steel powders. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results show that liquid is generated at 1244ºC during sintering. The boride in the eutectic structure is rich in boron and chromium atoms and is deficient in nickel atoms, as identified by electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA). Furthermore, the sintered densities of 304L and 304L+0.6B steels sintered at 1300 ºC are 6.99 g/cm3 and 7.69 g/cm3, respectively, indicating that boron is a suitable alloying element for facilitating LPS of PM 304L stainless steel.

Keywords: powder metallurgy, liquid phase sintering, stainless steel, boron, microstructure

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Authors: Derradji Chebli, Abdallah Bouguettoucha, Zoubir Manaa, Amrane Abdeltif

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Pharmaceutical products, such as sulfamethoxazole (SMX) are rejected in the environment at trace level by human and animals (ng/L to mg/L), in their original form or as byproducts. Antibiotics are toxic contaminants for the aquatic environment, owing to their adverse effects on the aquatic life and humans. Even at low concentrations, they can negatively impact biological water treatment leading to the proliferation of antibiotics-resistant pathogens. It is therefore of major importance to develop efficient methods to limit their presence in the aquatic environment. In this aim, advanced oxidation processes (AOP) appear relevant compared to other methods, since they are based on the production of highly reactive free radicals, and especially ●OH. The objective of this work was to evaluate the degradation of SMX by microwave-assisted Fenton reaction (MW/Fe/H2O2). Hydrogen peroxide and ferrous ions concentrations, as well as the microwave power were optimized. The results showed that the SMX degradation by MW/Fe/H2O2 followed a pseudo-first order kinetic. The treatment of 20 mg/L initial SMX by the Fenton reaction in the presence of microwave showed the positive impact of this latter owing to the higher degradation yields observed in a reduced reaction time if compared to the conventional Fenton reaction, less than 5 min for a total degradation. In addition, increasing microwave power increased the degradation kinetics. Irrespective of the application of microwave, the optimal pH for the Fenton reaction remained 3. Examination of the impact of the ionic strength showed that carbonate and sulfate anions increased the rate of SMX degradation.

Keywords: antibiotic, degradation, elimination, fenton, microwave, polluant

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Authors: Onimisi Ekuh Abdullahi, Lasbat Omoshalewa Akinsemoyin

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In Nigeria, over two decades now, there has been a steady increase in the insecurity of human lives and physical properties. In the South-South Nigeria, there is an acute insecurity of militants destroying oil pipe-lines and kidnapping cases; in the Middle-Belt zone, insecurity centers on kidnapping and in a few states crises between Herdsmen and Farmers range like wildfire; in the South-Western zone, kidnapping is vile, in the North-East zone the issue of Boko Haram has become World-wide concern, and in North-west zone, cattle rustlers and religious crisis are of great concern. At the initial stage, the Nigerian Police Force was called upon to quell the crisis. It soon became obvious that the dimension of the crisis was beyond police force. The Nigerian Armed Forces were called to maintain peace and order because the magnitude of the crisis was threatening the national unity and cohesion. The main objective of this paper, was to examine the investigative techniques of criminal by the military in Nigeria. Specifically to examine the physical and psychological force; the abusive techniques and tactics; and suggest modern psychological techniques of interrogating criminals accepted to Human Right Activists and the rule of law. The process is to create room behaviour and practices that carefully monitored the trust and reliability of admissions produced by Psychological manipulative process in Nigeria.

Keywords: military, Nigerian criminal, physical, psychological force

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Authors: Hyoung Seok Kim

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Purpose: To evaluate the clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes of retinal detachment associated with atopic dermatitis. Methods: A retrospective investigation of clinical notes of 37 patients with retinal detachment associated with atopic dermatitis was conducted from January 2019 to December 2023. Initial visual acuity, medical history, type of retinal detachment, number of tears, types of treatment, success rate of treatment, and presence of cataract were investigated. To evaluate the relationship with cataract, the patients were classified into three groups according to lens status: group A (eyes with clear lens), group B (eyes with cataract), and group C (pseudophakic eyes). Results: Of the 37 patients, 29 were male and 8 were female; 10 patients had bilateral retinal detachment (27.0%). The retinal breaks were often located temporally (89.4%), with only 5 cases (10.6%) involving nasal-side retinal breaks. No significant differ ences were noted in the ratio of males to females, age distribution, visual acuity before and after treatments, axial length, and lo cation of retina breaks among the three groups. After primary surgery, retinal detachment recurred in 12 patients (14 eyes), 5 of whom were initially diagnosed with bilateral retinal detachment. In addition, 12 of 14 eyes underwent a second operation, in which detachment recurred in 3 eyes. Conclusions: Incidence of bilateral retinal detachment was high in patients with atopic dermatitis, and the retinal breaks were of ten found on the temporal side. Retinal re-detachment was statistically high in patients with cataract or pseudophakic eyes com pared to patients with clear lens (p = 0.024).

Keywords: retinal detachment, atopic dermatitis, cataract, retina surgery

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Authors: V. Ivanov, J. Chu, V. Stabnikov

Abstract:

Low cost, sustainable, and environmentally friendly microbial cements, grouts, polysaccharides and bioplastics are useful in construction and geotechnical engineering. Construction-related biotechnologies are based on activity of different microorganisms: urease-producing, acidogenic, halophilic, alkaliphilic, denitrifying, iron- and sulphate-reducing bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, microscopic fungi. The bio-related materials and processes can be used for the bioaggregation, soil biogrouting and bioclogging, biocementation, biodesaturation of water-satured soil, bioencapsulation of soft clay, biocoating, and biorepair of the concrete surface. Altogether with the most popular calcium- and urea based biocementation, there are possible and often are more effective such methods of ground improvement as calcium- and magnesium based biocementation, calcium phosphate strengthening of soil, calcium bicarbonate biocementation, and iron- or polysaccharide based bioclogging. The construction-related microbial biotechnologies have a lot of advantages over conventional construction materials and processes.

Keywords: ground improvement, biocementation, biogrouting, microorganisms

Procedia PDF Downloads 225

Authors: Victor Oluwaseyi Olowonisi

Abstract:

The paper aimed at presenting an overview on the concept of e-learning as it relates to higher education and how it provides opportunities for students, instructors and the government in developing the educational sector. It also touched on the benefits and challenges attached to e-learning as a new medium of reaching more students especially in the Nigerian context. The opportunities attributed to e-learning in the paper includes breaking boundaries barriers, reaching a larger number of students, provision of jobs for ICT experts, etc. In contrary, poor power supply, cost of implementation, poor computer literacy, technophobia (fear of technology), computer crime and system failure were some of the challenges of e-learning discussed in the paper. The paper proffered that the government can help the people gain more from e-learning through its financing. Also, it was stated that instructors/lecturers and students need to undergo training on computer application in order for e-learning to be more effective in developing higher education in Nigeria.

Keywords: e-learning, education, higher education, increasing literacy

Procedia PDF Downloads 263

Authors: Phong Nguyen, Phap Nguyen, Thang Nguyen

Abstract:

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) or H.265 Standard fulfills the demand of high resolution video storage and transmission since it achieves high compression ratio. However, it requires a huge amount of calculation. Since Motion Estimation (ME) block composes about 80 % of calculation load of HEVC, there are a lot of researches to reduce the computation cost. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm to lower the number of Motion Estimation’s searching points. The number of computing points in search pattern is down from 77 for Diamond Pattern and 81 for Square Pattern to only 31. Meanwhile, the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and bit rate are almost equal to those of conventional patterns. The motion estimation time of new algorithm reduces by at 68.23%, 65.83%compared to the recommended search pattern of diamond pattern, square pattern, respectively.

Keywords: motion estimation, wide diamond, search pattern, H.265, test zone search, HM software

Procedia PDF Downloads 603

Authors: Mohamed Alsafy, Samir El-Gendy, Ashraf Karkoura, Doha Shokry

Abstract:

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the development of the chicken ovary. One hundred fertilized egg of Alexandria breed of chicken used. The whole embryo has undergone the light microscopic examination at HH20 (E.3), HH21 (E.3.5), HH23 (E.4), HH29 (E.6) and HH34 (E.8). The ovary has undergone the light microscopic examination at HH38 (E.12) and HH42 (E.16), SEM at HH26 (E.5), HH29 (E.6), HH36 (E.10), HH38 (E.12), HH39 (E.13) and HH42 (E.16), TEM at HH38 (E.12) and HH42 (E.16). The genital ridge appeared by a thickening of the coelomic epithelium medioventral surface of the developing mesonephroi at HH20 (E.3). The boundaries of the undifferentiating gonads defined clearly separated from the mesonephroi. The undifferentiated gonads bulged as a distinct organ in the coelomic cavity at HH23 (E.4). At the initial stages of the gonadogenesis, the germinal epithelium was stratified squamous epithelium. The PGCs appeared at the genital ridge at HH21 (E.3.5). The PGCs observed at the dorsal mesentery with few microvilli and showed positive PAS reaction due to the glycogen content in their cytoplasm. The left-right gonadal asymmetry firstly detected by the number of PGCs migrating toward the left gonadal ridge more than the right at HH20 (E.3) and the macroscopic examination of gonadal asymmetry began at HH34 (E.8). The left ovary appeared a smooth rod-shape, its stroma showed lipid droplets, and its parenchyma showed an extensive arrangement of interstitial cords at HH42 (E.16).

Keywords: ovary, Alexandria chicken, light microscopy, SEM, TEM

Procedia PDF Downloads 309

Authors: N. Matveev, A. Pervov

Abstract:

Local utilities often face problems of local industrial wastes, storm water disposal due to existing strict regulations. For many local industries, the problem of wastewater treatment and discharge into surface reservoirs can’t be solved through the use of conventional biological treatment techniques. Current discharge standards require very strict removal of a number of impurities such as ammonia, nitrates, phosphate, etc. To reach this level of removal, expensive reagents and sorbents are used. The modern concept of rational water resources management requires the development of new efficient techniques that provide wastewater treatment and reuse. As RO membranes simultaneously reject all dissolved impurities such as BOD, TDS, ammonia, phosphates etc., they become very attractive for the direct treatment of wastewater without biological stage. To treat wastewater, specially designed membrane "open channel" modules are used that do not possess "dead areas" that cause fouling or require pretreatment. A solution to RO concentrate disposal problem is presented that consists of reducing of initial wastewater volume by 100 times. Concentrate is withdrawn from membrane unit as sludge moisture. The efficient use of membrane RO techniques is connected with a salt balance in water system. Thus, to provide high ecological efficiency of developed techniques, all components of water supply and wastewater discharge systems should be accounted for.

Keywords: reverse osmosis, stormwater treatment, open-channel module, wastewater reuse

Procedia PDF Downloads 315